I agree that the world no longer trusts America as they once (if ever) did - most Americans don't trust the American gov't either. However, one good reason for this lack of trust is displayed in your own article, with its vast generalizations about all Moslems which ultimately is a form of racist dehumanization ("Them") intended to push the "CLash of Civilizations" agenda.

"In the years since, it has attracted the support of millions of Muslims"

Millions? Where's your source of this number? And what exactly consistutes "support" -is being generally opposed to US foreign policy the same as being a member of this so-called worldwide movement of "Islamic Jihadism" which you assert has attracted "millions" of people?

bin Laden has emerged victorious: his idea of a global jihad against America and its supporters is now embraced throughout the Muslim world

"The Muslim world" is not a separate planet from ours so these vast generic statements need some support. Do most Iranians, for example, support "jihad" against America? How about Turks? Bangladeshis? Indonesians? Malaysians? Do Muslims wake up in the morning hating America, or are they just concerned with everyday life like non-Muslims? How do you know this? Do you think that Muslims have a hive mentality? Would you resort to similarly sweeping statements about the "Christian World" or the "Jewish World"?

Another group of winners are states like Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan, that are pursuing nuclear weapons

Funny, review after review by US intelligence agencies, plus all the reports of the IAEA, have stated that they don't have evidence that Iran is "pursuing nuclear weapons" as you flatly claim. There's a world of difference between Iran (which has the world record in IAEA inspections, more than it was legally obliged to permit) and North Korea (which kicked out inspectors)

Ivo

How do you account for the Bush Administration's total lack of adequacy for the threat they claim we face? We are told there are Nazi like enemies in the world but America is certainly not on a WWII footing.

Reading the various books about Iraq one is struck how lightly Cheney and Rumsfeld, Bush seems to have been out to lunch, took the enemy they faced in Iraq.

It seems that one of the losers is America's ability to insist our leaders take issues seriously or for our leaders to demand Americans face grim realities with the seiousness required.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

I hope your correct that Americans don't trust their government. No one should ever trust their government. Unfortunately, far too many Americans do trust their government, even while they bemoan crooked politicians.

In the race to war with Iraq, aside from a small minority, most Americans were eating the government's rationale for war up with a shovel. Mmmm that's good rhetoric.

Three years later they have buyer's remorse; the war wasn't as quick and easy as they were told by their government.

"...for our leaders to demand Americans face grim realities with the seiousness required."

The reason they won't make such demands is because the threat is not nearly as serious as their hyperbolic rhetoric would suggest. It's all marketing for public consumption, while adminstration cronies and the players in the military-industrial complex consolidate their control over the American economy.

DanK, I agree that this has been a terrible 5 years for the US, for most of the reasons you list.

However, I don't see why the decline must be taken to be irreversible.

There was a lot of skepticism about our prospects owing to our huge debt and the rise of Japan & Germany 15 years ago, but the 90s turned out OK for us.

I don't think that a reversal of fortune requires an "amazing rebound," as you put it. A Democratic Congress & presidency would be a step in the right direction.

Another group of winners are states like Iran, North Korea, and Pakistan, that are pursuing nuclear weapons.

Hmmm. Well, bunky, it strikes me that Pakistan already has nuclear weapons, and it had a nifty little arsenal before George W. Bush came into his own on 9/11. So strike that.

North Korea has obtained nuclear weapons, largely because of Bush bungling.

Iran? There's no evidence and no proof that Iran is actually pursuing nuclear weapons. Indeed, there's no rational argument more sophisticated than "but but but they're BAD!" to suggest that they are pursuing nuclear weapons. So scratch that one from the list.

And it has provided succor and cover to a host of unsavory regimes — from Burma to Zimbabwe and Uzbekistan to Sudan — that have engaged in brutal repression of their own people knowing full well that China will oppose international intervention because it insists that nations must have the right to do as they wish within their sovereign domain.

ROTFL. You're kidding right? We all know that its the United States that was running cover for Uzbekistan and Myanmar. We also know that Darfur was going on, not because the Chinese were protecting them, but because the US was explicitly not interested in getting involved... there might be oil in the Sudan.

What about the losers? Top among them must be Osama bin Laden and the Al Qaeda organization he created and led. With his organization smashed, many of his lieutenants killed or captured, and his Afghan sanctuary closed down, the world’s leading terrorist is living a life on the run, from one cave to the next, with little more to do than issuing the occasional video or audio tape.

Yeah. Just keep telling yourself that. Every day he walks free, he's won. And every tape or video he and his pals issue is a triumph.

Neoconservatism is another major loser.

I guess that's why Colin Powell is now the most powerful man in government, and Dick Cheney is in the doghouse? That's why guys like Bolton are stuck in nowhere jobs? Rummy is fired? Feith discredited? Perle, Rice and all the rest are on the outs...

Thats why the US clamped right down on Israel before the Lebanon thing got out of hand. And why the administration cut off arms supplies and asked very specifically that Syria be left alone?

