Will Obama Really Fight the War?

[Warrior-Mentor]

Will Obama Really Fight the War?
More troops only make sense if we think he’s trying to win. Is he?
By Andrew C. McCarthy

They had me up until “free Afghans from the chains of tyranny.”

That is, the Foreign Policy Initiative (FPI) had me. The group, founded by the excellent Bill Kristol, Robert Kagan, and Dan Senor, has assembled a number of similarly impressive people to submit a letter to President Obama, urging him to be steadfast in Afghanistan. “Steadfast” in this context means sticking with, and enhancing, a serious counterinsurgency strategy.

The letter congratulates the commander-in-chief on his leadership in the war. It is quickly clear, though, that FPI’s plaudits are narrow — limited to the business of stepping up our Afghanistan commitment by 21,000 troops and thousands of support personnel. The letter politely avoids mention of the president’s leadership on releasing enemy combatants, who will now be able to join the ongoing jihad against those troops; Miranda warnings for captured enemy combatants, which will deny battlefield intelligence to those troops; fecklessness on Iran, which continues plotting against those troops; and a law-enforcement approach to counterterrorism, which has loosed the federal courts on those troops.

The main purpose of the FPI letter is to urge Obama to give his commanders additional resources if, as expected, they ask for more troops in the near future. Pointedly rebutting critics on the left and right who’ve questioned what we’re doing and why, the letter cautions against “a drawdown of American forces in Afghanistan and a growing sense of defeatism about the war.”

As one would expect, given the high quality of the thinkers who signed it, the FPI letter is commendable in many ways. It offers a concrete definition of victory, which most advocates for a robust military effort in Afghanistan fail to do. The letter describes the war as a “fight against the Taliban.” It urges that this is a fight the United States can win and — quoting Obama’s own words back at him — one that we must win in order to prevent “an even larger safe haven from which al-Qaeda would plot to kill more Americans.”

As I’ve recently recounted, targeting the Taliban for defeat marked a shift from the original understanding of the war. In October 2001, our aims were to defeat al-Qaeda and deprive it of a safe haven. There being no credible intelligence that the Taliban were involved in planning 9/11, the Bush administration initially was content to leave them in place as Afghanistan’s de facto government.

Though they don’t say so in the letter, the FPI signatories would surely argue that this original understanding of the war has been superseded. The Taliban were given multiple chances to turn al-Qaeda over to the U.S., and they declined — inviting their own deposition in order to protect bin Laden’s network. Given that al-Qaeda exists to terrorize America and the West, the Taliban’s conduct implies solidarity with that agenda. Whatever we may have thought at the start, it’s reasonable to conclude now that, if they came back to power, the Taliban would again give al-Qaeda safe haven, or perhaps even attack American interests themselves.

This is a powerful argument. Our current commander-in-chief comes from a [misguided] school of thought that says terrorists are driven by actions taken in America’s defense, such as detaining enemy operatives at Guantanamo Bay. In 16 years of talking to and studying jihadists, I learned that what actually drives attacks and recruitment is American weakness. No display of weakness was more provocative than the U.S. pullouts from Beirut in 1983 and Somalia in 1993 — except, perhaps, the U.S. failure to respond strongly to the bombings of Khobar Towers in 1996, the U.S. embassies in 1998, and the U.S.S. Cole in 2000.

If pulling out of Afghanistan were seen in the same way those failures of resolve are seen, then that would be a strategic disaster. It might ultimately cost many American lives. What inspires wavering jihadists to join terror networks is the sense that the terrorists can win; what discourages them is the demonstration that they can’t.

NOT TRYING TO WIN
But things are not that simple when it comes to Afghanistan. The U.S. mission there is fundamentally different from our experience in Beirut or Somalia. We haven’t suffered a humiliating defeat. We decimated al-Qaeda — just as we did in Iraq, right before drawing down and preparing to pull out. We would not be worried about a resurgence of the Taliban had we not already toppled the Taliban. We haven’t been defeated. We accomplished much of what we set out to do.

