Republicans & Conservatives: Archives

I agree. What the hell are we doing in Iraq, when there are real threats to US security going unchallenged? We’re pulling troops out of South Korea, waffling on Taiwan, and talking about nuclear non-proliferation instead of taking action.

While we’re screwing around doing nation building in Iraq, elections in Afghanistan are delayed and threatened, China has filled the power vacuum we left in Asia, and now Russia is going to be selling nuclear reactors to Mexico. I thought the Americas were our (hemi) sphere of influence.

We need a president who is aware of the real threats to US security, and can effectively build alliances to take action against them. But you’re right Timothy, because Bush insisted on his Iraq adventure, no one is going to want to hear any more crying wolf.

I agree, we need to do whatever needed to put Iraq in the rear view mirror so that other issues can be addressed. Good piece.

What the hell are we doing in Iraq, when there are real threats to US security going unchallenged?

American Pundit, you are missing the big picture. Unfortunately this nation followed your policies for 8 years under Clinton. Asleep at the wheel aptly described the watchman during the period this global war on terror developed. Terry is not saying we made a mistake going to Iraq rather than Iran.

Strategically, the war in Iraq has been a great success in the war on terror. If you step back and look at the big picture, you see that the Bush Administration is looking long term. It would be easy to solely focus on UBL and Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. However, the Bush team is looking at the big picture and trying to change the behavior of the countries that enable terrorist breeding grounds to exist. The war in Iraq is but one theater in a global war. -perryonpolitics.com

In fact, if anything, going into Iraq prepares us to deal with Iran. They seek now a nuclear weapon so that they can pre-empt us. There are now 140,000 US troops mere miles from the Mullahs. Perhaps they are a little nervous? When Iraq is having peace and prosperity the Iranians will be in an untenable position.

When the UN fails to deal with Iran’s nuclear ambitions in any substantive way. After they actually appease and abed them in aqcuiring nuclear weapons we may be forced to bomb all of their nuclear facilties into dust for starters.

We need to take the gloves off at times and get dirty. It is an ugly fact that cannot be ignored. Sure we need to be seen in some areas the way we truly are, a caring and compassionate nation. However, the thugs and murderers there need to see that if you act like they did with Nick Berg, we will annihilate them without a second thought. -perryonpolitics.com

Iran is on the front burner!

Bush’s initial response to 9-11 strongly suggested he was looking at the “big picture”. #43 claimed to target al-Qaida and their allies without waging war on the world’s one billion Muslims. But, there is mounting evidence that greed, doublespeak and idealogy have displaced fact based war, economic and educational planning. Cheney has warned us to prepare for a perpetual war on terrorism and cornered the private contracting market. Cheney’s Energy Task Force produced an Oil’s Spoils Map of Iraq prior to 9-11. O’Neil and Clarke allege that invading Iraq was planned prior to 9-11. Bush’s love of the Iraqi people and desire for their Freedom and Democracy is a “third one’s a charm” lame excuse for risking American lives. Facts are that Iraq was chosen because it was oil rich and the weakest of #43’s alleged Axis-of-Evil; terrorism is a method of undermining brute force which has never been eliminated; Diplomacy, development and education are difficult and necessary components of any “big picture” solution; al-Qaida and Taliban are regrouping in Afghanistan; the 9-11 manpower and bankrolling came from Saudi Arabia which is under growing terrorist attack; so far Iraqis are worse off than under Hussien. If Shrub is successful in reshaping the Middle East or quelling terrorism it will be a triumph of chrony greed, brute force and/or dumb luck. We must hope his “big picture” is more accurate than the world view and support him (until the election). More likely this is another charade which will transform into a new agenda after the election.

*** NEWS FLASH ***

Iran says something bad about the US. CIA believes Iran may have done so previously. More at 11.

…at least President Bush thinks in terms of the big picture. With our troops being spread quite thin at the moment…

Aren’t those two statements a little contradictory?

Different countries require different policy. Iran & North Korea already have nukes. Syria is toast. Saudi Arabia is another bad place. However, at least we have some diplomacy with its government. Iraq was the lessor of the evils… as was Russia during WW2.

