Actually, this essay is encouraging. How many more folks have changed but remain silent due to social pressure? There may be more than you think.

You don't "get" your friend, cicero.

"All problems emanate from the United States. The only thing we have to fear is ourselves, apparently. His denial of any kind of existential threat from the Islamic world is complete.

This distorts his position substantially. At some level, I think you must recognize this. Perhaps, if you were in NYC at the time, you have not fully recovered from the shock of the 9/11 attacks and are not thinking rationally....I'm trying to be generous here.

Look, 9/11 was scary, epecially for New Yorkers (I had loved ones very close by who witnessed Tower 1 collapsing). But there are greater existential threats to Americans than terrorism, even though it is worth paying attention to OF COURSE.

The problem that your friend, and I, and most Americans at this point are having with the current Administration isn't that they care about fighting terrorism and we don't, it's just that we recognize that they're only fighting it in the media, and not on the ground, where instead they're making the situation worse.

Our view is that if we really want to fight terrorism, we must first point out that our current leaders are using it for political purposes and so have an interest in perpetuating the threat, not diminishing it. They're actually an impediment to the successful prosecution of counter-terrorism. If you choose to continue to portray Republican efforts as the only viable ones, you're being biased and close-minded. Which might work fine for an artist, but certainly not for a public policy advocate.

So I'm not impressed at all with this exhibition of Demagoguery.

And I certainly don't think it is odd that an artist feels alienated from those around him/her. In fact, I would think that the norm. But perhaps it's part of the territory to play the mis-understood victim.

Finally, I would also caution you against thinking that your views are in the minority only among the liberal art elite of NY. Most of the country now recognize the validity of your friend's speculation and share his cynicism and concern with the Republican leadership.

I know exactly how you feel. I do alot of community theatre in my area and have many dear friends who are just like your friend. I just keep my mouth shut when Bush or the war come up. I try to ignore thier comments because I know it would just cause a falling out. It saddens me, but I don't want to create ill feelings. It's funny really, because I am solidly behind bush and the war effort. I have often thought about sharing my point of view, but it feels like a waste of time. I sometimes think it's odd that I don't stand up for myself, and yet I don't worry about it much. I think my worldview will be vindicated and don't think I need to prove myself to anyone.

Good luck to you and all our friends.

I had a very similar experience today with a good friend.

He actually admitted he buys into the "massive conspiracy" theory, where everything is being made up by the US government, for some reason or other.

I just don't see how a view like that can be grounded in reality. If it's such a massive conspiracy, why hasn't someone talked? (Other than the conspiracy theorists themselves, of course).

It's depressing, because I simply don't know what to say to someone whose reality is mind-bendingly different to my own.

In my world. most Americans are regular people, just like British or Iraqis or French or Russians or Chinese. There are some trouble makers, and some cowards, and some twisted people. But most of us are just plain folks trying to go about our business. How you can decide that Americans are just plain evil and out to destroy everyone and do everything they do out of hate... I don't get it. How do you become like that?

I think it must be a type of brain-washing. The media feeds you so many lies, your views just don't have any basis in reality any more.

What to do?

It seems like a looking-glass world, where the people who DON'T believe there is a conspiracy are the odd men out.

It's a brave new world out there, I guess.

There are three things I would like to bring out and discuss.

1. Andy L, I am curious as to how you think the war against terrorism should be fought. You say that your objection is not to fighting, but to how the current administration is fighting. Fair enough. How would you like to see it fought?

2. Also for Andy L, what threats to the US existence do you see as greater in magnitude than terrorism, given 9/11, the embassy bombings, the Cole attack, the first WTC attack, Beslan, the various plots to blow up airliners from 1995 until yesterday, Bali, Madrid, and the two attacks on London? If you take it as a given that the jihadis are serious when they say that they want to destroy us (and given the evidence, I take them seriously), and that they have demonstrated capability to attack us causing massive casualties, then does it not follow that the jihadis are a vast threat to any way of life other than fundamentalist Islam coupled with jihadi Islamism? I'm having a hard time seeing a larger threat at this point.

3. What frightens me (and I use that word carefully) about the elements of the far Left and, to a lesser degree, the far Right is that they are descending into a common conspiracy theory. The basis of this conspiracy theory is that the US government is the prime motivator in the world - nothing happens without the US causing it. Further, within the US, the prime motivator is either the Jews or the Republicans (often both, in the spectre of the neocons) - nothing happens in the US without the Jews or Republicans causing it.

This frightens me for two reasons: first, that such unreasoning people tend, when they get very scared, to go beyond fantasy conspiracy theories and straight into violent action; second, that such a world view implies that a large part of our population has begun to abandon the very concept of logic, reason, science, and liberalism. We seem to be heading into a new dark age of our own making; as Rome succumbed to the barbarians only after she had first abandoned all but the trappings of civilization, are we now vulnerable to the barbarians because we have abandoned all but the trappings of civilization? And if we have done so, can we regain the core of civilization, or are we doomed to a slow slide into unreason, despair, tyranny and poverty? Are there enough left in the West to ensure the survival of civilization as an idea worth fighting for?

I don't see how Cicero has distorted his friends position in any way. Even your attempt to explain it doesn't contridict Cicero's essay, but in fact would seem to reinforce his conclusions.

"But there are greater existential threats to Americans than terrorism, even though it is worth paying attention to OF COURSE."

But then, what are those threats? That 'of course' seems like a lot of hand waving to me.

"The problem that your friend, and I, and most Americans at this point are having with the current Administration isn't that they care about fighting terrorism and we don't, it's just that we recognize that they're only fighting it in the media, and not on the ground, where instead they're making the situation worse."

Which would be all fine and good and we could have a rational debate over that if in fact I had any evidence that you actually wanted to have a rational debate over that, but - critically - this is not the friend's position. The friend's position was that the terrorist threat was not in fact a threat but part of a conspiracy against American's on the part of the current administration. The friend outlined his belief that the whole thing was largely a hoax. That's not something we can have much of a rational debate on. And this position is echoed by you when you say:

"Our view is that if we really want to fight terrorism, we must first point out that our current leaders are using it for political purposes and so have an interest in perpetuating the threat, not diminishing it."

You don't claim that the administration is merely mistaken or even incompetant, which I think is wrong but which is a position which I could understand why someone would have. Rather you are claiming that they are in on it, and indeed that they are behind the threat and actively using it for thier purposes.

"If you choose to continue to portray Republican efforts as the only viable ones, you're being biased and close-minded."

Sometime I should let you in on the secret about the phrase 'close-minded'. As a hint, do you think a truly open minded person would ever believe someone else is close-minded?

But in any event, I do not assume - nor did Cicero - that 'Republican efforts' (I might remind you that most of the Democrats have voted for these efforts as well) are the only ones that are viable or even that they are the most viable. The problem that I have is that they seem to be the only efforts. But, in the interest of actually have a discussion, please tell me what you think should be done. I must warn you that I'll pretty much discount all you say if you tell me what should have been done. I'm not interested in that, because that isn't a plan and its all hindsight. Tell me what to do now. That will be a plan and that could potentially impress me with your insight and intelligence.

"So I'm not impressed at all with this exhibition of Demagoguery."

How am I supposed to have a reasoned debate with someone who holds that position? Before we can have a reasoned debate you have to drop the assumption that I'm only making the argument for devious and ulterior reasons, such as...

"At some level, I think you must recognize this...Perhaps, if you were in NYC at the time, you have not fully recovered from the shock of the 9/11 attacks and are not thinking rationally....I'm trying to be generous here."

This is no way to have a reasoned debate. I don't see any intellectual couriousity. I don't see any self-reflection. I could easily turn your entire argument around against you and it would work just as effectively, which implies to me that your argument is pretty much meaningless. It's an argument that is equally true and valid no matter who you apply it to, and it's unfalsifiable. And I'm not going to pretend to be 'generous' here. I'm telling you my real opinion. Lord only knows what your real opinion is, but I suspect it would be interesting.

That was really well said. I too am amazed that my �liberal� friends can have their heads so far up, well you know, about the world today. I�ve had to look at myself and re-evaluate my opinion because I have friends and family who are very similar. However, I quick discussion and time I find them short on logic every time. This is frustrating, for I thought liberals had an edge on that one, at least over conservatives. What happened? My theory, heavily summarized, is that there is a fine line between a �Leftist� and a liberal. True liberals are a dieing breed, at least as a group. This mirrors the opposite polarity of conservative versus a reactionary. We have many in the world taking up reactionary causes (e.g. like most of Islam over there and evangelism over here). The world is becoming more bi-polar. Now, what�s behind this is a question that we�ll probably never know, but it is happening. This whole rise of religious fundamentalism is a unique thing and not normal development we've seen in history for a long time. Then there is this enchantment of the Leftist with extremist and dictators. Fascinating yet revolting at the same time.

Just realize we all create our own worlds. Some, compared to others, just work harder to limit any reality from entering their world. It�s just a human thing to do and some do it more than others. It will take several more brutal attacks to get these people to finally wake up. My only hope is that it is they who suffer these attacks and not the rest of us who already get it. I add this for shame on them in not acting as brothers and sisters in a time of threat. Instead of uniting, even under a lame president, they choose to take an almost treasonous approach.

There are a lot of us who believe (a) that the US faces a serious threat from dangerous and determined enemies, and (b) that the Bush administration's policies have made the situation a great deal worse for the US.

Nicholas' point, that a massive conspiracy would necessarily have been blown, is certainly correct. But there are ways for national leaders to manipulate public opinion through events that don't require massive conspiracies. (Enough said.)

It is very reasonable for people to want to look at our own contribution to a major problem, and change that. Jesus said, First take the beam out of your own eye ...

Ideally, this doesn't mean being blind to the faults of others, but that's clearly a slippery slope some people slide down. On both sides, of course: on the left by saying all the world's evils are our own fault, and on the right by saying that all evils are the fault of the left! The fact that some people take an argument too far and say dumb things doesn't mean that there are no important truths there.

Jeff Medcalf [#6] asks how the GWoT should have been fought. That's a reasonable question, and worthy of extensive discussion by a group of smart people. However, this question is often used to shut off discussion, because of course it's extremely difficult, and initial proposals will need to be debugged. This question should start the discussion.

I've certainly noticed that if someone like Andy L attempts to take up the challenge and propose an answer, a few people respond seriously, but many just snipe from the sidelines, picking enough holes to let them disregard other options entirely.

Our uninformed use of massive firepower has clearly dug us farther into holes, especially in Iraq, increasingly in Afghanistan, and it's doing the same to Israel in Lebanon. Perhaps it is time to think, from a national security standpoint, about how we can leverage the power of ordinary people's desire to live in peace, to get them to turn on their domestic terrorists and defeat them themselves, rather than using our firepower to earn the terrorists more loyal supporters.

Have you read that the initial tip that revealed the London plane-bombing conspiracy came over a year ago from the Muslim community, just after the subway bombings? That's how the GWoT gets won, through trust and sympathy. Do you think anyone in Lebanon is going to help Israel against Hezbollah these days? Think bombing Lebanon harder will help? I don't think so.

As the man says, when you're deep in a hole, the first step is to stop digging.

Andy L, your arguments would make more sense if the anti-Republicans would actually support measures that do address the pointy end of the terrorism stick.

For instance, the covert SWIFT monitoring program, which may have helped identify the British bombers.

Or the data mining of incoming international calling patterns from identified terrorist contacts.

These are programs explicitly meant to address terrorism at the scale of the individual terrorist; and yet, they were exposed by and for anti-Republicans who gleefully pointed to them as signs of creeping fascism in America.

You really can't have it both ways. You can't be against terror networks and against spying on them. At least, you can't if your point is to actually disrupt terrorist networks.

And that goes back to the subtext of Cicero's post; certain demographics have no trouble believing Western governments are evil, but can't face the implications of distribted Islamic terrorism. It's the visceral difference between watching a scary movie (where the ideas are thrilling and chilling without actually putting the viewer in danger) and stumbling on an armed robery in progress. The first is intellectually stimulating; the second stimulates the bowels to involuntary movement.

(And of course, the idea that only Republicans are "playing politics" with the threat is ludicrous. Every time some Democratic politician asks "why haven't we captured Osama" you can bet the political damage to the Administration is the point. Osama at this point is at most a figurehead, worth more to both sides as a shadowy living figure than as organic paste in the rubble of a bombed-out cave in Afghanistan. You want a conspiracy? The continued existence of OBL is the perfect one. No one truly benefits from him being dead, so he isn't.)

I think Cicero gets his friend, he just can't get through to him. Nor, I think, does he want to; if convincing his friend to accept the reality of a terrorist threat would be debilitating, then altering the friend's perspective would either destroy the friendship or destroy the friend. No one wants to do that to a friend.

The immediate knee-jerk response when I say something like this to my lefty friends is for them to accuse me of wanting to cede carte blanche powers to the governmenr, or worse, Bush. That's simply not true. What I do want is reasoned debate about what we should do to address the threats (overt and implied) from radical militant Islam, and I'm just not hearing any. It's so much safer to speculate on what we should do about Bush.

Here's a thought experiment. I will concede that you have now pointed out that "our current leaders are using it for political purposes and so have an interest in perpetuating the threat, not diminishing it." You have succeeded in taking what you have described as the necessary first step. What's the next step?

Until you can answer that question, I will continue to believe your position isn't constructive, but merely avoidant. But I'm willing to be proven wrong.

Celebrim [#7] says:

But, in the interest of actually have a discussion, please tell me what you think should be done. I must warn you that I'll pretty much discount all you say if you tell me what should have been done. I'm not interested in that, because that isn't a plan and its all hindsight. Tell me what to do now. That will be a plan and that could potentially impress me with your insight and intelligence.

By this logic, you should tell cancer researchers that everything they've learned about how cancer starts and grows is irrelevant. If they haven't gotten a treatment yet, they can just shut up.

It turns out that some problems are hard. I wouldn't expect disagreement that this one is hard. It's going to take serious effort to understand the mechanisms behind the problem: why it starts, what it feeds on, what is different about places where it doesn't grow, and so on. We also learn a lot from the failures of (presumably) well-intentioned strategies. To say that all of that is irrelevant really is "closed-minded".

I've read your comments before and you are a sensible guy. You know better than that.

Beard,
The essential problem with your criticism is that you claim that the Bush administration's policies are making the problem of terrorism worse without any concrete alternative proposals, as you admit:

"However, this question is often used to shut off discussion, because of course it's extremely difficult, and initial proposals will need to be debugged. This question should start the discussion."

But without credible alternatives to propose, these sort of criticisms simply are not serious and will be ridiculed.

In general, the military force versus law enforcement dichotomy is a false one. Each approach has its advantages and disadvantages and each has a sphere where it is most effective. But given that critics of the Bush administration's law enforcement approaches seem to also want to have their cake and eat it too, in both pretending that the Bush administration isn't working extensively in the arena when it is ( the Bush administration's efforts in controlling international money flows are literally unprecedented ) and working actively to undermine surveillance measures.

"By this logic, you should tell cancer researchers that everything they've learned about how cancer starts and grows is irrelevant."

I don't see how that follows. There is more that is different in the analogy than there is that is similar. I think your analogy is a bad one, and I think it obfuscates more than it clarifies.

In fact, I've come to see analogies as a sign of sloppy and unclear thinking. I used to use analogies alot, but I learned after a while that I was often just about the only one who say the 'clear connections' between the analogy and the thing I was comparing it to. I also learned that most of the time when an analogy was introduced, you ended up arguing about the analogy as if proving one thing or another about the analogy really proved a thing about the question at hand.

"It turns out that some problems are hard."

Indeed, they are. In fact most problems are probably harder than the problem of learning how a particular cancer starts and grows, which is in fact not a 'wicked problem'. I'd classify winning this war as a wicked problem.

I hate giving your analogy any credence at all, because its a ludicrous one, but because finding out how a cancer starts and grows is not a wicked problem, if I asked an expert in the field of biology how they would go about solving this problem I can and should expect them to have some idea how to proceed - even if they don't know the full details of what they need to do just as yet. Because the 'War on Terror' constitutes a wicked problem, I'd accept a far less detailed and specific answer than I'd expect from the cancer researcher.

"It's going to take serious effort to understand the mechanisms behind the problem: why it starts, what it feeds on, what is different about places where it doesn't grow, and so on. We also learn a lot from the failures of (presumably) well-intentioned strategies."

So what? That's all true but I don't see how it impacts my request or the validity of my request whatsoever. For one thing, when I make that request it's because the person in question has claimed sufficient knowledge of how to go about solving the wicked problem to take critique the effectiveness of a particular solution. If you think you have enough knowledge to criticize a solution, then it is perfectly fair and reasonable request that you offer an alternative approach. Although this hardly the only problem with your analogy since it seems to have some meaning to you, your analogy would be more relevant if it was a three way conversation in which I had a grant of money to offfer (analogous to my political support), someone offered a theory on how to go about discovering how to cure cancer (analogous to the Hawk/'conservative' platform on security), a second person (in this case analogous to Andy L) said, 'That's not an effective approach', and I questioned the second person, "Well, then tell me what you would do?" If the second person can't tell me what they would do, why in the world would I give them my grant? Again, its a bad analogy (and you made it), but if all the second person can do is offer criticism from the vantage of hindsight - I have no evidence that they actually know anything at all.

And to extend the analogy well past its breaking point, its not like the 'cancer researcher' in this analogy has claimed that the overall 'war on cancer' would not be fraught with difficulty or would be short. Quite the contrary, they've claimed that it would take generations to solve the problem and would require work on all sorts of fronts. As a researcher myself (really, not merely in analogy) as well as a coder, my assumption is that estimates of time and material required will be sometimes wildly off, that some problems which at first appear hard will turn out to be easy, and some problems which seem simple will turn out upon closer examination to be hard.

"I've read your comments before and you are a sensible guy."

Thank you. But your praise would be more flattering if I thought your opinion of me was strong enough that it encouraged you to do a little reflection before claiming I was being unreasonable.

It's all just performance art by our leaders, I see.