But “much” is not “all.” This is why the bit about needing to “free Afghans from the chains of tyranny” at the end of the FPI letter concerns me. What we have not yet accomplished that needs accomplishing is the complete defeat of our enemies. What we’ve tried to accomplish — something both unlikely to succeed and immaterial to our security — is the creation of Afghan democracy.

Afghanistan is a hardscrabble, tribal, fundamentalist Muslim country. That makes it amenable to authoritarian rule. The “chains of tyranny” historically have served it better than experiments in democracy. It survived well enough as a monarchy for half a century until 1973, when the king was overthrown in the first such experiment. That experiment led directly to a Communist coup. In turn, the coup and the subsequent attempt to erode tribal and Islamic authority led to the internecine warring and the failed Soviet occupation from which Afghanistan has never recovered.

So here’s the problem: My friends in the FPI mainly want to defeat the enemy. They are right in this sense: The enemy is Islamism, and the military component of that enemy — as the Bush Doctrine holds — includes both terrorist organizations and the regimes that enable them. The Taliban have been reduced to one of the former but could again become an example of the latter. President Obama is not interested in defeating the enemy that is Islamism. As the Pakistani journalist Ahmed Rashid writes enthusiastically in the Washington Post, the Obama plan “emphasizes agriculture, job creation, and justice.” U.S. military commanders tell the New York Times that a buildup in forces would focus less on combat and more on job training and improving the delivery of services by the teetering new government.

I could support a real war to defeat our enemies. I know the FPI signatories would support that, too. But I can’t support another adventure in social engineering — and talking about freeing Afghans from the chains of tyranny will only encourage this president in precisely that direction. Obviously, a strategy for military victory has to have some nation-building elements (with the modest goal of stability, not democracy; democracy is not stabilizing in a culture hostile to it). But the military victory has to come first, especially if you are hell-bent on rolling the democratic dice. For this president, military victory comes afterward, if it comes at all.

The FPI letter trenchantly argues: “There is no middle course. Incrementally committing fewer troops than required would be a grave mistake and may well lead to American defeat. We will not support half-measures that repeat the errors of the past.” But the letter is supporting a half-measure (namely, defeating the Taliban but not the wider Islamist enemy) and fails to address the most fatal error of the past: the failure of strategic vision regarding the war as a whole.

To be fair, the point of the letter was to address past half-measures in Afghanistan, not the wider war. But the wider war, not Afghanistan, is the ballgame. We can’t win this war without a commitment and a plan to deal with all our militant enemies, wherever they may be. The enemy in Tehran, in particular, poses the greatest threat to our interests. And we surely can’t win this war if we invite Obama to define victory as breaking the chains of Muslim tyranny. That is neither realistically achievable nor necessary to our national security.

[Warrior-Mentor]

THE ‘GOOD WAR’ FOR POLITICAL PURPOSES
I don’t blame my friends for the position they’ve staked out. There is no way this commander-in-chief is going to fight the war that needs fighting. It is useless to push a guy who thinks that America is the problem to go after enemies who, he thinks, have a point. Understandably, the FPI is pressing the president on the Taliban because that’s the best we can hope to get out of him — and even that only because of politics, not conviction.

Obama painted Afghanistan as the “good war,” but not because he actually thought it was good. His view of 9/11 is doubtless more like that of his friends Bill Ayers, Jeremiah Wright, and Van Jones: “America’s chickens,” as the Rev. Wright infamously put it, “coming home to roost.”

But Obama and his handlers are smarter than those other radicals: To launch his revolutionary project in America, he needed to get into power. To do that, Afghanistan was useful: Obama assured voters that he would aggressively prosecute the good war, in contrast to those dastardly Republicans who’d taken the country on a pointless, costly, unpopular diversion in Iraq. Now, having achieved power, Obama is responsible for the war he promised to fight and win. In theory, there’s at least a chance you could get him to fight it.

