Ummmm.....usually winning the war just brings up new worries.

WWII - We ally with the USSR and defeat the Nazis and the Cold War starts.

Cold War - We give weapons to an group that will resist Soviet influence and we get the Taliban and Al Qaeda.

War On Terror - We kill civilians and we, in turn, create more terrorists.

Of course, Bush has been fighting tooth and nail for the right to wiretap without a warrant, and declare people "illegal enemy combatants" and thereby revoke the right to a trial, and your apologia is that Bruce wasn't so declared, and doesn't know of any taps? Or maybe your apologia is that Bush was frustrated in his attempts by the courts? I'm not so sanguine that the courts actually prevented infringements by emphasizing their illegality, but even if they did, it's bad enough that Bush was fighting to get those powers. If he failed, that's a strength of the system, not an excuse for his activities.

You misunderstood, this 'war on terror' is based on the concept that our civilization is under threat of extinction, so we must kill "them" before they kill us.

I’m sure this is getting redundant, “they’re controlling us with fear!” But think to yourself, when was the last time you were ACTUALLY threatened by a terrorist with a bomb? US Soldiers need not apply, I’m talking about the American citizen, that person we’re all fighting so hard to defend. When was the last time? Take a look at a real war, if your enemy doesn’t get anywhere near a successful attack in 6 years, NOT ONE… how much of a threat is that enemy? Do you think you could let your family out of their bunkers?

They can't cause any fundamental change in our way of life. In fact, the only change to our lifestyle has been inflicted not by colossal (or even minor) attacks on the American citizens, but by our own government and our complacency and fear. This is not the border of Israel where people simply cross, and kill 10 people in a cafe. Yes, they COULD, but they don't. We're not involved in any major threat to our existence, and what threat there is would be better solved with some tactics that didn't resemble a 14 year old playing Civilization.

Most would admit that simply insulting everyone who disagrees with us, attacking anyone who might pose some threat, and clamping down on the rights of our own countrymen for a fake sense of security are tactics that produce a net loss of tremendous size. We lose rights and this amorphous ‘enemy’ gains new fighters to stew.

This 'war on terror' is only in the twisted imagination of those we've given charge and to whom we've blindly said 'save us.' But more and more I believe that it's not a mistake on the part of our leaders, but it's something more cold and calculated. If they’ve read any Machiavelli, I find it more likely they're playing with us.

According to Smithsonian Magazine, we are winning the war on terror in one spot. The Islands of Basilian and Jolo, in The Philippines, used to be the favorite R&R/training base for the Taliban when they were fighting the Russians in Afghanistan.

Now the American Military is building infrastructure and creating an economy that has the rebels deserting the jungle, to share the wealth. It will be interesting to see if lasts.

I am all for closing Gitmo. And regardless of their final disposition, sending all of them home. Pack them on various planes and send them back to their home countries, their governments can do with them whatever they like. Get them out of our hair. Take the hardest core guys and put them in a high security prison on the US mainland. Give them some degree of due process before hand, but lock them up forever. Then close Gitmo.

I thought their home countries didn't want them back?

What does that matter? Iraq doesn't want us either.

How do you place someone in another country if that country won;t let them in?

Hell, that's easy.

HAHAHAH! That's almost bumper sticker funny.

Don't give them a choice, just drop them off. No big deal. They can let them go, cut their heads off, or send them packing. Once we give them back they are no longer our problem. People can't have it both ways. Close Gitmo, fine, let's do it.

Pierce: yep, Sevareid's Law at work -- and it's nowhere stronger than in politics. That's why I specified those worries. Sufficient unto the day, and all that.

HM: and the Administration could have had all that easily -- IF Congress had declared a state of war existed. Nobody in government or out of it really thought a Congressional declaration of war was the right size or kind of government response. So what you're seeing is a wartime Administration stuck with trying it the hard way if it is to do it any way at all.

Queequeg, read up on conspiracist thinking and conspiracist thinkers -- if that study doesn't turn you off the path you're taking, you may be headed for a hopeless condition.

