Clue by Fours

Just for a minute, I’d like to address the assumption that all terrorists will stay in the Middle East as long as we fight our wars over there. (Also known as : “Fight them there so we won’t have to fight them here at home” Theory.)

The idea above, often expressed by Bush and his party, is so naive and simplistic — and altogether wrong — yet so far, no one has taken on this point in the mainstream media or even in the houses of Congress, as far as I know. We could, theoretically, be fighting wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Iran, Syria, and North Korea simultaneously and it would in no way guarantee that the terrorists could not strike us here in the U.S.

If we learn nothing else, it should be this:

1) The types of attacks we have thusfar witnessed on U.S. soil were not conventional warfare, with the ongoing expenses of raising an Army and providing it with the attendant support and supplies. As we’ve already seen, a small group of individuals armed with nothing more than box cutters were able to take over 4 commercial jet aircraft and do what they did with them. (P.S. - They were not Iraqis.)

2) As long as our ports, borders, chemical plants, nuclear power plants, transportation, and electrical grid remain unsecured and unprotected, we are still vulnerable to terrorist attacks on our own soil.

As to the next inevitable question coming from the rightwing on whether I’d still want Saddam in power or not… You tell me who put him there, trained him via the CIA, armed him (hello Mr. Rumsfeld), and warned him months in advance that the U.S. was coming for him? While you’re at it, you might answer those same questions about Osama bin Laden…

Oh, and btw, where is he again?