It is important to bear in mind that Obama’s portrayal of the war is a fiction. He can’t make the global war smaller than it is by pretending that it is only happening in one place. Iraq was a noble cause. Far from being a superfluous diversion, it was insufficient — it is nation-building that is a diversion, at least if you prioritize it over the more pressing business of defeating the enemy.

Obama did what he could do to secure defeat in Iraq, and the final outcome there remains in doubt. And far from taking on the main culprit in Iran, he’s holding out an olive branch while the mullahs chuckle, build their nukes, and dispatch jihadists against American forces. Terrorist sympathizers, meanwhile, have assumed positions throughout the Obama administration, and — as the president apologizes to the world for the sins of American national defense — terrorists themselves are being released from custody.

To have the stomach for what it would take to destroy the Taliban, Obama would have to face down opposition from the Muslim world. The Muslim world may not love the Taliban, but it is foolish to presume that they prefer us. I am convinced that, as between the Muslim world and us, Obama believes that the Muslim world has the stronger case. Obama doesn’t really want to fight the war, but he doesn’t want the political fallout that would come from not fighting it.

What better way to thread that needle than to escalate troop levels — not for the purpose of eviscerating the Taliban, which is what my FPI friends want, but instead for the purpose of redistributing American wealth to the Third World (Obama’s signature legislative proposal when he was a senator) and trying to build a socialist sharia state?

I’d love to be able to sign that FPI letter. But I know that we are not trying to win the overall war and that we have a commander-in-chief whose leanings are highly suspect, to the point of having dipped into the leftist fever swamps of his past to recruit the aforementioned Jones — a man who is as incoherent as he is despicable in claiming that 9/11 was both something America deserved and an inside job.

Meantime, at the Justice Department, Obama is having wartime legal policy made by lawyers who spent the last several years doing pro bono work for the enemy.

And at the State Department, he’s installed a legal adviser who would make our national defense subject to U.N. control and who is sympathetic to European interpretations of the Geneva Conventions Protocol I (not ratified by the U.S.), which would severely hamper our ability to conduct combat operations. If it were one of my sons on the front lines, I would be horrified at the prospect of his deployment to a dangerous place by a president who, at best, doesn’t seem entirely sure that America should prevail.

We should all be able to admit that, whatever we’re doing in Afghanistan, we’re not really trying to win this war — if we define that as working to defeat the Islamist enemy in totality. Half-measures already are the order of the day, and so I respectfully suggest that we resist accusing each other of calling for “retreat” and “surrender.”

I don’t understand anyone on the right — from those who share George Will’s position to those who agree with the FPI position — to be calling for surrender. The “retreat” that’s been proposed by Will is not the surrendering sort. It’s the kind you undertake after you’ve achieved your major objectives, when you don’t have any desire to be an empire or long-term occupier but stand ready to attack vigorously if a serious threat to your country reemerges.

That strategy could be the wrong one. But I haven’t found the case being made against it very persuasive. Bruce Hoffman — a serious guy, worthy of our attention — argues that “we tried to contain the terrorism problem in Afghanistan from a distance before 9/11. Look how well that worked.” With due respect, that is a meritless claim.

The Clinton administration never took serious action against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. Our intelligence agencies knew bin Laden was operating there, but President Clinton always discovered a reason not to pull the trigger. By contrast, after 9/11 we aggressively attacked Afghanistan’s terrorism problem. Now the Taliban and any other would-be enabler must know that the consequences of allowing al-Qaeda to set up shop are apt to be severe.

That doesn’t ensure that the Taliban wouldn’t do it, anyway. And that is why proponents of a robust military presence in Afghanistan contend that we need reliable intelligence and boots on the ground. You can’t get that, they persuasively argue, hunkered down in remote bases. This argument would be checkmate if we were actually trying to win the war. But are we actually trying to win the war? I don’t think so.

Are we going full-bore to defeat the Taliban — in Pakistan as well as in Afghanistan? Do we really have the Pakistanis’ support, or are they going to aid the Taliban covertly, as they often have? What are we going to do about Iranian support for insurgents? Why are we nation-building before the enemy is defeated — which, among other things, converts the non-combat European troops in the region into a liability rather than an asset?

