Aid And Comfort

First, George W. Bush launched an unnecessary war against Iraq, a fourth-rate military power that presented no threat to the United States. Ironically, this war -- which Bush claimed was launched as part of the overall War Against Terrorism -- ended up actually helping the terrorists.

Next, certain traitors in the Bush Administration, angry at Ambassador Joe Wilson's attempt to expose the BushCo lies that led to the Iraq Debacle, intentionally outed Wilson's wife, a CIA operative who was working on WMD proliferation issues.

Then, someone in the Bush Administration revealed the arrest in Pakistan of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, a computer expert with ties to al Qaeda. This announcement was made in order to justify a heightened terror threat level ordered by the Bush Regime just after the 2004 Democratic Convention. [As Josh Marshall notes, terror alerts -- which were regular occurrences in the eighteen months before the 2004 election -- are few and far between these days].

Unfortunately, BushCo revealed Khan's name while he was working as an undercover agent for Pakistani intelligence. Needless to say, his effectiveness as an double agent was greatly reduced once the Bush Administration blew his cover. This was unfortunate, given that it forced British authorities to prematurely move against a London terror cell. Khan, it turned out, also had a connection to the cell that carried out the London Bombings a year later:

ABC News, citing unidentified officials, reported that the attacks were connected to an al Qaeda plot planned two years ago in Lahore. Names on a computer that authorities seized last year from Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, an alleged Pakistani computer expert for al Qaeda, matched a suspected cell of young Britons of Pakistani origin, most of whom lived near Luton, where the alleged suicide bombers met on their way to London shortly before last week's blasts, according to the report.

And now it has been revealed that Bush secretly authorized the N.S.A. to eavesdrop on Americans inside the U.S. without warrants. Bush apologists have argued that there is nothing wrong with what Bush did and that he acted to protect America. But it turns out that Bush's illegal acts might have done more to help the terrorists than to hurt them:

Defense lawyers in some of the country's biggest terrorism cases say they plan to bring legal challenges to determine whether the National Security Agency used illegal wiretaps against several dozen Muslim men tied to Al Qaeda.

The lawyers said in interviews that they wanted to learn whether the men were monitored by the agency and, if so, whether the government withheld critical information or misled judges and defense lawyers about how and why the men were singled out.

The expected legal challenges, in cases from Florida, Ohio, Oregon and Virginia, add another dimension to the growing controversy over the agency's domestic surveillance program and could jeopardize some of the Bush administration's most important courtroom victories in terror cases, legal analysts say.

Recent polls show that more than half of the country still thinks that Bush is doing a good job in his handling of the War on Terror. How much more damage must Bush do before Americans start to realize that his presidency constitutes a threat to national security?

UPDATE: Here is a great piece on PoliceStateGate by former G.O.P. representative Bob Barr (registration required).