[Senator Orrin Hatch] stressed that the Middle East is the haven for terrorism and if the United States leaves too soon the terrorists will follow them back to the United States and we have World War III. "They’re waiting for the Democrats here to take control, let things cool off and then strike again."

I fail to see what the appalling outrageous thing is here.

It’s a known fact that the Dems favor a "law enforcement" approach to terrorism

Cooperation between Pakistani and British law enforcement (the British draw upon useful experience combating IRA terrorism) has validated John Kerry’s belief (as paraphrased by the New York Times Magazine of Oct. 10, 2004) that "many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror." In a candidates’ debate in South Carolina (Jan. 29, 2004), Kerry said that although the war on terror will be "occasionally military," it is "primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world."

Immediately after the London plot was disrupted, a "senior administration official," insisting on anonymity for his or her splenetic words, denied the obvious, that Kerry had a point. The official told The Weekly Standard:
"The idea that the jihadists would all be peaceful, warm, lovable, God-fearing people if it weren’t for U.S. policies strikes me as not a valid idea. [Democrats] do not have the understanding or the commitment to take on these forces. It’s like John Kerry. The law enforcement approach doesn’t work."

This farrago of caricature and non sequitur makes the administration seem eager to repel all but the delusional. But perhaps such rhetoric reflects the intellectual contortions required to sustain the illusion that the war in Iraq is central to the war on terrorism, and that the war, unlike "the law enforcement approach," does "work."

So Mona you go out tell everyone you want to return to Sept. 10 2001 and we’ll just proscecute terrorists, AFTER they hit us. I think that will work well.

And, partisan attacks aside, this is nothing new. Jose Padilla, the Brooklyn Bridge guy with the blowtorch, the guys in Miami trapped in an FBI sting with the promise of boots, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Even if you don’t blame the Rethugs, the phoenomenon is a problem.

Luttig wrote that by keeping Padilla in a brig for three and a half years without trial, then deciding to try him after all once a court approved the detention, the government "left the impression that Padilla may have been held for these years, even if justifiably, by mistake." By pressing the claim that the president has the authority to indefinitely detain anyone he labels an enemy combatant and then seeming to back away from that claim, Luttig said, the government left the impression that "the principle in reliance upon which it has detained Padilla...can, in the end, yield to expediency with little or no cost to its conduct of the war against terror."

Leave it to Mona to waltz in and totally ignore the premise, and instead again put the onus on the GOP.

Split it down the middle.

The timing may not have been politically induced. However, the credibility and capability of the attackers, the extent of the threat, was clearly exaggerated and hyped to smithereens.

And, partisan attacks aside, this is nothing new. Jose Padilla, the Brooklyn Bridge guy with the blowtorch, the guys in Miami trapped in an FBI sting with the promise of boots, etc. etc. etc. etc.

Even if you don’t blame the Rethugs, the phoenomenon is a problem.



Written By: glasnost

"many of the interdiction tactics that cripple drug lords, including governments working jointly to share intelligence, patrol borders and force banks to identify suspicious customers, can also be some of the most useful tools in the war on terror."