Failing Feel-Safe

Do Americans feel safe, or safer? Are they safer, or as the devastating National Intelligence Assessment reportedly says, have they been made less safe from terrorism by Iraq? Now that you mention it, how about those people who live in Iraq--the ones who were there before the U.S. brought its occupation force, its monumental bases and Burger Kings? How safe do they feel?

Well, obviously they don't feel safe and they aren't safe, and they have strong opinions on why, and what will make them feel safer. According to the Washington Post, a poll by the U.S. State Department shows that over 75% of Baghdad's people believe an immediate American withdrawl will make them safer. Overall, the Post reports, "A strong majority of Iraqis want U.S.-led military forces to immediately withdraw from the country, saying their swift departure would make Iraq more secure and decrease sectarian violence..."

A separate poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland shows that 71% of Iraqis want Americans to cut and run within the year. But nearly 80% believe that the U.S. plans to permanently occupy the country.

Forget religion, forget ideology, forget cultural differences---that alone tells you why there is a growing insurgency in Iraq and in the Middle East. And why the National Intelligence Assessment concluded that Iraq is BushAmerica's gift to terrorism recruitment.