In a war against non-uniformed terrorists, are we going to keep having miniature war-crimes inquiries and condemnations from all the usual suspects every time military strikes result in the killing of “civilians” (some of whom, inevitably, actually will be civilians)? Is the Obama Justice Department going to continue intimidating the intelligence community into paralysis while helping left-wing activists make war-crimes cases against the American officials who’ve prosecuted the war? How are we going to handle enemy combatants who are captured in Afghanistan? Are we going to Mirandize them and give them habeas corpus hearings, or interrogate them and detain them until the end of hostilities? If we are on a war footing and truly committed to defeating the enemy, why are we releasing captured terrorists who can and do rejoin the jihad in Afghanistan and elsewhere?

I’m perfectly prepared to accept that we have to defeat the Taliban as part of a comprehensive strategy to defeat militant jihadism. But I don’t see anything resembling such a strategy on the table. And I don’t believe this president would insert more troops into Afghanistan to do what my FPI friends want him to do — I see the mission shifting away from war-fighting and toward nation-building. That would mean thousands more troops put at risk with no discernible benefit to our national security. Mock the remote-base strategy if you will, but it is safer and more honest than a strategy that increases our troop commitment in a hellhole under circumstances where “war” and “victory” are words the administration won’t even utter, much less act on.

I’m all for wiping out the Taliban. But what makes us think this president will commit to that goal?

http://article.nationalreview.com/pr...JjNGExZDhjOGM=

[Richard]

Something to think about...

Richard's $.02

The Afpak muddle (part 2): How serious is the threat?
Stephen Walt, Foreign Policy

Does the threat of international terrorism -- specifically al Qaeda -- justify a costly, long-term engagement in Afghanistan and Pakistan? President Obama and his advisors think so, but I'm still not convinced. I certainly understand that we have a terrorism problem; I just don't believe that it is serious enough to warrant the level and type of effort the administration is proposing. And if the results of the recent NATO summit are any indication, our NATO allies seem skeptical, too.

Just how serious is the threat? According to the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, there were 14,499 terrorist attacks worldwide in 2007 (the most recent year for which it has data). All told, these attacks killed 22,684 people and injured about 44,310. This sounds serious (and it is obviously not something to trivialize), but over half of all terrorist attacks (and two-thirds of all those killed, wounded or kidnapped) occurred in the context of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and thus are not a good indicator of al Qaeda's ability to threaten the American homeland or key U.S. allies. To keep these numbers in perspective, bear in mind that over a million people die in traffic accidents worldwide each year, with many more injured. Yet no one is proposing that we allocate additional billions to try to eliminate all highway fatalities.

Even more significant for the issue at hand, the number of private U.S. citizens killed by terrorists in 2007 was nineteen, with zero injured and seventeen kidnapped. All of these deaths or kidnappings occurred either in Afghanistan or Iraq. As John Mueller has argued, if al Qaeda is as dangerous as U.S. officials maintain, why haven't there been more attacks on the United States over the past eight years? In America, the danger of drowning in a bathtub is greater than the risk of dying in a terrorist attack. And that would be true even if the United State were to suffer one 9/11-scale attack every ten years. Given these numbers, does it really make sense to double down in Central Asia?

In short, my concern is that we are allowing an exaggerated fear of al Qaeda to distort our foreign policy priorities. Having underestimated the danger from al Qaeda before 9/11, have we now swung too far the other way? I am not arguing for a Pollyanna-like complacency or suggesting that we simply ignore the threat that groups like al Qaeda still pose. Rather, I'm arguing that the threat is not as great as the administration -- and most Americans, truth be told -- seem to think, and that the actual danger does not warrant escalating U.S. involvement in Central Asia.

I can think of at least three counter-arguments to my position.

