Josh Marshall's Talking Points Memo has been a pioneer as well as a continuing trend-setting in the blogosphere. He's also been on top of the increasingly hysterical Republican campaign to discredit Richard Clarke.
But he's also keeping his eye on the policy issues involved. The Republicans, of course, hope to replace discussion of those issues with sleaze-slinging against Clarke. Loyalty to Bush the Magnificent seems to come before all other values for the Reps these days. But, as Marshall points out, Clarke's criticism of the Bush Administration's badly deficient policies on terrorism focuses on the notion that terrorism stems from state sponsors, a concept which does not fit the al-Qaeda variety of international terrorism:
The key, as we've noted before, was the new administration's abiding belief in the centrality of states as the actors in international affairs. That assumption not only preceded 9/11 but, perversely, survived it.
... [T]he hidebound unwillingness to rethink that assumption after the 9/11 attacks is at the root of most of our greatest mistakes and strategic failures over the last two and a half years.
In his excellent book Winning Modern Wars (2003), Gen. Wesley Clark also discusses this idea, which is really a decisive strategic issue:
U.S. perceptions were chiefly shaped by our Cold War rivalry with the Soviet Union and our strategic alignments in the Middle East, especially with Israel. LiKe Israelis, Americans looked first for state sponsors, because if we could deprive terrorists of bases, financing, and arms - all provided by states - we could drive them out of business, even if we couldn't penetrate their organizations or identify all their members. The Israelis, of course, went farther, developing detailed intelligence within the region. We tended to work at the state level, building allies that would help us contain Soviet influence and expansionism, using others' intelligence and covert action capabilities while working to cut off support to terrorists.
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