This is beginning to sound old, even to me.
None of this bullshit matters. The Liebermann bullshit, the Gulianni bullshit. The Clinton bullshit. It doesn't matter.
It's all empty posturing, so that the tame, captive media can talk about how "tough" they are.
And it has nothing to do with the actual conflict that is taking place in the world today, or with anything that will actually help make the American people more secure.
For everyone, it's about power. It's about money. It's about control.
No one gives a shit about doing their jobs.
So here I go again:
If all we do is shoot people, we lose. There is no fixed number of terrorists, or "evildoers," or whatever. When we kill them, their friends, their children, their companions, their classmates, their neighbors take their place. Read the Army's counterinsurgency handbook; tough tactics are counterproductive.
What we have to do is counter the bad ideas that the fundamentalists use as their justification. We have to do this with the good ideas that are the basis for American government and society. Ideas like our constitution, and those in the Princeton Project that Steve had so much to do with promoting.
The problem is that the junta that has stolen our government does not believe in American ideas or ideals. They fundamentally agree with the beliefs of the "terrorists," only with different labels.
The fact that the Iraq war has nothing to do with al-Qa'ida, or 9/11, is also beside the point. The fact that Bush's failed policies are destroying not just American military, economic, political, diplomatic, and moral power is stupid and tragic and criminal. But that, too, is beside the point.
Even if we elect a president who will get all the above right, we will still not be engaged in the real battle of ideas that would be our strongest field of endeavor were we to engage in it.
But we don't. Because sending out books and building schools and holding debates and arguing our views isn't percieved by the toady pundit talking heads as "tough."
"Tough" is a screaming idiot like Zell Miller, spit flying out of his mouth along with the lies, hate as a substitute for reason, fear as a substitute for security, power as a substitute for responsibility, ignorance as a substitute for faith.
"Tough" is going to get more Americans killed, and weaken our country even more than it has been in the last six years of delusion and incompetance.
"Tough" is walls, and barriers, and closed doors, and calling that "offense," instead of "defense," as if it made a whit of difference.
"Tough" is the school bully, and look what good that causes.