First, one could argue that there have been no attacks on the United States since 2001 because we've put al Qaeda on the defensive, and that going after them in Pakistan’s frontier provinces will deny them a "safe haven" and further reduce their ability to stage another 9/11 (or worse). This line of argument sounds persuasive, but it falls apart on closer examination. For starters, it is not clear that al Qaeda requires a safe haven to do damage, especially since the original organization has metastasized into smaller groups of sympathizers (such as the group that bombed the Madrid railway station in 2004).

Equally important, the United States is not going to mount a large scale invasion of Pakistan, which is what would be necessary to completely eliminate al Qaeda from that region. And there is little reason to think that the Pakistani military will do the job for us any time soon. Furthermore, U.S. military strikes in Pakistan -- even limited ones -- tend to undermine the Pakistani government and increase the risk that Pakistan will become a failed state. As James Traub noted in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine:

Pakistan feels as if its falling apart. . .[and] American policy has arguably made the situation even worse, for the Predator-drone attacks along the border, though effective, drive the Taliban eastward, deeper into Pakistan. And the strategy has been only reinforcing hostility to the United States among ordinary Pakistanis."
Fortunately, there are ways to deny al Qaeda a safe haven (or operational base) that do not require a large U.S. ground presence in Afghanistan and do not require us to conduct extensive military operations in Pakistan. In addition to improved homeland security and more effective counter-terrorist efforts (e.g., cutting off financing, monitoring communications, sharing intelligence, etc.), the United States can launch preemptive attacks against suspected terrorist targets in Afghanistan, using Predators, cruise missiles, or in some cases, Special Forces. If we remain vigilant, al Qaeda will not get the "free pass" that it enjoyed before 9/11. This will not eliminate the threat, but it can reduce its potency.

Second, one could argue that while the risk from conventional terrorism is manageable, the real danger is nuclear or WMD terrorism and that this threat justifies upping the ante in Afghanistan and Pakistan, even if the commitment is costly and open-ended. Nuclear terrorism is a worrisome prospect, but doubling down in Central Asia isn't the best response to that problem. Pakistan is the key here and our primary goal should be making sure that its nuclear arsenal remains under reliable control. The best way to do that is to try to prevent Pakistan from becoming a failed state. As emphasized above, using the U.S. military to go after al Qaeda in Pakistan's tribal areas is likely to destabilize Pakistan, thus increasing the chances that nuclear materials will fall into the hands of terrorists.

Third, one might concede that the actual danger from terrorism is slight, but the political consequences of terrorist attacks are disproportionate to their actual impact. In this view, comparing the risk of terrorism to highway fatalities, or to the danger of being struck by lightning, ignores the psychological and political effects of successful terrorist operations, and rational politicians have to take the latter into account. There is no question that this is the situation we now face in the United States, but it does not have to be that way. Indeed, it is mainly the result of failed political leadership over the past eight years. If our leaders react to every terrorist incident as if it's a monumental disaster, and if they hype the terrorist threat for political advantage -- as George Bush and Dick Cheney did -- the public will surely respond by demanding that we throw more resources at the problem than is prudent. Getting the opponent to react in foolish and self-defeating ways is one of the primary goals of most terror campaigns, of course, because these blunders can help the terrorists win victories that they could not achieve otherwise. We did more damage to ourselves when we invaded Iraq than Osama bin Laden accomplished on 9/11, and an open-ended commitment in Central Asia could easily compound that error.

What we need, in fact, is a political elite (and a responsible media) that will help Americans keep the terrorism problem in perspective. Terrorism is a tactic that various groups have used throughout history, and it will remain with us for the foreseeable future. Dramatic incidents like the recent Mumbai attacks are going to happen again, no matter how hard we try to prevent them, and that includes the possibility of attacks on American soil. But if we can keep suicidal extremists from obtaining nuclear weapons, they will not be able to threaten our way of life in any meaningful way.