"Sir, I'm going to have to take this bottle of water away from you since it might be a liquid explosive, and I'm going to have to mix it with all of these other bottles of possibly liquid explosive, and I'm going to have to dump them all in this trash can... together. Nevermind that the plot specifically mentions mixing chemicals and/or nitroglycerin... which explodes if handled too roughly."

Thanks for point that out, cicero.

Guess what? We're sick of being part of the show.

I present the comments in #14 as another exhibit of exactly what I find wrong with the criticism coming from the left.

"Perhaps it is time to think, from a national security standpoint, about how we can leverage the power of ordinary people's desire to live in peace, to get them to turn on their domestic terrorists and defeat them themselves, rather than using our firepower to earn the terrorists more loyal supporters."

All well and good, but how do you "leverage the power of ordinary people" in a place like Iraq when the ordinary people there had Saddam's boot firmly on the back of their neck?

We tried to address that. Our solution may or may not work in the long run. It will largely depend on whether "ordinary people" in Iraq prefer the tranquility enforced by the boot to actually facing down the thugs who would wear it.

I will gladly admit at this point that the answer to that question is much less self-evident than I thought three years ago. But the previous strategy of sanctions to "starve" the Iraqi regime manifestly did not work. And say what you will about whether Saddam was an immediate threat to us and our allies, it was clear that he wanted to be, and would be as soon as he became able. And considering how much "Oil for Food" money he was throwing at various Security Council members, eventually he would have been able.

I don't mean to be snarky, but any time I hear arguments that boil down to "give peace a chance" my eyes glaze over. Peace always has a chance, and that chance (historically speaking) almost always comes a cropper. And I have yet to hear anyone explain why, in the age of cheap nukes, cheaper bioweapons, and untold thousands of heavy lifting, continent hopping aircraft in service, waiting until a threat is immanent should be considered a good idea.

As to the effect of our "firepower" earning terrorists more loyal supporters, how does that explain the existence of the British bomb plotters? As far as I know, none of them were under any kind of individual threat from Western firepower. Those "ordinary people" had every opportunity for peace and comfort within British society (even in British Muslim society) and turned against it.

When Iraqis start trying to blow themselves up on planes, I'll take your argument that we're inciting Western terror attacks more seriously. Right now, it makes more sense to see OIF as simply the latest justification for a phenomenon that reaches back to the U.S. Embassy Crisis in Iran, if not earlier.

At this point, if someone wants to suggest Plan C for ensuring safety for Western Civilization in the face of millennial militant Islam, I for one am all ears.

Regarding Israel and Hizballah, very similar dynamics are in play. I have no doubt that ordinary Israeli and Lebanese citizens want nothing more than to live in peace. But again, history shows that simply wishing for peace doesn't ensure it. Peace is something "ordinary people" impose on their societies, and defend from incoming threats, or not. For a complex set of reasons, Hizballah's violent behavior toward Israel was not constrained by the "ordinary people" of Lebanon. You may say that the State of Israel did not want peace, but that's really immaterial; whether the state wanted it or not, Hizballah was not going to give it to them.

Israel is looking for a way to ensure peace for its citizens. Israel can rely on Hizballah to work violence on Israeli citizens. Israel can't rely on Lebanon to help. Israel has found that it can rely on the UN to sit and watch as Hizballah launches missles into Israeli territory.

Again, you can argue Israeli tactics and strategy, but what is hard to argue is that they had any kind of obligation to keep absorbing the violence delivered by Hizballah. "Give peace a chance" only works if neighbors (at every scale) think it's a good idea.

Serious question: What should Israel do to instill peace on the Lebanese border?

Well, like I said above celebrim, the interest in your show is rapidly decreasing among the electorate. I don't think it will be held over past November.

Beard,

I was not attempting to cut off discussion, but to start it. And I was not attempting to ask how it should have been fought in the past, but how it should be fought in the future. The past is relevant as example and as evidence, but there is not much point in saying how we could have done it better than, except as that applies to the future.

OK. Concrete proposals you want?

(1) Don't think of groups as homogeneous. They are made up of a wide variety of different individuals and subgroups, with very different world-views and motivations. Terrorists like to mix with a population we can't discriminate, so we retaliate for their actions against others who are completely innocent, turning them against us. Understand the population.

(2) Empower peace-loving individuals to protect themselves. On flight 93 and with the shoe-bomber, it was individuals, acting and organizing spontaneously, that defeated the terrorists. Educate air passengers on what to watch for, and what to do when they see it. Don't try to turn everyone into shopping sheep.

(3) Win the trust of the indigenous population, so they feel that they can turn in terrorists to the authorities as an act of law and order, rather than an act of treason against their own people. Doing this requires restraint in the face of provocation from the terrorists, who want us injure or kill innocent people.

(4) Understand that there is no single silver bullet that will solve the whole problem instantly. No one sensible expects a single act of military force to win a war. Neither will a single approach like the ones I am advocating.

There are lots more, just like there are lots of weapons for different purposes.

I agree with SPQR [#12] that law-enforcement vs military force is not a dichotomy. It's a spectrum, or more multi-dimensional than that. But against terrorism, standard military force is useless, or worse. It's like arguing against forts on the Maginot line versus tanks, and saying that both have their place. Sure, but the place for the forts was fighting the wars of the 19th century.

With us in Iraq, and Israel in Lebanon, you're seeing the failure of excellent 20th century military technology, when confronted by sophisticated 21st century asymmetric warfare. Our cause may be right, but if we refuse to understand the nature of warfare, and if we insist on using the old-fashioned methods, we will lose, and we will have no idea how or why.

Don't just explain why you don't want to listen to me. Do what professionals at warfare do: study what works and what doesn't, learn who the enemies are, and what their strengths are. If you're being blind-sided, figure out how to look in the direction the attack came from. (Duh!)

Or if you'd rather, just "stay the course". Welcome to the Maginot Line.

Your friend has an America obsession, needs to read more specially what islamists write. I think he is a little bit an neo-xenophobe/racist: In the past africans/asians(put here the racial/country you want) couldnt be smart, inteligent, bright. Now they cant be evil, bad, or make bad decisions.

Andy L, if your point in linking to that picture is that beaurocracies often do incredibly stupid things, I'm with you 100%.

If your point was to imply that the British Bombers plot was a hoax, you'll need to present a wee bit more evidence than that. (Never automatically attribute to malice something that can be equally well explained by stupidity.)

If your point was to avoid serious discussion (and I believe that was mostly it), well, you're definitely not part of the solution.

Go ahead. Be more afraid of Bush than of bombs. I fly about 200,000 miles a year though, and I'll gladly pour out anything they want me to (even if I won't be so happy if I have to stand near the bucket).

Beard,
Those simply are not serious proposals for alternative strategies in the war on terror. They are just vague criticisms disguised as positive assertions.

Only military fire-power works? That's because you only look for those examples.

(1) The "People's Revolution" in the Philippines succeed only because it was non-violent. If they had turned violent, they would have been crushed.

(2) The fall of apartheid in South Africa was accomplished with remarkably little bloodshed. Think a little about how that could have played out.

(3) The fact that the Soviet Union fell without a world-altering war is one of the miracles of the 20th century.

Non-violence doesn't mean pretty girls putting flowers in gun barrels and singing Kumbaya. It often means making powerful, violent people realize that the best option they have available to them is something they didn't want to do. But then they do it anyway.

Reagan put economic pressure on the Soviet Union over a period of years, and they crumbled. A similar strategy applied to Iraq didn't work. So? Not every military tactic works either. (This was because Gorbachev and Yeltsin were more rational actors than Saddam, but so it goes.)

Imagine how you'd react if everyone caricatured military action as a two-man shootout on Main Street in Dodge City. Clearly, it's more complex than that, with different methods required in different settings.

Don't try to construct a similar straw man for non-violent methods of confronting dangerous enemies.

"Well, like I said above celebrim, the interest in your show is rapidly decreasing among the electorate. I don't think it will be held over past November."

Oh lord. Do you think Richard Reid cared who was President, or which party controled Congress, when he decided to try to detonate a shoe on a plane?

Do you really believe OBL would have given the WTC a pass if Florida's electoral votes had gone to Gore?

Do you truly believe the British Bombers gave a rats ass about the horror's of Bush's Amerikkka? (Oh, that's right, that was a hoax....)

Mark Poling: Overall, excellent comments. In the interest of perfect accuracy, I have a few quibbles.

"I have no doubt that ordinary Israeli and Lebanese citizens want nothing more than to live in peace."

Like any language, our language (English), is at times guilty of innaccuracy and that inaccuracy can lead us to wrong conclusions if we don't question it. In this case, the phrase "want...to live in peace" is very misleading. What does it mean? What does 'peace' mean? The problem is that there are more kinds of peace than there are kinds of war, and it would behoove us to recognize that. Just because our language deplores pluralizing 'peace', or using the non-specific article 'a' rather than the specific 'the', does not mean that it is right to do so.

It is certainly true that the ordinary citizens of Israel want to live in a non-war state, and it is certainly true that the ordinary citizens of Lebanon want to live in a non-war state. But it doesn't immediately follow that they both want the same thing. Is it true that both sides 'want peace'? That really depends on what you mean by it, and it this case its demonstrably true that both sides do not want peace. To the extent that they both say that they want peace, the problem is that the signifier (or if you are a coder 'the pointer') may be the same but it is in fact addressing two different things.

You've made the argument easier by saying both sides, "want nothing more than to live in peace". That's clearly not the case. There are somethings that they clearly do want more than to live in peace. If there was nothing either side wanted more than to live in a state of non-violence, then the violence would long have been over. What both sides want is to compell the other side to live in thier notion of what a state of peace is, and the ordinary citizens of both sides support the violence required to impose that state of peace on the other. Wars are fought by and large by ordinary citizens, and it would be a mistake to imagine that by and large they do so and yet do not want to do so. They may regret the necessity and the outcome of this choice, but that doesn't mean that they would actually prefer any of the other available choices.

"But again, history shows that simply wishing for peace doesn't ensure it."

Agreed. And the reason I've outlined is one of the two main reasons why not. The other reason is that no one can actually 'choose peace'. You can always choose war, but you don't have the option of 'choosing peace'. You can agree to peace, but you can never choose it. That's because 'a peace', any of the many 'peaces', requires the mutual agreement of all parties involved, but war never requires a concensus. The Israeli-Lebanon war is ample evidence of this, as not only did it begin without the concensus of one side, it began without the concensus of either side. Neither side choose war by agreement, and neither side is able to choose peace by agreement.

This is why all the diplomacy going on is so much empty words.

It seems to me the problem with a rational debate on this subject is that we are facing an enemy that is immune to reason. When you're faced with a rabid animal, you can rationally debate what to do about rabies in general, but if you don't destroy the animal, are you really being rational? My personal opinion FWIW is that our attempts to fight Islamic fascism are hobbled by a well-intentioned but ultimately self-defeating restraint and by the lunatic notion that people in that part of the world are capable of democracy. Give them democracy (a la Iraq and Gaza) and they elect theocratic fascists. We should have smashed Saddam (and to hell with collateral damage), set up Saddam Lite, sent a few JDAMS down Bashar Assad's throat, done at least a few flyovers of Tehran, just to let them know we can, then got the hell out of dodge and left the barbarians to their unspeakable folkways. Unfortunately, that's the hindsight Cerebrim rightly derides. What to do now? Honestly, I haven't a clue. But here's another thought FWIW: If the insurgents in Iraq really wanted us to leave, all they really have to do is nothing. Just quit blowing stuff up for about a month or two. The political pressure to bring our troops home would then become unbearable for any administration. Then once we're gone, simply resume the insurgency. So why are they still blowing people up? It would seem someone wants us to stay there. My guess is, it's the entity that has been the real enemy all along, Iran. They are deliberately keeping the Iraqi insurgency and the Hezbollah guerilla war going to keep us and the Israelis tied down long enough for them to develop nukes. And I think it's working. All because we are too squeamish to do what needs to be done.

Beard, what, specifically does that mean? The ideas you suggest work when popular due to popular uprisings inside the nations in question... in a vacuum essentially. When Soviet tanks rolled over the Hungerians or the Czecks all that nonviolence accounted for little. But more importantly is there any evidence that the populations that harbor and support terror have the will to even philosophically oppose terror, much less stand up to it publically? How much money do Saudis still funnel to terrorist organizations, etc?

How exactly do we harness the power of non-violence to prevent Iran from sending anti-tank missiles to Hezbollah and Sadrites? And how has pursuing your course insulated the British from their very own Muslim population?

"Well, like I said above celebrim, the interest in your show is rapidly decreasing among the electorate. I don't think it will be held over past November."

I really don't care, and its not 'my show'. I don't think I have any representatives in Washington because my own opinions are so far from the mainstream and so ecclectic that neither party is going to represent me well.

What I do care about is much more complex than who ends up in government, which, by and large in my experience doesn't make a really big net difference. I'm far more interested in the attitudes of the electorate than I am in who gets elected.

The reason I dislike your post #14 is complex, and complex enough that I may have to blog about an aspect of it, but for the purposes of not hijacking this thread let me point out its major flaw.

What would you have them do? Everyone in the picture almost certainly realizes that everything going into the barrel is harmless. But, isn't that part of the point? And, even if it wasn't harmless, don't you think you'd trade it blowing up at the gates in a vat of toothpaste with it blowing up over the Atlantic at 30,000 feet?

Beard: Thanks for rising to the challenge. Based on the general thrust of your argument, I'd be less than honest if I didn't admit that I've (somewhat famously) had this discussion at considerable length with someone (no offence) smarter than you are (and quite possibly smarter than I am) and so I going to - somewhat unfairly I admit - not respond as fully as you probably deserve. It's just that I've had this argument before. Check the archives here at winds.

"(1) Don't think of groups as homogeneous...
(2) Empower peace-loving individuals to protect themselves.
(3) Win the trust of the indigenous population, so they feel that they can turn in terrorists to the authorities as an act of law and order...
(4) Understand that there is no single silver bullet that will solve the whole problem instantly."

I've seen that basic 'plan' before. #3 in particular is really familiar.

First, I agree with SPQR that for the most part these are negative criticisms disguised as positive assertions. In particular, I don't think you can show that the current administration is unmindful of any of those considerations. What you are actually doing is not proposing a counter-plan, but asserting axiomaticly that the administration is not mindful of any of the above. We certainly don't percieve groups as homogenous. (For example, if we did, we'd not be careful to avoid saying 'a war on Islam'.) In other words, what you are asserting presents just as false of a dichotomy as the assertion that the current administration is not pursuing law enforcement as a means of facing terrorism.

But there are other general problems with your 'plan'. All of your assertions are really vague. In fact, I see you as describing the desired end state of the conflict, with no actual assertions about how to reach that end state.

Let me give at least one example, although I could give many. You advocate restraint in the face of provocation, with the implication being that we aren't in fact being restrained in the face of provocation (or at least that we aren't being nearly restrained enough). The problem with this is that its equally easy to argue that the terrorist 'wants' us to be restrained using very similar sorts of logic. Hense, the outcome of the sort of thinking that focuses on the restraint or lack of restaint is the mindset that terrorists are undefeatable. If you resist them, they only grow more powerful. If you don't resist them, they only grow more powerful. It is well, pretty darn defeatist. The truth of the matter is whether to be restrained or unrestrained in your responce, and the degree of violence to use, is a wicked problem. There is no single answer because, as is the problem with wicked problems, each situation is unique. To offer the 'plan', 'We should excercise more restraint' without giving a specific case, is to not offer any sort of serious plan at all.

"Don't try to construct a similar straw man for non-violent methods of confronting dangerous enemies."

I could say the same to you.

The problem with non-violent means of confronting dangerous enemies is that it only works in a rather narrow circumstances.

Ghandi's non-violent revolution worked mainly because it was the British in charge of India. Had it been someone else, it likely would not have worked. In fact, if you read Ghandi you'll soon realize that he didn't really care whether it worked, that he advocated it as the right thing to do whether it worked or not. He fully recognized that it might not work, and yet most people who advocate 'non-violent' approaches to problems seem convinced that they will always work if only they are given a chance.

Fortunately, you don't seem to be one of those.

It would however be helpful if you could point to one case were pursuing a more nonviolent approach than what has been pursued would be likely to produce good results.

This is getting very boring, celebrim, and I really don't have time to waste on replying to you, but this will only take a second so why not.

"What would you have them do? Everyone in the picture almost certainly realizes that everything going into the barrel is harmless. "

I would have them place their containers, unopened, with their contents unmixed with others, on a table to be removed to a secure location (say, a warehouse?) away from concentrated populations of women and children.

Even if they're not explosives, it's idiotic to randomly mix chemicals together in a large bin in public. They are probably creating more harm than good. But perhaps that's the point, no?

"But, isn't that part of the point? And, even if it wasn't harmless, don't you think you'd trade it blowing up at the gates in a vat of toothpaste with it blowing up over the Atlantic at 30,000 feet?"

So here are the flaws in your argument.

Why is it verboten to bring these liquids aboard in carry-ons, while most or all of the contents of the luggage compartment go unchecked?

Why was this done only yesterday, even though the Administration had knowledge of the plot for days beforehand?

Why are the restrictions likely to abate in the next few weeks? Will the threat disappear suddenly?

Performance art, I tell you, and in the eye of this beholder, very very poorly done at that.

Cicero, et al:

Conspiracy theories are the refuge for "messy realities". The facts of 9/11 don't fit very well together, the facts of our tenure in Iraq aren't fitting well together, the world by its nature is not a well oiled machine, and from that ... come conspiracy theories.

If I were the type to wish for a liberal, peaceful, smoke-a-doob, marriage-what-for? kind of world, I too would look muzzily upon the barrage of messy, contentuous, flighty, reasonless fact being proffered by the Media, and I would probably find solace in simpler conspiracy theories. Ask any construction industry veteran: Black American construction workers are wed to The Man conspiracy as surely as religion itself. The Man is the root of their problems, The Man lusts for wealth and gets it by putting them Down. The Man is unjust, is greedy, is pretentious but just as stupid as anyone else. Conspiracy theories are like a pretty jeweled box in the midst of a garbage dump: they catch the eye, they've been polished and refined and interlocked to near-perfection. They're simple, and their denial of reality augements their 'power' in the future.