In our Meeting in the Pentagon in July 1996, Shali [Chairman of the Joint Chiefs John Shalikashvili] was talking about an all out war. The military had a plan for almost any contingency. The plan on the shelf for war with Iran looked like it had been drawn up by Eisenhower. Several Groups of Army and Marien divisions would sweep across the country over the course of Several months.

Richard Clarke, Against All Enemies, Page 119

If controlling a country the size of California has proven difficult, try one the size of Texas. Iraq was crippled by sanctions and a previous war with us that went disasterously bad for them. Iran is not going to be that easy, and occupying the place once everything is said and done will undoubtedly be worse than Iraq, especially after our performance in Abu Ghraib.

I think Iran or Syria might have been the better targets to start, rather than the followup to Iraq. But we don’t have that chance now. We have spent blood and treasure to invade and occupy a country we cannot even justify to the world as threat, and as a result we are pinned down in that country and are having to neglect strategic commitments elsewhere to refresh our troops.

The Neo-Cons need to learn that the real world rarely cooperates with dreams and visions. Things can be done, often against the naysaying of critics, but almost never according to plan.

We should take any step needed to get the Iraq situation under complete control, even if that means upsetting a few people.

If you’re implying we should put down the insurrections with more force, that may or may not be the answer to the problem. If you’re implying we shouldn’t care about destroying certain structures, that’s no answer to the problem at all. Destruction is one objective among many, and it’s not always the one we want.

Some pragmatic solutions are worse than the alternatives.

If Reagan could have been elected in 1960 rather than Kennedy we might have won Vietnam, and defeated the Soviet Union decades ealier than we did.

From Johnson on, our National Leadership pursued a policy of containment that would have eventually put the Soviet Union in control of the entire earth. Aiming for a tie is not a prescription for victory.

At the very least every suspected nuclear facility in Iran should be bombed today. Ditto for North Korea.

“If Reagan could have been elected in 1960 rather than Kennedy we might have won Vietnam, and defeated the Soviet Union decades ealier than we did.

From Johnson on, our National Leadership pursued a policy of containment that would have eventually put the Soviet Union in control of the entire earth. Aiming for a tie is not a prescription for victory.

At the very least every suspected nuclear facility in Iran should be bombed today. Ditto for North Korea.”

Oh
My
God

Im actually getting dizzy reading this.

Are you kidding? Am I missing a joke?

This is the kind of reponse that makes me feel like the future for our country is bleak. Not just because of the content of the response but because I think it shows the growing rift in the perception of reality in this country.

Eric, you’re engaging in very counterfactual speculation. You think it’s all about big men and big battles, when the reality is much more complicated and difficult. This isn’t sound analysis speaking, it’s ideology.

In the end, winning doesn’t necessary work on a zero-sum basis. Some of your people were willing to leave the Soviet Union a radioactive wasteland to win the cold war. In the end, we didn’t have to. We simply took their stagnant ideological underpinnings and replaced them with our more robust culture.

At the very least every suspected nuclear facility in Iran should be bombed today. Ditto for North Korea.

Great idea. Best since Chernobyl!

You’ve subscribed to the bad idea that just because military action is plain in it’s character and often fatal in its result, that it can always work decisive, predictable results. Truth is, the military is bound by real world problems and limitations just like everything else, including the fact that military intervention is not and has never been a neutral act, especially not to those who find themselves in harms way.

It’s like the only tool your people have been taught to use is a hammer, so you see every problem as a nail. The solution to the proliferation problems in the previously mentioned countries may indeed require military action, and I’ll welcome it if that’s what’s necessary. Liberals don’t wake up from dreams of mushroom clouds over our cities with smiles on our faces. But we also know history, and history tells us that the path of military action is always a narrow and troubled one, and with the power of today’s weapons and technology, more unstable then ever before.

Besides, you’re thinking of the next attack, the next target. You’re not planning for the worst, or even putting forward a reasonable standard for intelligence confirmation. We might as well declare the war on terror dead the next time we attack a country pre-emptively and come up short on the evidence. This isn’t just about our will to fight this war, but our ability to influence events on the field of battle, whatever level that is on.

