Are "WE" safer than we were before the Iraq War?  by Demhas  During election years, politicians shamelessly appropriate winning clichés in order to capitalize on the successes of others. For this election, George W. Bush is going to use the same strategy and rely on famous phrases in order to simplify the choices for voters. He first challenged Kerry to answer the question whether he would have voted for the war knowing what he knows now; then he is hammering the message that his military interventions after 9-11 have made America and the world safer and that he needs to stay the course in order to make the world "more secure". Over and over he appropriated the "are you better off today..." format and asked: aren't we safer without Saddam? In line with this strategy, early this year, the administration released a synthesized report wherein they claimed that terrorist attacks have diminished during his watch. Later on the report was revised to reflect the reality. In contrast, a number of reports produced by renowned international institutions from around the world have all concluded that the war in Iraq had benefited terrorists, increased the potential for more attacks, and made it easy to recruit and train terrorists. But do we really need professionals to tell us that we are not safer today than we were before the Iraq war? Almost everyday, we read news reports about car bomb attacks killing innocent people in Afghanistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and other places around the world. The Iraq war alone has caused the death of nearly 50, 000 civilians and hundreds of thousands were wounded most of them disabled. Since the launch of the war, nearly 1000 American troops were killed and more than 10, 000 troops severely injured. Countless Iraqi police officers and civil defense personnel were killed. Nearly 300 people (foreign workers, journalists, and visitors) were kidnapped and some of them were brutally executed. The Iraqi resistance is spreading to the south and the emerging trends tell of darker and bloodier future. More people around the world are concerned and angered with the uncontrolled use of American power than with the senseless acts of terrorism. The emerging consensus is that the war is not making the world safer, and to say that it is making America safer is shortsighted and opportunistic. For all that we know, and given that al-Qaeda plans its attacks well in advance which means that they usually strike in years intervals, we simply cannot judge whether the War in Iraq had defeated them. In fact it is the opposite: more organizations are claming affiliation with al-Qaeda now and it is highly possible that their ranks are swelling. To argue that since America was not attacked thus far proves that the administration is successful in its "war on terror" is opportunistic because even if it is so, no single administration should take credit for a work accomplished by the blood of all American service men and women and with the authorization of all major parties. Are we safer without Saddam in power? If the "we" refers to Americans, the answer is no. Saddam was never a threat to Americans. All the facts now point to that: his sudden defeat showed that his political days were numbered, the absence of WMDs proves that he could not harm American 6000 miles away, and the determination of the independent commission that he had no link with al-Qaeda shows that he was not implicated in the 9-11 attacks. In short, Saddam was never a treat to America and to  ask the question whether we (Americans) are safer without him is misleading and fallacious. If the "we" refers to the Iraqis; it can be argued that given the the rate of killing, the spread of lawlessness, and the lack of security that allows for kidnapping, loss of lives and property; it is very hard to imagine an Iraqi consensus on that either. During Saddam's rule, the people knew what to expect and they adapted to it. Now, the danger is from every corner and no one can adapt to violence amidst chaos and anarchy. Was Saddam a tyrant and a despot who suppressed his people? Sure he was, but so is Fahd, Mubarak, Ben Ali, Asad, Abdullah, Muhammad VI, Boutefliqa, Qaddafi, al-Sabbah, and literally every other Arab "leader". The more relevant question is: are Iraqis better off ruled by a tyrant or by terrorists? Whatever the answer by the Iraqis may be, it remains a fact that the choice was not theirs, and if the current violence continues in Iraq, this administration's intervention will not be recorded in history as a "miscalculation" of the post-Saddam era; rather, a catastrophic blunder whose effects will take generations to cure.   ACTIONS: >> email this article to a friend  >> react to this article  >> more articles Note: Please email your opinion to op-ed@majalla.org; Op-Ed articles are not peer-reviewed. New Op-Ed articles are published monthly, and as special edition when warranted