I got to see a very good friend tonight. We battled just like days of old and I came to appreciate yet another perspective. But I have to admit, there was an absolute stalemate on something he believes that I do not;

" We are fighting ' them ' there in Iraq, because if we don't, they will follow us home. And the fact that we haven't had another attack on American soil is all the proof you should need to see that we are safer."

He was man enough to answer my questions. Namely " If we were attacked on American soil, how would you feel about that? " He knew what I meant. I didn't have to qualify it with anything obvious ( i.e. - " Would you be sad? " That's not what I was asking. He knew that. ) He said " I would reconsider my position." And considering that he still clings to " We haven't been attacked on our soil. Therefore what we are doing is working." I found that to be a reasonable compromise, for lack of a better word.

But I honestly felt as though that had already been hashed out and discussed.

Is the premise that " We are fighting ' them ' there so they don't attack us here " based on some legitimate threat that ' they ' pose? To American soil?

How would that specifically happen? Would Al-Qaeda use their army to invade? Or perhaps their air force? Maybe their Marines? No. I don't how what we are doing in Iraq prevents Al-Quaeda from trying that again.

How would that work, exactly? How would what we are doing in Iraq prevent them from attacking us? What is it that Al-Qaeda could do before that they cannot do now?

Someone lay out a scenario that is even barely likely and explain how what we are doing in Iraq lessens that chance.

What? " We are killing them? " Really? That's not what The State Department says. That's not what any study says. All of those studies say that Al-Qeada is stronger than ever.

But really, explain how, specifically, we would get followed home if we weren't in Iraq. How would they do that? With what resources that have been removed?

Do you know what I am asking? It SEEMS like a simple question. How would that happen? Would they invade? Would they hijack another plane? What?

I've one of these too, in my life. Looking forward to seeing this one play out.

To kick it off, there is always the fact that we have been attacked since! (anthrax)

And, they could just attack us now anyway! It's not a mutually exclusive game.

This brings the why we were attacked into play. Bin Laden wanted us out of Saudi Arabia. We are out, all is quiet, for example.

CJ, you friend is sadly misinformed. The "we are fighting them there so we don't have to fight them here" is complete hogwash. And to say that we have not been attacked since 9/11 as proof that our policy is working is hardly true. I'm sure the person that smokes a pack of cigs a day but has yet to get lung cancer probably uses the same logic as your friend.

Right, but I want to hear how it COULD even work. How would they " attack us over here."? With what? Or is it that they are too BUSY with us in Iraq to have time to plan an attack here?

Really?

I am the only one coming up with senarios - but I don't see how it could happen.

I think that was a line that was said to us and then abruptly stopped being said, once someone asked just one question.

But I would like to hear it taken out to the end. How would they physically attack us?

We've all got a friend on the hard right. There is no way to change their way of thinking through conversation. The essence of a war hawk is aggression. They advocate it and only counter aggression has any effect on them. Don't be mislead, CJ. Even if we are attacked, it will not change a right winger's thought processes. They adore George Bush and consider him brave to have taken a basically unilateral strategy in the Middle East. They are not swayed by statistics, military losses, or economic repercussions at home. An attack on the homeland will not yield the result of an attitude change, contrarily it will only give them cause to counter attack even if, as in the case of 9/11, it is misdirected and ultimately mismanaged.

How an enemy could attack us is from within. Sleeper cells exist. There is no way for the U.S. intelligence agencies to have 100% monitoring of every potential bad guy. It only takes one to poison our infrastructure. But again, it won't change the attitude of the righties, only reinforce it.

I recently had a visit from an old high school buddy, the quintessential right wing conservative. Rather than get involved in counter arguing with him, I just keyed off his own statements.
e.g. when he complained about the liberal media and condom commercials on the tube being seen by his teenagers, I informed him that he could thank Ronnie Reagan for driving the government out of broadcast commercial regulation. That shut him up for a few seconds. Segueing to the war, the only point you can make with the right is the obvious one, we can't win a war against a 21st century enemy using 20th century strategy.
Shock and awe. Remember shock and awe. We can't win a battle against an enemy using policing tactics either when the borders are porous. These kind of statements leave many righties in a tizzy. Then the caketaker is to point out that Bush had this notion of being a big war president and when the military leaders kept telling him what the reality on the ground wasn't what he wanted to hear, he just keeps firing/retiring them one at a time.
I don't have time today to generate a list of fired generals and colonels since Iraq began, but I'm sure it is noteworthy.

Reminding the right that immediately post 9/11 Bush had the world behind him. Had he pursued terrorism at its heart in Afghanistan, history would have been different. Instead, he has only gotten the U.S. in a heap of trouble. He has mismanaged the military, the economy, domestic tranquility and international relations. There isn't much more he can get wrong.

"They adore George Bush..."