What is the big picture? The Big picture, everytime we screw up identifying the true terrorist threats, we lose the time, money and manpower that could have gone towards stopping a real threat. This is not an ideal world, and we do not have infinite resources.

We’re up to our eyeballs with trouble in Afghanistan and Iraq and we should up the ante by attacking Iran? That’s like drinking a big tall glass of vodka after swallowing a bunch of quaaludes.

Jack, sometimes not attacking your enemy before he can attack and kill you is like drinking a big tall glass of vodka… and then stepping in front of an uncoming train. Sounds like Anna Karenina, doesn’t it?

Actually, we don’t need to attack Iran. If we succeed in Iraq, the mullahs in Iran are history and they know it. That’s why they, along with the Syrians, are the main sponsors of the so called “insurgency” in Iran. They want to complicate things long enough to score a Kerry victory in the US which will allow them to regain the diplomatic upper hand. The US back hand in hand with the UN appeasers should give them more than enough time to make as many nukes as they’ll need to make things really interesting.

Of course, if Kerry is president we’ll need to actually nuked once or twice (thank you sir, can I have another) before it’s satisfactorily “proven” to UN that Iran has WMD’s and they give Kerry a permission slip to act.

You think it’s all about big men and big battles, when the reality is much more complicated and difficult. This isn’t sound analysis speaking, it’s ideology.

…Some of your people were willing to leave the Soviet Union a radioactive wasteland to win the cold war. In the end, we didn’t have to. We simply took their stagnant ideological underpinnings and replaced them with our more robust culture.

There are battles to be waged diplomatically and there are battles to be waged militarily. It cannot be all one or the other. If there must be war, let’s get it over with. Let’s have victory as soon as possible. Do all the dirty work and clean up the mess later after we have defeated the enemy.

Let’s take Vietnam for example. Johnson’s aim was never ‘total victory’ in Vietnam, it was a negotiated settlement with the Soviets. Ditto for Nixon who continued the same policy.

Detente did not defeat the Soviet Union. If anything detente prolonged the cold war. The Soviet threat was real. More people died under communist rule in the 20th century than all of the World Wars and little wars in between combined. What defeated the Soviet Union was not ‘replacing their culture’. Exactly how did we do that? You make it sound as if it were a mere cultural exchange. We did not defeat them until Reagan stepped up to the plate and said we are not aiming for a tie, we are aiming to defeat them militarily and economically.

Some of your people had trouble recognizing the stagnant underpinnings of the Soviets of which you are speaking.

…It’s like the only tool your people have been taught to use is a hammer, so you see every problem as a nail.

Diplomacy is effective when both sides are ready to be friends. To think that it is the only tool in your toolbox is also folly.

The military ‘tool’ is a hammer. When you are dealing with nails you don’t use your hand. I also believe in diplomacy. Diplomacy is a great tool and should be used forthrightly and within the greater policy framework of our interests and the interests of liberty and freedom around the world. But why would you try to hammer nails with the hand of friendship? Reagan used diplomacy. But without ‘the hammer’ all the diplomacy in the world wouldn’t matter.

The solution to the proliferation problems in the previously mentioned countries may indeed require military action, and I’ll welcome it if that’s what’s necessary. Liberals don’t wake up from dreams of mushroom clouds over our cities with smiles on our faces. But we also know history, and history tells us that the path of military action is always a narrow and troubled one, and with the power of today’s weapons and technology, more unstable then ever before.

Here we are at a difference of the interpretation of history. Do military actions precede political miscalculation and misery or does it follow? Historically wars between democratic regimes have been few. Modern history counts none. The only wars between democratic nations I can think of are between Athens and Sparta. Is the use of force by police making the use of force unstable? War is not evil. It is at best amoral, and at worst the enterprise of immoral men.