None of this is to say that we should ignore al Qaeda or any other terrorist group that is bent on attacking the United States, or that we should not sometimes act assertively to protect Americans at home and abroad. But the threat from al Qaeda does not justify increasing our military presence in Afghanistan, and certainly does not justify major military operations in Pakistan.

http://walt.foreignpolicy.com/posts/..._is_the_threat

[Pete]

So, Richard, how many Americans killed in America each year by terrorists would be OK?

No problem with 10?

Eh, 100 still no problem?

3,000? Seems around 3,000 is our cut off. More than that is a problem?

Maybe we should allow that number to grow over the years with our increase in population?

In the fall of each year a memo is released to the terrorists that reads they've killed this year's quota and will have to hold off on attacks until Jan 1st.

Now would that policy be viewed as weakness or strength?

Me? I would love "Peace in our time" but can live with a US soldier killing and being killled in AF better than watching on the local news about an attack on the Mall and the story "its feared hundreds of women and children were killled."

Added thought:

The individual in the story Richard posted links al Qaeda to terrorist acts and then uses data from 2007 (the last year data is available) to support the idea we're safe from terrorism.

Nice to know if you can't link the local Islamist suffering from SJS to al Qaeda with concrete evidence it's not a terrorist act.

But if you hold a protest sign outside a Presidential love in event you are a terrorist.

[7624U]

We have Zero tolorance for drunk drivers. We should have less for terrorists.
One goes to jail the other gets a fireing squad.

[Richard]

We have Zero tolorance for drunk drivers. We should have less for terrorists.

So if Zero Tolerance means something more than none because alcohol related driving deaths account for over 13k Americans annually, then...???

...how many Americans killed in America each year by terrorists would be OK?

Rhetorical sarcasm?

There are more than just ME terrorists affecting us - so how many already are?

Here is some relevant information being considered by policy makers:

http://www.america.gov/st/peacesec-e...0.6059229.html

I fear I am not young enough to know everything anymore - just not old enough to remain disinterested in the many arguments being floated around out there which may affect our national policies and - therefore - all of us. I would assume many here have such interests, too.

As Frank Zappa said, "A mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open."

Richard's $.02

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Richard

..........Rhetorical sarcasm? ................

NO!

It was a serious question.

How many murders by terrorists is acceptable? Where do we draw the line?

I said nothing about ME Terrorists. I said terrorists. Not all Muslims are from the ME, many are growing up in our own prison system - with the help of our government .

Not all Muslims are terrorists but Islam is the sea that the Islamic terrorists swim in.

If Islam became the "religion of peace" that it claims to be how many conflicts and terrorist movements around the world would end?

[Surgicalcric]

Originally Posted by Richard

...As Frank Zappa said, "A mind is like a parachute. It only works when it is open."

Indeed it does.

Its been my experience that those who talk the most about others needing to keep an open mind are the ones whose minds are open the least.

[Warrior-Mentor]

Originally Posted by Pete

If Islam became the "religion of peace" that it claims to be how many conflicts and terrorist movements around the world would end?

Was looking through the dictionary of islam, the quran, the hadith, the sira and some islamic law texts.

Found a plethora of references to war and jihad (the lower and violent kind). Yet could rarely find the word peace. In fact, the word peace isn't defined in the dictionary of islam. Is that because Thomas Hughes is a racist orientalist, or perhaps because there's no doctrinal foundation for peace?

[Richard]

Keeping an open mind is - IMO - to seek to better know or understand - doesn't necessarily mean to accept or agree - however - one problem with it all is that the larger the island of knowledge, the longer the shoreline of wonder.*

How many murders by terrorists is acceptable?

This - as many of the questions in post #4 - is certainly rhetorical - in that it is being asked for the sake of persuasive effect rather than as a genuine request for information - with a less than subtle implication that the answer is too obvious to require a response.

Seems around 3,000 is our cut off. More than that is a problem?

Maybe we should allow that number to grow over the years with our increase in population?

In the fall of each year a memo is released to the terrorists that reads they've killed this year's quota and will have to hold off on attacks until Jan 1st.

Not sarcasm? I apologize if I read this wrong.

