On Political Language

In the spirit of George Orwell, let’s examine the language of 21st Century American politics. Political debate takes place in our country in four separate forms–print, broadcast, internet and person-to-person. In all of these media, civility has moved aside in favor of insults. We all know the difficulty of discussing our political views with someone holding opposing opinions. In print and broadcast, and over the world-wide web, it is even easier to be on our worst behavior because no one can interrupt. By insulting someone’s credibility, freedom of speech is stifled.

The current practice of hurling accusations, using myths and falsehoods as facts, exchanging insults, and assigning negative labels to the others who hold different ideas is causing us to lose our objectivity. It is taking away our ability to arrive at and accept the real truth. We are preventing our country from developing feasible solutions to problems because of the use of the language. If we cannot have an honest, open-minded, free exchange of ideas, where we are willing to listen and respect our differences, then problems like the national debt won’t get solved. We will also continue using a poor strategy in the “long” war in the face of a more numerous enemy, with few allies of our own and with limited resources at our disposal.

It is the language we use, the tone, the meaning, the intent, and the delivery, that creates an almost impossible condition for using logic, reason, facts, ideas, and the cold hard truth to understand and solve any problems. Take the words “liberal” and “conservative” as two examples of language used by people to attack the credibility of their opponents. Republicans use the tag “liberal” as an insult to describe ideas and people opposed to them. This is ironic in an historical sense. Abraham Lincoln, the first Republican president, created large bureaucracies. He enlarged government spending, expanded government’s ability to intervene in people’s lives, and he was an atheist. He was socially progressive. Lincoln was the perfect American LIBERAL up to his time and beyond.

What about “conservative,” used by Democrats against their enemies in much the same way. The founder of their party, Thomas Jefferson, tried to limit the powers of government and prevent change. Hypocrisy? The father of modern conservative thought, Edmund Burke (whom most Republicans have not even read directly) stood up in the British House of Commons and defended the rebels of the American colonies and their claim to equal protection and rights under the laws of Great Britain. What is so bad about being a conservative in the spirit of Burke?

Other words used in American politics are unconstructive and even destructive of unity and safety. Labeling someone’s ideas on the war as “cut and run” doesn’t contribute one thing to a better, smarter strategy for victory. Shouting that any financial reforms are “tax cuts for the wealthy” avoids assuming any responsibility for real, tough-decision-making leadership to solve our nation’s dismal financial situation.

What do we need as a country? We need leaders and individuals in our communities more concerned about finding the truth, having a free-exchange of ideas, defending free speech, and not leaders, a mass media, and a public scoring points in a useless game of ignorant words.

My Favorite Movies

The last Clublog entry yesterday was my Top 10 Favorite Books. It seems only appropriate that I talk a little bit about my favorite movies.

Films for me are what they are for just about everyone: An easy means of entertainment. I can take films more seriously than that, and I often do over analyze them. These films on my Top 10 Favorite Movies list influence me, even after having seen some of them 60 or 70 times (The Empire Strikes Back), for what they mean and how very precise and creatively they show it.

#1. 2001: A Space Odyssey. I consider this my favorite film because for how well it was filmed, considering that other science fiction films, both before and mostly since, have failed to capture the stylized unity of space and time, sight, sound, movement, story and character, that Kubrick accomplished. He had to invent a whole new way of film making to make this. It is a near flawless production, if you can stay awake; it doesn’t have a lot of dialogue.

#2. The Seventh Seal. This film by Swedish cinema genius Ingmar Bergman is one of the greatest philosophical debates on good and evil, mortality and fate I believe ever done in movies. Set amidst the plague of Crusade-era Europe, how else would one cheat death except by playing chess. Even if one cheats, it does buy a little time. Time to do what? That is the lesson of seize the moment.

#3. The Empire Strikes Back. This is the best “movie” movie of the entire six part Star Wars mega-saga. Irwin Kershner did a keen job in directing, the script was well written, the score was emotive and darkly evil-inspiring, and the editing was exact. A true cliff-hanger living up to Mega-genius George Lucas’ vision for it, this movie is the pinnacle of science-fiction adventure movie making.

#4. Raiders of the Lost Ark. This movie, the first in the Indiana Jones series (a fourth one is supposed to come at some point), even though it follows no real-life historical time line in its story telling, is how one makes a ripping adventure movie that is never-ending action.