Is Iran a threat to the US and our allies? Is it a dictatorial regime? Do you think that the IAEA will successfully prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb? Do you think that we, the great satan, can convince the Iranians that they don’t need a nuclear device with which to destroy Israel? or a major European city, like say Madrid? or Paris? Do you think that Iranian Mullahs, and Hamas, and Hezbollah are trustworthy enough to make treaties with and play the diplomacy game?

Besides, you’re thinking of the next attack, the next target. You’re not planning for the worst, or even putting forward a reasonable standard for intelligence confirmation. We might as well declare the war on terror dead the next time we attack a country pre-emptively and come up short on the evidence. This isn’t just about our will to fight this war, but our ability to influence events on the field of battle, whatever level that is on.

Yes, I am thinking of the next big attack. That is the definition of planning for the worst. Do we need intelligence confirmation that Iran and North Korea are rogue regimes bent on acquiring WMD and putting them in the hands of terrorists? Because the proof you are speaking of in reality will be a bomb going off. Just like Pakistan and India. We knew for sure they had them when they tested them right? Will Iran be content to test them in their deserts? or ours?

Events on the field of battle are not influenced, or ‘nuanced’. That’s what hammers are for Stephen. Bang, Bang. The problem with the left is that the enemy isn’t liberal. I wouldn’t be worried if we were talking about France. If we need someone to nuance the French, by all means elect Kerry. The enemy is not waiting around for someone to explain our position to them, to try to convince them we mean them no harm, or stroke their ego about no longer being a colonial power.

What is the big picture? The Big picture, every time we screw up identifying the true terrorist threats, we lose the time, money and manpower that could have gone towards stopping a real threat. This is not an ideal world, and we do not have infinite resources.

This is not an ideal world. We cannot wait for our time, money, and manpower to be spent on another 9/11. When will your side wake up? I’m not sure anymore what liberals would ever define as an actual true terrorist threat, until it is an after-the-fact crime scene.

Eric, Reagan didn’t defeat the Soviet Union. The citizens of the USSR rose up and threw out their government.

You might argue that the Soviet government’s response to some of Reagan’s policies caused internal dissent to reach a tipping point - two years after Reagan was already out of office - but you’d be ignoring the forty years of groundwork that went before it as well as the role of the people of the Soviet republics.

The Soviet citizens wanted Gorbachev’s reforms faster than he was willing to provide them, a real opposition party was formed including Yeltsin and Sakharov, this fragmentation of the central government spurred nascent nationalism in the different Soviet republics; the rest is history.

It’s possible that Reagan’s policies contributed in some way, but to say that Reagan defeated the Soviet Union is just incorrect.

American Pundit, you are missing the big picture. … Terry is not saying we made a mistake going to Iraq rather than Iran.

Duh. I was pointing out that Bush is missing the Big Picture by getting bogged down in Iraq.

Let’s take Vietnam for example. Johnson’s aim was never ‘total victory’ in Vietnam, it was a negotiated settlement with the Soviets. Ditto for Nixon who continued the same policy.

Again, duh. The alternative was invading North Vietnam and sparking WWIII. But judging from your willingness to plunge our country into war with any nation that looks at us funny, I’m sure you know that and would have welcomed it. Reagan believed a global nuclear war was winnable, it sounds like you do, too.

Do we need intelligence confirmation that Iran and North Korea are rogue regimes bent on acquiring WMD and putting them in the hands of terrorists?

If we want to invade N Korea without having to beat China too, yes. The Chinese are already doubting our claims of N Korean uranium weapons programs. They want to see the evidence.

You say that this is not an ideal world. You’re right. It’s messy and full of people who all have their own agendas. It’s chaos, and it always will be. There is no way the US is going to unilaterally impose order on this world. Iraq should be proof of that. Gone are the grand visions of a shining democracy in the Middle East. Replacing them is the reality of Kurds, Shi’ites, Sunnis, and the inevitable elected theocracy.

We cannot wait for our time, money, and manpower to be spent on another 9/11.

Damned straight. Lets get to work on stopping the flow of new al Qaeda recruits, killing and capturing the current members, and controlling WMD development and proliferation. If that means a strike on N Korean and Iranian facilities, so be it - as long as the consequences are understood and planned for. But none of that is going to happen while the bulk of our combat-ready troops are playing street cop in Iraq.

