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Since both of you seem to believe that it is ok to release the report now that the information about the Iraq War's effect on terrorism, ask youselves why its ok. What national security interest is compromised by the leak? The answer is none: the national security of America was not harmed by the leak. So what possible national security reason could there be to release the report that was changed by the leak? The answer is none, there is no national security reason to release the report. So why was the report released? The answer is politics, pure and simple. The need to release the information was to secure a GOP Congress in 2007.
Isn't it reasonable to agree that the leak was an effort to help democrats? Do you feel the President shouldn't defend himself?
Also concerning whether we terrorism has increased, that most certainly is something we can study, and people are studying it. According to
Foreign Policy Magazine, 86% of the experts surveyed by that magazine said the world is becoming somewhat or much more dangerous. 77% of respondants who identify themselves as conservatives disagree with the Administration assertion that we are winning the War on Terror. If you want something more concrete, we can look at the fact that
terrorist incidents have gone up since the invasion.
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I am certainly no intelligence expert, but after reading the article, I have some problems with it.
More than 8 in 10 expect an attack on the scale of 9/11 within a decade. Quite frankly, I would be surprised if it didn't happen. However, IMO one attack doesn't equate to losing the war.
Since 2001, terrorists have found their targets on almost every continent, with bombings in Bali, London, Madrid, and elsewhere. Five years on, however, America has yet to experience another attack. It sucks they were attacked, but why haven't we been attacked again?
In the face of persisting threats, including a growing number of terrorist attacks around the world, numerous reports show that Americans are losing faith in their government’s ability to wage the war successfully and to protect them from the terrorists’ next volley. I don't understand where the respondents heads are. America hasn't been attacked again.
“We are losing the war on terror because we are treating the symptoms and not the cause,” says index participant Anne-Marie Slaughter, dean of Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. A quick wiki search of the highly esteemed dean reveals that she posts at a liberal blog and then there's this from wiki:
In 2003, she was involved in a controversy when she defended an art exhibit at the Wilson School that desecrated Christian symbols as "educational", but said she would not allow an exhibit if it desecrated the symbols of religions such as Islam I don't see a need to go any further on this one.
Asked what presents the single greatest danger to U.S. national security, nearly half said loose nukes and other weapons of mass destruction, while just one third said al Qaeda and terrorism, and a mere 4 percent said Iran Well no [censored] Sherlock, who do we have to fear of using them? Terrorists, duh...