Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror. Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us? - Donald Rumsfeld Memo October 2003.
The answer to the former Defense Secretary's question is a resounding no, at least on the domestic front.
Back in September the US Senate passed the Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act which beefs up the criminal complaints that can be filed against groups who threaten those who make their living through the use of animals. In other words, because of the tactics it uses People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals is now a terrorist group.
Now, personally, I don't see where anything PETA does can compete with say, Al Qaeda, but I understand how some people who have been on the receiving end could feel intimidated.
Still, creating a new terrorist organization through legislative action seems excessive. Pamela Anderson is a member of PETA, and I don't believe she packs anything more threatening than surgically enhanced breasts.
While the Senate bill created new terrorist through actions, one also wonders if conservatives as a whole have created an environment in which terrorism can thrive.
Take the sad case of Chad Castagana arrested this morning on charges of mailing envelopes with white powder to a host of entertainment and political figures ranging from Rep. Nancy Pelosi to Keith Olbermann. Castagana, an unemployed science fiction fan and right-wing blogger, was arrested Sunday by the Joint Terrorism Task Force based in Los Angelus.
According to the Reuter's news agency, "In some cases, the threatening letters included expressions such as "Death to Demagogues" and references to Alan Berg, a Jewish talk radio host murdered by white supremacists in Denver in 1984."
It is unfortunate, but Castagana's actions replicate a game plan we have seen all too often on the conservative side. First, marginalize and embarrass your opponents. If that fails target your opponents for extermination.
Think about it: in strictest terms doesn't this outline describe the war in Iraq? How about the 2004 Presidential election, when Democrat John Kerry was mercilessly "swift-boated." Even during this year's election cycle President Bush was describing his political foes as people who wanted to see the United States lose in Iraq.
Where is the civilized political discourse? Why does there never seem to be an alternative to belittling an opponent verbally or using the weapons of war to destroy them physically? It's a question many on the right need to resolve in their own consciences.
As for me, I have long suspected that such tactics are born of desperation. If you think about it, conservatism, by definition revolves around the notion of keeping things exactly as they are. The trouble with that notion is, as we learn from nature, that things that don't grow invariably begin to die.
It is nothing less than the inescapable reality of entropy.
Progressives, on the other hand, are not content with the status quo. They seek change, they endorse change and they embrace change in an effort to make their world a better place for all. Societies ultimately are judged by the way they treat the least among them. Progressives have enumerated numerous programs to help those less fortunate. Conservatives, even the near-mythical compassionate conservatives seldom seem to.
Why this is so I cannot judge. I have often said, half in jest that the conservative doctrines can be summed up as follows: "Screw you buddy, I've got mine."
If conservatives ever hope to have long-term relevance they need an engine of change that is more than simply wishing for a return to "the good ole days" that were never really that good for significant portions of the population.
If they fail they will wind up being just as relevant as the dinosaurs. Just as extinct too.