From my angle, it depresses me most when I hae had the kind of discussions with friends that you avoid with this one, seemingly getting them to at least see the error of their ways, only to find that they become more entrenched with their conspiracy theories in the weeks that follow.

Just go to http://video.google.com and search for "WTC". Of the top 20 clips that are listed, most promote the conspiracy theory of intentional building demolition by dark gub'mint forces. See how much more interesting, simple and falacious the theories are? "The gub'mint did it." Wasn't that easy? No need to get all wrapped up in Sayyed Qutb's Moslem Brotherhood, in Wahhabism, in the geopolitical grand mal dementia of the critically overpopulated, underemployed, profoundly ignorant, fanatically inspired, anonymous, hateful, irrational and downright evil Middle Eastern underworld. Nope. The Gub'mint did it, so that The Man could oppress us further.

I suppose it lets a lot of people sleep easier. Those black helicopters, UN guerillas, those bleeping UFOs and secret service operatives, those police with their big guns and heavy tactics, messing with your sister and beating on your cousin, your neighbor. The Gub'mint is out to protect itself, and the elections are rigged, and Bush holds all the chips and The Man is happy, since we needed a war, and the Twin Towers were empty of Jews, and, and, and...

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I always have to ask the same question though: why bother to vote? Why bother to go to work? Why bother to stand in a line to get tickets to the Superbowl when The Man has it all rigged anyway?

See, that's the problem with the conspiracy theories: taken at their full strength, they might sooth as an opiate to reason, but ultimately they inevitably lead to depression. Why bother, if all you do is in vain anyway?

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

I might tell your friend this: "That's nice, but I would rather believe that our government is intrinsically good by American standards, that it doesn't have all the answers, that it is trying to preempt a greater offense in the future, messily and somewhat inexplicably, than to believe that they're in cahoots with the Jews to undermine the world's economy so that they can collect it all for themselves, allowing the barest trickle-down to appease all of us regular Joe citizens. I'd rather believe that than your theory, because at least I can wake up knowing that we are trying to accomplish something as self-serving as it is noble, whereas your view has us mired in futility and exponential decay until the end of time."

... If I could remeber all the words, in the order presented ...

GoatGuy

Beard (#19), I thought somebody asked for concrete examples. What you offered is more along the lines of platitudes.

In case you don't understand the difference, here's a simple test: does the proposal tell us what we should do? In this light, your #3 ("Win the trust of the indigenous population") is clearly just a platitude: it gives not the slightest bit of direction as to what actions we should take or avoid.

And in #23, you go even further off the mark. The fall of the Soviet Union wasn't accomplished without military firepower, not at all. In addition to all the proxy wars that occurred, did you not ever hear of MAD? Or the IRBM's in Europe? They weren't used, but that's not to say that if we didn't have them, and stand ready to use them, the outcome would have been remotely similar.

Andy L:
I'll address your questions:

Why is it verboten to bring these liquids aboard in carry-ons, while most or all of the contents of the luggage compartment go unchecked?

Because the items became an explosive when combined, which was to be done in flight. This required the jihadists to have physical access to the various components.

Why was this done only yesterday, even though the Administration had knowledge of the plot for days beforehand?

Because the investigation was still ongoing so changing the security precdures would have caused the jihadists to scatter.

Why are the restrictions likely to abate in the next few weeks? Will the threat disappear suddenly?

Because (hopefully) security procedures are constantly being reviewed and revised through some form of cost-benefit analysis.

To some extent, it is performance art. But the intent of the "artist" is not the one you imply. The government doesn't know how to keep their citizenry safe from jihadis, but the public wants the government to "do something" so they "do something". A big, publically visible something. Not because it frightens the public, but because it comforts the public.

Because the "art" isn't perfomed by an artist, it's done by somebody in a beauracracy who's trying to make sure that they're not blamed if (when) something bad happens. It's CYA writ large. But it's all been instigated by a legitimate threat.

Eine wirklich super Seite!

"I really don't have time to waste on replying to you"

If I thought I was wasting my time, I wouldn't reply. At the very least I hope you think you are convincing other readers that my seemingly reasonable arguments are in fact not reasonable.

"I would have them place their containers, unopened, with their contents unmixed with others, on a table to be removed to a secure location (say, a warehouse?) away from concentrated populations of women and children."

I've seen pictures of them doing that as well. Your plan runs into difficulties the minute someone comes to the gate with a $40 thermos or travel mug filled with something. Now all the sudden you've got this angry individual in the line holding up the process because your confiscating his thermos and not the relatively unvaluable liquid inside.

"Even if they're not explosives, it's idiotic to randomly mix chemicals together in a large bin in public. They are probably creating more harm than good."

Quite possibly. But that isn't my point.

"But perhaps that's the point, no?"

There, now that is my point. You are asserting that not only is all this activity being coordinated at a very high level, but that it is the result of some sort of nefarious calculation.

That's absurd. If you don't think that it is absurd, you've not worked in enough bureacracies. In addition to being absurd though, its also a very dangerous habit of thought.

"So here are the flaws in your argument.

Why is it verboten to bring these liquids aboard in carry-ons, while most or all of the contents of the luggage compartment go unchecked?"

Because in this particular case the threat was from unmixed explosives to be brought aboard in carry ons and then detonated by hand mixing. Presumably, mixed explosives would be caught (or not caught, because no system is perfect) by any of the existing methods including for example dogs. Clearly these are ad hoc methods designed to deal with an 'out of the box' threat.

"Why was this done only yesterday, even though the Administration had knowledge of the plot for days beforehand?"

Because instituting the practices the day before yesterday would have tipped of the terrorists and more of them might have escaped or done desparate acts? Because these measures are being taken incase some terrorists escaped the dragnet and would likely be willing to take desparate acts?

"Why are the restrictions likely to abate in the next few weeks?"

Because they are ad hoc? Because short term draconian measures are helpful against short term threats, but unreasonable in the long term?

"Will the threat disappear suddenly?"

No, but this threat from these people will dissipate as time goes by. Longer term measures will need to be implemented after more thought goes into figuring out what to do for the long term. Much of what you are seeing is probably decisions made by individual managers and security agents trying to do thier best to fulfil directives. As the bureaucrats get thier heads together, expect more coordinated activies.

"Performance art, I tell you, and in the eye of this beholder, very very poorly done at that."

Even if it was deliberate performance art, you aren't the intended audience. Most security depends on a certain ammount of performance art. You start patting down people, not necessarily to find the weapon, but to deter people from carrying the weapon. You wear a gun in part to display that you have a gun. You surround the President with a bunch of highly visible bodygaurds, not so much to protect him physically (because they don't help against most realistic threats) but to protect him with a psychological barrier that keeps stupid people from endangering themselves. You put a barrier up at the edge of the tomb of the unknown soldier, not because that in itself keeps people from walking on it, but because it tells people 'If I cross this line, I'll get in trouble.'

But there is nothing in the picture you showed which looks calculated at all, much less nefarious.

We're going around in circles, it seems, as these discussions often do. Let me try again.

Here is what I perceive to have been the President's plan:

1. Remove immediately the sanctuary from which the most immediate enemy (al Qaeda) funded, planned and launched the 9/11 raid. This is both punishment and prevention.

2. Hunt down anyone who, past or present, plans, executes, funds or supports terrorist attacks against the West, or those who shelter people who do those things.

3. Remove as soon as practicable a state sponsor of terrorism not directly connected to 9/11. This both removes a potential enemy, and acts as deterrent: go the Libya route or go the Iraq route; it's up to you.

4. Ensure that no nations that support jihadi terrorism also get access to nuclear weapons, and that no jihadi groups get access to nuclear weapons. (This was the genesis of the "Axis of Evil" remarks.)

5. Establish an Arab democracy, preferably a liberal Arab democracy, to incite fundamental societal change in the Arab/Muslim world, with the goal of pulling the intellectual and cultural rug out from under the jihadis.

As far as I can tell, that was and remains the Bush administration's grand strategic plan. It is actionable, it fits the facts of what has happened to date, and it explains why other things that might have happened (attack on Iran, for example) have not happened.

Now, from what I can tell, Beard and AndyL take issue with some or all elements of the plan, for various reasons sometimes logistical, utilitarian, or philosophical, but more often than not merely because they do not trust the President as a person or ideologically.

What I would really like to understand is what their alternative is. Beard's attempt was, as celebrim pointed out, a collection of platitudes: it's not actionable; it's a critique. OK, fine, but we've all seen those critiques, for years, and what I at least want is the alternate plan.

And let me be clear: I think that it is possible that the President's plan is failing. Indeed, it may already have failed. (I also think that this is in large part due to propaganda from people who hold beliefs similar to Alan L's and Beard's. But that is incidental to my point.) If it is true that the President's plan has failed or is failing, and if as I assume we all (with the exception of fools like Galloway) support the end state of no more Islamist terrorism, then how do we go forward to achieve the goal? What are the practical steps that can be taken to improve our chances of victory?

My concern is that the Left are great as critics, but a bad plan is infinitely preferable to no plan. If I cannot see a plan from the Left, there is no way to debate alternatives. And that means that I will remain where I am: forced to vote for people who will implement a plan I see as failing or possibly failing, because at least they have a plan.

So I will renew my quesions: how should we be figthing this war; and if the jihadis are not the big threat to worry about, what is?

Another (minor) point about the buckets: the vast majority of what's going in is going to be water. (Orange juice, for instance, is at least 80% water. Milk is about 95% water.) In addition to the coffee, sodas, juices, and milk-based drinks, a lot of plain old water water will be going in too.

In other words, the contents of the bucket aren't going to be pretty (and probably won't smell very nice after a few hours) but they will be, from a chemical standpoint, mostly inert H2O.

I have no idea what the composition of the liquid bombs would have been, but chances are pouring whatever those liquids were into a couple of gallons of water would radically reduce the explosive potential.

Any real chemists in the house to comment on this idea?

Here is what you wanted to say, Beard:

"Start talks with Iran to offer them something in return for not developing nuclear weapons" Here is what you wanted to say, Beard:

"Start talks with Iran to offer them something in return for not developing nuclear weapons" <- that's a bit more specific?

"Get in contact with individuals in Iran who are interested in changing the regime, and in particular are interested in a full democracy" <- That's also more specific.

But those things have and are being done as we speak. Iran rejected our proposal for free technology (more or less) to forfeit their weapons tech.

Lebanon? "Speak with Lebanon's leaders and convince them... " Just stop there, we've done it. They don't have any power of hezb'allah.

Here's a solution? Get in contact with people on the ground in Lebanon and convince them to speak to local hezb'allah to stop the violence? Well, feel free.. go to PJ media and look for those Lebanese bloggers, and talk to them. They live there! Go, do it!

Chances are, not even the 'indigenous' people can talk these guys out of their madness. If Cicero can't effectively talk his amigo out of his BDS, then how are they going to talk hezb'allah out of being killers?

--------

I would assert that these are the reasons that refutation of your 4 methods is correct; because if attempts are made to make them more specific, they fall apart as either having been done and failed, or being impossible to do in the given circumstances.

I'm being pretty fair here, I'm assuming that you don't secretly WANT the USA & the West to fail.

If its a lunatic you're looking for, you'll probably find one.

------------

Also, I feel that conspiracies are childish and foolish. Belief in conspiracy is fundamentally Unchristian. Look here:

In describing what love is, Paul elucidates in Chapter 13 of Corinthians. I just want to look at the seventh verse:

"[Love] [b]eareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things."
(KJV)

This english is a bit old but holds the essence of the argument.
Love always tolerates, trusts, hopes and endures. (Note: tolerate is used in the strict sense, as in the dictionary definition.)

Belief in conspiracy = lack of trust. That's not loving, friend.

Just sayin'.

Jeff:

Here's the Progressive plan to end terrorism:

1. Bring the troops home.
2. ?????
3. No more terrorism!

They are particularly excited by steps 1 and 3.

"Win the trust of the indigenous population" is not a platitude. It's a strategic directive. It requires tactics to be implemented. Figuring out appropriate tactics is not trivial, but it's not rocket science either.

To pick a historical example, if our commanders had said, "As soon as Baghdad falls, employ everyone in the Iraqi army below the rank of colonel, and assign them the task of ensuring law and order in the streets of Iraq", things would have been very different there. Those commanders would not have had to specify precisely how to ensure law and order, and exactly what sort of supervision to provide, and how to make sure that the Iraqis followed orders, and so on. Those are tactical decisions that lower-level commanders make to implement higher-level strategic orders.

(There's another long discussion to be had about why it was impossible for our commanders on the ground in Iraq to give those orders, thanks to the situation that had been created by the Pentagon, but we'll leave that for now.)

Of course I'm describing what to do at a high level. The specifics have to be decided on the ground, by people who understand the local situation.

Someone who thinks that failing to "tell them what to do" refutes my argument sounds like a private who is never going to make it to corporal.

I'm tired of taking this issue seriously.

"I would have them place their containers, unopened, with their contents unmixed with others, on a table to be removed to a secure location (say, a warehouse?) away from concentrated populations of women and children."

I've already pointed out on big flaw in the plan (containers which are valuable), let me point out another - containers which are not sturdy.

If you'll look that the picture Andy L offers as proof that this is a centrally controlled nefarious plot, you'll see that what the picture really shows is a woman pouring a drink from what looks like a paper cup into a trash can.

Now the question becomes, why not place the paper cup 'unopened' somewhere. Well, for one thing, there probably would not be a table big enough to put all the paper cups on. Those paper cups would have to be placed in a bin of some sort eventually, and because they are paper cups they'd collapse, spill, or otherwise mix thier contents anyway.

In fact, we've seen plenty of examples of containers sitting in bins. That in fact seems to be the usual approach. In general, you aren't going to make everyone empty viscous slow moving fluids into a vat. What if someone gets into line with a bottle of Heinz ketchup? We might as well shut the airport down while we wait for the ketchup to pour. (Much like the 'vat of toothpaste', I hope you realize that I'm kidding when you say this.) There are lots of pictures of bins filled with containers of various sorts, but notably not paper cups.

Why is that? Probably, its just to avoid the mess it would make. Special receptacles for paper cups do not have to be brought into airports. Amazing, these receptacles were available even before the terror threat was revealed. I guess that proves that this conspiracy goes back a long ways. I suspect that based on this, the next terror plot to be revealed will be a plot to blow up fast food resturants. Afterall, they mysteriously also contain receptacles for paper cups in what can only be explained as readying fast food restuarants for terror inducing performance theater centrally directed at the highest levels of government.

There is something about this photo that only struck me the second time I looked at it. The photo has no context whatsoever. Who is directing the woman to pour the soft drink, water, coffee or whatever was in the paper cup into the trash can? Is this a reutine occurance? Is everyone doing it? Why bother separating the cup from its liquid? Why doesn't the woman throw the cup into the trash can liquid and all, as most people reflexively do in such circumstances?

At the risk of being too speculative, allow me to offer a theory. Because if she threw the cup into the bin, it wouldn't make a very good photo. Only by a prolonged pouring does the woman become photogenic. The action of tossing something into a bin isn't easy to capture on camera, and so doesn't illustrate or narrate a story. There are no gaurds in the frame directing her to do this, because noone in security is directing this action. Assuming that this is in fact a paper cup or similar container, and not something valuable (like a travel mug) she's trying preserve (see above), then the most likely reason she's pouring and not tossing is that the person holding the camera asked her to do it.

Thus, in a certain since, this may well be performance theater, but not at all the kind that Andy L thinks it is.

But all that said, just think - we are arguing about a nefarious plot to control the most powerful nation on the planet, which is uncovered by a picture that shows how a beverage is disposed of. If that isn't telling evidence, I don't know what your definition of telling evidence is.

Beard and Andy are being disingenuous at best. Dems ask where is Osama but don't like the answer (protected in Pakistan, it would require WAR with that nation to get him). I'm fine with War to get him. But even Joe Biden shied away from that; his backers did not want to deal with the reality (that Osama is protected in Pakistan and War is required to get him).

Thus they suggest appeasement and groveling, removing Israel as a nation by force (as suggested on Kos); etc.

We tried the Law Enforcement PC-idiocy way and it failed. It failed on 9/11 spectacularly.

GWB to his credit has attempted to stave off what writers, thinkers, and various security people have predicted since the 1970's ... a nuke in an American City; followed by massive strategic retaliation at well known enemy nations such as Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, etc. Mixed with vigilantism on a continental scale.

This is the real threat against which even 9/11 pales. Losing several million US citizens in a nuclear attack and around 140 Million enemy Muslim civilians in the inevitable strategic nuclear response (if you don't wipe out a nation responsible you'll get hit again; the awful consequence of nuclear weapons).

To this Leftists, Liberals, and the rest of the art crowd have nothing but pretending real hard. Pretending that nuclear weapons exist in some sort of magic box that prevents Ahmadinejad for example from giving it to Hezbollah to strike the Great Satan as well as the little one (no question the Left would celebrate say the nuking of Tel Aviv with great satisfaction since Kos diarists on the home page view it as the source of the world's misery ).

There are alternatives, to GWB's mission of "democratic transformation" with some but not all increased state anti-terrorism powers, but Dems don't propose them: isolationism and exclusion of all Muslims from entry into the nation, surveillance of every Mosque particularly those linked to hate speech and terrorist fundraising which is most of them, religious profiling, greatly expanded police powers, permanent detention ala Gitmo for all terrorists caught abroad or at home (for that matter). And plenty of drugs and other methods to extract information about terror plots.

This is ugly (which is why Libs/Leftists don't like it) but it has the prospect of working; and not engaging the US in wars abroad nor the loss of our soldiers. It's been proven to work for say Leftist hero Fidel Castro. Unleashing the Secret Police on terrorists works, but then you have the Secret Police.

