Your Sobering National Security Thought for the Day

[laststeamtrain]

Your Sobering National Security Thought for the Day
Posted by Michael Cohen

Sometimes it's worth putting American foreign policy - and the military decisions we have made and continue to make since 9/11 - in a proper and sobering context.

Eight years and two months since America was attacked on September 11th, and 3,000 Americans were killed, the United States has approximately 168,000 soldiers stationed in two Muslim counties, In neither of these countries is there any al Qaeda presence - and there has not been any such presence since 2002. Indeed, since the fall of 2001, al Qaeda has not launched a single major attack on US targets or the US mainland.

Yet, instead of having a national debate on how we got ourselves into such a bizarre and pointless predicament -- and squandered so many lives and so many billions of dollars in the process -- the current debate in Washington is focused on how many more troops we will send into harm's way to pursue an enemy that is down to about 200 core operatives.

Do you ever get the queasy feeling sometimes that somewhere in a cave in Pakistan, Osama bin Laden is having a bit of a chuckle about this?

November 19, 2009 at 09:48 AM ... http://www.democracyarsenal.org/2009/11/you.html

[rfranklin]

1. Makes you wonder about this Al Qaeda fellow, doesn't it?

Perhaps he is just an imaginary friend?

[Raster]

2. {cough}pipeline{cough}

[FarCenter]

3. Al Qaeda is winning by at least 1000 to 1

The cost of Iraq, Afghanistan, Homeland Security, and all the other anti-terrorist activities around the world has to be well over $1 trillion.

Even the most generous estimate of Al Qaeda funding would be less than $100 million per year or $1 billion for the duration.

So Al Qaeda is winning by over 1000 to 1.

[havocmom]

4. 'All I gotta do is tell you what I am gonna do'

Movie line that is, all too often, accurate.