#5. Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. This 1920s silent German film by director Robert Weine is a great spectacle of Pi Kielty’s theory of “alternative realism.” Normal things from a certain perspective, as can normally happen, have a distorted place in our reality when humans are in the grip of their fears. This is a wonderful mind-#*%@, one of those that will live for centuries in the halls of modern art appreciation centers (what are those, anyway?).

#6. Lawrence of Arabia. While my favorite book is the second-written war time memoir of T.E. Lawrence, this movie captures the ideas of Lawrence, puts him squarely in the middle of his own ego and brilliance, and makes a visually stunning film. In this movie, a parched, deadly desert never looked so real except in person. David Lean accomplished here what few movie makers have ever done, creative or documentary: an authentic account of an insignificant piece of history made larger than life by the even larger than life legend, especially when the legend is more real than the man himself.

#7. The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence. Of all the John Wayne movies that I love to watch for entertainment, this is my favorite western of all time. It is my favorite because it deals with the story of sacrificing one’s happiness for the sake of someone one loves. It is a noble story, about a hard man, and the “legend” has indeed become history and truth.

#8. Treasure Island. This Disney film starring Robert Newton as Long John Silver had a special place in my childhood. It is all about swashbuckling, pirates, treasure maps, ships, and it revolves around a kid. When I read the book in high school, I realized why the story had such appeal to a rather plain kid like me.

#9. The Man Who Would Be King. This John Huston movie, based on my favorite short story, written by Kipling, is a unique piece of 1970s film making. It is a story of how ambition, even with the best of benign selfish intentions, always ends bad. A story about two British soldiers in Imperial India who stumble onto Alexander’s gold while seeking to be kings, it is a story about how even tempting fate is ignoring the will of God himself.

#10. Notorious. This is one of the best Hitchcock films. It is certainly one of Cary Grant’s best. It is about a Nazi sympathizer, Ingrid Bergman, turned American spy, and how love really does save everything when it is all at risk.

These are my favorite movies. There are many more which deserve honorable mention–Citizen Kane, for instance is next in line. But the ones listed here struck my taste and have a message in the very highest achievement of the cinema art that they are.

My Favorite Books

In honor of Banned Book Week, an awareness campaign in the ever-ongoing battle to censor non-obscene books for their radical views or real-life content, I thought I would share my Top 10 Favorite Books.

#1. The Seven Pillars of Wisdom by T.E. Lawrence. This war memoir by the legend “Lawrence of Arabia” may be the best written first-hand history there is. Aside from his high quality of prose, Lawrence describes the politics of war–diplomacy and military policy, economics, culture and sociology of the war in the desert that he led, in a war of national liberation, that he invented for his time and place. It is truly fascinating writing and a great story greatly told.

#2. The Trial by Franz Kafka. Kafka’s construction of the “auto-horrific” is a masterpiece of creative writing. He literally constructs a living hell of everyday things and forms them into a journey into the impossible that feels so ordinary and real. If I were one of the Book People, this is the one I would memorize.

#3. A Farewell to Arms by Ernest Hemingway. This is a great love story in a time of conflict. Hemingway’s prose is always spectacular, even the parts where you can’t tell who is saying what or what is going on. As a work of fiction, it captures sentiment and then it rips out of you like pulling a bowling ball out of your belly button.

#4. Kim by Ruyard Kipling. Although Kipling may be considered rather un-p.c. by today’s cultural standards, Kim is a good adventure for any man, old or young, Boy Scout or not. Part lesson on the fates of life, part spy story, it puts one in a frame of mind when they were young and dreamed of doing something just like Kimball O’Hara did in their back woods.

#5. Travels with Charley by John Steinbeck. Forget Kerouac and his poor writing, Steinbeck’s account of a cross country exploration of America shows our nation as it once was, and still is, if we stopped someplace long enough to see what is familiar with it. Although nothing much extraordinary happens, Steinbeck is the best writer of American English of the 20th Century, in my opinion. This is mindless, good, easy reading.

#6. Keep the Aspidistra Flying by George Orwell. When I read this story of this idealistic, sad fool, I kept thinking to myself: This is so me, or what I would really be like if I didn’t open my thoughts to others. It is not autobiographical for me in any way, but hey, it is Orwell’s satire of the type of person that I would see of myself if I had a point of view of me some place hidden around me. You get it, don’t you?

