Terra! Terra! Terra!

So, I woke up this morning to my mother (who's helping me out while I recover from successful ankle surgery) shouting "There's a new terror alert out! It's for banks in New York, New Jersey, and Los Angeles!" Now, the alert in question, which came out on Sunday, actually concerns New York, Newark, and Washington DC. But like many fearful potential voters, Mom decided to personalize it by simply changing it in her brain to affect the city she happens to be in at the time. "Now we're not going to any banks this week! We'll have to use ATM's in the supremarkets!" Aha! Al-Qaeda didn't realize I could do my banking at Safeway! America wins again!

Howard Dean, predictably, was among the first to question the timing of this again ill-timed terror alert, on CNN's Late Edition with Wolf Idjitzer. I am concerned that every time something happens that's not good for President Bush, he plays this trump card, which is terrorism... It's just impossible to know how much of this is real and how much of this is politics, and I suspect there's some of both in it." The Kerry camp, just as predictably, dismissed the concern, and said we have to trust the President that this information is accurate (we have to trust the President... where have I heard that one before?). Meanwhile, instead of terror alerts, there have been more actual terrorist bombings in Baghdad today, killing at least 10 in two separate incidents. But those are Iraqis dying, so why should we care? Well, maybe we should, or at least we should listen to this British report that claims both ends of Bush's Wars, Iraq and Afghanistan, are on the verge of becoming failed states:

LONDON (CP) — Afghanistan could "implode" unless NATO does more to help it get on its feet, a group of British MPs said today in a report that also gives a grim assessment on Iraq.

"There is a real danger if these resources are not provided soon that Afghanistan — a fragile state in one of the most sensitive and volatile regions of the world — could implode, with terrible consequences," says the report.

On Iraq, the MPs said there also are not enough troops on the ground to deal with the deteriorating security situation and that countries other than Britain and the United States, including Islamic countries, must be encouraged to provide more soldiers.

"Iraq has become a battle ground for al-Qaida, with appalling consequences for the Iraqi people," the committee said. "However, we also conclude that the coalition's failure to bring law and order to parts of Iraq have created a vacuum into which criminal elements and militias have stepped."

It says "the alternative to a positive outcome in Iraq may be a failed state and regional instability."

Frightened Americans and forgotten, failed states; that is what's left in the wake of George W's war on terra.