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Originally Posted by Ramona_A_Stone
You're not talking about a 'war on terrorism' at all, and I think you know that. You're talking about ex post facto reaction and retribution for acts of terrorism--which is all well and good, until we start pretending that anything which we can possibly do is a deterrent to terrorism, and most especially when we start pretending that our foriegn policies aren't equivalent to terrorist recruitment campaigns.
Putting wire taps on non-American citizens wouldn't have stopped McVeigh, and apprehending him and executing him won't stop his next emulator. It's not a meaningless coincidence that surprise is implicit in terrorist tactics, and it doesn't matter how smart or perceptive you are, unless you're a god, there's always room to be surprised.
Control by fear is the oldest trick in the book, but sadly we still fall for it in droves. It's an aspect of power which has and will always be with us, but when that fear is used to exacerbate the very conditions which it pretends to address, it's just ignorance to support it.
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not that it matters at this point, but when the next hit on US soil comes, we are going to find the world to be considerably less sympathetic than the post-9/11 reaction.