#7 Magic Mountain by Thomas Mann. This is a story, entirely realistic, of what can happen when time goes nowhere and you suddenly find yourself older and unfulfilled. It is worth reading, even as a translation, because of the fully formed characters trapped in a retreat for the sick, on the Magic Mountain.

#8. The Peloponnesian War by Thucydides. Thucydides was the father of strategy and he wrote a book about the great war of his time. It is a story of what fate befalls a democracy that assumes the pretensions of empire. The history relates how demagogues and diatribe can cause an entire civilization to fall. There are always lessons in Strategy.

#9. Bluebeard by Kurt Vonnegut. It is said that Vonnegut wrote the same book, or rather sold the same book, twenty different times. Regardless, Vonnegut writes a funny and inspiring story of how things work out in the end; how life has its own sense of irony.

#10. The Idiot by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The description of a seizure, I was told by a doctor, is a close example of what is supposed to happen when people receive electro-shock therapy. Dostoevsky is a great writer of psychology and how guilt and conscience are as natural to humans as hair and earlobes.

Well these are the Top 10 books that most influenced my philosophy, if I can presume to have a philosophy. There are other books that are important. My list is atypical as I have a rather bizarre taste and a predilection for good history. The list can change, as I change with it. But for now, these are the most important books I have read among a couple of thousand (at least) that I have experienced first hand.

Breaking News Concerning Last Posting

Just minutes ago, at approximately 2:45 PM (CST), National Public Radio announced that a four-star general has been chosen to command all US and all NATO forces in Afghanistan. The name of the general was not announced in the news brief. It can only be assumed that he or she is an American, and most likely an USA or USMC general, although it is possible that they are a USAF general. The news brief said the appointment was necessary in light of the recent resurgence of Taliban-Al Qaeda activity in Afghanistan.

Even though the main topic of yesterday's September 26, 2006 Clublog posting on command and control in Afghanistan has been addressed, the other question about the role of US Special Operations Command (USSOCCOM) in Afghanistan would be interesting to find out.

It is somewhat gratifying to find out that we here at the Club are not totally off-base with our viewpoint or concerns.

Some thoughts on Afghanistan

The recent spike in Taliban activity in Afghanistan brings up some interesting things to consider about that area of the war against the terrorists.

First, I have had a question for a couple of months on the command relationships in the country between what the papers call the “U.S.-led coalition” and the separately named “NATO-led forces.” Afghanistan is located with the U.S. Central Command area of operations. CentCom is a specified organization in the United States military with responsibility for East Africa, Southwest Asia (excluding Turkey and the Levant), Central Asia, and the Indian Ocean as far east as the country of India itself, which falls under the area of responsibility of Pacific Command. When Operation Enduring Freedom began on Oct. 7, 2001, Central Command was the lead agency in conducting it and fighting the war in Afghanistan. Central Command’s headquarters is located in Tampa, FL.

In June 2006, NATO forces took over operations in the southeast of Afghanistan. All statements on the activities on these NATO-composed forces have come from Supreme Allied Commander- Europe (SACEUR) in Brussels, Belgium. From what I have been able to gather, the U.S.-led forces and the NATO-composed forces are two distinct entities. My question is: do we have two separate commands under different theater commanders (combatant commander-CentCom, which is US Army General John Abizaid, and combatant-commander-European Command/SACEUR, in the person of USMC General Jim Jones)? If we do have a division of command, is not having unity of command one of the nine principles of war in US joint forces doctrine? I wonder, and I wonder why this would be? To placate European-Canadian sensibilities in relation to our war in Iraq? May be.

While an un-unified command would be a problem in the Afghan area of operations, if this is indeed the case, there is a another command problem that arises. The lead U.S. agency for the war on the terrorist has been designated as U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCCOM). SOCCOM has a world-wide theater of operations in fighting this war. How does this violation of the economy of force, another of the nine principles, affect our efforts in Afghanistan?

These are critical questions to consider in the war and especially in Afghanistan with the Taliban offensive and Allied counter-offensive since June 2006. There are a lot of frictions of war, not all solved by the U.S. theory of Network Centric Warfare and its use of the communications revolution. Unity of Command and Economy of Force are principles for a reason. If we have a divided purpose or confused chain of command under any situation, problems in coordination, policy, and objectives arise. If we don’t follow the economy of force principle, if it is in fact an unstated problem in the war on the terrorist and in Afghanistan, we would be unfocused in our efforts and ultimately dissipate our limited military resources.

