Democrats & Liberals: Archives

The proper analogy to terrorism is not crime or war; it is piracy. Piracy employs many of the same terror tools. It is always present, but can be controlled through a combination of war and crime fighting. At times it has been state sponsored. In the early years of the American republic, we faced down a similar menace – the Barbary Pirates. They attacked ostensibly in the name of Islam, killing and enslaving “infidels” from the Mediterranean to Iceland. Their official sovereign – the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, did little to stop them. After all, they had “legitimate grievances” against the West and his control over parts of his empire was tenuous. Continental European powers like the French and Spanish bemoaned but tolerated the attacks, paid ransom when possible and dealt with it as a law enforcement problem that couldn’t be solved. It couldn’t be solved because the pirates had state protection. Today we would say that the Sultan had no “direct connection” with the terrorists, but he sure facilitated them.

Finally the infant United States had enough and chased them back to where they lived and destroyed them. “The Shores of Tripoli” (now in Libya) in the Marine Corps hymn celebrates an early U.S. victory against terrorism. The British Royal Navy finished the job. (They were the big power in those days.) Sound familiar? American and British unilateralism addressed the problem that the rest of the world ignored. The terrorists vowed revenge against the infidels, but were rendered impotent to carry out their promises. Did piracy stop? No, but there was much less of it and the pirates no longer had safe havens.

You are right about the asymmetrical nature of terror. That is why we can’t wait for them to attack. The root cause of terrorism is inaction by the targets of their wrath. We have to root them out first (if need be take the fight from the palaces of Saddam to the shores of Tripoli) and not be tolerant of those who are tolerant of terrorists.

These pirates had one thing on thier mind: money. They either extorted tribute for safe passage, or took booty from the ships they raided. Piracy is piracy.

Additionally, you’re wrong in the idea that the Barbary States War was assymmetrical. Their naval power was enough to discourage the European powers from attacking them, until after the Napoleonic Wars. As for the military exercises you describe, they didn’t do much good and the piracy was not stopped until 1815, after another battle.

The Root cause of terrorism is the belief that such methods can win the war against western influence and corruption where the governments and the armies are impotent to do so. I have no problem with open military conflict being part of a War on Terror. But I see it as a very limited way of fighting the entire war.

The terrorists advantage is their agility of movement, the relative cheapness of their operations, and their ability to blend into the societies they target. We must neutralize those advantages to win the war, not reinforce their power of the terrorists by trying to use brute force where its not called for. It is instructive to study the travails of the colonial powers. Our former colleagues among the great powers suffered greivous losses in both men and reputations because they were willing to adopt just such a get tough attitude. Problem with it is, the excesses of terrorist can easily be outshone by the excesses of a state. In Algeria, terrorists atrocities ultimately paled in comparison to the atrocities of the French Colonials, to the point where eventually the French lost their stomach for keeping their colony.

We need to better than them for the practical reason that we will have to outlast them to win this war. If we let the illusion of a new war with new rules fool us, we only end up spending so much treasure, so many lives, and so much of our reputation, that we will be forced to back off. If we maintain our moderation in our tactics, and we fight our enemies with effective measures, we will likely outlast our enemies.

Al Quaeda fights us smarter, not harder than our other enemies. We need to do the same. Fight fire with fire.

The naval power of the Barbary States was no more a match for the West than Saddam’s armies. If even the weak (at the time) United States could project enough power across the Atlantic Ocean the seize their strong points, they could not have been much of a power. Admiral Nelson wrote in 1799, “It makes my blood boil that I cannot chastised these pirates. They could not show themselves in the Mediterranean did not our country permit.” But the many in Britain refused to see the need for military force. “Attacking them will just make them angry and lead to more attacks”, they said. When the Brits did get around to punishing the pirates, it only took them one afternoon and evening to destroy the defenses of Algiers and get the local Bey to capitulate. They did this at the cost of 141 allied killed and no ships sunk. It is interesting that the Brits could chastise the bad guys without committing a large percentage of their resources, to such an extent that this battle of Algiers is not even a footnote in most British history books.

Again, I am not saying the problem was solved, but it was mitigated. The pirates were not effectively eliminated until the French conquered Algeria fifteen years later. But I am saying that you have to go after these kinds of guys where they live so that they don’t show up where you live. Pirates and terrorist sometimes have different motivations, but their methods are similar and some of the options of dealing with them are similar too. Preemption, I think they call it.

