Why do you suppose there have been no more "World Trade Center" attacks. Surely not because of diplomacy.

and heaven forbid - we actually got a respected, politically unengaged, Nobel Prize winning physicist appointed to the energy position. Imagine that - a scientist working on our scientific energy issue!

Post hoc ad hoc fallacy, John...

Pete, that is the most empty argument of all - "we must be doing something right because we haven't been attacked again." Wrong. We get attacked every day and more of us have died in the attacks since than died on 9/11.

Not a fallacy at all - fact. Worldwide terror attacks are at an all time high. Irrefutable that the war is not reducing terror attacks.

John,
Maybe crazy isn't the right word..... Misguided might be better. And I'm not the only one who thinks so. This from the Investors Business Daily ......

""Many of those who voted for [Barack Obama] either dismiss the terrorist threat, or believe none exists. Still worse, some think we should placate our enemies, not vanquish them. That's why a new report from Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff is more than a little disquieting. It suggests that the U.S. faces a real prospect of a serious terror attack sometime in the next five years, particularly from a biological weapon of some sort. 'The threat of terrorism and the threat of extremism has not abated,' Chertoff recently said. And that's not just rhetoric. The Homeland Security Threat Assessment for 2008-2013, leaked to the Associated Press late last week, predicts that terrorists will try some sort of biological weapon on the U.S. in the next five years -- an attack that could overwhelm our health care system, leading to devastating consequences for our economy. The report goes on to warn of outside terror groups such as al-Qaida using our porous borders and poor controls to place terrorist cells inside the United States. Sound unlikely? Recall that just two days before Christmas, five Muslim immigrants were convicted for plotting to kill U.S. soldiers at Fort Dix, N.J. It's already here. ... The worst thing that could happen, we fear, is that Obama comes in with a mandate to spend upward of $1 trillion on a stimulus package and then decides to at least partly finance it by cutting defense and anti-terror measures to the bone. There are already warning signs in Obama considering abandoning missile defense and other advanced defense systems, while our potential foes plunge full speed ahead. And his aides suggested the Pentagon's request for 30,000 more troops might be rejected. With Russia boosting its defense outlays by 40% while it builds its nuclear arsenal, China intent on having a blue-water navy to challenge the U.S., and the terrorist threat unabated, it wouldn't be wise to cut back on defense or anti-terrorist efforts right now." --Investor's Business Daily


I think one of the worst failures of the Bush Administration (and John McCain was also wrong here) was to not "lock up" the holes at the borders (including illegal aliens). I hope he pardons the two border patrol officers before leaving office.

Why do you think 911 came about in the first place. Not becouse there was no "war on terror", concentration camp at Guantanamo, torture or a Department of Homeland Security and loads of restrictions on travel. Answer: failed intelligence, failed decision processes and failures running top government.

I am not going to get embroiled in a discussion with Karl and "bullswan", who I have defined as single-minded extremists just like the rest of the ilk behind so much trouble.

John made most of the points about torture, but one more thing could be said. When a nation/culture stoops to the level of barbarism they fight, they loose and become barbarians themself.

Since Illegal Imigration was brought up, I thought I'd post this since it is happening to one of the most "Liberal" states in the country.




I hope Obama has a plan to pay for all these free-loaders that doesn't involve my paycheck.

You can't start a conversation or article you want taken seriously with a line like that. Utter tripe, and everything that follows gets lost. Reads like an Olbermann or Limbaugh rant.

The leap you seem to be making, that because someone is opposed to torture they must be soft on terror, used to work but doesn't anymore. I would love to have seen President Bush bring Bin Laden to justice before he left office - he had six and a half years to do it. The sort of thing posited by the IBD article you cite is the reason I couldn't vote Republican this time around. I refute that my vote indicates I'm dismissive of the threat or that I'm less willing to see Bin Laden killed than you are.

What, specifically, would you propose?