Reuters grudgingly admires the Bush Administration’s success in preventing any successful mass terrorism attack on US since 9/11, but finds downsides of “huge security costs, strains on the U.S. military from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and resentment of the United States abroad.”

President George W. Bush’s administration has crippled al Qaeda’s ability to carry out major attacks on U.S. soil but at a political and economic cost that could leave the country more vulnerable in years to come, experts say.

Even as al Qaeda tries to rebuild operations in Pakistan, experts including current and former intelligence officials believe the group would have a hard time staging another September 11 because of U.S. success at killing or capturing senior members whose skills and experience have not been replaced.

“If the question is why al Qaeda hasn’t carried out another 9/11 attack, the answer I think is that if they could have, they would have,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Tighter U.S. airport security, greater scrutiny of people entering the United States and better coordination between the CIA, FBI and Department of Homeland Security also have made it harder for extremists to enter the country, experts said.

Home-grown extremists in the United States are believed to be isolated and lacking the will or ability to carry out large-scale operations.

“Make no mistake about it, however, our enemy is resilient and determined to strike us again,” said Charles Allen, chief intelligence officer at the Department of Homeland Security.

Some experts warn that the successes of Bush’s war on terrorism have been undercut by huge security costs, strains on the U.S. military from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and resentment of the United States abroad.

“Huge costs?”

AP just recently (3/18) noted that the war is proving relatively inexpensive.

After four years, America’s cost for the war in Iraq has reached nearly $500 billion — more than the total for the Korean War and nearly as much as 12 years in Vietnam, adjusting for inflation. The ultimate cost could reach $1 trillion or more.

A lot of money? No question.

But even though the war has turned out to be much more expensive than Bush administration officials predicted on the eve of the March 2003 invasion, it is relatively affordable — at least in historical terms.

Iraq eats up less than 1 percent of the nation’s gross domestic product, compared with as much as 14 percent for Vietnam and 9 percent for Korea.

“I think it’s hard to argue it’s not affordable,” said Steven M. Kosiak, director of budget studies at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, a defense think tank in Washington, D.C.

A lot of us on the Right think Bush should have expanded the US military, too, but doubtless this administration’s policy of fighting the war on the cheap has a great deal to do with its comparatively modest costs.

Foreign opinion? Well, the treasonous clerisy is what it is. Any visible and effective US policy will inevitably stimulate the left’s condemnation and outrage.

———————-

This Reuters article does, however, contain one particularly interesting detail.

IntelCenter chief executive Ben Venzke said the chance of an al Qaeda attack on U.S. soil has grown based on the militant network’s increasing references to the American homeland in public messages.

“Our leading thinking is that we are closer now to an attempt at a major attack in the United States than at any point since 9/11,” Venzke said.

William Gray and his associate Phillip J. Klotzbach, the Colorado State University weather forecasters are forecasting a “very active hurricane season” this year, with 17 named storms and a 74% chance that a major hurricane (category three or higher) will hit the U.S. coast.

2007 Forecast

The Wall Street Journal notes that:

If that 17 number sounds familiar, that happened to be their initial prediction for the number of named storms last year, too. That didn’t work out so well for them; they cut their forecast twice last summer and were still off the mark, as just nine named storms formed.

USA Today’s “Weather Blog” guys come to Colorado State’s defense, sort of, pointing out that in five of the past seven years, Colorado State’s April hurricane forecasts “have actually been less than what actually happened.” And in four of the past seven years, their predictions were fairly close to the mark, at least when it came to the number of named storms.

But their numbers have been pretty wildly off the mark, too. For example, Colorado State predicted 11 storms in 2005, when a record 26 formed. They predicted nine in 2001, when 15 formed.

It seems obvious that if a “very active hurricane season” is predicted annually, sooner or later that prediction will be proven right.

Ironically, the left blogosphere will be jumping with joy today over this good (bad) news, but the chief predictor, William Gray, is a Global Warming Skeptic.

When you’re meeting with the enemy to talk surrender, wearing something French is de rigeur.

Hat tip to Bird dog.

Real unaltered photograph.

Hat tip to Michelle Malkin.

Your inner rebel: Brando in The Wild One (1953)

Matt Lewis says it’s time for us Republican conservatives to stop thinking about those safe, liberal 2008 choices, and start supporting someone in our hearts we know is right.

In life, there are times to make a safe choice. Should you go to the gym in the morning or pour yourself a bowl of Miller Lite Cheerios? Should you take the car rental insurance or chance it? Decisions, decisions.

Similarly tough choices inevitably seep into our politics. For Republican voters, it has been: Should you vote for Ross Perot or Pat Buchanan, or go with the Republican standard-bearer? (You probably made the “adult” decision, sucked it up and punched your ticket for George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole, even if they were squishy Republicans who were dull as can be.)

For 2008, the safe thing means backing one of the “big three” Republicans, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.), former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney or former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Here’s the problem with always doing the safe thing: Voting is supposed to be a bit rebellious. There are times to throw caution to the wind and go for what you really want. (This often happens after a few drinks.) Depending on your lifestyle, that might include buying a motorcycle, following the Grateful Dead, getting a tattoo or just ordering another helping of that sinfully rich chocolate cake.

