On 5/15/07, Jim Davis <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > I said never it "got worse" - I said that most terrorist attacks in America > throughout history were perpetrated by Americans. That's it.
You didn't actually say that. You said: "I'm saying what I've been saying: that the war Iraq has left us less secure than we were. That the hemorrhaging of resources aboard have left us less able to deal with threats at home (the argument "fight the terrorists over there so we don't have to here" has little meaning when most terrorists are home grown)." The problem with going off on tangents is we're not clear about what we're debating. I assumed you meant since the war started we've seen an increase in domestic terrorism. That's clearly not what you meant. > I never claimed to be unhappy with the handling of any of these cases so I'm > not sure why you're defending them. Terrorism on the small scale will most > likely always be with us. I was less than a block away when John Salvi > opened fire at the first of two Abortion clinics in Boston - that was an act > of terrorism. Acts like this will always be with as long as there are > extremists - and there's no sign that anybody has a cure for that. I haven't heard about abortion clinic attacks in years. > The claim I've made is that idea that we're somehow preventing terrorism > here by fighting over there is ridiculous. The incidents of terrorism at > home haven't dropped. To say "well, there hasn't been another 9/11" is > ridiculous because there never was one before: that single event, on that > immense scale, cannot be treated as trend - failure of recurrence cannot be > claimed as a metric of success. We're preventing terrorism form al Qaeda not Joe blow from down the block. We'll always have Bercowitz's and Kaczynski's lurking in the shadows. That doesn't mean there are more or less nutters here because we're fighting a different group of nutters over there. > The point is that, despite 9/11, America has enjoyed remarkably little > violence at home in the modern age - whether we were at war or not. Agreed > In my opinion I do not believe that the Iraq invasion has made us safer and > very could be making us less safe. For several reasons: > > +) The war has become a rallying cry for terrorist recruitment groups. We > will end up with more potential terrorists after this war, not less. Yes but the recruits are all going to Iraq to die like sheep over a cliff. Evolution at work here. > +) While it's clear that precision strikes are still ongoing when > intelligence warrants them it's also ludicrous to assume that the stretching > of personal and supplies to effect a permanent occupation in Iraq hasn't > affected our effectiveness in that regard. We're not staying permanently, didn't they just say be out in two years? > +) As I noted America has enjoyed very little domestic violence due to > terrorism or the many wars we've undertaken in the modern age. One of our > largest threats has always been extremists at home. With so many of our > intelligence and investigatory agencies working overtime (while recovering > from the various reorganizations, scandals and mission changes) it's very > likely that this area is being overlooked. I think this was your original point and I didn't know why you thought that way. Now I do but not sure anyone has determined one way or the other. Don't forget the CIA is for international threats and the FBI is domestic. I don't know how overworked the FBI is but I imagine they received a lot more funding and staff since 9/11. > Take as an example the recent report on electronic security where government > agencies are still scoring a "C" (on average) in computer security but > security specific groups like the Department of Homeland Security and the > TSA are still scoring "D's". (The TSA is also losing laptops with Air > Marshal data on them.) Of course these aren't directly related to the war - > more symptoms of a system stretched too thin. Good point and making one giant bureaucracy didn't sound like a good idea to me but they had reasons for it. I don't think the war has had any effect on it. > +) It's painfully obvious that new threats are growing: Iran and North Korea > to name two. It's also clear that despite the fact that we've got better > evidence of Iran aiding the insurgents than we ever had for WMDs we are > simply incapable of addressing the situation militarily due to resource > limitations. Iran was clearly a more dangerous threat before the Iraq > invasion but the stupid assumption that we would be out of Iraq in no more > than six months blinded the administration to that threat. Do you think the war allowed Iran or N Korea to develop nukes faster? > +) The situation will likely get worse before it gets better. We're > extending tours, lowering expectations and still unable to adequately supply > many of our troops or care for them when they're injured. The thinner we're > stretched the more advantage our enemies will take of us. I'm not sure who is taking advantage of us. If you mean Iran and North Korea, do you think if we weren't in Iraq we would be at war with one or both of them or that they would be too fearful to boast about there weapons advances? > +) We're no better able to prevent the institution of terrorist training > camps in Iraq than we were when we were containing Saddam. In fact we're > worse off: Al Qaeda has a certain and growing influence in the country where > they were nearly non-existent. We need to dedicate vast resources to hold > the ground we've gained. They don't. That's changing, I know they said that after the Mosque bombings, but the article I posted yesterday claims the sheiks want al Qaeda gone. I'm hoping it's true this time. > Unlike ourselves Al Qaeda is not as limited in personal (their soldiers are > easily replaced, need little training and are local to the areas they set up > in) and can easily expand or contract to deal with multiple offensives. > They are not bound, as we have forced ourselves to be, to any particular > geography. So if this true don't we have to do something? If we wait they will come. I'm also thinking the promising 72 virgin thing can only work on a limited group of idiots. Eventually they're going to need something new to get recruits. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Upgrade to Adobe ColdFusion MX7 The most significant release in over 10 years. 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