About the Taliban offensive, it occurred to me looking at a map and doing a simulated exercise that the Taliban may be putting their head into a vice between the Allied bases of Kandahar and the Kabul-Gardez-Ghanzi triangle. They may be hurt in the short term in coming out to fight. But ultimately if we have a confused way of doing it, which it appears to be the case, we suffer.

On George Orwell and His Essays

My favorite author, since I really "discovered" him six years ago, has been Kafka. K.'s search for the auto-bizarre really struck a note in me. My second favorite, after some hemming haw, has been solidly Steinbeck (although two major works I have yet to read--"Grapes of Wrath" and "East of Eden"), since I have read much of his smaller stuff. I find Steinbeck's simple language, with more concrete meaning than Hemingway could ever achieve, and because they are very brief, some of the best examples of Amglish writing. For three years I had equivocated between Hemingway and Dostoyevski as my third, the losing one falling to fourth, and then changing back and forth due to whim and mood. Orwell was perhaps in fifth; he was high, but I stopped thinking it mattered after 3.

I am reading the collected essays of Orwell. They are a mix of reviews, essays, and other journalism. The volume is 1300 pages and I am on page 127, having started it yesterday afternoon. The writing is simple extraordinary. I have read all but I think 3 of Orwell's novels--"Animal Farm" being one most other people have read but I have not. The other books are of the more obscure titles: "Keep the Aspidistra Flying," "Burmese Days," "Down and Out in Paris and London," "The Clergyman's Daughter," and, of course, "Nineteen-Eighty-four." The essays have meaning and style, substance and art, which I am finding out are an essential piece to understanding Orwell's (Eric Blair's) writing. While I disagree with Blair/Orwell's Social Fabianism, he may have displaced Dostoyevski on my heirarchy of favorites. Orwell may be the best user of modern Brit-glish, the language that comes directly from Shakespeare tongue.

Beside having read “Nineteen Eighty-four,” not until three years after graduating from university, I had read my sophomore year for my advanced college writing class Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language.” I remember only bits and parts of the essay now. I am not sure if we had to read the whole thing (it seems to have been fairly short) or only parts. I look forward to reading it again. I do distinctly remember some of the conversation we had in class about politics. The word I heard and actually understood for the first still governs all of my political writing–“obfuscation”–something writers on political subjects need to avoid.

As far as a political writing, do we have a better example, in fiction, of an influential writer than George Orwell? I remember in 1999 reading a newspaper article on a survey of the top 10 books of the 20th Century. Orwell was the only author to have 2 books listed, #1 was “Nineteen Eighty-four” and at #3 was “Animal Farm.” I think the other 8 books were relatively unimportant and caught by trendy opinion in the popular survey.

It is perhaps a sign of Orwell’s greatness that we use “Orwellian” to describe a whole lot of shadowy, oppressive government acts. Yet, there is so much more, as I am continually finding out these last four years through the less popular writings, to Orwell–thinker, critic, entertainer, provoker, radical, instigator. He at least forces us to think of great possibilities.

On George Orwell and His Essays

My favorite author, since I really "discovered" him six years ago, has been Kafka. K.'s search for the auto-bizarre really struck a note in me. My second favorite, after some hemming haw, has been solidly Steinbeck (although two major works I have yet to read--"Grapes of Wrath" and "East of Eden"), since I have read much of his smaller stuff. I find Steinbeck's simple language, with more concrete meaning than Hemingway could ever achieve, and because they are very brief, some of the best examples of Amglish writing. For three years I had equivocated between Hemingway and Dostoyevski as my third, the losing one falling to fourth, and then changing back and forth due to whim and mood. Orwell was perhaps in fifth; he was high, but I stopped thinking it mattered after 3.

I am reading the collected essays of Orwell. They are a mix of reviews, essays, and other journalism. The volume is 1300 pages and I am on page 127, having started it yesterday afternoon. The writing is simple extraordinary. I have read all but I think 3 of Orwell's novels--"Animal Farm" being one most other people have read but I have not. The other books are of the more obscure titles: "Keep the Aspidistra Flying," "Burmese Days," "Down and Out in Paris and London," "The Clergyman's Daughter," and, of course, "Nineteen-Eighty-four." The essays have meaning and style, substance and art, which I am finding out are an essential piece to understanding Orwell's (Eric Blair's) writing. While I disagree with Blair/Orwell's Social Fabianism, he may have displaced Dostoyevski on my heirarchy of favorites. Orwell may be the best user of modern Brit-glish, the language that comes directly from Shakespeare tongue.