Stephen:

The real key to fighting terrorism is information. I spoke to a friend who was an FBI Bureau Chief and his comment was that the uniformed presence at the Olympics, for instance, or any other such occasion is really the window dressing. Its necessary of course, but the real key in stopping terrorism is in the details. Its done behind the scenes so that the special forces ops can be properly targeted.

With an enemy like Al Queda, such information is hard to get. Its hard if not impossible to infiltrate Al Queda due to regional, racial, ethnic and language differences.

jbod, you are right, to reduce the threat against us to a minimum, we must have covert infiltrating operatives who can send information. That will take at least a decade to fully up to speed. In the mean time, we absolutely must protect our borders. Not just checkpoints, that is absurd. We want check points covered, but, let’s face, with them covered, what is to stop terrorists from coming in anywhere there is no checkpoint?

It is within our technology and resources to place infra-red and motion dectectors around the entire U.S. border, feeding into regional monitoring stations who can in turn deploy rapid response military and government agent teams to intersect with the illegal entrants and deal with them. Expensive? Yes. Too expensive? No. Just a few to a dozen billion dollars. Congress wastes that lunches, air fare, and campaign trips.

So, what is this administration’s problem? They are listening to the experts who say it can’t be done and don’t know their rear end from a hole in the ground, because they are operating on old data, and presumptions. The need is there. When has America failed to meet a national emergency need or goal of vital importance to the nation? Never.

Perhaps Kerry’s folks won’t be so blind to the need and the potential for securing our borders.

Given John Kerry’s voting record in the Senate on military and intelligence matters, I think that saying “Perhaps Kerry’s folks won’t be so blind to the need and the potential for securing our borders” is the triumph of hope over experience.

Very well, I’ll concede on the strength end of things, but I will interject that what made them think twice about messing with these fellows was a reputation earned in earlier times, back when Corsairs like Barbarossa sailed the Mediterranean.

Still, I think it’s misleading because the pirates required some sort of safeharbor, and effectively acted as naval units. The Al Quaeda players we’re dealing with operate more like an intelligence and covert operations outlet, only without the restrictions of a government we could smack down to shut their operation down once and for all. We shut down their functional state support in Afghanistan years ago, and they still haven’t ceased their attacks.

By comparison, Clinton’s missile attack on Baghdad in 1993 went a long way towards convincing Saddam to stop terrorist acts against America and her interests. His roll-up of Iranian agents in Operation Sapphire took the Iranians out of commission. Both Countries could be intimidated into curtailing their terrorist activities.

That Al Quaeda outlived the government that supported it is telling. Hell, that it preceded that government is telling. According to what I’ve read about them, Al Quaeda is what you might call a metastasizing cancer, in the political bloodstream of the world. As an Organization, it tries to seek out failed states, and turn them into Islamists ones.

It tried in Bosnia, and it’s trying in Chechnya. I would wager they’re trying in Iraq too. Their mission I would suspect is not to protect interests already there, but to build support and infrastructure for a political takeover or neutralization. It’s also, of course, to encourage us to keep our noses out of the Middle East, to make us so tired, so exhausted at the prospect of dealing with governments and campaign there, that we withdraw to lick our wounds.

Now, you might say the solution to that is persistence. I would agree, but I would say that the price of persistence will be a change of approach to the Middle East and Iraq.

Iraq, however potent a display of power, failed to lessen the threat of terrorism. If there were no terrorists to intercept, no WMDs to keep out of terrorists hands, then no threat was destroyed, and we are still back where we started at the very least.

I would argue it made things worse. It demonstrated our army’s impotence in the face of guerilla tactics. It angered local allies, alienated our European Allies. It provided free propaganda to those trying to portray us as land-grabbing crusaders.

Pre-emption meant we had to be right. There was no room for error in our assessment. We either had to be right, or we would look like we used issues like WMDs and terrorists as pretenses for power politics and conquest.

It also meant the threat had to be imminent. It wasn’t. When you could have waited till later to deal with a threat, it’s not pre-emption. The very idea of pre-emption is that an attack is imminent, and you have to strike at their forces now to avoid being hit.

But here’s the problem- They’re already here. They aren’t all bunched together, waiting for us to kill them, they have already infiltrated our society and are planning their next moves. So bombing another country, even the right one, is not going to keep us from getting hit. They’re too decentralized for that to work.

Joe-
I’d say we should go for their auxiliaries and their helpers first, then go after their lower level fellows. Get a top guy, make him crack.