Jesus H. Christ on a crutch.

The United States. The United States itself is the big loser - there is no close second.

I'm thinking that there are a few Iraqi's looking over the shattered ruins of their country who might disagree with you there.

I suspect that the Afghans don't feel like big winners either.

We have indeed enabled "radicals" (for "freedom fighters"? Chose your words) - muslims and non-muslims (hugo chavez?) however this isn't some sort of Grand Moslem Conspiracy as Ivo makes it sound.

All 2.3 billion Moslems of the world don't collectively get together under cover of darkness at someone 's house and plot to wage "jihad" on the US...as Bush and now Ivo claim.

Remember people, Osama and the Salafists represent a tiny branch in Islam. He's a minority within a minority within a minority. To make generic statements about "Millions of Moslem" is silly. Funny how people who didn;t know the meaning of the word Jihad or the difference of Shia or Sunni Islam are suddenly embracing this idea of a Global Islamic Conspiracy....which conveniently enough can perhaps serve as a substitute for the Global COmmunist Conspiracy and the Yellow Peril etc etc. of years gone by.

There are about 2 billion Moslems in the world. they come from a variety of cultures, races, ethnicities; they speak a variety of languages, and have a variety of religious beliefs and attitudes and cultural practices. "They" aren't the Borg. "They" aren't the Green Peril waging "jihad" against "Us". They ARE us and everyone else in the world, and they have the same range of opinions and views as everyone else in the world.

Since every day I look out to the holes in the ground made on 9/11/01 I think those who deny the seriousness of the threat are mistaken. The belief in the lefts conspiracy theories are rather run of the mill but that is not what killed 3,000 Americans on single day. It is not what shut down the countries major city for days.

Also if you listen to the rhetoric of the Islamic zealots you would recognize that they mean what they say. They do not have an industrialized power behind them as the Axis powers of WWII did but they do have violent nihlistic aims and access to weapons that can kill large numbers of people and a willingness to kill as many people as possible.

Sticking ones head in the sand may make the far left happy but it does not make the real danger go away. Unfortuately, Bush's tough talk and failure to act in an intelligent manner doesn't either.

Daniel A. Greenbaum

There's a hell of alot of distance between Iraq and "sticking one's head in the sand." Not that I'd expect you to acknowledge that truth, since you prefer to use Rovian slime tactics against anyone who dares try to put the terrorist threat in some perspective.

I don't think that a reversal of fortune requires an "amazing rebound," as you put it. A Democratic Congress & Presidency would be a step in the right direction.

I do think it would be a step in the right direction, Bob. But I think the problems are much more significant now than 15 years ago. Then people were mainly worried about purely economic challenges posed by stiffening overseas competition, and whether that increased competition required an industrial policy, or "theory Z" or some such competitive innovation.

In the present situation, Bush and company have done deep damage to our entire system of government. And once chief executives, police, prosecutors and the military establishment get power handed over to them, it is very hard to get it back. Once liberties are surrendered, they tend to stay surrendered. All of our Presidents, in both parties, have showed a hunger for the accumulation of power. I don't see a Democratic president yielding power back to the people and the legislative branch. And frankly, I don't see a Democratic Congress having the inclination or the balls to take it back.

What has happened during the Bush era is not just a Washington, governmental phenomenon, but is an accelerating moral and cultural erosion that has debilitated the entire country. There has been a general loss of faith in, and commitment to, republican government, liberty and enlightenment values on which these were founded. Americans fear, and increasingly despise, their own freedom.

It has been an across the board loss. I haven't seen a lot of Democratic pushback on these changes, at least from the leadership, other than some grumbling and procedural complaints. Their message to Bush has been: "You shouldn't have just seized power; you should have come to Congress and followed a due legislative process so we could sign that power over to you"

And I continue to see evidence that both parties are almost fatalistically inclined toward an approach to foreign policy and national strategy that is bound to accelerate the US decline, further weaken the country, and needlessly endanger the prosperity and security of Americans. Rather than grasp and come to terms with the realignment of power in the world - a realignment which was really a predictable natural consequence of shifting global circumstances, and the ever-receding past horizon of 1945 and the postwar and Cold War glory days of the US - both parties seem determined to hold on to lost illusions, and perpetuate or recapture the magnificence and grandeur of US overlordship and kingly primacy.

Rather than turn their energies to the cooperative construction of a new global security order and modest system of global governance that actually works, and which doesn't place huge unsustainable economic and political costs on the United States, many of the Democrats I read these days - not the rank and file, but those in the elite-educated leadership class - seem determined to hang on to an extravagant, childish and indulgent "superhero" model of global governance and organization. They may want Superman or Captain America to exercise more condescending, soft power indulgence and diplomatic finesse than is the wont of Republicans, as he battles for Truth, Justice and the American way. But they have no intention of sharing real power, moderating their ambitions, lessening their complete disdain for all ways of life falling outside the all-American neoliberal pattern, or compromising one bit on their crusading ideological zeal.