Basically, conspiracist thinkers are frustrated romantics, looking for an explanation of events that is full of high drama. Unfortunately, Occam's Razor cuts conspiracy theory to shreds, for conspiracy theories invariably accrete layers of complexity. They also generally attribute to malice what can be more simply explained by stupidity. People who've been in government employ tend eventually to notice that government agencies really don't have time for plots, given their real responsibilities. This is true even of intelligence agencies, those favorites of conspiracy-theorizers.

Thomas P.M. Barnett contends that this kind of attack on ourselves and on Europe comes out of a resistance to globalization, by persons seeing only a loss -- though these are outnumbered heavily by those who can see the gain. He notes without attempting to analyze or explain that some of the more intense objection to globalization is to be found only within the societies well globalized already -- what he calls the Core nations, the economic core and mainstay for the globe. He is optimistic that successful integration into globalization is more or less inevitable in the long run, but how much conflict and trouble we'd want to tolerate during that long run is rather a sharp question. He reckons globalization integration is powerfully driven by economic, free-trade considerations, and that thus it has a pull like gravity. It's in the Core nation's interest, though, that this integration proceed swiftly, though it must be also recognized that the substantial social changes societies undergo in the process are not going to be hurried beyond a certain point.

Meanwhile, during that long run, our international troubles are likeliest to come from those unglobalized, unintegrated nations he calls the Gap -- for their separation from, and zero effect upon, the global economy and cultural connectivity.

And meanwhile again, I'm in a lot less hurry to quit fighting than the senior leadership of the Democratic Party.

Irrelevant. They wiretapped without warrants so they wouldn't have to have a reason for the tap, and created an extralegal designation for prisoners so they wouldn't have to have a reason for holding them. This is fact. And you try to defend it by saying they didn't do it to Bruce?

I don't see how anyone of sense could call it "irrelevant." It's central to the Administration's entire conduct of this war against a shadowy, intercommunicative enemy.

If the enemy communicates to coordinate, that is where they are vulnerable. We can't stymie nor defeat them unless we find ways to know their plans and their thinking, hmmm?

I'd further point out that neither Happy Monkey nor anyone else, anyone else at all, has come up with a way to prosecute this war that is any different or any better -- better meaning that we, the democracies, are likely to win. Our foes were the ones to start the ruckus, out of sheer religious bigotry.

You don't approve of religious bigotry, do you, Happy Monkey? Are you quite certain you don't? All of the good liberals should be shooting at these bastard hyenas' sons on those grounds.

Hyena's sons? That's a strange one. I kind of like, it but it doesn't quite roll off the tongue.

The problem, UG, is that most of us 'good liberals' don't buy into the 'war on terror' at all because frankly, I'm not the least bit scared of another major terrorist attack on US soil. How long can the terror alert stay at 'elevated' or 'lellow'? Also, because only one of the wars we're currently fighting, and only in the beginning, was against terrorists that actually had the US's downfall as their goal.

Now all we've got is a bunch of guys thousands of miles from our borders, with no discernible leader, who we're keeping from obtaining power, but in the lands that are thousands of miles from our borders. I don't see our national security particularly wrapped up in that, can you honestly say you do?

So many get very accusative about 'conspiracy theories' and their 'crackpot ideas...' of the US in a quest for money. Can you tell me with a straight face that a faceless, multinational, largely unconnected enemy is coordinating numerous large scale attacks on US soil, and has the means to carry said attacks out? Doesn't this sound a little Illuminati to you? Does to me.

The most common lashing I receive is 'You've got your head in the sand, you don't understand the real danger.' It's been official for quite a while now: we've lost more people in wars 'taking the fight to the enemy' then we have in all the foreign terrorist attacks on US soil in recent history combined. I guess 'combined' isn't the right word, because there's only been one.

The damages I see are pretty clear: not some enemy who can "strike anywhere, anytime," but the several people I've met who've either died or been severely injured in Iraq or Afghanistan. They signed up to 'defend freedom' and protect their country. They're not fighting for our country any more than us invading, say, poland would be defending our country.