We need to find where their people are less disciplined, less true believers. We need to find where they’ve gotten lax, and exploit that.

David:

You make it all sound so simple. Just put a motion detection system around the entire US. Of course, I hadnt thought of that. I’ll write my congressman, have them call ADT or some other home security company, and I bet it gets done right away!!

Please, its not that easy—-if it were, why didnt Clinton do that when we had all that extra money? Your suggestion is simply laughably simplistic. Motion detection would catch many deer and rabbits crossing the borders along with aliens. Many cruise ships or pleasure craft operating in scenic waters, say like the St. Lawrence Seaway, would be stopped. How long before we were stopping so many that it becomes impossible to tell the good from the bad?

Securing our borders is a good thing, but dont be so simplistic in an approach. Besides, look at the complaints currently under our bad system. People complaining about long waits for airplanes, people complaining about being searched. People complaining that their civil liberties are in jeopardy because someone wants to check their suitcase. Do you really think this country and the ACLU are gonna allow even more wholesale searches? Pleeeease!!.

Stephen:

Hw ya gonna make a top guy crack? Whats in it for him? Remember, we cannot “coerce” in any way, we cannot claim that any harm might befall his family or friends, we cannot bribe in any way. Even aggressive interrogation is now looked upon as wrong. So how do we get a zealot to turn? I’m not advocating torture, lest anyone try that particular strawman. I AM advocating that we be aggressive in our search for information.

We currently have lots of people with information in custody. I believe we ARE doing precisely what you suggest. The current climate makes it harder to achieve success, but nonetheless, success is being achieved.

espen, I’m not sure what your referring to when you mention Kerry’s voting record on military and intelligence matters.

Kerry’s site says, “the Kerry-Edwards plan will use technology and work with Canada and Mexico to improve border security.” It’s late & I didn’t search around for specifics, but the “technology” part is intriguing.

But here’s the problem- They’re already here… So bombing another country, even the right one, is not going to keep us from getting hit. They’re too decentralized for that to work.

Hehe. Stephen, don’t you love it when the chickenhawks scream about making counter-terrorism a mostly military operation? Were we supposed to deploy the 1st Armored Division to arrest those guys in Britain a couple weeks ago? After an intensive week-long bombing campaign of Hertfordshire?

That just cracks me up.

There’s a counter-terrorism role for the military, but our primary tools will be intelligence, law enforcement, and - when operating in failed states - Special Forces units.

David wrote:
“It is within our technology and resources to place infra-red and motion dectectors around the entire U.S. border, feeding into regional monitoring stations who can in turn deploy rapid response military and government agent teams to intersect with the illegal entrants and deal with them. Expensive? Yes. Too expensive? No.”

I agree that we need to protect our borders, David. But we don’t even need to develop and use technology to do it. Over the last four years we’ve had a net loss of 1.8 million jobs in this country (the most since the days of Herbert Hoover), and there are plenty of out of work people who could easily fill America’s need to protect the Mexican and Canadian borders to the US.

David:
“So, what is this administration’s problem?”

A question for the ages! Their problems seem to be endless!

“They are listening to the experts who say it can’t be done and don’t know their rear end from a hole in the ground, because they are operating on old data, and presumptions.”

This has always been the Conservatives biggest problem - they only fight to maintain the status quo - and it is therefore always up to Progressives and Liberal thinkers to move the country forward. Since the turn of the last century in every aspect of American life, this has been true.

“When has America failed to meet a national emergency need or goal of vital importance to the nation? Never.”

Until now. We need a leader who understands the concept of diplomacy and the ability to think outside the box when it comes to dealing with these new and unprecidented threats to our security at home and with foreign relations.
Again it is time for a Progressive to move the country forward with: Energy Independence, Homeland Security, World Diplomacy, Job Creation, Civil Liberty Protections, Environmental issues, etc., etc., etc.
I fear for America and the World if Dubya is (re?)elected for four more years.

The interesting thing about words like progressive, liberal and conservative. They don’t mean the same things in different times or places. The liberal parties in most of continental Europe are most like U.S. Republicans in that they believe in less government interference in the economy and individual, as opposed to group rights. In many ways conservative in America “conserve the liberal tradition” while liberals have moved toward what might be called social democracy. The mainstream American parties kind of divided up the liberal tradition. The Republicans got the free market and individualism – the freedom from parts. The Democrats got the rights parts. They both need each other. There is really no such thing as a conservative in America. Since the end of the 1960, it is the conservatives who have most upset the establishment, as liberals like Teddy Kennedy have become the establishment. “Conservative” ideas in the U.S. are dynamic (choice in schools, flexible work schedules and public-private partnerships, for example).

