Bush has given us the worst of all possible worlds– a half-finished job against al-Qaeda, an Iraqi imbroglio that could still explode into civil or even regional war– and which serves as an al-Qaeda recruiting tool–, a government starved for funds, an enormous windfall for the rich at the expense of the middle class (which saw average wages actually fall recently), and an inability to respond effectively to a major urban catastrophe.

Four years after September 11, al-Qaeda’s leadership should have been behind bars or dead. Four years after September 11, Afghanistan should have been stabilized. Four years after September 11, the government should have been ready to save lives in an urban disaster.

Bush recently started likening his poorly conceived and misnamed “war on terror” to World War II.

What his handlers have forgotten is how long World War II lasted for the United States.

Four years.

In four years, Roosevelt and allies defeated Nazi Germany and imperial Japan. In four years, Bush hasn’t managed even to corner Bin Laden and a few hundred scruffy terrorists; or to extract himself from the deserts of Iraq; or to put the government’s finances in good order so that it can deal with crises like Katrina.

Four years. I think about the victims of 9/11, and now 7/7. We have let you down.

Go and read the whole piece for an excellent overview of how Bush has bungled the so-called “war on terror” since 9/11/2001.

Defence chiefs are planning to rush thousands of British troops to Afghanistan in a bid to stop the country sliding towards civil war, Scotland on Sunday can reveal.

Ministers have been warned they face a “complete strategic failure” of the effort to rebuild Afghanistan and that 5,500 extra troops will be needed within months if the situation continues to deteriorate.

An explosive cocktail of feuding tribal warlords, insurgents, the remnants of the Taliban, and under-performing Afghan institutions has left the fledgling democracy on the verge of disintegration, according to analysts and senior officers.

Some of those troops may have to come from the British force in Iraq though, and the U.S. is already being petulant about that. Of course, if we’d just supported Afghanistan’s new government with the resources and troops they needed in the first place, the British wouldn’t need to try and clean up our mess for us.

[via Daily Kos]