As tempting as it is to focus in on the Karl Rove situation and use it as an example of adminstration arrogance and incompetence, to say nothing of outright treason, the bigger picture is even more sobering.

The invasion/occupation of Iraq continues apace with things inarguably worse now than under Saddam. Saddam did a lot of bad things, and Iraqis are well quit of him, but the conditions in Iraq now that he is gone have deteriorated. We invaded Iraq ostensibly to save them from Saddam but we have done them no favors in how we went about it. We’ve destroyed infrastructure and instead of respecting Iraqis and their attachment to their own nation we have taken from them every opportunity to rebuild and instead given it over to outsiders and prevented Iraqis from having any functional say in the shape of their nation after Saddam. We force a puppet regime on them, we arbitrarily change their basic economic foundation so that it favors US companies and we blame them for our failure to secure their country (which is our obligation not only under international law but in terms of simple common decency).

We have failed the Iraqis in just about every area and there is no indication that we are going to acknowledge that failure or even begin to attempt to put it right.

But the invasion of Iraq also failed our own country. Even accepting the assumption that we need to wage a “war” on terrorism the invasion of Iraq was a clear indication that our leadership has no clue about how to even identify legitimate threats let alone counter them appropriately. By throwing massive numbers of US troops and materiel into the invasion and occupation of Iraq over the last 2 1/2 years we have weakened ourselves militarily while at the same time provoking the radicalization of moderate Islam. This feeds more recruits into the terrorist ranks while simultaneously making it more difficult for our military to recruit, the exact opposite of what any reasonable person would could consider a desirable outcome.

Plus, our invasion of Iraq and lack of focus on the real backers of terror, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and far more serious threats from nations like N. Korea coupled with our weakened military has put us in a truly precarious position. Rather than reducing terror our government’s inability to use resources wisely means terror attacks have increased dramatically since our invasion of Iraq. Plus our insistence that the only way to address the threat of terrorism is through military means ignores the reality of the nature of the organizations who constitute the greatest threats. None of them are really governments, though they do get support and cover from various governments (notably not Iraq and most notably the two named above).

What successes are realized in addressing the threat of terrorism come from the very thing this adminstration and its syncophants sneer at most, police action, investigation and trials. All the success in discovering who is behind the recent bombings in London and how to counteract future threats come not from military activity but from police work. Add to that our own administration’s eagerness to pat itself on the back even it if means undermining ongoing anti-terror operations and we get 54 dead on a London subway. Add to that this administration’s willingness to undermine our own anti-terror operations just to get even with someone who disagrees with them (i.e. the entire motivation behind outing Valerie Plame) and you have a government that is far more dangerous to our future than any we’ve seen in my lifetime.

And then on to the domestic political scene, where Republicans control all phases of government and most states yet seem incredibly incapable of governing with any integrity at all. They’ve been in power for only a few years yet the corruption is massive and remorseless, from Duke Cunningham to the former official who doctored documents on global warming then left for a cozy job at Exxon.

Destroying Medicare and Social Security are priorities for an adminstration so mired in old ideological battles dating back to the time of the first FDR administration that they have barely entered the reality of the 20th century, let alone the 21st.

We are in dire straits in this country right now and Rove is but a symptom, a head cold to an AIDS patient and I fear that while we worry about having enough kleenex in the room to catch all the snot, the patient is dying before our eyes and we seem powerless to do anything about it.