Bill Clinton understood this and furthered causes such as welfare reform or NAFTA. Liberals often find themselves defending the status quo whether it be monopolistic public schools or outmoded union rules. Energy independence is an excellent example. The “old thinking” of price controls and government management ensured shortages. When we let the market determine prices, supply shortages disappeared. There is a role for government in setting goals and standards, but it can’t do that while controlling prices or sources. Ronald Reagan created what can only be termed a revolution in world diplomacy and his detractors fought him all the way because they were “conservative” in their assessment of risk. Better that predictable mutually assured destruction world, they thought. None of his ideas were original and they came from a variety of source. The best way to make ideas work is to try them out and not worry about where they came from.

Jack wrote:
“liberals like Teddy Kennedy have become the establishment.”

This is dead wrong - and you know it.

““Conservative” ideas in the U.S. are dynamic”

Conservative ideas are _transparent_, rather than dynamic in that everything they try to do is another attempt to put their hand in the average-earning American’s pocket.

“(choice in schools,”

Translated to: Lets privatize so we can make a buck. We’ll cut funding for everything having to do with public schools until they become so run down and cannot function properly because there are no resources for the teachers who work in them. Eventually everyone will agree that we have to scrap the whole idea of Public Education. In fact, let’s try to make anything that begins with the word “Public” sound like a bad idea.

“flexible work schedules”

Translated to: Don’t let your employees work more than thirty two hours a week. If they do, you might be expected to give them medical insurance - after all, why the hell should you care whether they live or die - they only exist to make rich people richer.

“and public-private partnerships, for example).”

Translated to: Let’s let the Big Pharmaceutical Companies dictate public policy regarding where American’s can buy their drugs and how much they will pay for them. Or: Let’s send American soldiers to fight and die in a war so that Haliburton and Bechtel can make an a**-load of money.

“Liberals often find themselves defending the status quo whether it be monopolistic public schools or outmoded union rules.”

These days Liberal’s find themselves trying only to hang on to the Progress of the Past. Ronald Regan and Bush 1 began by chipping away at the Great Society programs of the 60’s and Dubya is doing his best to do away with The New Deal. The Religious Right is trying to take a woman’s right to choose whether or not she becomes a mother because they believe that they know better than God what is right for that woman - even while mouthing platitudes like “God helps them who help themselves”. And public school educated Union members with their “outmoded union rules” were needed to stand up to the Robber Baron’s of the past in the fight for decent working conditions and living wages. We need Public Schools and Unions now as much as we ever did.

“Energy independence is an excellent example. The “old thinking” of price controls and government management ensured shortages.”

If Jimmy Carter had been elected instead of Ronald Regan in 1980 America would have become the world leader in alternative energy technology. With Clinton’s surplus Gore (an environmental advocate) might have finally had the chance to begin what has been needed since the 70’s - but lost that chance to Big Oil (Dubya and Co.).

“There is a role for government in setting goals and standards,”

Republican’s never set goals or standards for _anything_. They worship at the altar of De-regulation and Price Gouging.

“but it can’t do that while controlling prices or sources.”

Oh no, mustn’t ever tell a Republican that the govt. should control _anything_ having to do with prices or sources.

“Ronald Reagan created what can only be termed a revolution in world diplomacy”

He certainly did - cozying up to dictators and such.

“The best way to make ideas work is to try them out and not worry about where they came from.”

The best way to make ideas work is to have sound, progressive ideas to begin with.
The best way to make America work is to have a leader who actually gives a damn about _all_ the people he is supposed to be serving - not just his “elite and wealthy base”.

Adrienne

We see the world differently.

The Kennedy establishment
I just finished a year in Mass. Kennedy and establishment are interchangeable words.

Unions
I grew up in a working-class union home. I was a member of Long Shoremen’s union for four years. My father was a union steward and loved unions, for good reason. Unions were a great and needed corrective to the excesses of early capitalism, but nothing lasts forever and by the time I saw them they had become part of the problem, not the solution. I wasn’t allowed to change a light bulb (job for the elections union) or sweep near my work station so I wouldn’t have to breath cement dust. In the name of defending jobs, the unions fought, and usually succeed in maintaining outmoded practices. Once, when I questioned “da union” some guys with big forearms came by and told me not to do it again. Power corrupts. The unions and management had an unholy alliance to maintain high wages, high regulations and steady profits. This meant defending the status quo and killing off any competition.

