The war on terrorism, post Iraq.

As the streets of Madrid flood with up to 12 million people marching in grief, horror and outrage at the latest terrorist atrocity that murdered at least 200 people and wounded 1400 others people, the question springs to mind that there has been little progress on the so called war against terrorism.

Osama remains uncaptured, terrorist atrocities occur with an almost monotonous frequency, and the US is bogged down in an ungovernable and as it turned out defenceless country, Iraq.

The Palestinians murder Israelis and the Israelis murder Palestinians on an almost daily basis.

Hard line conservatives have seized control from reformning liberals in Iraq in a rigged election.

Even the much vaunted capitulation of Libya over its nuclear arms program was the result of prolonged negotiations between European diplomats and the Libyan government long before a shot was fired in Iraq.

The US forces have been weakened and stretched, the real terrorists remain at large, while a tinpot dicator that presented no clear and present danger to the US has been toppled.

For all that the threat that Iraq posed, and its involvment in terrorism was worth, it might as well have been Haiti.

The US has been reduced to an even bigger laughing stock before the eyes of the world than it ever has been before.

Except it isn't all that funny.

Relationships with the UN have been posioned, there has been a sharp increase in terrorist activity, recruitment to terrorist organisations has increased and between 8 and 10 innocent thousand people now lie dead in Iraq, a toll of violence that is rising on a daily basis.

And the war has increased the US budget defecit to almost unmanageable proportions; a threat to the prosperity of the whole world.

How can any of this be seen as progress?

According to Americas national intelligence estimate:

'Al queda  is increasing its strength and organisational structure'

What progress has been made has come through intelligence and cooperation with local police structures, not through the invasion of an uninvolved dicatorship such as Iraq.

All that invading Iraq has done, as was widely predicted, has increased the number of recruits to Al Queda and acted like a magnet to those that genuinely want to fight against US forces.

With Bush describing the war on terrorism as going well, some simple facts:

In addition to the 200 people murdered in Spain last Thursday, let us not forget the continuing carnage in Iraq:

'Two separate roadside bomb blasts in Baghdad killed four US soldiers, the US Army said on Sunday...A spokesman said three soldiers were killed and one wounded in a blast around 10:45pm local time on Saturday in south-east Baghdad'

'A newly arrived US soldier was killed in a bomb attack in Baghdad on Sunday morning, a US military official said'

'On Saturday morning, two US soldiers were killed and several wounded, some of them badly, in an attack on an army convoy in the centre of the northern city of Tikrit - the home town of former president Saddam Hussein.'

'Hundreds of Iraqis, meanwhile, mourned the death of a Shiite politician's relative in a bomb blast in his shop the previous day'

'Meanwhile, six members of an Iraqi family were killed and four children wounded when their village was fired on, relatives said yesterday.

Family members blamed US troops, saying soldiers had heard people shooting into the air on Saturday to celebrate a wedding nearby and had fired back from their tanks'

Just an ordinary weekend in Iraq.

And from Afghanistan:

'In the past six months, revived Taliban and other Islamic forces have staged numerous deadly attacks in those areas of the country, killing foreign and Afghan aid workers, ambushing civilian projects and convoys, and planting bombs in markets...In the past six months, revived Taliban and other Islamic forces have staged numerous deadly attacks in those areas of the country, killing foreign and Afghan aid workers, ambushing civilian projects and convoys, and planting bombs in markets'

yechydda,