I repeat: NOT SAFER

OK, so perhaps the wonky-sounding S3FP (Security Scholars for a Sensible Foreign Policy) could have picked a snappier acronym, but their message carries some serious impact. The group, comprised of more than 700 foreign policy professors and counting, has published an open letter to the American public which asserts: We judge that the current American policy centered around the war in Iraq is the most misguided one since the Vietnam period, one which harms the cause of the struggle against extreme Islamist terrorists. One result has been a great distortion in the terms of public debate on foreign and national security policy???an emphasis on speculation instead of facts, on mythology instead of calculation, and on misplaced moralizing over considerations of national interest. … American actions in Iraq, including but not limited to the scandal of Abu Ghraib, have harmed the reputation of the U.S. in most parts of the Middle East and, according to polls, made Osama Bin Laden more popular in some countries than is President Bush. This increased popularity makes it easier for al-Qaida to raise money, attract recruits, and carry out its terrorist operations than would otherwise be the case. According to the site, signatories include "experts from all over the country and from U.S. allies, representing both American political parties and independents, and every hue of academic viewpoint from conservative believers in Realpolitik to moderates, liberals and progressives." Of course, after reading Ron Suskind's chilling cover story in this week's New York Times Magazine, I've come to realize that God Himself would have to sign the thing in order for Bush to give it a second glance. Suskind's description of Bush's disdain for the "reality-based community" made me want to invent a deity for myself so I could pray for our country. A snippet: In the summer of 2002, after I had written an article in Esquire that the White House didn't like about Bush's former communications director, Karen Hughes, I had a meeting with a senior adviser to Bush. He expressed the White House's displeasure, and then he told me something that at the time I didn't fully comprehend -- but which I now believe gets to the very heart of the Bush presidency. The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we call the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I nodded and murmured something about enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me off. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality -- judiciously, as you will -- we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.'