The other alternative is simply "rubble doesn't make trouble" ala Derbyshire and simply conventional bomb any threatening society into Japan or Germany 1945. That also avoids ground wars and has the prospect of working. It's also ugly but it's a genuine alternative to GWB (and likely a winner politically).

What Libs are proposing is apologizing for "making Muslims mad" and groveling, and endless series of appeasements ending up with handing over every nation in the world (as Muslims demand) to Sharia law. Spain, England, the US etc. It's not a serious approach but head in the sand.

The danger in this approach is that when governments cede any responsibility for public safety people create voluntary associations (otherwise known as vigilantes) and solve the problem on their own. Muslim assaults on Sydney beach-goers including the iconic Lifeguards resulted in "surfie" mobs arranging a show-down with the Muslim sharia gangs and generalized tribal warfare; and the total loss of confidence in the PC-driven regional government to suppress the Muslim sharia mobs which caused the problem in the first place.

[Nothing Beard says speaks to the danger of Ahmadinejad's desire to bring about the 12th Imam's return by nuking America and/or Israel. It reeks of "we can do business with Mr. Hitler."]

#9 Beard says,

Jeff Medcalf [#6] asks how the GWoT should have been fought. That's a reasonable question, and worthy of extensive discussion by a group of smart people. However, this question is often used to shut off discussion, because of course it's extremely difficult, and initial proposals will need to be debugged. This question should start the discussion.

Well righties have been asking lefties this question for a number of years. (here comes the snark) Beard admits he is not smart enough to figure this out and since the opposition has had a few years to come up with an answer and they still have none, we must conclude that the ooposition is dumber than Bush. Because at least, however faulty, he has a plan. And it appears to be getting some results. i.e. Taking down Saddam convinced Libya to change sides.

The Left, Dumber than Bush. It has a ring.

It would seem the Rs are already running under that slogan and getting traction.

I might note when the figure 65% dissatisfied with the war is bandied about that doesn't mean 65% support for cut and run. Some (maybe a lot) want more battles and more progress. The "faster please" crowd.

Remember when the Ds went cut and run in '68 and the repellant Nixon won in a landslide.

And by a bigger margin in '72.

#9 Beard says,

Jeff Medcalf [#6] asks how the GWoT should have been fought. That's a reasonable question, and worthy of extensive discussion by a group of smart people. However, this question is often used to shut off discussion, because of course it's extremely difficult, and initial proposals will need to be debugged. This question should start the discussion.

Well righties have been asking lefties this question for a number of years. (here comes the snark) Beard admits he is not smart enough to figure this out and since the opposition has had a few years to come up with an answer and they still have none, we must conclude that the ooposition is dumber than Bush. Because at least, however faulty, he has a plan. And it appears to be getting some results. i.e. Taking down Saddam convinced Libya to change sides.

The Left, Dumber than Bush. It has a ring.

It would seem the Rs are already running under that slogan and getting traction.

I might note when the figure 65% dissatisfied with the war is bandied about that doesn't mean 65% support for cut and run. Some (maybe a lot) want more battles and more progress. The "faster please" crowd.

Remember when the Ds went cut and run in '68 and the repellant Nixon won in a landslide?

And by a bigger margin in '72.

Beard:

"To pick a historical example, if our commanders had said, "As soon as Baghdad falls, employ everyone in the Iraqi army below the rank of colonel, and assign them the task of ensuring law and order in the streets of Iraq", things would have been very different there. Those commanders would not have had to specify precisely how to ensure law and order, and exactly what sort of supervision to provide, and how to make sure that the Iraqis followed orders, and so on. Those are tactical decisions that lower-level commanders make to implement higher-level strategic orders."

Once again, this is not a plan - its criticism. Moreover, it is criticism based on profound ignorance.

How many valid reasons why this plan would not work would I have to list before you'd change your mind? Five? Ten? Twenty? Give me a target. What standard of proof do you require to change your mind?

Look, 9/11 was scary, epecially for New Yorkers (I had loved ones very close by who witnessed Tower 1 collapsing). But there are greater existential threats to Americans than terrorism, even though it is worth paying attention to OF COURSE.

I don't understand a statement like this in anything other than a psychoanalytic sense. I don't, for instance, understand how one can jump from an acknowledgment that Jihadist Terrorism is an existencial threat, to the acknowledgment that it's OK to "pay attention" to it. It seems to imply that paying attention to an existential threat might be as far as we need to go to address it, like road maintenance or something. It's like acknowledging that one might need to pay attention to that guy holding a gun to your temple, but that nodding "Hi" to the fellow, might be the maximum response required... after which one can just finish one's Big Mac.

Is there a coherent response to this state of mind? It's not that it's such an unforgivable or unpardonable offense. Instead, it's like repeatedly attempting to slam the gear shifter home when you know the clutch is gone. A better idea might be to pull off the road for a few repairs.

Welcome to the looking-glass, gentlemen, where up is and down and left is right... wrong is right and right is wrong...

There are no absolutes and all is relative, except what becomes absolute in a relative situation...

If one and one is three, and two and one is three, then one equals two. So if the pope and I are two, the pope and I are also one. I'm the pope!

Do you know what the secret is? I'll tell you. Pay me 500 bucks and I'll tell you the secret. Ah heck, I'm tired of waiting, so I'll just give it to you for free. The secret is, There is no secret.

Yep, no secret. Some stuff is harder to find than others, but the secret is that nothing is really secret. There's no special knowledge. Expertise and mastery account for a lot, but they're not secret knowledge. They're collected knowledge that is freely available.

So look, you can be fine with your conspiracies and theories about the evils of the Man, whilst I enjoy the cookout I'm about to go to with old college friends.

I might get a parking ticket, (probably will) but I know that in advance. So, I guess I could do something about it. Or I could run over there in a hurry, get the ticket, and shout about how the college parking department only wants our money. Conspiracy!

Well, they do want our money. But its no conspiracy. Who doesn't want your money? Geez.

---

The overarching point is, conspiracies are childish ways to avoid coming up with real solutions that might challenge your worldview. Conspiracies in fact have mostly no place in a mature discussion at all. I don't want to be insulting, I instead intend to make a point with my pointed words.

Take it as you will-- I know that all people are capable of understanding.

Later dawgs.

"I have no idea what the composition of the liquid bombs would have been, but chances are pouring whatever those liquids were into a couple of gallons of water would radically reduce the explosive potential."

I'm not a real chemist, but I do know that nitroglycerin stablizes when diluted to 75% strength by the addition of an inert substance. In for example, heart medication, I believe the inert substance of choice is sugar water. Since the sugar is often lactose, milk would probably work just fine.

Nitroglycerin would separate from water over time (though I'm not sure about sugar water, which I suspect would keep it in suspension), but as long as the container relative to the ammount of fluid is big you are more to have a fire than a dangerous explosion.

Celebrin #46

I debated debated this very issue before, and the person who held Beard's position found this document that convinced him that there was no Iraqi Army organization that remained to be utilized or demobilized.

(The only instance I have ever seen of someone actually changing their mind in an internet debate...)

In any case, since the post-bellum operational status of the Iraqi Army played no part in the 9/11 attacks, I am doubtful that it played a major role in reducing or enhancing the threat seen by John Q. Public due to jihad, but I'd consider an argument linking the two.

SG: The 'we shouldn't have disbanded the Iraqi' army meme is my 'you've swallowed the koolaid' touchstone, because it is an argument which is absurd on the face of it and absurd in detail. Better yet, the more you know, the more absurd that it gets. I wasn't kidding about being able to come up with twenty reasons why it would have been unworkable and/or fraught with difficulty.

#38 Mark Poling asks what explosive they were planning to use. Reports are it was triacetone triperoxide ((TATP) which is manufactured by mixing acetone (fingernail polish remover) with hydrogen peroxide (oxygen bleach) in the presence of a strong acid. (And no, I am not telling any terrorists something they don't know- the recipe for what is called "Mother of Satan" is all over the internet). I thought it had to be dried before it was explosive, but perhaps the terrorists know more about it than I. One reason they like TATP is that it is not nitrogen-based and therefore can be missed by some explosives detectors.

Of course it would be illegal to take any significant quanitity of these chemicals on an aircraft even by current rules covering corrosives and flammables, but whatever.

Iraqi army disbanded itself. Read Cobra II. The real mistake, if you are looking for something to rail on, is that the Rummy and his people planned on an intact police and bureaucratic structure to run the country, but they disbanded as well. That would be forgiveable but they never came up with a Plan B, handed responsibility to Bremer who promptly short-circuted everything Garner and the military on the ground had cooking, and centralized all the decisions into his own hands, decisions he simply ignored. Garner was on his way to a rather pragmatic solution, simply working with whoever had a clue what they were doing. Bremer put an end to all that with his debaathification obsession and decided the only thing he was worried about was writing a constitution, infastructure be hanged. That critical period was lost and Rumsfeld and Bush are ultimately responsible for not providing any oversite of a flawed policy. Bremer was a disaster but the people that left him there are the culprits.

The only thing we have to fear is ourselves

It's worked well for us for many years.

And I certainly hope no one would argue with this.

But I'm guessing most will.

#41 Beard,

Sure the Iraqi police and Army knew how to keep law and order in Saddam's Iraq.

And that was the problem with using them.

We did not wish to recreate Saddam's Iraq.

Next.

But I do get Beard's point. We ought to know in advance the consequences of every decision and thus never make any mistakes.

That is not policy.

It is fantasy.

Good. The Rs will need all the help they can get in Nov. I must say the Ds are doing a very good job of giving them that help.

celebrim;

I think you're operating under the false assumption that you can win this argument by attacking the credibility or meaning of the photo I linked to above.

If this single instance were the only evidence of the futility of the Bush Administrations approach to national security, you would certainly be winning this argument.

But since that is clearly not the case, perhaps its time to flip ahead to Chapter 2 in the Republican Party Official Propoganda Manual.

Can you see how it might make some (or perhaps most now) American's angry that their leaders 1) do little or nothing of substance to actually try to keep the populace safe from terrorist attacks and/or better prepare for responding when they do occur (e.g., how're the Repubs doing on implementing the 9/11 Commission's improvements? How's FEMA these days? Hope those Amish popcorn factories are safe.), and 2) take every opportunity to politicize terrorist threats to gain an advantage over Democrats by falsely portraying any opponents of their doomed policies as "pro-terrorist"?

If not then our conversation is over.

Bremer was brought in because of the media driven myth of Rumsfeld and Central Command's supposed incompetence. Bremer was State's representative.

Now people blame Rumsfeld and the DoD for much of State's conduct. This was always Colin Powell's chief skill - laying off his errors onto others.

Just how anonymous do you think you are after having published your friend's letter? Hm... what if he reads it here? Your cover will be blown -- that's one. And also, publishing private letters, not so nice, huh.

So, honestly now: did you compose this 'letter from a friend' yourself as a pretext for your commentary ?

Whatever the case may be, that's what everyone will think, you can be sure of that.

Bremer was brought in because of the media driven myth of Rumsfeld and Central Command's supposed incompetence. Bremer was State's representative.

Appointed by the president and reporting directly to Donald Rumsfeld.

Yeah, it's obviously all Powell's fault.

Andy L:

Do the SWIFT tracking and NSA overseas taps (both of which were reportedly used in uncovering the current plot) count as something of substance meant to prevent terrorist attacks?

I just can't get worked up over politicians being political. It definitional. Dems do it, Reps do it. It's the way the system works.

Clearly your're emotionally invested in the thesis that everything the Bush administration does is either incompetent or machiavellian (or somehow both simultaneously - I wish someone could explain that one to me), and you're not going to be convinced otherwise.

Look, there's lots of good faith reasons to criticize the Bush administration. But that they've responded to a near-operational plan to smuggle liquid explosives on numerous planes by not letting liquids onto planes is not one of them.

I'm sure; absolutely, positively, beyond a shadow of a doubt positive that if liquids were being allowed on planes and a plane was brought down with it you (and Keith Olbermann) would be shouting from the rooftops about how incompetent the adminstration is in allowing passengers to bring liquids on a plane when we know that jihadis are using liquids as a vector for explosives.

And in that case, you know what? You'd be right. Until there's a mechanism for closing this threat, the safe thing is to disallow it.

So let me ask you, given the current facts, how would a good administration have responded?

So Andy L, I ask again: what's your position on the SWIFT monitoring program? Incoming international call log analysis?

Take measures to protect flights, it's political theater fear mongering. Try to use covert programs to detect terror networks, it's creation of a police state. Attempt to change or subvert terrorist-sponsoring governments, and it's war-mongering.

You've created a perfect system. But I'm wondering how long you can keep eating your own tail before something starts to crack.

So, honestly now: did you compose this 'letter from a friend' yourself as a pretext for your commentary?
Whatever the case may be, that's what everyone will think, you can be sure of that.

For the record, I believe Cicero and I doubt that I�m the only one.

"I think you're operating under the false assumption that you can win this argument by attacking the credibility or meaning of the photo I linked to above."

LOL.

No, I am operating under the belief that assertions do or do not have merit irrespective of whatever else is true. You are here apply an argument that even though the photo in question and the assertion you make about it may be wrong, that its nevertheless justified in light of other things. This argued is called 'fake but accurate'. This methodology is applied by people like Michael Moore when they are convinced thier thesis is correct, but they don't have any facts to support but feel - on the basis of their defence of 'truth' - that they are free to make up the evidence in support of it.

What I see is you 'cutting and running' from the subject at hand, which is the ideas in post #14, to segue into a different topic where you hope you won't be made to look quite so much the fool. I take the fact that you've decided to change topics that not only am I winning the argument, but that I have won the argument.

Why in the world would I want to chasing you from one topic to the next, while you keeping bobbing, weaving, and evading? Why would I want to continue a debate with an individual who begins with his rather ludicrous assumptions, and then procedes to try to hammer and twist the facts to fit his thesis? If this conversation is over, what loss is that to me?

"If this single instance were the only evidence of the futility of the Bush Administrations approach to national security, you would certainly be winning this argument."

It's a freaking paper cup. Yeah, I think so. The reason I would continue to win this argument even if I was willing to chase you in circles, is that this single instance of the 'paper cup conspiracy' (or plastic or styrofoam or whatever that drink cup is) is pretty darn typical of the seriousness of your thinking.

In Olbermann's case, his whole line of argument falls apart when he reveals that the event which triggered all this was the terrorists in question buying airline tickets, and that the explosive could be produced from ordinary ingredients, and that the plan was technically feasible. And its not like they needed a sophisticated plan. Simple and stupid works, as we found out on 9/11. It would then seem now is a reasonable time to drop the shoe. What do you want? Jack Bauer to save the day in the last 24 hours?

Here's a typical example of Olbermann style 'proof' and 'evidence':

"The president had the details from London no later than Sunday, so when Republican Committee Chair Ken Mehlman and Vice President Dick Cheney eviscerated Connecticut Democrats for choosing Ned Lamont over Senator Joe Lieberman and brought al Qaeda into the equation they, at minimum, knew a terror act would be breaking shortly."

First, this is total speculation presented without a shred of evidence. It's just naked innuendo. It's not the evidence which is intended to be compelling, but rather the seriousness of the charge. Where have we heard that before? Secondly, would Cheney and Mehlman have 'eviscerated' Connecticut Democrats for ousting Joe Lieberman even if they didn't know a terror act would be breaking shortly? Of course they would have. As far as Olbermann is concerned, no matter what happens, it is evidence of the same thing.

Davebo,
Again, I see you are putting words is others' mouth.

"Bremer's office was a division of the United States Department of Defense, and as Administrator he reported directly to the United States Secretary of Defense and the President of the United States."

wiki

As to Cicero's friend and anonymity, I'm Cicero has reason to believe his friend isn't addicted to blog reading/commenting/trolling (unlike some of us).

Another nice attempt to change the subject though....

SPQR

I get the feeling you see that in your dreams too!

But forget all about it when you wake up apparantly since you never attempt to provide an example.

But I don't blame you for ignoring the link. It's pretty scary eh? If you'd join the others here in ignoring it silently that would be fine.

At some point shooting fish in their self-imposed barrel will get boring. Until then...

I hereby assert that Davebo is an idiot. Given the comments on this thread, I certainly hope that no one would argue with this. But I'm guessing some will.

Now that we've all had our fun with arguments by assertion, can we move on to some more interesting logical fallacies?

"But I don't blame you for ignoring the link. It's pretty scary eh?"

Huh? I got to admit the logic of that escapes me.

Are you sure we are talking about the same link?

For years, I've been arguing with liberals that most Americans aren't in fact 'frightened' by terrorism, that most people aren't acting out of 'fear', and that the administration is not in fact trying to 'scare' anyone.

Now you present a link in which someone admits that he isn't scared, and this is supposed to be evidence of what? This is supposed to be scary, how?

I don't get it. The best stab I can make at it is that you've been swallowing your own propaganda about how the 'right' is being motivated by fear, and the only reason that the left loses elections is the 'tactics of fear'. But no one on the right has ever argued that. You seem to be patting yourself on the back for convincing yourself of something, and then patting yourself on the back for 'not being taken in', or something, despite the fact that all the talk of fear seemed to come from the left...so maybe they were the only ones afraid to begin with?!?!?

Like I said, I don't get it.

"If you'd join the others here in ignoring it silently that would be fine."

I wasn't ignoring it, I just didn't find it all that interesting. The guys not afraid. Great. Join the rest of us.

I don't get it. The best stab I can make at it is that you've been swallowing your own propaganda about how the 'right' is being motivated by fear, and the only reason that the left loses elections is the 'tactics of fear'. But no one on the right has ever argued that.

I'm not saying that anyone on the right is arguing that, I'm saying that major players on the right are using fear for political purposes. And it's not just major players either, bloggers on the right love it (are you listening Trent and Joe?).

If you'd care for some examples I'd be happy to oblige.

Unbeliever, I have no idea what comment you are referring to, and like SPQR you don't seem capable of providing the evidence, so what was that about logical fallacies again?

So Andy L.'s arguments are reduced to liquids in a barrel.

And that is, you know, big picture policy?

Where I come from that would be refered to as pissing in the soup.