The obsessive and continuing empowerment of the more "muscular" aspects of the American government and establishment; the continued infatuation with the national security state - a glorious postwar Cold Warrior state built for ideological and cultural conquest; the colossal cultural vanity of a several generations born under the fickle wandering star of national destiny and supremacy; the sheer, spolied, bratty conviction of America's inherent aristocratic right to rule; the inability to let go of the emotional need to be the glass of fashion and mould of form on the world stage - these are the root causes of the erosion of American liberty and the continuing destruction of the Republic. They are the triumph of the temptations of power and glory and moral conquest over sobriety and modesty. And they are powerfully present among the leaders of both parties.

Re: We all know that its the United States that was running cover for Uzbekistan and Myanmar.

Huh? Back before 9-11 the US didn't care much one way or the other about those two countries. The former was in Russia's "near abroad" and was not a subject of American concern until (with Russian reluctant permission) it became a US client, a rather unsavory one of course, in the war against Al Qaida and the Taliban. As for Myammar, I see no evidence that the US has any interests or involvement there at all.

Re: Thats why the US clamped right down on Israel before the Lebanon thing got out of hand.

Actually, We did clamp down. We let Israel go just so far in Lebanon then we pulled the rug out from under them when it became obvious that the business was turning into a fiasco.

Re: Every day he walks free, he's won. And every tape or video he and his pals issue is a triumph.

Bin Laden himself is an effectless has-been, and Al Qaida's day is past. Unfortunately though we failed to clean up All the pieces and like some sort of malign infection bits and piecse of Al Qaida spore have landed here and there, spawning new, albeit much smaller, terror infections.

Re: I suspect that the Afghans don't feel like big winners either.

Some do, some don't. The hill-country Pashto, big supportesr of the Taliban, have been the losers there. The more urbanized Dari Afghans, and the Uzbekh minority, has come out on top-- for now.

Re: Also if you listen to the rhetoric of the Islamic zealots you would recognize that they mean what they say.

So what? There are psychotic folks wandering our streets who are sincere in their delusions too, but that doesn't mean we lose sleep or distort our whole way of life in dread of their fantasies. The Jihadi terrorists lack the means to carry out their fanatasies. At most they can pull off an occasional atrocity or act of mass murder. But that is not threat to the nation as a whole, let alone to the entire civilization. 9-11 has been way over-hyped as calamities go. It was the magnitude of a severe (but not catastropic) natural disaster. Hurricane Katrina killed a roughly similar number of people and spread devastation on a wider scale and (arguably) did greater economic damage. And a major earthquake in California or on the New Madrid fault would make 9-11 look like a child' tantrum. And even 9-11 was an outlier: most terror attacks come no where near to that level of death and destruction.

Really. The US certainly did become a big supporter of Uzbekistan and its tyrant after 9/11. Go figure.

As for Myanmar, take a look at the map. American involvement with and shelter of the Burmese regime goes way back as far as the 1950's. Myanmar had a long hill country border with China and was host to a bunch of refugee Chinese warlords. Myanmar also had a northern border with Laos and so was critical to the indochina thing for the US. America's maintained extensive but not very overt military and political affiliations with Myanmar ever since.

In terms of Israel's recent war, I don't see any evidence that the United States ever pulled the rug out from under them. The UN ceasefire resolution came about from France outmaneuvering the US. America was running cover right up to the end, and trying to talk Israel into going after Syria.

As for Bin Laden, you keep telling yourself that. The truth is that every morning, he wakes up, and 2200 Americans don't wake up. That's a big laugh for him. Every day he walks free is an announcement to the world that the US is dropping the ball. All your power and all your might, and you got nothing.

So, ROTFL, keep on telling yourself that its okay.

But you know how it is, learning as much about them and how they think, what their arguments and grievances are probably allows one to combat them much more effectively.

On the other hand, whining 'Oooh they hate our freedom! wah!' Probably doesn't do much good.

Maybe if Americans spent more time studying their problems and less wrapped up in self pity and proud ignorance, then perhaps you wouldn't be losing so disastrously in Iraq, and maybe Osama wouldn't be the number one name that Islamic Mom's give their sons.

I can see what you are saying, and I agree that terrorist attacks are overhyped to the max.

But still, I wouldn't take it as a grounds to celebrate the healing power of ignorance.

That's just my opinion.

Reading the various books about Iraq one is struck how lightly Cheney and Rumsfeld, Bush seems to have been out to lunch, took the enemy they faced in Iraq.

Yes. It would seem that if this 'terrorism enemy' had the significance and potential evil might of Hitler, that America would have set out to quash them with tremendous force by unleashing the awesome might of the US military....instead of just attemtping to swat at this 'fearsome threat' with an unprepared and insufficient troop strength to topple the regime AND secure the peace.

So,if this enemy has been underestimated, it is the fault of this administration. If we have failed to quash the enemy,it is the fault of this administration for not understanding they were fighting an ideological war that could not be won with military might.