Beside having read “Nineteen Eighty-four,” not until three years after graduating from university, I had read my sophomore year for my advanced college writing class Orwell’s essay “Politics and the English Language.” I remember only bits and parts of the essay now. I am not sure if we had to read the whole thing (it seems to have been fairly short) or only parts. I look forward to reading it again. I do distinctly remember some of the conversation we had in class about politics. The word I heard and actually understood for the first still governs all of my political writing–“obfuscation”–something writers on political subjects need to avoid.

As far as a political writing, do we have a better example, in fiction, of an influential writer than George Orwell? I remember in 1999 reading a newspaper article on a survey of the top 10 books of the 20th Century. Orwell was the only author to have 2 books listed, #1 was “Nineteen Eighty-four” and at #3 was “Animal Farm.” I think the other 8 books were relatively unimportant and caught by trendy opinion in the popular survey.

It is perhaps a sign of Orwell’s greatness that we use “Orwellian” to describe a whole lot of shadowy, oppressive government acts. Yet, there is so much more, as I am continually finding out these last four years through the less popular writings, to Orwell–thinker, critic, entertainer, provoker, radical, instigator. He at least forces us to think of great possibilities.

Lessons from Lawrence of Arabia

In ruminating on the Seven Pillars of Wisdom, T.E. Lawrence's second book on the war in the desert, I've thought of some other lessons besides the two pages I underlined 5 years ago that bother me when thinking about what we are doing in Iraq.

I will try to incorporate all of the recent and these new ideas into an essay. But here is a heads up on what I've been thinking.

Politics Matters–Especially in the Middle East, our own political requirements we desire to bring about, the political demands of the terrorist that we need to deny them, and the political needs of the Iraqis, in particular, but also all Arabs and Muslims, need to be fulfilled. Are we serving our allies in Iraq and working for their political future, or are our objectives in the current policy only about what we want to happen. Nationalism, Arab nationalism being the unique creation of Lawrence himself, is a strong force and has been for the past 52 years since the fall of the monarchies of Farooq in Egypt and of Feisel in Iraq around 1954. It has almost always been badly led by their own leaders and poorly entertained as a serious concern by the US government. The Iraqis and everyone in the Muslim rim, which is the location of our so-called clash of civilizations, have a right to the four freedoms, open, responsive and responsible, and sovereign self-government in their nations. I don't see us drawing that connection between our own political policy and the military policy stemming from it on the ground in the Middle East. WE ARE NOT MAKING VITAL CONNECTIONS WITH THESE STRONG, EMOTIONAL, ---REAL---, INSTINCTS of the people over there.

Economics Determines Strategy--Despite a quite significant technological edge with our military, we are finding that our resources, especially the human element forgotten in Rumsfeld's "transformation," is a finite resource, more fragile than we thought after Desert Storm, but in the same sort of way in terms of morale, continuity, training, and equipment that we experienced in Vietnam. Economics of our own force (economy of force), the economic impact of a war on our financial security, and the economic prize over which we have been struggling for in the Middle East since 1944-5, have dictated in a lot of ways what we have been capable and not capable of doing. As far as a lesson from Lawrence, the limited economic buy-offs and the cost of military support that Great Britain ended up giving to the Arab revolt ended up paying bonus dividends in terms of what was accomplished. Are we following the same prudent strategy, or are we being unnecessarily parsimonious with what we have been doing. This area deserves further study.

Social Networks--Nothing, not our own chain of command, not convincing town mayors or tribal and clan chiefs in Iraq--nothing gets done outside of the person-to-person pathways. In war, as in business and politics and general, who one knows largely determines how much is going to be achieved. In Lawrence’s war, the British could order something done, but othing in the Middle East, and this is instructive in our current war against the terrorist, gets done without talking it over and using persuasion (whether logic, self-interest or bribes--just like in America) to secure consent and cooperation. Are we exploiting the social networks well enough in Iraq? I don't know. But I do know convincing people to stop supporting insurgents won't happen by killing people or imprisoning them. It will only happen through convincing, conviction, and the free-will cooperation of those involved.