Eric, Reagan didn’t defeat the Soviet Union. The citizens of the USSR rose up and threw out their government.

How did I know you were going to say that? The fact is that Reagan was the reason the Soviet Union fell. Reagan began articulating his policy for defeting the Soviets in 1947. He always said that Communism doesn’t work. His policies were designed to undermine and bring about the fall of the communist system. For 40 years the Left’s policy was to treat Communism as a just another equally valid economic and political system to which we should be giving aid and wheat and loans so that they knew we meant them no harm.

Gorbachev saw the writing Reagan wrote on the communist wall. His contribution was to surrender. Quite different from what the left would have liked. They, of course, wish we would have surrendered. And if it was up to them they just might have!

The citizens rose up?

Look, Sebastian, your candidate sent us to war with too few boots on the ground. He did wage the war sufficiently, just like LBJ and Nixon. War is not a thing of reaching the goal you want and declaring victory. No, it is a thing of ending the will of the enemy to fight. Hearts and Minds, in fact, are secondary to this. You don’t need them to agree with you, you don’t need them to even like you, you just got to convince them that firing a shot at you is both bad for their health, and bad for their interests. This is what we failed to do in Vietnam, and this is what we failed to do in Iraq back when it was easier, cheaper, and less morally compromised. I wish for victory in Iraq, but I don’t have ideological blinders on about the conditions there.

You chide me for only having one tool in my box. Seeing as how I’m doing the same to you and I’m aware of what I’m saying, you criticize me without factual support. The fight against terrorism is only partly diplomatic, and partly military. It is a law enforcement problem and an espionage problem. Most of all it’s a homeland security problem too. Your side is so unbalanced towards the military, as if military force alone can defeat the terrorists.

I don’t know what it will take to convince you that our enemy is no longer even the conventional terrorist. The conventional terrorist wants negotiation. They want to force people to a political settlement. These people are unwilling to compromise in that fashion.

So why is diplomacy useful? Because ours is not the only country in the world where Al Quaeda operates. We will have to deal with all kind of matters with countries friendly and unfriendly to us, ranging from extradition to cooperation in investigations, to support for wars like the one we’ve been fighting for a year now. That’s the thing all sides have lost sight of: that diplomacy itself does not equal peaceful solutions. It makes them possible, but that is only one thing among many things that diplomacy is capable of producing.

Here we are at a difference of the interpretation of history. Do military actions precede political miscalculation and misery or does it follow? Historically wars between democratic regimes have been few. Modern history counts none. The only wars between democratic nations I can think of are between Athens and Sparta. Is the use of force by police making the use of force unstable? War is not evil. It is at best amoral, and at worst the enterprise of immoral men.

What I would say is that war is a dangerous thing. It unsettles, destabilizes, destroys. It is a creature of chaos, prone to delivering unexpected consequences, and not always guaranteed to deliver to people the things they seek from it. Chaos simply accompanies war by it’s nature. To that end, war is best when it is surgical, well planned, and when those running the battle understand fully the consequences of what they do, to the extent that is possible. Those who refuse to consider uncomfortable possibilities, who don’t plan for non-ideal outcomes fundamentally misunderstand war, and they have no business running them.

Iran wants nukes for the same reason that North Korea wants them, and for the same reason that Pakistan wanted them: Power. Nukes change the Geopolitical equation. From the point they get them on, people have to tiptoe around them, because they have the ultimate weapon. If there is anyone that Iran gets the Nuke for, it’s Israel, with it’s own US-gifted stockpile. They can’t stand being weaker in the face of their most hated enemies in weaponry, or the thought that their next invasion could be countered by a nuclear attack. I wouldn’t rule out, though, more radical elements cooperating in a nuclear conspiracy through their particular brand of Shia terrorists. They aren’t real close to the Sunni-run Al Quaeda.

Diplomatic means may not work alone. There may be other means, ranging from spies and saboteurs in their program, to economic sanctions, to bans on imports of certain materials.

