Not too long ago, I discussed the fall of Mogadishu as another sign that Islamic extremists are winning and that the United States under Bush has failed to successfully combat al-Qaeda and it's related groups. One such diary on Political Cortex got attention from BBC Radio, which had me on one of their live call-in shows.

Some responses to my fears that Bush's failures are enabling a new, extremist Caliphate in the Muslim world criticized me for being too quick to judge Islam harshly. I take such criticism to heart because my beef is with religious extremists of all kinds and those fools, like Bush, who aid and abet their oppressive, terrorist agendas. I have no beef with any religion in particular or religion in general. It is extremism and terrorism that I object to.

Not long ago I wrote about the Bush Administration's renaming the War on Terrorism as the "Long War"...or, as I prefer to dub it, the "Forever War" after Joseph Haldeman's science fiction classic. The fact is that Bush has done practically NOTHING to actually fight al-Qaeda since he abandoned the fight in Tora Bora so he could invade Iraq. Meanwhile, al-Qaeda regroups worldwide, reasserting itself in Pakistan and Afghanistan, spreading to Iraq, and further establishing itself in Somalia.

Today is the third anniversary of Bush's infamous "Mission Accomplished" speech, quite possibly the dumbest speeches in American History. Since then, the quagmire has stretched on and on and there is no end in sight.

Let's reflect on then and now...

May 1st, 2003, in the New York Times (via Editor and Publisher):

By Elisabeth Bumiller

WASHINGTON, May 1 -- President Bush's made-for-television address tonight on the carrier Abraham Lincoln was a powerful, Reaganesque finale to a six-week war. But beneath the golden images of a president steaming home with his troops toward the California coast lay the cold political and military realities that drove Mr. Bush's advisers to create the moment.