Schools
The competition dynamic is present in schools. I am the product of public schools through university. I sent all my kids to public schools and my daughter will go to public University of Virginia this fall. I love the idea of public schools and the idea of public schools works for relatively rich guys, as I have become. But it doesn’t work for everyone, especially the poor and more importantly the less educated who can’t articulate their needs. Money is not the answer. The jurisdiction where I live spends the least amount of money per pupil in the region AND has the best performing schools. (There is no general corelation between money and quality in public schools. One reason is that the affluent have the implied threat of sending their kids to private school.) The local public schools feel the subtle pressure. I want to give poor parents in urban schools the same option I have (but don’t have to exercise. The threat is sufficient.)

Energy
I lived through the Carter sweater years. That experience made me vote for Reagan. The synthetic fuels idea was good, but the government was the wrong tool to execute it. Things rarely work the way they are supposed to. Costly mistakes will drive a private firm out of the market. The government can just go back for more money. I lived for a time in Eastern Europe where they planned everything. All the plans made perfect sense and they were all progressive. But they rarely produced the intended results. What they did produce were shortages and horrible pollution. I have driven across the U.S. on several occasions and never seen anything approaching “ordinary” E. European pollution. Gary Indiana was the only place that came close.

So, speaking again about liberal and conservative, I think I share many of your goals, but I am sadly disillusioned with the record. There are some things we just can’t have at our level of organization. It is not because people are bad or corrupt, although there are many of them. Monopoly – and government is monopoly – just can’t solve problems like energy and schools. I don’t trust the business to do it either. That is why we need completion among businesses and governments.

Jack-

We do indeed see the world differently.

“Unions were a great and needed corrective to the excesses of early capitalism, but nothing lasts forever and by the time I saw them they had become part of the problem, not the solution.”

Unions are a great and needed corrective for the excesses of capitalism _now_. I live in the San Francisco Bay Area with my husband who is a professional finish carpenter. He used to work in Oakland for a home builder, but because Oakland was not a Union town he didn’t have a pension or health insurance. He now works in San Francisco and because it _is_ a Union town he has _both_ - and a much better wage as well. The improved wages and the fact that he no longer had to pay out of pocket for an HMO plan finally allowed us to save for the downpayment on the house we bought a few years ago. Also, I am fully covered under his health plan, which is a relief, because several years ago it became impossible for me to afford my employers health plan.
You can talk all you want about the shortcomings of Unions, but those who belong to the brotherhood of a union are usually grateful that they still exist in these times when the word Union is spoken like a dirty word.

“I love the idea of public schools and the idea of public schools works for relatively rich guys, as I have become.”

Ah, no wonder you’ve forgotten about your former brothers the longshoremen.

“But it doesn’t work for everyone, especially the poor and more importantly the less educated who can’t articulate their needs. Money is not the answer.”

It makes me laugh when I hear people say that money has nothing to do with educating the poor. It certainly has a lot to do with educating the rich doesn’t it? All the best resources and technology certainly make learning fun and easy for them does it not?
My favorite sister is a school teacher in a place where half the kids who attend are bussed in from a very poor neighborhood. She’s told me just how bad things have gotten in the past four years at her school. How the building is falling apart and nothing is getting fixed, how in some of her classes kids have to share a textbook, while in others they are using textbooks from the late 70’s that are so out of date they’re laughable. If she so much as hears the phrase “No child left behind” her eyes begin to burn with fury and she’ll immediately say “More like no behind left!”

“I lived for a time in Eastern Europe where they planned everything. All the plans made perfect sense and they were all progressive. But they rarely produced the intended results.”

So what do you suggest regarding energy then? You think its a good idea to stick with greenhouse gas producing fuels and the Middle East because its just too much trouble to try anything else?

Good talking with you Adrienne

To clarify

Schools
Money is important but not the determining factor in school quality. I wish it were. Life would be much easier if we could just buy our way out of bad schools. My wife and I helped found an small school in Poland. Money was important, but we really needed the commitment of the parents and good management. Our best teacher had no teaching credentials. He was an engineer who taught my daughter math – the old fashioned way with chalk and memorization. His materials cost almost nothing and she is still benefiting. For parents, the freedom money can buy is more helpful than money given through a bureaucracy and that is what I want to give poor parents with school choice. School choice gives the poor this freedom enjoyed by the not poor. They will not leave the public schools unless they have good reason and if they think they have good reason, I think they should be able leave.

