Joe Conason (NY Observer): Skewed Priorities Make Us Less Safe

Two years ago this week, our country suffered a momentous disaster that ought to have prompted a sharp change in the Bush administration’s foreign and domestic security policies.

On that awful day—after standing outside my home and watching the World Trade Center fall—I hoped that George W. Bush would reconsider his rejection of America’s multilateral traditions. That day, I wrote a column suggesting that if the President and his advisers grasped the dimensions of the threat posed by Islamist terror, they just might abandon their unilateral illusions. If they understood what real security required, they might even seek renewed cooperation with our alienated allies.

A faint facsimile of that recognition began to emerge last week, when Mr. Bush finally asked the United Nations to approve international assistance in Iraq. As our allies are all too well aware, he made that belated decision only under economic, military and political pressures that have become irresistible. The President has staked not only the prestige of the United States but the future safety of the nation on his gamble in Baghdad. On the anniversary of the terrorist atrocity, it seems appropriate to ask whether his policies since Sept. 11 have improved our safety, or left us in greater danger.

Critics of White House policy should acknowledge that Mr. Bush’s government has achieved significant victories against Al Qaeda, our primary enemy. Osama bin Laden’s territorial base of operations was destroyed and many of his lieutenants have been killed or captured. Despite frequent threats and constant intelligence "chatter" from the Islamist network, we have yet to suffer another attack on American soil.

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http://www2.observer.com/observer/pages/conason.asp

First one, the First WTC attack.

Less than two months after BC took office. Clinton blamed for that. Mind you, the logic that W supporters use would lay the entire blame more distinctly on Poppy Bush than W could the 2nd WTC attack on Clinton.

Second attack, the Alfred P. Murrah (sp?) federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. By a guy who truly believed that Rush Limbaugh was wayyyy too liberal.