just say "no" (Score 1)

I for one am pleased that the government would even consider a new kind of warfare. Here's why: if we engage in the spy vs. spy methods suggested by the talking heads then we may reduce the collateral damage to civilians populations both here and abroad. It has been our policy to approach war in a symmetrical, tit for tat way. It's been wholly ineffectual with terrorism as the terrorist is often dead already. Terrorism is an asymmetrical type of aggression. Our knee jerk reaction has been to find someone to bomb. But whom do we bomb? If we do what good will it do? The perpetrators will very likely live to strike again anyway (or they don't care if they're killed). Historically, it's the innocent sucker living in that country by an accident of birth that'll get screwed. My hope is that the goal will be for the perpetrators to be brought to an international tribunal for prosecution. It's been suggested recently that some familiar Americans leaders, such as Henry Kissinger, be tried as war criminals. We certainly need to be subject to the same justice as the rest of the world or risk being perceived as an international bully and be further targeted.

I worry, on the other hand, because this kind of warfare most threatens our civil liberties. Our civil liberty is already a causality in terms of coming and going; our privacy will certainly be (has been?) compromised as well. This is necessary to monitory terrorist tools (e-mail, cell, and encrypted files) and get close to terrorist "cells." New laws and better technologies to monitor them are required. This is so because of the nature of the intelligence community whose strong focus it is to gather information. I can live with this (for awhile) if it will save some lives. The bottom line here is that we have to learn to live with terrorism and the inconveniences that that brings with it. With respect to these inconveniences we need to be tolerant. The truncation of my privacy is a short-term sacrifice I'm willing to make. (In fact, if I had to choose between being a causality of some terrorist action or having my boring E-mail examined; I'd choose the later.) I imagine that many people reading this have much more clandestine activities who might best consider suspending these for awhile (or dealing with it). If they get arrested they should get a good lawyer and trust the system; (a sketchy proposition at best!) They probably would have a good case if their privacy were violated under the auspices of the Feds looking for terrorist anyway.

What will likely happen is that we will find someone to bomb the shit out of, as well as truncate our civil rights here at home. Neither will be very effective. The world community will remain involved until they begin to question our foreign policy, then will do whatever we want regardless of world opinion. (Might makes right.) Our war on terrorism will be about as effective as our war on drugs has been.