al Qaeda

After the emergence of the plot to bring down flights from the U.K. to the United States, this Washington Post article supposes that according to U.S. intelligence there are strong indications of an al Qaeda link to the alleged bombing plot uncovered in London, and that "the terrorist network has survived and adapted despite heavy blows to its leadership and organizational structure of the past five years." I was not naive enough to believe that five years after 9-11 we would have eliminated Islamic Extremism, but I did have hope that we would be able to capture Bin Laden and the senior members of al Qaeda and significantly reduce their ability to even begin to plan attacks such as the one that was reported.

Nations have a finite amount of resources to allocate towards anti-terrorism and military endeavors, and the United States has significantly decreased its ability to hunt down violent Islamic extremists so that we can fight an illegitimate (however well intentioned) war in Iraq.

The WaPo piece goes on to say "U.S. intelligence officials now identify the war in Iraq as the single most effective recruiting tool for Islamic militants." Savvy spectators, and several of those actually involved, have been making this case since the war in Iraq began. I can personally say that I feel less safe, and more exposed to terrorism as a result of American adventurism in Iraq. The oft quoted "we are fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here," otherwise known as the "fly paper theory" only makes sense if there is a finite amount of terrorists in the world and that somehow we are pulling them away from other areas to fight in Iraq. Of course the fact that Iraq is creating more Islamic extremism renders that logic unsound.