National Stupidity Estimate

‘The White House, anticipating that it would be accused of choreographing the release of the [National Intelligence Estimate] estimate today to bolster support for its Iraq policy as the Senate debates the war, dismissed the idea today. “We don’t keep it on the shelf and say, ‘Let’s look for a convenient time," Tony Snow the chief White House spokesman, told reporters this morning.’

--writes David Stout of The New York Times who is apparently not intelligent enough to note that the 2004 and 2006 mid-year National Intelligence Estimates which both reported major increases in terrorism and terrorist recruitment were mysteriously not released until after the respective November elections when the GOP ran specifically on its awesome “War on Terrah!” record.

The major thrust of this NIE, according to the keen mind and cut-and-paste skills of ace reporter Stout (and dozens of other Right-clicking reporters) is that:

‘The United States will face “a persistent and evolving terrorist threat” over the next three years, as Al Qaeda continues to plot attacks comparable in scale to those of Sept. 11, 2001’

So let me get this straight:

For the past 4 years we’ve been 'fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here', we were winning the war in Iraq for a couple of those years, we’ve been making progress (that has been “good”, “tremendous”, “steady” “remarkable”—according to Bush, Rice, Cheney etc.) every year, and the world is a safer place without Saddam Hussein and YET…AQ is now bigger and badder-than-ever and planning to unleash another 9-11 in the US in the next three years.

Dang! That makes Bush and the GOP look like assholes, doesn’t it?

Not according to Republican John Boehner who “said that the new intelligence estimate confirms that the administration’s policies have weakened terrorist capabilities” (as per Stout’s article). After all, according to the report;

“We assess that greatly increased worldwide counterterrorism efforts over the past five years have constrained the ability of al-Qa’ida to attack the US Homeland again and have led terrorist groups to perceive the Homeland as a harder target to strike than on 9/11. These measures have helped disrupt known plots against the United States since 9/11."

BUT…according to the NIE:

"We are concerned, however, that this level of international cooperation may wane as
9/11 becomes a more distant memory and perceptions of the threat diverge."

Of course!
Typical fucking worldwide counterterrorism efforts and international cooperationalists!

They’ll be all like: “ 9-what, dude?”
and we’ll be all: “ -11 man! 9-fucking11! Don’t you remember?”
and they’ll go: “that’s sooo 2001 bro, where you at?!”
And we’ll be all in their grill with:
“Hey! It’s not like you got attacked an’ shit, oh-Kaaay?!” and they’ll be like “Whatevuh!” and totally spaz and throw our cell phone into the bushes and then start making-out with the hot foreign chick who totally wanted me to liberate her sweet crude!

Sorry…let me back-up a second.

So it has been “worldwide counterterrorism efforts” that have “constrained the ability of al-Qa’ida to attack the US Homeland again” and that “these measures have helped disrupt known plots against the United States since 9/11” has it?

Well that’s mighty interesting, seeing as the “known plots” against the US over the last five-and-a-half years have been a complete joke (there’s a pretty comprehensive compendium here)
But more interesting is the assessment that “international cooperation may wane”.

Why? Presumably because the ‘international cooperationalists’ prefer mind-destroying surrender-cheese to ginko kenoba, so 9-11 will become “a more distant memory and [their] perceptions of the threat diverge.”

I don’t suppose that the assumed reduction in international cooperation would have anything to do with all the attacks that have been conducted around the world against US allies that are directly attributable to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq and the allies’ involvement in same, would they?
And just maybe protecting the US from another AQ attack is slightly less important than their protecting their own countries, especially as the US has a tendency to completely blow their intelligence operations for the sake of publicity and then claim the credit for thwarted plots whilst doing absolutely nothing to reciprocate and actually making the situation worse.

But never mind!

The US don’t need no stinking international cooperationalists, not now we have a one-and-a-half-page super-extra-detailed analysis of the 6-year long GWOT written by top experts in 14-point Georgia font WITH bullets points to explain to us how, after hundreds of billions of dollars and hundreds of thousands of lives spent making progress, we are still going to be attacked in the next three years because Al Qaeda is not only “proficient with conventional small arms” but they also plan to “continue to try to acquire and employ chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear material in attacks and would not hesitate to use them”---just like Saddam Hussein, who we killed to protect our freedoms, crush terrorism, spread democracy and make the world and especially the US a safer place by fighting them over there!

And that’s the National Stupidity Estimate.