DISCONNECT BETWEEN THE GWOT AND IRAQ

I just don't get this. So would someone "please explain it to me as if I were a five-year-old?" (Sorry, Denzel.)

In the latest New York Times/CBS poll 46% of respondents say they approve of the way Bush is handling the campaign against terrorism, but only 29% approve of the way he's handling the situation in Iraq.

What, exactly, do these people think is the difference? What has Bush accomplished in the "war on terror" other than attacking a sovereign nation that posed no threat to us and had no connection to the perpetrators of 9/11, and then ineptly handling the aftermath at a cost of thousands of American lives and hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars. Okay, the Afghanistan venture seemed at first to be successful. But the Taliban has resurged, warlords threaten the security of that country everywhere except the capital (and that's less safe by the day), as the only justifiable action Bush has undertaken was abandoned for the unjustifiable and unconnected Iraqi venture.

Has Osama bin Laden been captured? Have the number acts of terrorism been reduced? The State Department says, no, that in fact they rose sharply in 2005. Has the Bush administration brought substantial numbers of terrorists to justice? Other than wannabe Zacarias Moussaoui, can you name ONE dangerous terrorist that has faced an American court of justice? Has the administration secured our borders, ports and transportation centers? Has it implemented the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission?

The answers are no, no, no, no and no. So what, exactly, are they giving Bush credit for? Curtailing our civil liberties? Demonizing dissent? Bankrupting the treasury?

I can only conclude that the administration talking point, "We're fighting them over there so they won't attack us here" works at some level since there has been no Al Qaeda attack within our borders since 9/11. But as that famous philosopher Donald Rumsfeld once said, "the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence." There were eight years between the World Trade Center attacks of 1993 and 2001, years in which Al Qaeda spent in careful planning so the next attack would be spectacularly successful. If the same cycle repeats, that would put the next attack in 2009, the year after Bush leaves office. Considering the ineptitude and incompetency of this administration, does anyone seriously believe terrorists won't strike again because Bush has successfully waged the war on terror?

Tags: global war on terror, New York Times/CBS poll, president Bush, Iraq