At least Beard, how ever inadequately, is discussing the big picture. Andy is reduced to deciding where to direct the fire hose.

News flash. You win elections on how to prevent the next fire not where to direct the fire hose on the last one.

In engineering we have a plan. We carry out the plan until unforseen problems become so severe that it becomes obvious that soon there will be no forward progress.

Then it is time for the recovery plan.

Rinse, repeat.

There is usually a good possibility that the original plan is inadequate. The good engineering teams are good at recovery.

In fact recovery plans were my specialty. I got paid the big bucks and was given a LOT of slack because I could do recovery plans that saved the company millions. And my recovery plans usually came in much faster than required (without me working up a sweat) and under or way under budget.

So the question is not how Iraq was screwed up. That was inevitable with human factors and opposition. The question is: is the recovery plan working? Does it need tweeks or a clear sheet of paper?

So far I think (given the history of other wars) things are not doing too badly.

Compared to perfection things really suck. But that is true of all wars. That is why they are not called festivals.

Sure Davebo,

We have nothing to fear. I'm sure the Ds will get lots of votes with that story.

Psychologically humans are driven more by fear than hope.

You don't win elections by telling them their fears are imaginary. You tell them your plan for reducing the risks.

Davebo,
You attempted to put into my mouth that I was claiming that it was "all" Powell's fault. I did not say that.

The fact that Bremer's office as Iraq administrator reported to the DoD does not refute my statement that he was representing the State dept as it's approach replaced that of the Army's approach to Iraq.

M. Simon,

We have lots to fear. I get a fear of heights when driving over tall overpasses sometimes.

But I don't suggest we eliminate overpasses and switch to tunnels. That would make the claustrophobics uncomfortable.

But does this mean Celebrim is a democrat? He's not afraid.

Fears are healthy, they prevent us from putting ourselves in dangerous situations.

But irrational fears are not useful. And having an overwhelming fear of being killed in a terrorist attack is indeed, an irrational fear.

But I'll leave it to you guys from no on to talk about the incredible threats we face from terrorists. It's getting a bit silly for me.

"But I'll leave it to you guys from no on to talk about the incredible threats we face from terrorists."

This is a false dichotomy. I believe we do face incredible threats from terrorism. I'm just not afraid, nor do I advocate being afraid. I don't see fear as a productive responce to the threat.

And yes, if there are examples of bloggers on the right arguing that fear is a productive responce to the threat, I'd like to see them. But, in the interest of avoiding unnecessary argument, make sure you don't present evidence of bloggers trying to establish that there is a threat as evidence of trying to "use fear for political purposes." As for irrational fears, I disagree with Trent's analysis, and I disagree with his planned responce, but I don't find his concern to be irrational. It's a justifiable concern. If he were right, it would be the single most important concern facing us. I just hope that he's not the guy 'fearful' about Islamists studying at flight schools who seemed to be overplaying the threat on 9/01, and who we all wished we'd listened to more on 9/12.

In my experience, no one on the right is trying to use fear for political purposes. When I do see the right channelling a negative emotion, its generally anger. If you mistake 'anger mongering' for 'fear mongering', as I've heard several on the left do, I think it tells one more about you than it does about the speaker.

If you want to discuss whether its appropriate for leaders and pundits to channel anger, that would be an interesting discussion. I see alot more anger out there than fear.

"But does this mean Celebrim is a democrat? He's not afraid."

Without intending to insult anyone, I'd like to think that the fact that I'm not afraid indicates that I'm not a Democrat. It's been the Democrats going around talking about the administration trying to make people afraid, an assertion that was always bewildering to me, and explainable only if what the administration says makes the speaker afraid. Whose fear are they talking about if not thier own? Not mine. Likewise, if I really believed what the moonbats who talk about 9/11 being something the government MIHOP and all the rest of the endless conspiracy theory, then yeah I might have some degree of fear. But, I don't believe that, so there you go.

#76,

If you are not afraid you are not paying attention.

I'm not advocating panic.

What I'm asking is would guard rails on the overpass be a good idea? And how high should they be? 4 ft high or 6 ft.

If you tell me 40 ft high, I'll tell you that you are over reacting.

If you tell me no guard rails are necessary I'd say yeah, in a perfect world. Which this is not.

Mark (#67), I personally, wouldn't take risks of this sort with a friend whom I "love dearly". Most people probably wouldn't either. Even if Cicero's friend doesn't read blogs, he's supposedly a known person, so someone could bring his attention to this. If not today, then maybe a month from now, or a year... To most people a close friendship with someone would be more important that a negligible piece of agitprop in the 'blogosphere'.

Let's be honest, this has been a case of Cicero's conversing with an imaginary opponent of his own devisement -- rhetorically, it's nice to have a foil, we understand; this literary form livens up discourse.

And also, my message got nothing to do with changing the topic, which, btw, I happen to have no problem with.

It's just one more telling detail I've chosen not to ignore.

And having an overwhelming fear of being killed in a terrorist attack is indeed, an irrational fear.

Actually, I have no fear of being killed in a terrorist attack. In fact, since we all have to die somehow, I'd just as soon have a 757 crash into my face and get it over with fast.

However, I would not like to see terrorists attack my mother, or my neighbor, or even my lawyer. Or a bunch of people in New York that I don't even know. I would not even like to see a terrorist crash a plane into Michael Moore's house and wreck his pool cabana.

And I am not impressed by statistics that say more people are killed in car accidents than terrorist attacks. Neither are you, since such logical sophistry would render all your frets about the Iraq War equally meaningless. (And why worry about torture when more people get hurt by lawnmowers?) Car accidents are not acts of war against everything I value.

Of course, I care about my country and the people who live in it. Even the f--king morons who don't use their turn signals. Even the conspiracy theorists, who are probably the same people.

It's been said much better on other blogs, but this original post and the one by AndyL immediately after are a beautiful microcosm of the early 1930's debate about Hitler.

The thing I encourage commenters to consider here,is the outcome. The folks in the 1930's who were in denial, or proposed a pacifist solution, or in general downplayed the absolute criticality of the situation, were by in large never convinced of the reality of it all.

I would suggest by reasonably debating with the far left you do not understand human nature.

When the turning point came those years ago, and it was finally time to engage in yet another war to end all wars, and we faught, much too late and therefore with much too terrible a price, those pitiable folks who had been decrying the situation all ran away and cowered in the bunkers to the extent that they could run. They never chnaged the essence of their tune.

It's the same way now, with Lebanon. And the Israelis will learn of the terrible consequence of electing Omert. I had thought that a country that lived under the shadow of Mordor would have no need for this terrible lesson.

Celebrim [#76],

How soon we forget! The whole justification for the invasion of Iraq, at the time, was that "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." Later, when the WMD didn't materialize, we discovered our mission to eliminate a Really Bad Guy, and to bring democracy to the Middle East, but that was later.

At the time, there was lots of skepticism about whether Iraq actually had WMDs, about whether the WMDs he did have were "merely" biological and chemical ones rather than nuclear, about whether the UN inspectors would be able to settle the question given more time, and about whether Saddam (control freak that he is) could realistically be imagined giving major weapons to groups of people he hated and didn't control.

But "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud" was the rallying cry of the administration, and it carried the day, getting votes from a number of otherwise-somewhat-sensible people who regretted it ever after.

They needed the votes. They stoked the fear in the American people with that mantra, and they got the votes. That's fear-mongering.

In the light of the "New American Century" vision for transforming the world through conquest, it's hard to see the attack on Iraq as anything other than a long-planned chess move on the global board, sold to the American people once there was a useful excuse. As it happened, it failed. We haven't conquered Iraq. The dominos haven't fallen our way. We're being outplayed.

As I said previously, we're the best there is at 20th century warfare, and we're being blind-sided by 21st century asymmetric warfare.

Sorry I can't give you detailed instructions on how to win at 21st century warfare. This isn't my day job (though it's tempting). The rules for 21st century warfare are being invented as we speak. But thinking we've already got the weapons and tactics and strategies we need is certain to get us creamed.

#6, 7

Jedd, I'm sorry I didn't get around to answering your reasonable question before.

As a reply, I will defer to someone much smarter than most humans on the planet-Stephen Hawking.

You should watch the video in full to appreciate the clear thinking and logic that Dr. Hawking applies to this question, but just to give away the punchline, he doesn't view nuclear terrorism as a top threat.

Somehow I find him much more credible and persuasive than Dick Cheney...but hey, I'm a Liberal terrorist enabler.

Andy, here's a hint. Hawking didn't make his reputation in national defense. When I want to know how black holes work, he's my go to guy.

Andy L,

Thanks for the pointer to the Hawking video. It's excellent!

I agree with the major threats he identifies to the survival of humanity, but I think there is a linkage with the topic at hand. There actually is a clash of civilizations going on, but not between Islamofascists and everyone else.

Rather, the clash is between fundamentalist extremists and liberal pluralists ("liberal" in the old sense, to placate our hosts). The fundamentalist extremists include Muslim, Jewish, Christian, and Hindu extremists, as well as plenty of others. Pluralists can include many people of deep religious faith, but those willing to live in peace with others who don't share their faith.

Even when the extremists hurl threats at other extremists, they are really allies under the skin, helping each other recruit by showering violence on the much more numerous pluralists, and keeping control of the conflict.

The extremists are willing to kill and die for their beliefs. They are the real risk to the survival of the human race. in the short term, they will try to foment nuclear war. In the longer term, only extremists would be willing to unleash the kind of self-propagating biological weapons that would be capable of killing off the entire human race.

We do need to fight this threat. But the way it is being fought now is just making things worse. I've made a few suggestions about how to win elsewhere in this discussion. Some of you disagree. Some can't figure out what I am saying. Maybe it's getting through somewhere. It's worth a try.

#81,

The invasion of Iraq made Libya give up its nuke weapons program.

Saddam had outsourced his nuke program to Libya. You can look it up.

Just because "no WMDs were found in Iraq" does not mean that Iraq didn't have a WMD program.

The dots have already been connected. Lots of people would prefer to ignore the picture.

Reality based my fn a.

Beard,

The chief military threat to the world is created by pacifists.

Small wars to eliminate threats are cheaper than big wars when the threats become severe.

War is the answer. Early and as often as necessary.

Pacifists kept the peace in 1936 (the Rhineland - even the Austrian Corporal admitted that had France stood firm on the Rhineland he would have been out of power). What followed was 1939 to 1945.

Pacificsm has its price. For a current individual example Peace Activist Murdered in Palestine

Beard, Andy L.,

Please explain how to make peace with these folks:

Hizbollah and Hamas have constructed core ideologies based upon this Islamic theology of Jew hatred, which one can glean readily from their foundational documents, and subsequent pronouncements, made ad nauseum. Hamas further demonstrates openly its adherence to a central motif of Jew-hatred in Muslim eschatology�Article 7 of the Hamas Charter concludes with a verbatim reiteration of the apocalyptic hadith alluded to earlier:

�The Last Hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: `Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him�; but the tree Gharkad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.� (Sahih Muslim, Book 40, Number 6985).

Apocalyptic Muslim Jew-hatred

"How soon we forget!"

Beard, I'm sorry that that is what you got out of the run up to the war, but that narrative is not the history I remember. You'll find I'm not one to forget much of anything.

This is what I remember...

Iraq Liberation Act of 1998

How was that bill justified?

"One way or the other, we are determined to deny Iraq the capacity to develop weapons of mass destruction and the missiles to deliver them. That is our bottom line."
- President Clinton, Feb. 4, 1998

"If Saddam rejects peace and we have to use force, our purpose is clear. We want to seriously diminish the threat posed by Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program."
- President Bill Clinton, Feb. 17, 1998

"We must stop Saddam from ever again jeopardizing the stability and security of his neighbors with weapons of mass destruction."
- Madeline Albright, Feb 1, 1998

"He will use those weapons of mass destruction again, as he has ten times since 1983."
- Sandy Berger, Clinton National Security Adviser, Feb, 18, 1998

"[W]e urge you, after consulting with Congress, and consistent with the U.S. Constitution and laws, to take necessary actions (including, if appropriate, air and missile strikes on suspect Iraqi sites) to respond effectively to the threat posed by Iraq's refusal to end its weapons of mass destruction programs."
Letter to President Clinton.
- (D) Senators Carl Levin, Tom Daschle, John Kerry, others, Oct. 9, 1998

"Saddam Hussein has been engaged in the development of weapons of mass destruction technology which is a threat to countries in the region and he has made a mockery of the weapons inspection process."
- Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D, CA), Dec. 16, 1998 | Source

Now, who was fear mongering? With all those impressive individuals talking up WMD's, its no wonder the Bush administration took them seriously. {snark} Skip forward abit.

Joint Resolution to Authorize the Use of Force

Now, certainly WMD were as they were in the previous administration something this administration was concerned about, especially by necessity when he was speaking to the UN, but look what Bush also said...

2003 State of the Union

"Different threats require different strategies. In Iran we continue to see a government that represses its people, pursues weapons of mass destruction and supports terror.

We also see Iranian citizens risking intimidation and death as they speak out for liberty and human rights and democracy. Iranians, like all people, have a right to choose their own government, and determine their own destiny, and the United States supports their aspirations to live in freedom. . . .

And tonight I have a message for the brave and oppressed people of Iraq: Your enemy is not surrounding your country, your enemy is ruling your country.

And the day he and his regime are removed from power will be the day of your liberation. . . .

Americans are a free people, who know that freedom is the right of every person and the future of every nation. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world; it is God's gift to humanity."

President's Remarks at the United Nations General Assembly

"The United States has no quarrel with the Iraqi people; they've suffered too long in silent captivity. Liberty for the Iraqi people is a great moral cause, and a great strategic goal. The people of Iraq deserve it; the security of all nations requires it. Free societies do not intimidate through cruelty and conquest, and open societies do not threaten the world with mass murder. The United States supports political and economic liberty in a unified Iraq."

"There are hopeful signs of the desire for freedom in the Middle East. Arab intellectuals have called on Arab governments to address the freedom gap, so their peoples can fully share in the progress of our times. From Morocco to Bahrain and beyond, nations are taking genuine steps toward political reform. A new regime in Iraq would serve as a dramatic and inspiring example of freedom for other nations in the region. (Applause) It is presumptuous and insulting to suggest that a whole region of the world, or the one-fifth of humanity that is Muslim, is somehow untouched by the most basic aspirations of life." - George Bush, Feb. 27, 2003

"That is not the America I know. That is not the America I serve. We refuse to live in fear...America believes that all people are entitled to hope and human rights, to the non-negotiable demands of human dignity. People everywhere prefer freedom to slavery; prosperity to squalor; self-government to the rule of terror and torture. America is a friend to the people of Iraq. Our demands are directed only at the regime that enslaves them and threatens us. When these demands are met, the first and greatest benefit will come to Iraqi men, women and children. The oppression of Kurds, Assyrians, Turkomans, Shi'a, Sunnis and others will be lifted. The long captivity of Iraq will end, and an era of new hope will begin."

What I remember of that period was not a big contriversy over the WMD. As the quotes from prior to the Bush administration indicate, it had been assumed by the Clinton administration and the Democratic Party that Saddam had, would develop, and would use WMD's. What was new and contriversial was, GWB's 'Neo-con' assertion that one of the goals should be to bring democracy to Iraq and the degree to which he asserted it. Prior to the war, this was the real source of partisan debate I recall. I don't recall much of anyone asserting Saddam didn't have them; the argument around the WMD's - as you suggested - revolved around whether the inspectors could find them if we waited some more.

I guess the big problem you are going to have in convincing me that Bush got support for the war because people were afraid, is I supported the war but never because of fear. The only people I heard talking about fear was Democrats, and I assumed that they did so because they were afraid. If they want to blame someone else for thier fear, that's not my problem. Generally speaking, the only people who talked about fear mongering where the ones who never did support the war.

"We're being outplayed."

I couldn't disagree more. But, I'd like to know in what sense you think we are being 'outplayed'.

Also, I note that you still have made no attempt at suggesting a plan of action.

Cicero,

I know your world all too well. As a College professor I live in a world where virtually all of my colleagues (many of them dear friends) think like your friend. I occassionally challenge them on their more conspiratorial statements. But I know at some point, the cost of challenging the far left conspiratorial consensus will be marginalization, being written off as a right-wing crank.

I'm appalled by the hubris and incompetence of the Bush administration. It is so clear we need better leadership than we have now. But I frankly can't see it coming from today's I Democrats, riding in a clown car driven by Daily Kos, right off a cliff.

celebrim:

I'll add some support to the Beard. Not the whole fear-mongering thing*, but that the US is being outplayed.

The US is clearly being outplayed. Fallujah. Fallujah take two. Moqtada al-Sadr & his Madhi Army. massive rallies for Hizb'allah. Shia death squads. Iranian shaped charges. Cries of civil war. And on. And on.

The US doesn't control Iraq. Control of Iraq is still being actively contested. Were I a betting man, at this point I would bet against the US meeting our stated objective (A democratic Iraq that is at peace with itself and its neighbors).

Bush has tried to wage war compassionately. We minimized impact on civilians, induced the Iraqi military to disband rather destroy them. We tolerated numerous armed challenges to our authority, meeting them with a minimum level of violence.

I can understand how we got into this predicament (hearts and minds, and all that crap), but that doesn't make it a good place to be.

*Fear-mongering may very well be the way Beard perceived the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. Others would call threatening human destruction due to environmental catastrophe fear-mongering, but would you really assert that Stephen Hawking is not arguing in good faith? You're arguing that the conclusion is wrong, when where you disagree are the premises.

87

Why do you want to make peace with "those folks"?

89

Professor;

Thank you for injecting a promising line of propoganda into the discussion.

By acknowledging "Bush's incompetence" while at the same expressing fear that the Democrats/Kossacks will only make things worse, you're establishing what is perhaps the strongest line of defense against losing political control over the country in the face of immense (and growing) public discontent with All Things Republican.

I really hope the public can really be convinced that things can get worse than they are now if the Democrats are elected. It's a long shot, to be sure, but really it's one of the few remaining tactics still available that continues to exploit the successsful strategy of playing to the public's worst fears.