If war is necessary, war is necessary. But it should be the only option seriously employed.

Events on the field of battle are not influenced, or ‘nuanced’. That’s what hammers are for Stephen. Bang, Bang. The problem with the left is that the enemy isn’t liberal. I wouldn’t be worried if we were talking about France.

Don’t underestimate the value of being able to talk people into things. We had to follow a significantly reduced battle plan because we pushed for overflight rights into Turkey when we didn’t have to and lost. Your candidate has a problem with litmus testing himself right out of international support.

I don’t know. It just seems like you want to continue to believe, despite the evidence of 9/11 that the biggest threats to us are rogue regimes. Those regimes are mostly in check, and with a reasonable amount of diplomacy, they are contained. In the mean time, the transnational threat of groups like Al Quaeda continues, and this administration acknowledges this. The time during which we have not been attacked should be no comfort in terms of an organization more than willing to spend years planning an attack.

This president does not want to treat this problem as a counterterrorism problem. He wants to make it a rogue nation problem. He wants to make it a missile defense problem. He went ahead and made it a Saddam Hussein problem. In short he took every defense and foreign policy fixation he had before 9/11 and just continued to follow those fixations afterwards.

If there is anyone truly still asleep, it’s the Republicans, because they have continued the foreign policy course they were taking before, instead of truly pushing the priorities in the right direction: towards counterterrorism, towards hardening Fortress America. should we have to get attacked again to learn the lesson? Some made the assumption that the situation was well in hand after the New Years Eve 2000 and therefore declined to strengthen our country’s counterterrorism resources. We cannot afford to believe that Al Quaeda or it’s subsidiaries and imitators are truly down and out. They are still in operation, and these people are fully capable of putting down the remote control long enough to plan out their actions.

Problem is, you and the rest of the Republicans were too busy having your hatefest of Clinton to take the escalating threat of terrorism seriously. Problem is, Bush was so intent on being the opposite of Clinton that he didn’t maintain the continuity of attention on terrorism. Problem is, your people are still intent on fighting this war as if it is like those of the cold war and the wars before it. In many ways though, this war will be fought at the security checkpoint in our country and in the police departments and federal law enforcement bureaus more than it will be fought on actual battle grounds, for unlike so many wars in our past, this a war which has a true homefront, which has been attacked not once, but indeed twice, among all the other fronts. The liberals of this country have been aware of this problem for quite some time now.

Now is the time for Conservatives to wake up to the true state of this world, to the true threats that faces us now, and not ten or fifteen years from now. Lets do what it takes to keep the Rogue states in check, but let’s not forget the enemy who has done the worst damage to us in years. let’s wake up to that threat.

Corrections on first lines:

Look, Sebastian, your candidate sent us to war with too few boots on the ground. He waged the war insufficiently, just like LBJ and Nixon. War is not a thing of reaching the goal you want and declaring victory.

Second Correction

If war is necessary, war is necessary. But it shouldn’t be the only option seriously employed.

Diplomacy is meaningless when dealing with rogue regimes unless they know you have ability and the will to use force. Otherwise you have Carter and Clinton—who supposedly solved the North Korea problem years ago. Leftists love diplomacy and international bodies like the UN, but the only reason Iran doesn’t have nukes today is the Israeli air force. Well, we tried over ten years of diplomacy, resolution, debates, summits and conferences with Iraq. The Iraqi people kept dying by the thousands while Saddam, the French, the Russians and the UN profited from it. Over TEN YEARS, and diplomacy turned out to be a bloody, morbid and corrupt disgrace.

But you know what? It’s time to try diplomacy again. We’ve taken the requisite steps. So now we have the UN resolution we needed. And now we can try diplomacy with Iraq again—but this time we get to negotiate with Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi instead of his Exalted Majesty Saddam Hussein.

Bush has earned the ability to speak softly again—and we see him doing it most effectively now—only because he has wielded the big stick.

Iran wants nukes for the same reason that North Korea wants them, and for the same reason that Pakistan wanted them: Power.