Finally, Culture is Key-- WWII wasn’t a victory in the spring and summer of 1945, nor for that matter did World War I end, then, let alone in 1918. The Axis were defeated militarily but it was not a true victory for the allies until Germany and Japan turned their cultures from autocratic militarism to liberal democracy. We shouldn't expect this "long war" to end until both our culture and theirs come to some sort of balance of interest, a mutual understanding, the formation of a symbiotic system where we both recognize that Christianity and Islam must coexist. That means we might have to change and they definitely will have to. Without that cultural peace pact, there is no end.

Well, these are some thoughts. I've been going over a lot of past half written material for my essay. I'll see how it all fits together.

On Consensus in Foreign Policy

The history of consensus is rather surprising. Even if there is dissent in the beginning on such things as Manifest Destiny or rise to great power status, the overwhelming support among the public and leaders has rallied around the organizing themes of foreign policy. In 1946-49, there was selective dissent--over the Truman Doctrine, Marshall Plan, US nuclear weapons (and the movement to give power over them to the UN), NATO and Korea. The overwhelming consensus emerged to commit to the ideological struggle and to fight it with containment. The consensus theme in American foreign policy suffered its first "post-consensus" split when containment was not prudently applied in SE Asia and the policy of detente partly replaced the aggressive form of containment in the 1960s an 1970s. The consensus in American history on foreign policy, by that I mean the major themes, is quite real.

About political arguments not being rational debates: domestic policy was always argued somehow in front of the public, and it was, as you said, a "go for the gut" process of political determining. Foreign policy, in the 20th Century especially, has been discussed and measured rationally in such places as the Council on Foreign Relations, and openly aired in publications that scrupulously avoid labeling "Left" and "Right" positions. Since the 1970s, while the CFR and a few other places of a non-partisan creed like the Center for Strategic and International Studies, keep up that higher level of inquiry and decision, such new foundations and publications like "The National Interest," founded by Irving Kristol, take decidedly "neo-conservative" interpretations. That partisanship (they have had articles calling policies "left" or "right" and always chose the "right as right") infects all of their ideas. The neo-conservative movement, as a reaction to the detente of Nixon, Ford and Carter, I feel, is primarily responsible for reducing the discussion of foreign policy to "Democrat" and "Republican." Other publications and organizations, like the left-leaning Brookings Institution, are also other examples since the 1970s of such loudly voiced partisanship in foreign policy discussions.

Strategy in the War on the Terrorists

Former Navy Secretary and 9/11 Commission member John Lehman had an article on the war against the terrorist in this months Naval Institute "Proceedings" magazine.

He points out some of the problems we've encountered, particularly in prosecuting the 1993 Trade Center bombers, in approaching the war as a law enforcement problem. But I think Chuck's main point (about our problem needing a law enforcement/criminal law approach) is well taken and the British in Malaya and Kenya in the 1950s is instructive. The British used very limited manpower, mostly light and special infantry, and a large amount of civil, indigenous local police forces, and civil affairs/humanitarian relief strategies to attack the Communist Terrorists (CTs) in Malaya and Mau Mau in Kenya in their base camps, isolating them from the ethnic Chinese and Masai "sea" to beach the insurgent "fish," and using political and social reform to fight the ideas of the communist ideology inspiring the insurgencies.

I think there is a lot to be said about full spectrum, multi-agency efforts to dismantle terrorist cells, take away their sanctuaries and their support, and fight the "idea" that drives their so-called mission statement. I don't think the military approach on securing territory/attacking sanctuaries can be entirely dismissed. But as Tom Paine said, the only think you can't fight with violence is an "idea."

Lehman's article said that popular thinking even misnames the war (like a war against kamikazes in WWII). I have been calling it a war against the TERRORISTS for a long time now. Lehman is taking it perhaps a little too far by saying we need to wage war against the radical form of Islam. Lehman even suggests that we profile and harass Arabs/Muslims in our own country as a prophylactic measure. I think that is going way too far and would be counter-productive. I can give anyone an example with my Marine vet, cop friend, a Palestinian-American who is catholic. How can anyone tell he is a terrorist just by looking at him?

There is a lot of room for debate for the whole country. I still think there should be a two-track approach to fighting the terrorists, and my approach when seen in whole may be an interesting approach: Libertarian Internationalism and the Maritime Strategy.