The individual in the story Richard posted links al Qaeda to terrorist acts and then uses data from 2007 (the last year data is available) to support the idea we're safe from terrorism.

Actually - he didn't say that - and I took his thesis to be:

In short, my concern is that we are allowing an exaggerated fear of al Qaeda to distort our foreign policy priorities. Having underestimated the danger from al Qaeda before 9/11, have we now swung too far the other way? I am not arguing for a Pollyanna-like complacency or suggesting that we simply ignore the threat that groups like al Qaeda still pose. Rather, I'm arguing that the threat is not as great as the administration -- and most Americans, truth be told -- seem to think, and that the actual danger does not warrant escalating U.S. involvement in Central Asia.

And he then follows his thoughts with 3 points to consider which offer counter arguments to his own thesis.

I found the piece of interest - with some valid points of discussion and of concern - and thought it might be of such to others in this forum to better understand some of the thinking which appears to be influencing our national level policy decision makers today.

I also found the responses to it by members of this forum to be equally of interest and - perhaps - a micro-view of just how difficult it can be for our nation to reach consensus on any such issue.

Oh - and as far as acceptable numbers - I can only think of one at the moment - my jackass of a neighbor who always wants to mow his lawn on Sunday evenings around 2100.

And so it goes...

Richard's $.02

* Jean Henri Fabre

[Pete]

Originally Posted by Richard

......This - as many of the questions in post #4 - is certainly rhetorical - in that it is being asked for the sake of persuasive effect rather than as a genuine request for information - with a less than subtle implication that the answer is too obvious to require a response...

Wrong Richard;

It is not sarcasim and it is not rhetorical.

You and the writer you posted are of the mind that attacks by Islamist are few in the US so it's no big deal.

So you were asked straight out at what point does it become a big deal. How many Americans have to be killed each year for it to become a problem.

So now you dance around the question.

How many times a year, a month, a week or a day is too much to have some prison convert gun down a couple of soldiers home on leave out in front of a recuiting station? Or running through a mall shooting at anything moving? Or driving his SUV over fellow students? Or cut his wife's head off?

You started it so pick a number.

[Richard]

You and the writer you posted are of the mind that attacks by Islamist are few in the US so it's no big deal.

No...

...my concern is that we are allowing an exaggerated fear of al Qaeda to distort our foreign policy priorities.

The point is that a look at the broader stats might indicate the current hyper-focus on al-Quaeda and one specific area of the world may now be impairing our broader future policy vision - not that terrorist attacks anywhere are to be ignored or are no big deal.

So now you dance around the question.

No - murder should never be acceptable behavior.

Richard's $.02

[Pete]

Right now, Richard, it appears all the little Jihadies are packing their Jihad bags and going to Sudan, Irag and Afghanistan to fight the good fight.

I'd rather wish a US soldier with a gun in his hand is facing them there than they with a gun in their hand facing an American mother at the Mall with a baby in her arms.

But then again it's all just a law enforcement question.

And if the MSM don't cover it - did it ever happen?

[Richard]

...it appears all the little Jihadies are packing their Jihad bags and going to Sudan, Irag and Afghanistan to fight the good fight.

I fear you've missed a couple of continents in your assessment.

I'd rather wish a US soldier with a gun in his hand is facing them there than they with a gun in their hand facing an American mother at the Mall with a baby in her arms.

A soldier or LEO - no matter the nationality - and what American, given the choice, wouldn't have such a preference.

But then again it's all just a law enforcement question.

Isn't it all about enforcing the idea of the rule of law?

And if the MSM don't cover it - did it ever happen?

Somebody somewhere is covering it all - the premise of guaranteeing a free and open press.

Richard's $.02

[7624U]

Originally Posted by Richard

So if Zero Tolerance means something more than none because alcohol related driving deaths account for over 13k Americans annually, then...???
Richard's $.02

Zero Tolerance means a drunk will goto jail if found over the legal limit if the cops find him. I used this as a example of what should be done. if we find a terrorist we should kill him not jail him.

my $.02