Power politics. Hammer-time.

I don’t know. It just seems like you want to continue to believe, despite the evidence of 9/11 that the biggest threats to us are rogue regimes. Those regimes are mostly in check, and with a reasonable amount of diplomacy, they are contained.

The ‘new’ terrorists you speak of operate freely throughout the middle east. It is their base and homeland. That is why taking on Iraq is a part of the war on terror. Bush spelled it out after 9/11: No safe harbor.

This president does not want to treat this problem as a counterterrorism problem. He wants to make it a rogue nation problem.

Is there no counterterrorism going on right now? You say we shouldn’t be in Iraq, but how does using the military, who are not needed for counterterrorism, somehow impeding the work of the CIA and the FBI? If it’s not primarily a military matter, what’s the difference? If you haven’t noticed we have been arresting scores of militants, terrorists, and potential terrorist like Abu Hamza. Of course when the ACLU gets finished we’ll have to let them all go.

You are missing a lot of news by only listening to democratic rhetoric.

…your people are still intent on fighting this war as if it is like those of the cold war and the wars before it.

Some axioms of war do not change. As you state it is the enemy’s will to fight which must be defeated. Initiative is also of capital importance in any war. It is said that the indirect approach is often of the greatest tactical and strategic advantage. I am telling you that Iraq was not a mistake and it was not a diversion. It is an indirect attack. In the long run it willbenefit us more than pinprick strikes and trying to diplomatically nuance the terrorists out of the rogue regimes.

In many ways though, this war will be fought at the security checkpoint in our country and in the police departments and federal law enforcement bureaus more than it will be fought on actual battle grounds, for unlike so many wars in our past, this a war which has a true homefront, which has been attacked not once, but indeed twice, among all the other fronts. The liberals of this country have been aware of this problem for quite some time now.

Why would you give up the initiative and play defense which we are bound to lose at some point? No matter how hard we try to create a fortress America there will be another attack. Even Richard Clarke stated that you cannot be 100% effective forever. Fighting on the homefront does nothing to defeat the will of the enemy. Are you suggesting waiting them out?

Regarding Reagan,

How did I know you were going to say that?

Because you know it’s true? :)

I’ve read several books on the fall of the Soviet Union, and I provided a link to some Library of Congress reports with my last comment. None of them credit Reagan with defeating the Soviet Union - two years after his term ended. Enlighten me with some source material that backs up your claim.

Fighting on the homefront does nothing to defeat the will of the enemy. Are you suggesting waiting them out?

How about rendering them impotent by decapitating their leadership, stemming the flow of new recruits, and clamping down on WMD development?

Our intelligence services were, and still are, retasked to Iraq. al Qaeda and the Taliban are operating freely in Afghanistan and Pakistan, yet we’re concentrating on Iraq. To use your analogy of indirectness, that’s like Bush attacking Norway to topple Saddam.

You’re right that another attack is coming - and it will be because Bush gave al Qaeda a couple extra years to regroup, retrain, expand, and carefully plan their next attack.

You keep on chewing on that “rogue regime” bone, as if it has anything to do with Al Quaeda’s brand of terrorism. Your people still shunt their resources to missile defense, even with the capabilities of the systems or the regimes they are meant to counter still in question. In the meantime, a clear and present threat already exists within our borders.

These terrorists don’t rely on Iraq for support. There’s no evidence they ever did. They rely on financial networks that are still not completely compromised, and on Safehouses and networks around the world, that as evidenced by the attacks in Java and Madrid, still work pretty well. They are disciplined, they are patient, and they are not necessarily going to stick around in one place long enough for a cruise missile to arrive to give them a proctological exam.

You criticize the idea of this war being waged with police work and investigations, even though those are going to be the people best able to put a stop to these people. You criticize the idea of making increased security measures a priority, even though such means stand the best chance of making their attacks more difficult if not impossible.

Wake up. They are here, and no amount of fighting overseas is going to prevent them from carrying out their missions. They hold no territory, answer to no government. We must engage them on an individual level, on an institutional level, or we will lose this war.