Read the whole thing.

He won’t get an argument from me.

The Obama campaign is not responsible for this.

0:43 video

Christopher Booke reports that Secretary of State for Health Patricia Hewitt has issued a strong condemnation of Iran’s propaganda photographs of captured British hostages.

It was deplorable that the woman hostage should be shown smoking. This sends completely the wrong message to our young people.

Hat tip to Chuck.

That sucker Matt Drudge was embarassingly rolled this morning by British red-diaper-baby journalist Patrick Cockburn (one of several active scions of the late Stalinist Claud Cockburn. Drudge published in italics atop his news blog the screaming headline:

PAPER: BOTCHED U.S. RAID LED TO IRAN HOSTAGE CRISIS

A failed American attempt to abduct two senior Iranian security officers on an official visit to northern Iraq was the starting pistol for a crisis that 10 weeks later led to Iranians seizing 15 British sailors and Marines.

Early on the morning of 11 January, helicopter-born US forces launched a surprise raid on a long-established Iranian liaison office in the city of Arbil in Iraqi Kurdistan. They captured five relatively junior Iranian officials whom the US accuses of being intelligence agents and still holds.

In reality the US attack had a far more ambitious objective, The Independent has learned. The aim of the raid, launched without informing the Kurdish authorities, was to seize two men at the very heart of the Iranian security establishment.

Better understanding of the seriousness of the US action in Arbil – and the angry Iranian response to it – should have led Downing Street and the Ministry of Defence to realise that Iran was likely to retaliate against American or British forces such as highly vulnerable Navy search parties in the Gulf.

Take the hayseeds out of your hair, Matt. That commie swine Cockburn has simply recycled a very old story, dating back to January 12th (followup 1/13, followup 1/28, still more 1/29), repackaged it with a few new quotes, and given it a major leftist spin.

Allahpundit debunks Cockburn’s bolshevik drivel here, remarking in conclusion:

British media sure are good at anti-western propaganda, aren’t they?

Myself, I have a special award for Comrade Cockburn:

Sure, the US raid on Irbil/Erbil/Arbil (however you spell it) was a significant Allied response to Iranian acts of war against coalition forces operating in Iraq, apparently apprehending some number of Iranian intelligence officers caught red-handed in Iraq engaged in organizing and supplying the insurgency.

Doubtless every act of interference on the part of Coalition forces to Iranian activities in Iraq, or of hostility toward Iran’s surrogates, could be construed as part of the pattern of increasing tension preceding the recent Iranian hostage-taking of British naval personnel. But events completed last January are not exactly today’s news.

Only limited information was ever officially released, making it impossible to know exactly who was apprehended, and even more impossible to evaluate that action’s precise goals or success. So the Cockburn story consists in its entirety, as a philosophy professor of mine used to say, of statements which are “meaningless, trivial, or simply false.”

Maria Grasso, a right-thinking Oxonian, sounds the tocsin over wooley-headed leftist threats to the Pitt Rivers Museum’s most popular exhibit.

Recent reports suggest that some of the staff at the Pitt Rivers Museum in Oxford, England, are feeling increasingly uncomfortable with the museum’s famous ‘shrunken heads’ exhibit. They’re planning a review of the exhibit with an eye for making it more ‘respectful’, and there are even rumours of the heads being repatriated to South America. …

Dr Laura Peers, a curator at the Pitt Rivers Museum and a member of the UK government committee that published a report for the Department of Culture, Media and Sport (DCMS) on the handling of human remains, recently called into question the ‘ethics’ of the exhibit. She told the Oxford Times that she felt ‘uncomfortable’ with aspects of the shrunken heads display, and that she ‘personally would like to know more what the communities in Ecuador and Peru feel about it’. ‘This is an awkward area where personal views and professional training become mixed’, said Dr Peers (2).

In a recent statement to the press, Michael O’Hanlon, director of the Museum, said: ‘The Pitt Rivers Museum tries to tread a careful line between acknowledging the very considerable public interest in these historical displays on the one hand and the shifting ethical sensitivities on the other…

Read the whole thing.

Now, if only we could hire the temporary services of an old-fashioned Amazonian shaman, and augment that collection with some richly deserving potential specimens, already well-shrunken in understanding.

Bad Fortune cookie

Hat tip to Karen L. Myers.

Yale University may join the Louvre and the Guggenheim by opening an Arts Institute in Abu Dhabi.

The Oldest College Daily reports that

The University aims to make a final decision by June, Yale President Richard Levin said.

Over at National Review, Michael Rubin is trying to mau mau Yale over all this. Apparently the University of Connecticut canceled some sort of plans for a satellite campus in Dubai, so Yale should fall into line with the Israeli lobby, too, Rubin hints darkly.

Glenn Reynolds unfortunately seems to have swallowed his nonsense.

Let’s see now, we can’t discriminate against Muslims on our airlines, but we cannot allow companies from friendly Islamic countries to purchase port facilities in the United States, and we also should not be exporting fine arts education to them, either. Ridiculous.

Bumper sticker sighted locally in Loudoun County, Virginia:

My horse bucked off your honor student.