Many don't adore Mr. Bush but simply believe he's better than the more liberal alternative.

You can look at it one-dimensionally, or understand that many who appreciate this president do so because they agree with him more than with the left.

Herb

I just want to hear how they would follow us home. How would that happen?

The right uses the argument of "following us home" as you have pointed out, yet they also complain about terrorists using "asymmetrical" tactics. Which is it? The "following us home" argument only applied when enemy forces moved and attacked en masse, like a uniformed army.

Terrorist cells are dissociated, independent, and stealthy. They "followed us home" before 9/11, and there is no reason to believe that they haven't "followed us home" since then. The counter-question to the right's statement is "how can we be sure they haven't followed us home?"

Again, using the right's logic, Bush was successfully combating terrorism on 9/10/01 because we had yet to have been attacked.

Maybe another way to put this is terror can be anywhere, and it can be employed by ANYONE.

I like the uniformed, organized army comparison. That's a real differentiator --that and terror really being a tactic.

IMHO, the big dynamic to get people to think about is WHY we end up with terrorists engaging in acts of terror and how that impacts WHO is going to see those acts rendered on them.

Terrorists employ terror for change. It's a good tactic for them because it's cheap and makes powerful statements --granted others actually respond to it.

The means for change is to break trust and confidence. THIS WORKS ON ENTIRE NATIONS, OURS BEING A CASE IN POINT. Fear does trump democracy. Fear can trump good leaders too. Fear saps strength and kills minds. (Frank Herbert reference intentional!)

How does this impact the WHO?

In our case, it unsettled our nation and created a LOT of negative change. It also empowered bad leaders to be worse! As far as I am concerned, terror scored a goal or two on us. We let fear rule the day and we should not have.

I think it was because we were new to the whole thing, resting on our strength and lazy in our accomplishments, but that's just me.

We could have controlled fear and built a LOT of unity and strength, thus pushing terror to darker, less organized, less enlightened parts of the world.

So the terrorist is going to look for those that might be so inclined to take a hard fall. That's one WHO. (and was us)

Another WHO might be those that have just the right friends. Shake them up, and see alignments of forces change and with that openings form that are receptive to other tactics.

Finally, what does PROTECTION mean?

Does it mean locking ourselves down, so we feel better?

Does it mean making better friends?

Does it mean strong and rational military responses?

etc...

What about the wrong responses. Is that protection? Could they "follow us home" in a figurative sense, because we are weak out of fear and ignorance --maybe pride?

Gosh, c'mon, even if 100,000 "terrorists" currently hidden in cells across the nation suddenly appeared and said: "Gotcha! We're already HERE!", just what are they going to do? Yes, they'll kill a few of us in the beginning, but there is no way they are going to defeat this gun-toting nation of 300 million people.

The ONLY thing they CAN defeat us with is to SCARE the crap out of us. In some respect, they've succeeded -- just look at Herb and NWokie, peeing their pants each time someone mentions "terrorist following us home."

If their scare tactic is to bankrupt us, they're doing that very well too.

We've no one to blame but ourselves, especially Herb and NWokie.


Sorry for the non-intellectual response here, but it is clear in black and white we're just scaring ourselves broke. Good grief! How much longer until Bush goes now?

This much longer.

" Gosh, c'mon, even if 100,000 "terrorists" currently hidden in cells across the nation suddenly appeared and said: "Gotcha! We're already HERE!" "

And it is my contention that nothing we are doing in Iraq removes that possibility. If I am wrong, then tell me how.

CJ, I don't think the "follow us home" fear mongers really understand terrorism. Oh, they understand the deadly potential of a terrorist attack. But they don't understand the goals and tactics of terrorism: to strike fear through deadly, sporadic and random attacks; not to exterminate or conquer their enemy, but to use the power of fear to compensate for the lack of military or political power; and to be very patient and very persistent.

For the right, 9/11 was just like Dec. 7th, and they think we should treat it the same way. In fact, 9/11 was an incredibly evil and deadly stunt by a small, well-coordinated group of thugs. They turned our own planes against us, just as they now are trying to turn our own fear against us. And in both cases, we have allowed them to get away with it.

Herb sez--
"You can look at it one-dimensionally, or understand that many who appreciate this president do so because they agree with him more than with the left."

Didja see that Herb? You just repeated yourself here. "[U]understand[ing] that many who appreciate this president do so because they agree with him more than with the left" essentially *is* looking at it one-dimensionally. See, you just killed your own argument with one single statement and apparently didn't realise it........

*laughs and shakes head, in disbelief*

I do not see what good there could be in getting into an argument with somebody who is a close friend on policy issues.

In a spirited discussion, on the other hand, it might be interesting to suggest: "Couldn't one say that Iraq is a success for Al-Qaeda because they are getting the U.S. to spend a lot of money over there, and the war itself has become a wedge issue amongst Americans?"