Lucky for us, the press also loves to purvey fear, and so we can continue to count on their support of our efforts.

In the end, I think we will be triumphant. Therefore I wouldn't continue to worry that your more realistic (and rightly more pessimistic and cynical) views are not consonant with the beliefs of the majority of Americans. With any luck, and with the help of our Democracy, what the majority thinks or wants won't be an issue.

The people must be saved from themselves.

Sincerely,

Your Appreciative Cyber Student

More evidence that Bush is only concerned about the politics of terrorism, but not the human impact.

"WASHINGTON - As the British terror plot was unfolding, the Bush administration quietly tried to take away $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new explosives detection technology. Congressional leaders rejected the idea, the latest in a series of Homeland Security Department steps that have left lawmakers and some of the department's own experts questioning the commitment to create better anti-terror technologies.

The administration's most recent budget request also mystified lawmakers. It asked to take $6 million from the Sciences & Technology Directorate's 2006 budget that was supposed to be used to develop explosives detection technology and divert it to cover a budget shortfall in the Federal Protective Service, which provides security around government buildings."

I'll be looking forward to your replies to this.

J.G. Paul

Appreciative Student
Republican Propoganda Dissemination Studies

J.G. Paul/Andy L:

I note that you still haven't proposed any alternatives.

Look, people are clearly dissatisfied with the current leadership. If you want to lead in some alternate direction, then lead. Or at least point to some to some alternate direction. Just standing around bitching isn't useful.

What people like you do is make people like me hold their noses and vote for Republican. Is that your goal? We're willing to go in a different direction, but "not this way" isn't specific enough.

#91,

So if peace with those folks (Hizbollah, Hamas, and their supporters Syria and Iran) is not possible what do you propose?

War?

I'm in favor of it.

Congress is also planning to cut PTSD research funds.

PTSD represents 20% of American war casualties.

This is a crime and dishonors our troops.

Andy L,

I would be the first to agree with Dr. Hawking about the need to get off-planet. I would also concur that mankind is not truly safe until we are also in other solar systems. Only at that point will we be immune as a species from any imaginable catastrophe.

That said, there is not much we can do about asteroid impacts, so I don't worry about them at all. Nuclear war, if it comes about, will almost certainly come about because of the actions of terror-supporting regimes seeking or obtaining nuclear weapons (the Axis of Evil regimes, oddly enough). To me, this indicates a real need for vigorous efforts, even war if needed, to prevent such regimes from obtaining nuclear weapons.

Global warming would certainly be an existential threat if we went past a tipping point and started towards an irreversible warming cycle (such as what Venus went through). There is no evidence that we are anywhere near such a tipping point. We are, in fact, in a relatively cool period right now; humanity has survived (without the benefit of modern technology) much warmer climates than are foreseen by global warming alarmists. As such, I don't see it as an existential threat, although I do think it is worth considerable study and thought, so that we are best positioned to damp the effects we ourselves are causing, and to adapt well to the changes that are beyond our practical control.

That said, none of the threats that Dr. Hawking mentions, except possible nuclear war (which as I noted is not necessarily separable from the problem of jihadis in general) are immediate threats to us.

Or are you advocating that all that matters is the magnitude of a threat, not its likelihood or what we can do about it?

Finally, I am curious as to when this video was made; it seems to have been made prior to 9/11. If that is the case, I wonder what Dr. Hawking's thoughts would be on the same topic today.

SG: "I note that you still haven't proposed any alternatives."

I also note that they still can't think seriously about the question. It's all snark, sarcasm, innuendo, and attempts to belittle the opposition. I wonder what there definition of 'propaganda' is? They sure seem fond of the term.

94, 98

Alternatives to what, exactly? You want me to propose that we shouldn't invade countries that have nothing to do with 9/11 or are major repositories for international terrorists that threaten America? That we should be spending a hell of a lot more attention on Domestic Security? That FEMA needs to be rebuilt to the Clinton-years standard? That we should implement the 9.11 Commissions security recommendations in full? That we shouldn't continue to ignore Afghanistan and let it fall back into Taliban hands? That we shouldn't be treating Pakistan with such deference?

Since these are all out there as Dem positions, and I'm sure you're aware of them, then your insistance that I list my personal solutions to fighting global terrorism reveals itself to be the naked efffort at verbal diversion that it is.

If you cannot see how simply voting these people out of office stops the further progression of their dangerous policies and makes America safer in and of itself, then no list, no matter how long or strong, will be persuasive to you.

What you're asking is the political equivalent of demanding that I find a cure for lung cancer before you'll take my advice to stop smoking.

Feel free to cling to this minority view and let us all know how it works out in November, won't you?

And I think you're well aware of what "propoganda" means, celebrim. You're quite conversant in purveying it as a member of the Party.

Andy L and his comrades don't have an alternative because they don't advocate an alternative.

They are either deny the existance of a jihadi threat or they think we deserve whatever comes our way as we brought it on ourselves.

We should just take our licks like big boys and girls and move on.

L

Andy L's commentary finally clarified something for me. For the anti-Bush/anti-Republicans who argue, like Andy L, that they believe in the seriousness of the threat and that we should do something about it, but not how the Bush administration is doing it:

It's an excuse to shroud yourselves with patriotism but exposes your inner quivering mass of surrender.

Andy L:

I infer from your list that you agree that there exists a threat from jihadis. I'll also concede that I don't believe that the current plan is succeeding in reducing the threat.

Where I get off the bus is the idea that the most effective way to reduce the threat is not to eliminate the threat but by increasing our defenses. A more effective FEMA will help people after there's been an attack; I'd prefer that not to be an attack (here) at all. So while defense is important, it's (IMO) insufficient.

The only item on your list is that is not fundamentally defensive in nature is changing how we deal with Pakistan. What, exactly, do you envision being done with Pakistan.

What more do we think we can get from Pakistan, and what would it take to get it? Would you support threatening or using force against Pakistan to force compliance with our wishes? Are there any Democratic proposal out on the table as to what we should be doing differently?

I'm not necessarily saying that I disagree with this idea. But, I haven't been hearing any Democrat say it, at least with any specificity that would enable it to be compared with what's currently on the table. Bear in mind, Pakistan is a nuclear power, and was instrumental in foiling the most current plot to blow up planes, so its a place we are getting benefit from and have to tread lightly around.

What I do hear from Democrats is a discomfort at the thought of using force all the way to actively denigrating our military and talk of impeaching Bush for a Congressionally approved war in Iraq. I hear much greater concern about the threat from Republicans than I do about the threat from jihadis.

When push comes to shove, I fear that a Democratic leadership would be unwilling to use force (or would be perceived as unwilling - same thing) and we would lose our greatest defensive asset, our deterrent credibility.

That's why, with the two choices I'm stuck with, I'll hold my nose and vote Republican.

Absolutely we are threatened by jihadis. We are threatened by political terrorists as well (if I may make a distinction). They may be home grown, like the Unabomber or Timothy McVeigh, or from afar. In the latter case, I can easily count dozens of potential sources of terrorists. We can now count England among them, btw. Pakistan is another, and when I say they should be dealt with more sternly, I mean something akin to the so-called Bush Doctrine should be applied to them.

I am of the firm belief that, except in a certain minority of the cases (such as the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Hezb'allah in southern Lebanon), identifying the specific source or locus of terrorism, on a strategic map, is next to impossible. And those that can be so marked are not also necessarily the most threatening to America, domestically.

So, first, I disagree with the false dichotomy you imply in your response (either offense OR defense). We cannot easily stamp out terrorism abroad even if we (i.e., Bush admin) really wanted to (a concept I'm questioning frequently above) and knew exactly where to find them. Just look, for example, at how difficult it has been for the IDF to defeat the Hezb'allah threat even though they pretty much knew exactly where to attack. Failing such successful tactical offensive strategies, it is pure negligence, criminally so in my view, to allow us to remain such soft targets of attacks.

Now the typical response to this line of argument is that we cannot possibly predict or prevent all terrorist acts, and therefore a "good offense" to "remove the threat" is preferred. I don't think this reply is intended to suggest that we needn't do anything to protect ourselves at home, but in reality, in my view and that of the public, increasingly, our government is doing next to nothing in this regard. Or at least nowhere near enough.

So to summarize, the offense:defense ratio is much too high, and is costing us lives, dollars, and with it lost opportunity, to put it generously. But in the views of many, the balance between these (not mutually exclusive) approaches is actually shifted so far to the offense side, thanks to Bush/Cheney etc., that it is actually doing harm to our national security.

What I believe the Democrats (or really any other political group that gains power), will do is restore the balance closer to a point where one does not outweigh the other so disproportionally and couterproductively. Your conjecture that Dems will not launch offensive military actions, where necessary, is spurious and highly misleading, not to mention ignorant of history. So if that is your objection to voting for Dems rather than against Republicans, I�d say it is misguided.

As is the case with most Dems, I fully supported the invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and attempt to capture/neutralize bin Laden. That this job wasn�t finished is something that future generations may look back on with regret.

Now it's your turn to tell me/us what (offensive) approaches you think should be undertaken, and why, if the current Republican-led government have been as bad at executing them as you seem to believe, you are willing to keep giving them more chances (when, to most, they've had more than enough)?

Can I rely on shared agreement with the following?

I infer from your list that you agree that there exists a threat from jihadis. I'll also concede that I don't believe that the current plan is succeeding in reducing the threat. [SG, #102]

That is, (a) there is a serious threat, and (b) the Bush administration's policies are failing to meet it.

Now, let's work together, pooling our insights from different points of view to find the right solution to our shared problem. This means avoiding just scoring points by trying to tar each side with what some idiot on that side says. I don't try to claim that all of you agree with whatever Ann Coulter says. If you can identify some Democrat who thinks we can kiss OBL and make up, don't try to claim that I share that opinion.

Andy L [#103] makes a number of good points that should be taken seriously. I have made a few suggestions myself. The response seems to be, "That's not enough. Without a totally specific plan, we won't even listen." This from people who advocate pre-emptively nuking Iran, without a detailed analysis of the likely impact of that on the US and our ability to function in the world that results.

One of the great things about the USA is that citizens can argue pretty much freely about the strategic directions our policies should take. (We can argue and criticize tactics as well, of course, but to less effect.) If the citizenry approach a consensus about strategy, the leaders shift course to stay in front of where the people are going. We saw that in the Vietnam war, and we're seeing it again here.

It's very reasonable for citizens to argue over values, principles, and strategies. The blogosphere is full of that, and that is a Good Thing. Putting those strategies into effective action requires professional skills, training, knowledge, and the time to make, evaluate, criticize, and re-make the plans.

None of us is a professional in that line of work. (It would probably be illegal for a real pro to share his knowledge here.) These discussions are not going to converge on operational plans. You and I know that from the get-go.

If you want more specific plans, then take my (or Andy L's) suggestions seriously, think through what they imply, and then ask a specific question: "Should plan A be implemented as version A-1 or version A-2?" Then you are contributing to solving the problem.

But before someone jumps in to make criticisms of the form, "Plan A fails to solve problem P", ask yourself whether you are requiring a treatment for HIV to cure cancer before you take it seriously. Both are serious problems. Solving both of them is important. But it is unrealistic to imagine that one cure will handle both diseases.

I'm appealing to those among you who think we have a serious problem, and want to contribute to solving it. And who have the intellectual scope and humility to think that sharing insights from different perspectives might be helpful.

I'm afraid this appeal excludes several groups of people: those who are already certain that (1) there is no problem, or (2) they already know the perfect answer, or (3) their main source of entertainment is putting other people down, or (4) ....

But for the rest of you, let's work together to find a few more pieces of this difficult and important puzzle.

Celebrim [#88],

I would like to thank you for your long and careful reply, with quotes and citations. It's always a pleasure discussing issues with someone who knows how to make and support an argument. And to disagree with respect and dignity.

On to the disagreement. Of course the Clinton administration knew that Saddam wanted WMDs. So did Bush and Reagan before him. One of several key questions was whether he had them. Another is whether they were a threat to the USA (nukes maybe; bio and chem, mostly not). Everyone also knew that Saddam was a very Bad Man, even back when he was our Bad Man, sticking it to the Iranians, who we hated since the embassy take-over in 1979.

The Clinton administration never invaded Iraq.

The bright line that the Bush Administration crossed was to invade a sovereign country (even a bad one), that had not attacked us first. The excuse was that they might be getting ready to attack us.

If, after the fall of Baghdad, they had found the evidence of WMDs in preparation, they probably would have been excused. They cut a very important corner, certain that they were right. But they were wrong.

International law is an important but fragile things. Iraq was violating international law, and was under sanctions and inspections. Saddam was failing to cooperate with inspectors. Force to back up the inspector's right to inspect would have been appropriate, and would have supported the ability of the international community to sanction law-breakers. We could have insisted on this approach, and we could have made it work, if we'd wanted to. But we didn't.

Instead, we rejected the international community, weakening its ability to act in directions we would like (and increasingly uniting them against us), gathered a few friends and invaded Iraq, breaking centuries of American tradition and principles.

(Let's not get derailed arguing about the failings of the UN. I'll admit it has plenty, but by rejecting them, we've lost ground.)

Back to fear-mongering. The question is, how did Bush get the support of the American people, including many Democrats, to invade a sovereign country that had not actually attacked us?

It was "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." That is, we must act before we have conclusive evidence, because they could use nuclear weapons against us at any moment. People were claiming that Saddam could somehow attack us with WMDs within 45 minutes.

Notice how cleverly this exploits the identification in most people's minds of WMDs with nuclear weapons (which could be a serious threat to the USA), when the term also applies to biological and chemical weapons (which would not be a threat). It was pretty plausible that Saddam had chem or bio weapons somewhere, and might use them. But the USA was not at risk, in any real sense. The risk that he could use nukes on an American city was never a real one. People argued that he would give his nukes to al Qaeda, or Hamas, or Hezbollah. But Saddam and these groups hated each other, and Saddam is the least trusting guy on the planet. He'd never give nukes to them, even if he had them, which he didn't.

But the American people were moved by the image, carefully cultivated by the Bush administration, that Saddam had nuclear weapons (not just any old WMD), and that they could be used on an American city at any moment if he weren't stopped immediately. The American people bought it. They were swindled, and here we are.

(If you find yourself at the bottom of a hole, stop digging.)

I'm sorry, Beard, but I still see your points as mainly being how to carry out an activity, rather than what activities to carry out in order to address the threat. While it may be useful to state a goal of winning the enemy's supporting population over to our side, that does not intimate what actions should be taken to do this, nor what evidence there might be that such actions might be successful. I believe, though, that Andy L has presented a serious list of actions to take, so what I would like to do is summarize the problem, and see if we are on the same page, and summarize Andy L's list, and see if that is a correct characterization.

As I see it, the problem is this:

People subscribing to a few militant strands of religio-political Islam, steeped in the Islamist philosophy, and dedicated to creating a world-wide Muslim hegemony under Sharia law (henceforth: jihadis) have been carrying out acts of terrorism (definition: deliberate attacks on civilians intended to induce others to surrender to the jihadis in an effort to prevent further attacks on civilians) against American and other Western citizens and interests in furtherance of their goals. The jihadis believe that their attacks are religiously sanctioned, and that any actions, including lying, forcible conversion, and murder, are justified in pursuit of their goals. Further, the same jihadis have been carrying out non-terrorist attacks (such as the attack on USS Cole in 2000 or the earlier attack against US embassies in 2 African countries) against US and Western military and government targets. Finally, many of these jihadi groups are supported by states who use them as proxies to attack US and Western targets without themselves committing acts of war, while simultaneously seeking to develop nuclear weapons, which may or may not then be provided to the jihadis for use.

I've been as neutral as possible, not indicating evidence for or against anything, and only stating those things that I think are undeniable, and where Democrats, Republicans and non-partisans would all agree. I have also tried to avoid any statements about ways to solve the problem, who might be responsible for the problem, and so on. Can we all agree that this is a good description of the problem that we are all trying to solve? Can we all agree that the definition of terrorism presented is correct and appropriate? If not, how does it need to be changed to be correct?

OK, next step, I outlined what I believe to be President Bush's strategy in post #37. Now I would like to outline what Andy L presented in posts #99 and #103. I am not attempting to make any judgments about this strategy, just to separate out the actions that need (per Andy L) to be undertaken by the US to solve the problem noted above.

1. The Bush doctrine (definition: preemptive invasion coupled with regime change, occupation, and rebuilding the country's government as a democracy) is applicable, but only to those countries directly involved in 9/11 (other than Afghanistan, are any countries on this list?) or that are "major repositories for international terrorists that threaten America". These "major repositories" (can we call them, for synchronization of jargon, "terror-supporting states" or something similar?) include Pakistan. (Question: do they include Iran, Syria, Saudi Arabia or other countries?)

2. Much more attention should be focused on defensive measures. In particular, FEMA needs to be improved, and the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission that have not been implemented in their entirety must be implemented immediately and in their entirety. (Should there be a list of specific measures here?)

3. The US needs to commit more troops, funds and government personnel to Afghanistan to ensure that it continues on a path of democratic reform.

4. Pakistan, which has become a harbor for al Qaeda and the Taliban (that is an assumption from reading your posts: is it correct?), should be subject to the Bush doctrine on that basis.

I have attempted to present the actionable parts from Andy L's posts and, in some cases where it may not have been obvious, the justifications for them. I have attempted to make no judgments on them, nor to present evidence for or against. Are these statements correct as is? Could you answer the question embedded in the statements, for clarification? Iraq was not addressed, so far as I could tell, in the two posts in question; what should be done from this point forwards regarding Iraq? Are there any other points that should be in the action plan but that I have not included?

What I would like to do is get to an agreement on the problem statement, and get to a reasonably-complete high-level plan acceptable to Andy L and Beard. Once that is done, I think that it would be meaningful to discuss the evidence for and against the plan's ability to solve the problem, in comparison to, say, the Bush plan as I understand it (or as anyone else understands it) or any other possible action steps.