As for longshoremen, the individual people were great, but the union usually threatened me. I have always had a problem with authority, especially the collective variety. The best thing that ever happened to me was the bad economic times of the 1970s. It forced me out of a “good” job and into university. Many of my friends and relatives had similar experiences of being pushed from factory jobs to higher skilled occupations, via unemployment and sometimes a spell of heavy drinking. The transition was tough, but none of us would go back. Most of us went from being reflexive Democrats to Republican leaning independents. Change expands your perspectives.

As for pollution, my point is that government planning usually gets you more pollution at a lower standard of living. When the free market came to E. Europe, everything got cleaner very fast. Of course, now people complain more about pollution – because they can. In other words, if you read the paper you might think it was worse, but when you take a deep breath you know its better. My solution for energy is let it become very expensive. People will complain, but make the necessary adjustments. I don’t know what to do fifty years from today. I expect it will work. Check the predictions people made back in 1954 and tell me if you think it is worth predicting life in 2054.

Jack:
“Good talking with you Adrienne”

And with you Jack, even though I almost completely disagree with everything you said.

We’re way off topic here, but I’d like to reply to this:
“As for pollution, my point is that government planning usually gets you more pollution at a lower standard of living.”

I fail to see how solar, wind or tidal ocean generated power could make more pollution than the burning of fossil fuels.
Also, I am baffled when people on the Right claim that any sort of “govermental planning” regarding energy is a bad idea and believe that the private sector does a better job with such things.
Here in California, everyone was personally price gouged a few years ago by Enron and Co. in Texas on our electricity bill. I am certain that if we’d had some “governmental planning” as to how much they could charge per kilowat hour those opportunistic scumbags wouldn’t have gotten the chance to take us to the cleaners.
Clinton kept price caps in place until the end of his term (helping us avoid what later occured), but as soon as Dubya entered office, he did away with the price caps. He knowingly gave his buddy and largest campaign contributor “Kenny Boy” Lay complete freedom to rip us off and never did a thing to stop it - even when the state _begged_ for govermental assistance with the crisis.
I guess you could say that I agree with you in that if it is the Republican’s doing the governmental planning its probably a bad idea, but if its the Democrats, I’d like to see what they might propose when it comes to energy independence.

Joe-
I think we should careful about interrogations where the innocent might be prompted to give us false information, simply to end the ordeal.

Not all zealots are created equal, or have the same grudges against us. Believe me, there are a hell of lot of lies and shadings of the truth we can use to make people tell us what we want to know. If we can get them talking, we can get them singing. The smart ones don’t talk.

We should not become torturers. We should be smarter than that. By becoming torturers we fulfill the stereotypes of Americans as barbarian, and that gets us nowhere. We will not win by outdoing the terrorist’s atrocities, we will win by outsmarting them, by becoming better friends (and/or manipulators) of the Arab Street than Al Quaeda and their like are.

Torture, or “aggressive tactics” only play into their hands.

Wait a few more years and the after-college reality of this world will hit you. Some never come out of the college fog. A prime example is in the several naive posts just above.
If anybody thinks that the United States is even remotely in danger of becoming the enemy we are fighting now, then you have lost all perspective in this world.

Also, if you want to know what I’m talking about regarding Chris Farley and others, email me or go to my site and leave a response and I will show you their first strikes. I don’t give it a second thought though because it is just the internet, but don’t accuse me of attacking people directly on this board first.

Lastly, some of you have absolutely no sense of humor.

If anybody thinks that the United States is even remotely in danger of becoming the enemy we are fighting now, then you have lost all perspective in this world.

Aldaron, are you joking? There’s these little places called Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo…

There is a danger, and it gets greater each time we experience a terrorist attack. The attacks create the mentality that could drive this nation to do stupid things (like invade Iraq - but that’s different subject).

One recent example are these vigilatntes that are “helping” us in Afghanistan.

An American on trial for torturing Afghans in a private jail had deluded himself into thinking he was a one-man al-Qaida hunting machine,

I see plenty of posters in the blogsphere who think these guys are heroes. If you don’t see the danger, you’re the one who has lost perspective.