corrente

So much for the flypaper theory:

The CIA believes the Iraq insurgency poses an international threat and may produce better-trained Islamic terrorists than the 1980s Afghanistan war that gave rise to Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda, officials said yesterday.

A classified report from the agency says Iraqi and foreign fighters are developing a broad range of skills, from car bombings and assassinations to coordinated conventional attacks on police and military targets, officials said.

Once the insurgency ends, Islamic militants are likely to disperse as highly organized battle-hardened combatants capable of operating throughout the Arab-speaking world and in other regions including Europe.

Although the Afghan war against the Soviets was largely fought on a rural battlefield, the CIA report said, Iraq is providing extremists with more comprehensive skills including training in operations devised for populated urban areas.
(via Boston Globe)

Populated urban areas like New York (Democratic), Philadelphia (Democratic), Boston (Democratic), Chicago (Democratic), Los Angeles (Democratic), San Francisco (Democratic), Seattle (Democratic), Miami (Democratic)... Well, you get the idea.

It's been bad enough that the Republicans have treated homeland security as a pork barrel, and have left the (Democratic) ports unprotected against, say, loose nukes in shipping containers, and water supplies and public transportation systems unprotected against biowarfare, bombings, and so on.

But that the blowback from Bush's war of choice would be Islamic fighters trained to attack the country at precisely the (Democratic) points Bush has left unprotected... That Bush has put me and my (Democratic) city in the cross-hairs... Well, the mind reels.

Rove got one thing right (Froomkin) : I'm enraged. And anyone who isn't, isn't paying attention.

UPDATE Oh, wait. I forgot. The cities are Democratic. And Democrats are traitors. That's even worse than being gay (or, if you're in the Air Force Academy, a "filthy Jew.") So it's OK to kill us. Especially when Islamic fighters do it, that's just poetic justice. So forget you read this post, I'm sorry. I get so confused!

[Tearfully] I apologize!

UPDATE From the time vault of The Mighty Corrente Building, here's some background on loose nukes:

2005-05 (Bush port security programs make a bad situation worse), 2005-03, 2005-01 (Ashcroft (!) says loose nukes greatest threat), "Unquenchable fire from heaven" (Da Bush Code) (2005-01), 2004-11 (AQ wants to use loose nukes), 2004-10, 2004-04, (loose nukes and Iraq postwar clusterfuck looting), 2004-08 (loose nukes and Kazahstan), 2004-03 (AQ may have suitcase nukes), "Reckless indifference to the nightmare scenario.". This was posted well over a year ago. Nothing, of course, has changed, except for the worse. At some point, you wonder: Is it sheer incompetece, or malevolence?

And where are the Dems on this? Not a peep. WTF?