In other words, what I am really trying to do is to see if we can have a civil discussion of alternatives. This means ignoring the many ad hominem and other logically fallacious attacks that keep coming out in these discussions, and having just the grownups talk amongst ourselves.

The questions that will be important (we're not there yet; please don't jump ahead or we'll lose the thread) are whether the Bush plan has failed or is failing; whether Andy L's plan (he presents is as being a consensus Democratic plan: is it?) is likely to do better or worse; whether some other plan is likely to do better or worse; what the desired end state is (ie: when is the war over?).

If anyone thinks I'm going off the rail here, or not moving in a productive direction, please feel free to let me know.

First, thanks for a reasoned response. I don't expect to change your mind, nor should you expect to change mine, but I appreciate understanding why people hold their opinions.

I agree that defense vs offense is a false dichotomy, but I view the fact that there hasn't been another domestic mass-casualty attack since 9/11 to be indicate that defense is being played, and since I don't think the US has ceased to be a target, something must be being done right. Perfectly? Surely not, but perfection is an unreasonable standard.

Put it this way, if you had told me on 9/12 that we wouldn't experience another big terrorist event domestically in the next five years, I wouldn't have believed it. So the administration has exceeded my expectations. I can't find huge faults with what they're doing.

As far as the Dems willingness to use force goes, lets review some recent history were force was or might have been used: Overthrow of the shah, Iranian hostage crisis, Soviet incursion into Afghanistan, WTC bombing '93, retreat from Somalia, Kenya/Nairobi embassy bombings, Khobar Towers, Yugoslavia, Operation Desert Fox, USS Cole.

What I see is a pattern of minimal to no use of force. Now, I do believe that a hypothetical President Gore would have repsonded to 9/11, and largely the same way (including going into Iraq). But that then, this is now. Since that time, the Dems have shaped themselves into an anti-war party (witness Lamont v Lieberman). Even the Dems that voted for the war are actively trying to disavow the action.

Compound that with the fact that the Dems have become profoundly reactionary, and not just on Foreign Policy. I hold no confidence that they would be proactive in the face fo a threat, whereas there is an existence proof (for good or bad) that Republicans will.

Now it's your turn to tell me/us what (offensive) approaches you think should be undertaken, and why, if the current Republican-led government have been as bad at executing them as you seem to believe, you are willing to keep giving them more chances (when, to most, they've had more than enough)?

I wouldn't say that Republicans have been bad at executing the plans I would like so much as they are executing with reasonable efficacy the plan they have. That's in contrast to the Dems, who have not yet presented a plan aside from spend more money on defense. A bad plan remains better than no plan at all. And I've only got two choices.

What would I like to see? I'd like to see the president announce that, as the theory that democracy will blunt Islamic radicalism seems to be pretty conclusively disproven by the most recent load of British-born wannabe suicide bombers, we're no longer going to sweat the hearts and minds of those that want to kill us. Instead, the new doctrine is "no better friend, no worse enemy". A delegation of weapons inspectors of our choosing will be arriving in Iran, escorted by the 1st Marine Expiditionary Force. They will go wherever they want to view whatever they want for as long as they want. If they receive any interference, we'll seize the oil fields and drop a bomb anyplace we can find three turbans congregated, and future generations will speak of Tehran in the same tones as Carthage. Similiar consequences will befall any group or nation that shown to engage or support acts of war against the US. Alternately, countries that we deem favorable to us will be rewarded with economic assistance and free trade to the US market.

That said, I freely admit that's emotional, and I don't actually expect any administration to carry it out. But I would like to see much more Jacksonian foreign policy, whereas Bush has been Wilsonian. But, and here's the difference, I don't know what label to put to the Dems foreign policy because I don't know what it is.

And that's why (at this point), I would give the Reps another chance.

Beard,

Off topic from what I'm trying to get to, but one of your assertions really got me curious. Clinton bombed Iraq. Is that any less of an act of war than invading Iraq?

Anyone else see a contradiction in these statements?

So you view both England and Pakistan as sources for terrorism. Fair enough, especially given the Londonistan argument floating around the Net recently. However, I assume you don't want us to take some sort of offensive action against England, but you do want it taken against Pakistan. Why do you see this as a superior course of action to our current uneasy alliance with Pakistan? Why shouldn't we apply the same standard to England, if you truly believe such action will be effective?

Keep in mind that although ~24 were arrested in England this week, the Pakistani government was closely cooperated with British and American intel agencies to arrest 7 more terrorists in Pakistan itself. Presumably, this cooperation would not have taken place if America and its allies tried to take action--militarily, economically, through the UN, whatever--against Pakistan. Is Pakistan a perfect ally, with an ideal government? No, of course not. But time and again they've proven at least some loyalty to the fight against terrorism; they are not, in any case, openly hostile.

You say "we shouldn't be treating Pakistan with such deference". What, exactly, do you suggest we do? Openly criticize the government, and lose all hopes of cooperation? Add them to the DoS terror organization list, and cut all ties? Invade the tribal areas Pakistan has little control over in order to hunt for bin Laden? (Hey, kind of like what Israel's doing to Lebanon/Hezbollah... how's the world community handling that?)

"Deal with Pakistan better" is a nice idea, and as a bullet point I'd endorse it for any party platform... but it's the specifics that make things complicated, which force leaders to make tough decisions between costs and benefits; and these specifics or detailed plans are exactly what is missing from the Democratic platform.

(And let me pose a less practical but more revealing question: given your likening of England to Pakistan as sources of potential terrorists, do you feel it's "justified" to take stern actions against Pakistan but not England? If so, doesn't that indicate that you agree with Bush's notion of "different responses to different threats", but you want to substitute your perceived threat priorities for Bush's list? Why then should we trust the Democrats to prosecute the WoT against their list any better than Bush has against his list, given the Democrats' recent positioning to be the anti-war party?)

Jeff Medcalf [#108],

Suppose you are building illegal stuff in your basement, and the sheriff shows up with a search warrant. You refuse him entry. He will use force available to him to immobilize you, execute the search warrant, search your house, find the illegal stuff, arrest you and make you face further penalties. This is reasonable law-enforcement.

The sheriff is not allowed to shoot you down, or burn down your house, even though you are being unreasonable and you are doing illegal things in your basement. (David Koresh notwithstanding.)

I'm certainly not going to support everything Clinton did. But I believe that the law-enforcement framework serves us better against terrorists than the "war on terror" framework.

Beard:

So do I correctly interpret you (#110) as saying that attacking Afghanistan was a mistake? Or at least an overreaction?

But that's not an apt comparison, Beard, because between nations there is no cop. Moreover, it fails on the Clinton comparison, too.

Let's say that the UN authorization is the search warrant. A Sheriff without that warrant (which either describes both Bill Clinton's Desert Fox bombing campaign and the Iraqi Freedom invasion, or describes neither) would be just as wrong forcing his way into my house as he would shooting me down.

But the analogy fails completely in international relations: there is no Sheriff. To the extent that there is a "warrant", it's nothing more than the agreement of other nations that they aren't going to make an international incident out of it. Bill Clinton's bombing of Iraq was neither more nor less of an act of war than was George Bush's invasion of Iraq. It was neither more nor less "legal". We can argue about whether either or both were justified. But regardless of that argument, the law enforcement framework breaks down in relations between two nations, because there's no police force. Further, it breaks down between a nation and a non-state actor when the non-state actor is either not subject to a cooperative nation's government, or is essentially the government of an area in all but name. In either case, the lack of international police again kills the analogy: the model fails.

Now, again, we can argue over whether there should be international police, and what they may consist of. But that does not, at the present, matter since there is no such force.

The Clinton administration never invaded Iraq. The bright line that the Bush Administration crossed was to invade a sovereign country (even a bad one), that had not attacked us first. The excuse was that they might be getting ready to attack us.

My argument is that there in fact is no such bright line. Both Clinton and Bush committed acts of war, no different in degree or consequences in terms of international relations. [Jeff Medcalf #112]

Sorry, that's just sophistry. Clinton bombed the offending factories, while Bush toppled the existing country, occupied it, installed a temporary government of his choosing, and then supervised the elections choosing a more "permanent" government. If that's "no different in degree or consequences in terms of international relations", then this is a textbook example of an absurd technicality.

So do I correctly interpret you (#110) as saying that attacking Afghanistan was a mistake? Or at least an overreaction? [SG, #111]

Of course not. Al Qaeda had clearly attacked us, and was based in Afghanistan. The then-legal government of Afghanistan, the Taliban, was given the opportunity to cooperate in apprehending the guilty parties. They said (paraphrasing), "Over our dead bodies!" We said, "No problem!" Well, it did turn out to be more of a problem than that, and OBL and Omar are both apparently still alive, but their government was toppled.

It was important for us to give them the chance to cooperate. And if they had cooperated, our duty would be to collect the guilty parties for trial elsewhere, and thank them for their assistance. (Not that anyone was surprised that it didn't happen that way.)

George Bush's speech of 9-20-2001 was a model of firm conviction and restrained force. I was very much impressed, even though I have never been a fan of George Bush. In retrospect, a significant amount of my admiration goes to Michael Gerson, Bush's speech-writer and later advisor, rather than to GWB himself. Nonetheless, GWB signed off on it and gave the speech, so he gets the credit. I'm sorry that our foreign policy didn't live up to that speech.

I'm sorry, Beard, but you lose:

"Sorry, that's just sophistry. Clinton bombed the offending factories, while Bush toppled the existing country, occupied it, installed a temporary government of his choosing, and then supervised the elections choosing a more "permanent" government. If that's "no different in degree or consequences in terms of international relations", then this is a textbook example of an absurd technicality."

That is not sophistry: it is the very basis of the Westphalian system that we have had since, well, the Treaty of Westphalia. A nation's borders are sacred, and whatever a nation does within those borders is not the business of those outside. L'etat, c'est moi in all its glory! What you are basically saying is that you disagree with the entire Westphalian system, which is the ordering system for international affairs. Or that you are simply unfamiliar with the history and norms of international affairs, which I suppose I should not discount.

And that is fine as far as it goes: I personally think that the system is falling apart, and in 50 years or so, there will be states only within de facto borders, with de jure boundaries mostly ignored. (That is good in some ways, such as making intervention to correct failed states easier, but bad in others, such as putting large areas of the planet outside of the domain of local justice. Whether they are already outside that domain is another question entirely.) But that isn't the way it is now: an act of war involving violation of another nation's territory is equally serious with another act of war involving violation of another nation's territory. There is, quite literally, no difference between them. There is no such thing in international relations as a "minor" bombing campaign or a "little" invasion, as differentiated from a "massive" bombing campaign or "toppl[ing] the existing country, occup[ying] it, install[ing] a temporary government [], and then supervis[ing] the elections choosing a more 'permanent' government."

Beard:

Clinton bombed the offending factories ...

Clinton bombed one factory, which was offensive only because the Clintons hate pharmaceutical companies.

... while Bush toppled the existing country, occupied it, installed a temporary government of his choosing, and then supervised the elections choosing a more "permanent" government.

Which pretty much sums up what Clinton did to Haiti. Apparently Haiti was a major threat to the United States.

Thank you for reminding us all of the hypocrisy and utter lack of principle that characterizes Democratic opposition to Iraqi aid.

Beard (#105),

The Clinton administration never invaded Iraq

Let's not get derailed arguing about the failings of the UN. I'll admit it has plenty, but by rejecting them, we've lost ground.

SG (#107)

I don't know what label to put to the Dems foreign policy because I don't know what it is.

The Unbeliever

My point about England being a source of terror was simply to note that even well-established Democracies can breed Islamic terrorists, not only middle east countries. Thus, the "Bush Doctrine" is of limited utility in fighting against international terrorism.

There are even terrorist in America. Remember the Anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001? Were the people responsible for this ever brought to justice? Why not?

And you'll note that the England plot was broken by law enforcement, applying techniques well within the current laws of England. There is no question that their requirement to obtain warrants in courts, as in the US (pre-Bush, anyway) did not impede their ability to apprehend the conspirators.

But to return to the point, if the sources of terrorism can never be either fully identified or targeted, pre-emptively or reactively, then the first line of defense is to bolster, substantially, domestic security.

The failure to recognize what I think is a rather basic military strategy calls into question the commitment that the Bush Administration and Republicans have to a serious anti-terrorism effort.

"Why then should we trust the Democrats to prosecute the WoT against their list any better than Bush has against his list, given the Democrats' recent positioning to be the anti-war party?"

If you are asserting that opposition to the Iraq war, specifically, has anything to do with prosecuting the WoT, then there is a chasm in our view of things that is unbridgeable.

I would only offer the observation that most Americans are finally seeing through the conflation as well.

SG

"But, and here's the difference, I don't know what label to put to the Dems foreign policy because I don't know what it is.

And that's why (at this point), I would give the Reps another chance."

I wonder how hard you have really tried to find out what a Democratic foreign policy would be if they were to assume control of the WH. Because, first of all, asking Democrats to come to a consensus, especially when they are out of power in every branch, is unreasonable.

On the one hand, you are given 6 years of evidence for how badly Republicans can govern at every level, including national defense (with the one notable exception being (temporarily) deposing the Taliban from Afghanistan), while on the other hand you have a series of predictions, I take it, regarding how you think Democrats would govern. I am guessing that your views on the latter issue have been shaped substantially by a disproportionate exposure to Republican or Right Wing/Neocon information sources, but my apologies if not.

Where there is evidence for a Democratic approach to national security, furthermore, I find a stunning lack of evidence that would clearly suggest that their policies would somehow bring more harm than good to American security.

[I wonder how Republicans would feel if Democrats were able to provide effective counter-terrorism in a way both more effective than the current Administration, but less well publicized? Perhaps we'll soon find out.]

As far as your list of terrorist acts and the allegation that Dems were too complacent about responding to, I need only to raise one point that basically dismisses this line of argument, in my view:

When Bush came into office in 2001, he was even more complacent than any prior president. Retribution for the Cole bombing fell on his adminstration (it happened in the fall of 2000), and yet he did nothing. That isn't Clinton's fault, it's Bush's. So lets be honest about this, shall we? Also, it is more than well known that Bush was in Crawford being told that "bin Laden [was] determined to attack US", and again, what did he do? Nothing. Richard Clarke warned him of the threat; again, nothing. Why wasn't he taking the threat of terrorism on US soil seriously?

So, fine, 9/11 changed all that. But since then, no Democrat has been president...so how can you slam Dems for their "lack of policy" when they've been completely out of power for the last 5+ years? It is a totally unfair and unrealistic expectation.

As my political awareness has developed over the course of my life, so too has my general cynicism of politicians (even before exposure to Jon Stewart). So it is rare that I will find someone who I want to support, politically, because I really think they want to, or can, implement the policies that I think are important for America (example: cut the military budget in half, use the money for domestic good such as universal health care, medical research, vastly improved infrastructure, homeland security, etc).

However, as I said above, the very fact that I am fairly sure an elected Dem president and congress would be highly unlikely to commit the same egregious errors in judgement and policy that the Bush Administration has is more than enough reason for me to support them strongly in the next election cycles. And despite the Right Wing propoganda, I am very confortable that most national Dems have a more realistic and accurate appreciation for terrorism than do Republicans.

And at any rate, terrorism is not the main issue upon which I make my voting decisions. There is a long list of domestic issues which I think have a much more immediate and realistic impact on our safety and well-being which the Repubicans are slowly but surely destroying. But that's another thread I guess.

I'm curious, however, about what it would take for you to get to my point where you would vote against Republicans because you felt, like I do, that their governing is doing grave harm to America?

Andy L:

No one has suggested otherwise, although I will suggest that the cultivation of such home-grown terrorists is a direct result of England's appallingly bad policies of multiculturalism. The creation of home-grown terrorists is by no means an inevitable phenomenon, and IMO one of the great failings of both Bush and Blair has been to repeat the "religion of peace" line ad nauseum, hiding behind nice PC platitudes to avoid being unfairly branded as stereotyping, while allowing hate-filled, violence-advocating, nihilistic teachings to continue unimpeded in their respective countries.

Then you misunderstand what the "Bush Doctrine" actually is. Namely, it is the policy of equating countries who harbor terrorists to the terrorists themselves. Afghanistan was a terrorist nation under the Taliban because its government willingly harbored, hid, funded, and gave aid to, terrorists. Same with Sadaam's Iraq; same with Iran, and with Syria, etc. And under the Bush Doctrine the US position is that those regimes need to be replaced, via force or otherwise. (Bush himself prefers those regimes be replaced by democracies, but there's a growing segment of hawks who think that's not necessarily the best scenario in every case.)

Great Britain on the other hand is actively engaged in rooting out terrorism, domestically and abroad. The Bush Doctrine is not applied to Great Britain because it does not fit the criteria, i.e. taking out the country's government is not necessary because that goverment does not sponsor terrorism.

(Now we could make a great argument that England's posture of multiculturalism, and its refusal to openly condemn the Islamic community for failing to police its own teachings, inadvertedly allows such terrorist ideology to take root among its populace. But that's hardly the same as providing funds directly to terrorist organizations, and is more a case of good intentions gone bad; it is, in essence, a failure in the "hearts and minds" battle rather than an overt support of the enemy's cause.)

Perhaps my post was a little long on sarcasm, but the bottom line is this--the Bush Doctrine is not intended to be applied against Great Britain, and the existance of British-born terrorists does not invalidate the application of the Bush Doctrine elsewhere in the world.

I suspect the chasm is rather wide, but I'm comfortable on the rational side of the ravine.

Snark aside: actually, I wasn't making a point about opposition to OIF, the point was about the hard left's opposition to war in general. The anti-war wing which pushed Ned Lamont and is trying to redefine the Democratic party is not merely anti-OIF, they are anti-military projection. They are statists, pro-status quo, anti-regional shakeup, pro-UN, pro-international consensus (even when such consensus is against US interests), and a small but increasingly vocal number of them are actually anti-US. Although I agree that law enforcement needs to be part of the WoT, the military prosecution of terrorist regimes cannot be ignored or left out of the mix. And it is this military part of the WoT which I do not trust to the left.

