War and Terrorism

Thinking further on this whole thing and some of its implications.

Thinking of the "War on Terror" as a "war" is -- and I am not the first to point this out -- wrong framing. At least, it's wrong if you actually want to do anything about terrorism. Miitary action has an extremely limited use when you're fighting a phenomenon that doesn't rely on support from a state to function. Let's face it -- Afghanistan was a fluke. (And notice how quickly we left when there was oil involved somewhere else.) I think the Europeans have had the right tack all along -- police actions with top-notch (i.e., not cherry-picked for political purposes) intelligence.

When you're saddled with a president and a whole raft of advisors who have no concept of what they're doing, you have a real problem making any effective moves against terrorists, even if you're not providing a motivation and a recruiting program for them.

Which is why, after four and a half years in Iraq, the world is in much more danger from terrorists than it was before.

(PS -- has anyone accused al Qaeda for the I35 bridge collapse yet?)