Article: Endless War

Neither Mulrine nor Barbero offered any substantiation of this remarkable statement in the article. How many of those 10,000 attacks occurred in the U.S.? After all, we are in the Top Five. They don't say. It is like they say trust us. We just want to protect you.

Or, do they want to protect the humongous defense budget and the military's industrial empire? You decide, reader.

Mulrine, proving my upcoming argument, did include in her article some terrorist's attempts at sabotage that went nowhere. Anyone who can read is aware of these attempts. "In the US, some of these attempted attacks include the attempted underwear bombing of Christmas 2009, as well as the Times Square car bombing in 2010. There were also ink cartridges packed with explosives aboard two separate cargo planes the same year, a lesser-reported but similarly thwarted event." Now those attempts were thwarted by good intelligence, good police work, and the courage of some airline passengers with nary a general involved, meaning the military.

Mulrine next cites a case that did involve the military, albeit obliquely. "Now, US officials are using databases from IED investigations in Iraq and Afghanistan to track potential terrorists in the United States. US military officials say that last year, law enforcement agents were able to arrest two Iraqi nationals on federal terrorism charges in Bowling Green, Ky [emphasis is mine]." Okay, I admit I didn't know about that one. How many did?

Great, use the databases. What we do not need is a one trillion dollar new fighter beset with cost overruns and delays that has no enemy, and certainly no role in combating terrorists, the F-35. No other country in the world has a stealth fighter. The U.S. has 187 F-22 Raptors which are far superior to the F-35. Of course, the Raptor has no enemy either. It can lie and wait until some nation develops one sometime in maybe the next 50 years.

While I am on a roll, perhaps someone can tell me why the defense department insists that we have twelve super carriers in service while no other nation has one. Russia and Red China have no aircraft carriers. A pro Pentagon supporter may claim that the U.S. must protect the freedom of the high seas even if it costs grandma and grandma their health benefits. To my Pentagon friend I ask, where is this written? Is that some law Congress passed that I am unaware of? Is that a part of some international treaty we signed that escaped my awareness. Or is that some propaganda proffered by the Pentagon to insure its prosperity and unlimited funding. To my friend, I may ask do you know we are broke? We can no longer afford to defend the world. Other nations must step up to the plate and, for once, pay their share to defend the liberties they enjoy.

I would remind my theoretical antagonist mentioned above that Red China holds the chips of our National Debt driven skyward by our debilitating wars and overreaching Pentagon expenditures. Now that should give him a moment of pause. Or not.

The military has virtually no role in combating terrorists. Terrorists are criminals and stateless. To engage in military operations against a foreign country to combat terrorists is akin to using a .50-caliber sniper rifle to eradicate rats. A better example is using a 1,000-pound bomb on a rat's nest in a house inhabited by an innocent sleeping family. In other words, using the bludgeoning methods of the military to fight terrorists only makes matters " far worse. Want proof? How about the events of the past decade or more? Can anyone honestly say we made things better in Afghanistan by invading that forlorn, poverty-stricken nation? We have made things worse, and we are losing that war, and everyone knows it. Did we make things better in Iraq by invading that nation in the pursuit of terrorists and imaginary nukes and imaginary CBW? Of course not. That nation was devastated by war and we lost that one, too. Iraq is now under the umbrella of Iran, and the U.S. has virtually no control of Iraqi oil, Bush's primary objective when your weave your way through all his B.S. Also, Al-Qa'ida infiltrated Iraq after the U.S. invasion due to the fact that Bush's invasion removed the government that had earlier suppressed it. A.Q. is still there today and making its presence felt.

As mentioned above, terrorists are merely criminals, not threats to any nation's national security. In this context they are much like murders, bank robbers, rapists, pedophiles, kidnappers, and the like. What separates terrorists from the rest of the criminal classes mentioned? Not a thing, they all perform criminal acts, and, as criminals, they should all be brought before the bar of justice. The actions most recently by James Holmes in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado, were most heinous. Is anyone seriously suggesting any military involvement in the case? No, so what makes Holmes any different from Jose Padilla? Padilla didn't kill anyone, but he faced years of military persecution and torture.

So, how do you fight terrorists? That is easy, but beyond the rationale of politicians and Pentagon enthusiasts who have another agenda that has little to do with fighting terrorists despite their patriotic rhetoric. The absolute worst choice is the military as the last decade irrevocably proves. We fight terrorists just like we fight murders, bank robbers, rapists, pedophiles, kidnappers, and that ilk with grunt work. Good police work from national, state, and local police with excellent intelligence and the cooperation of national and international agencies.

Were nations to adopt this format, instead of using the bludgeoning nature of the military, the terrorist movement would quickly die a natural death, starved of its primary sustenance, publicity that nourishes jihadism.

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