(Now I'm sure I'll get someone trying to bring up alleged lefty support for invading Afghanistan. To which I'll note that one should never confuse political expediency with a committment to judicious use of the military; nor should you confuse support for retaliation strikes for a proactive fight against terrorism.)

Andy L:

You asked

I wonder how hard you have really tried to find out what a Democratic foreign policy would be if they were to assume control of the WH.

Well, the last time this was relevant, I watched the Democratic national convention (although not the Republican one, I didn't feel that would be informative) and the Presidential and Vice-Presidential debates. I never got any sense about what Kerry would do about Iraq (withdraw, withdraw on a pre-published time table, increase troop levels, all were proposals I thought I heard at one time or another).

And since that election, I have seen the Democratic party become more anti-war (Howard Dean's as head of the DNC, Lamont in Connecticut).

To wit: you're a Democratic supporter and you'd like to see us slash our military budget in half. Do you really think a party that has you as a member has a policy that's going to support me? Did you read what I said I'd like to see done with Iran?

I'm curious, however, about what it would take for you to get to my point where you would vote against Republicans because you felt, like I do, that their governing is doing grave harm to America?

When I felt that the Democrats would not be even more destructive. And you know, with almost every word that you type you strengthen my conviction that the Democrats would be even worse for the country than the Republicans.

That said, I am very concerned about the fact that the country is devolving into a single party system. That's decidedly not a good thing. I just wish the Democratic party would finish imploding so they could be replaced by something responsible.

For god's sake, cut our military in half? Are you insane? Do you really care that little about the rest of the world? What would happen to the global economy if the US couldn't provide security in the Persian Gulf? How would Asia respond if Japan felt compelled to rearm to defend itself from China? Or if all of Western Europe needed to secure themselves from an increasingly beligerent and totalitarian Russia?

But, I suppose if we all had "free" health care, you'd say it was worth it.

I'm late to the party; thanks for an interesting back and forth (a couple of intersecting back and forths) in the comments.

Going waaay back to Andy L's comment #14, he made this remark:

> It's all just performance art by our leaders, I see.

That was a link to a picture of a woman at an airport security checkpoint pouring out a liquid into a garbage can. Andy L's point was that TSA measures in response to the supposed possibility of liquid-explosives were part of a Bush Administration conspiracy, not a sensible response to an actual threat. Andy's reasoning was that if liquids were dangerous, then pouring and mixing them together would be hazardous to passengers. Ergo, the threat is imaginary; dramatic measures are being taken to promote fear among the American public in the run-up to November's mid-term election.

First, obviously, somewhere between 99.9999% and 100% of liquids are not dangerous. Odds are that explosives-toting terrorists are not transiting any given airport on any given day.

Second, also obviously, the desired effect is to deter rather than catch would-be bombers.

Lastly, though I'm not a chemist, I worked as a biologist in lab settings with hazardous materials for many years. In most (not all) circumstances, dilution is the preferred approach to handling hazardous materials. A liquid component to an acetone/peroxide explosive recipe will be inactivated by dilution with ten or one hundred parts of water (coffee, baby formula, mouthwash).

I hope that clears up that lingering question. Meantime, the conversation has moved on to policy issues. Getting back to Cicero's original post, the best thing of all would be if Andy L could chime in to say that I'm wrong in assuming that he was promoting a conspiracy-theory explanation for Bush's and Chertoff's responses to the British and Pakistani arrests.

AMac;

I'm not exactly sure what you mean by "conspiracy-theory explanation for Bush and Chertoff's responses...". Can you clarify?

Andy L #122:

In the post, Cicero reprinted what his friend emailed:

I am sure you've seen the news today of the "liquid threat" to planes from the UK. I sure don't trust the official story. None of the coverage mentions any real evidence whatsoever. Seen any? I haven't. Its all hearsay from the governments so far. I am sure they will trot some "evidence" out by tomorrows news cycle, but so far it all looks like it's not what it appears to be.

The friend's premise is that the official story is bunk. The officials in charge, from Bush and Chertoff on down, know that it's bunk, but are pursuing so-called "anti-terrorist measures" for their own purposes. In other words, the real menace isn't terrorism, it is the Bush Administration's conspiring to use phony threats for their own purposes.

In the comments here, you seem to agree with Friend's interpretation.

#2

[Your friend, and I, and most Americans at this point] recognize that [the Administration are] only fighting [terrorism] in the media, and not on the ground, where instead they're making the situation worse. Our view is that if we really want to fight terrorism, we must first point out that our current leaders are using it for political purposes and so have an interest in perpetuating the threat, not diminishing it.

#14

It's all just performance art by our leaders, I see. ...Guess what? We're sick of being part of the show.

#31

Why is it verboten to bring these liquids aboard in carry-ons, while most or all of the contents of the luggage compartment go unchecked? Why was this done only yesterday, even though the Administration had knowledge of the plot for days beforehand? Why are the restrictions likely to abate in the next few weeks? Will the threat disappear suddenly? Performance art, I tell you, and in the eye of this beholder, very very poorly done at that.

#57

Can you see how it might make some (or perhaps most now) American's angry that their leaders 1) do little or nothing of substance to actually try to keep the populace safe from terrorist attacks and/or better prepare for responding when they do occur..., and 2) take every opportunity to politicize terrorist threats to gain an advantage over Democrats by falsely portraying any opponents of their doomed policies as "pro-terrorist"?

#93

More evidence that Bush is only concerned about the politics of terrorism, but not the human impact.

#103

We cannot easily stamp out terrorism abroad even if we (i.e., Bush admin) really wanted to (a concept I'm questioning frequently above) and knew exactly where to find them...

#117

There are even terrorist in America. Remember the Anthrax attacks in the fall of 2001? Were the people responsible for this ever brought to justice? Why not?

Andy L, it's easy to see evidence of the Bush Administration's incompetence, poor policy design, bad execution, sad-sack compromises resulting from dozens of competing interest groups. Easy (for me, anyway) to be disgusted by the way that the Republicans play down'n'dirty politics just as much as the Democrats. There are so many legitimate questions about so many things... just look at this thread.

It's something different to claim that "there's no there there." That al Qaeda is a boogie-man conjured up by fear-mongers. That Bush is the real Osama bin Laden, because he's a knowing part of a Conspiracy. That, therefore, the liquid-explosive threat is unreal, and the so-called countermeasures are nothing more than kabuki theater designed to frighten the witless masses.

That is what Cicero's Friend seems to be saying, and what you seem to be agreeing with. Am I misinterpreting either one of you?

SG;

We could still do all the things necessary to provide for our domestic security and that of our allies, and more, even while paring the wasted and/or unused portions of our military budget substantially.

Do you really think we need so many missiles and nuclear subs? Do you have any idea what it costs just to maintain them, even as their deterrant value is now close to zero against our current and near future enemies? And what about Star Wars? It doesn't work. At all. So, yes, 50% (a wild figure, to be sure) seems reasonable to me.

And I'm curious: when did it become the reponsiblity of the US taxpayers to provide security for the Persian Gulf Oil interests? It could be argued that our recent involvement (post Desert Storm) has made the region less stable and with it the global economy. If the Saud's want security, don't you think they could well afford to provide for it themselves with their own cash and soldiers?

Furthermore have you had a look at the value of the US dollar recently, or the size of the national debt? Do you think China holding on to all our debt is a stabilizing force for the US or world economies? If you think that it is the job of the Marines to provide global economic stability by protecting the oil wells for Arabs and mulitinational petroleum companies, then I'd think perhaps you or someone close to you must have a significant interest in the Oil industry...cause it sure ain't helping the rest of us, brother (sister?).

Additionally, you once again raise the claim that the Dems have become "anti-war", without defining what war/s, exactly, you are speaking about.

I grow exceedingly tired of having to unravel this idea every time I speak to a Republican; it is almost as if you all don't understand that there are clear distinctions between a "war on terrorism" and the Iraq War, or won't accept that opposition to the latter does not preclude in any way support for the former, especially since evidence is mounting that they are rather inversely related.

And finally, it is a big mistake to confuse my positions with those of Democratic politicians. I am arguing my own viewpoints here, and no one elses. Yes, the Dems are far closer to them than Republicans, to be sure (well, they're antithecal to them in fact). So it is rather silly to think that the views that I hold are a proxy for a large and diverse coalition of ideas and beliefs which comprises the national Democratic party. So I really don't think your statement that my personal beliefs, and admittedly imperfect representation of Democratic positions, might influence your voting decisions is something that inspires confidence in your ability to think outside the confines of personal experience.

I'd also like to point out that your reply to my question ("When I felt that the Democrats would not be even more destructive...") falls far short of being informative or substantive. Feel free to take another, more honest, crack at it, and perhaps include your thoughts on what you think the most important functions for our government are, in specific terms if possible.

AMac;

I also said this in 103:

Absolutely we are threatened by jihadis. We are threatened by political terrorists as well (if I may make a distinction).

So, no, I do not think the threat of terrorism is fabricated. The ruins of the WTC is the only reminder needed for this, although there are others, like the recent British plot.

My point is that the threat of terrorism is being used for political purposes moreso than as a means to inspire Americans to unite against a common threat. My point is that by inflating the danger, we ignore other perils, and degrade significantly our ability to come to a rational and intelligent (and practical) response.

My point is that I want to be led by politicians who fight terrorism but allow us to live our lives free from fear of such; this is one of the goals of terrorism that we can most easily defeat, and our current leaders are not even trying.

I think that everything I've said in this thread is consistent with this.

Andy L:

You seem to be arguing for a largely isolationist foreign policy. In a more perfect world, I'd be inclined to agree with you. But we don't live in that more perfect world, we live in this one. Like it or not, it would dangerous and irresponsible to pull back into our shell and let the rest of the world go its own way. It didn't work after WWI and the world is far more interconnected today than it was then. I believe isolationism will cost us far more (in blood and money) in the long run.

What's the role of the government? First and foremost it is to provide for the common defense. I don't see our defense enhanced by encouraging the rest of the world to arm up to fill a power vacuum we willing choose to create. (And I don't care what you say about efficacy, the rest of the world will read a 50% cut in defense spending as a power vacuum). I agree it's undesirable that the US is the world's policeman. But from a USian perspective, it's preferable to someone else being the world's policeman, and far preferable to there being no policeman. Global anarchy would not be a good situation.

And to be clear, I don't believe in the whole "Global War on Terror" terminology. Terrorism is not our enemy, it's Jihadism. The Tamil Tigers don't concern me but it seems the Pakistani neighborhoods in Great Britain do. I view Iraq as having been a long-shot gamble to try and cut the Gordian Knot of Jihadism comingled with Islam without having to kill untold millions of people. I'm inclined to agree that the gamble is not paying out. The war needs to be made larger, not smaller. (Was it Eisenhower who said if you have a problem you can't solve, make it bigger?)

So while Dems are saying that Iraq is not paying out, are there any Democrats arguing for an increase in hostilities? I'm not aware of any. What wars do the Dems support waging? We know where they want to pull troops out of, where would they be willing to place troops where they are not currently engaged?

I view coming home and playing defense as nothing other than a recipe for a police state. If six years ago, someone told you that you'd have to take off your shoes and discard any beverages before getting on a domestic plane flight, you'd think they were nuts. And look where we are today. We're facing an intelligent, determined and deadly enemy, who's constantly increasing in capabilties. Defense is important, but to make it the front line is (IMO) a doomed effort.

As I said before, I don't expect to convince you and you shouldn't expect to convince me. I don't assume everyone who disagrees with me is evil or even ignorant. People have different priorities. It's fine that we want different things. That's why we have elections every couple years. But I'd urge you to think a little beyond your personal perspective too. Not everyone who disagrees with you is ignorant, either.

Andy L #125:

I confess to being at a loss.

• Cicero's Friend explains his Conspiracy-centered view of the Bush Administration's response to so-called terrorism.

• You agree with Friend (#2), saying, "Our view is that if we really want to fight terrorism, we must first point out that our current leaders are using it for political purposes and so have an interest in perpetuating the threat, not diminishing it."

• You reinforce this agreement in comments #14, 31, 57, 93, 103, and 117. Quotes above in my comment #123.

• On the other hand, you also say in #103, "Absolutely we are threatened by jihadis...I fully supported the invasion of Afghanistan to oust the Taliban and attempt to capture/neutralize bin Laden."

• And in #125, "I do not think the threat of terrorism is fabricated... My point is that the threat of terrorism is being used for political purposes moreso than as a means to inspire Americans to unite against a common threat."

Your position seems sincere, but irrational. When you can build on references to a Conspiracy to make your points, you do (#s 2, 14, 31, 57, 93, 103, 117). If the debate calls for a more nuanced view on dealing with an actual threat (#s 103, 125), you'll offer that too.

I think that everything I've said in this thread is consistent with this.

Not so. You started off with Conspiracy: you and Cicero's Friend professed that the Bush Administration is Making Stuff Up for their own nefarious ends. Lately, you've suggested that Bush's strategy and tactics are misbegotten. You are thus acknowledging that you and he share some of the same overall goals, such as reducing the very-real threat of Islamist terrorism.

For whatever reason, you've let yourself take a vacation from logic. Either you were mistaken then (#s 2, 14, 31, 57, 93, 103, 117), or you're mistaken now (#s 103, 125). Productive discussion won't come easy in the face of such cognitive dissonance.

If you can't grasp what I'm pointing out... well, then you can't see it. That would neatly illustrate the premise of Cicero's initial post.

AMac;

Perhaps this will help:

I never said Bush is "making stuff up" to suit their ends, if by that you mean to say I think Islamic radical terrorism is a wholly fabricated threat created for the sole purpose of keeping Americans in fear.

On the other hand, if you want to define that as "inflating the terrorist threat to suit their political ends", the answer would be "yes, they are". The centrifuge tubes and pilotless drones that were to deliver all those WMD's to neighboring states that Saddam allegedly had jump to mind.

To most observers, it appears that the Bush Administration and the Republican congress have made an art form of judging their response to every even/issue in terms of the political advantage to be gained. Why should terrorism be considered different from this, when arguably it is the one issue that they think they can gain the most electoral traction from?

Other than that, I can't help you any more than to once again assert that my comments and views are consistent, even as they have evolved with the thread in response to a changing cast of opponents. I would note that Newton's third law of motion can also apply to debate.

It appears that it is easier to make these wild accusations against the Bush administration than to actually take responsibility for one's own comments.

Andy L #128:

I appreciate that you've come back and responded when I've asked questions. There are many other sites where claims of Bush Administration incompetence -- and perfidy -- and fabrication -- and any other assorted evildoing -- would simply gain you progressively more amens.

As far as casts of opponents and Newton's laws of motion, I dunno. Seems easier to me to come to a position by application of facts and Occam's Razor, maintaining a willingness to change it to account for new evidence. You're happy with the explanatory power and the consistency of the stance you outlined in this thread (see #123's quotes). Other readers will agree or disagree, as the case may be.

SG;

Again, you seem drawn to arguing only the extremes, when in reality nothing I wrote implies a "strong isolationist" approach to combatting radical islamic terrorism.

As you said, perhaps we will never convince each other to switch our political viewpoints on these issues, but be assured I do respect those whose views differ from my own, like yours do, and disagreement certainly does not imply ignorance (although I'd be the first to admit that I know far less than I want to or should).

But I will end this conversation by leaving you with the thought that opposing Bush's approach (or any policy for that matter) does not imply support for what you perceive to be its logical polar opposite. To assert thusly is more argumentative than conversational.

At any rate, I think we've reached the end of this exchange regardless of which of these two trajectories it has followed.

Andy L:

I agree with absolutely everything you wrote in #131, including your assessment of my argument.

But I still don't know what Plan B is.

SG;

I would guarantee you that if Republicans stay in power, then "Plan B" will look a hell of a lot like more of Plan A (which is, what, exactly?).

Let's call it the More Cowbell approach to foreign policy.

I would guarantee you that if Republicans stay in power, then "Plan B" will look a hell of a lot like more of Plan A (which is, what, exactly?).

I read this as a concession that there is no Plan B beyond "Not Bush". Is this an unfair reading?

Clearly, "Not Bush" is sufficient for you. It's not for me. Nor, as of 2004, for the majority of Americans. And since anyway you slice it, 2008 is going to be "Not Bush", I doubt it's going to work then either.

FWIW, I think Jeff in #37 summed Plan A up pretty well. Feel free to disagree with it (which parts exactly?). I ask again: What's Plan B?

For the record, I think it's a decent plan, but I'm fearful that we're not implementing Step 4 and concluding that the Islam is proving more resistant to modernity than hoped. Step 5 may work given enough time, but I fear enough time is not available.

As an aside: I do a killer Christopher Walken "More Cowbell" impersonation.

From the cultural working knowledge deparment, Here's the More Cowbell sketch

SG;

It is an unfair reading, yes.

I'll let a prominent blogger clear this up:

"During the 2004 campaign, Democrats argued that the key to preventing terrorism lay not in invading and occupying countries which have not attacked us, but instead, in improving our intelligence-gathering capabilities, strengthening law enforcement cooperation with other countries, increasing counter-terrorism resources, and solidifying border security -- ideas which were, first, wildly distorted, then caricatured, and then scornfully laughed away by the Bush campaign and the tough-guy media pundits..."

"Obviously, if a country is engaged in direct hostilities against the U.S. or allowing itself to be used to stage such attacks (as Afghanistan was), then military action is a legitimate and necessary option. Very few people dispute that principle. But not only the break-up of the U.K. terror plot, but also the American failure in Iraq and the Israeli failure in Lebanon, demonstrate that massive military force cannot eradicate, or even alleviate (in fact, it likely worsens) the problem of Islamic extremism."

So that sounds like a Plan B to me.

It is one thing to argue that you don't agree with this approach, but quite another to argue from ignorance that one does not exist. Perhaps you haven't heard this distilled into 3 easy-to-say sentences yet, but you have to ask yourself whether that's only the Dems fault or whether the impatient media has a role in sowing this confusion as well.