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But I also asked about what you would “evaluate.” What WOULD you evaluate (your exact word) should things not fall the way we plan?

Steve Levitt wrote in his Freakonomics blog at the NY Times, If you were a terrorist, How would you attack? Hearing about these rules got me thinking about what I would do to maximize terror if I were a terrorist with limited resources. I’d start by t…

I say if any terrorist act is manifest which seems to follow something borne of that thread, then the fellow responsible should be held up on criminal negligence at the very least. There is still a crime called treason on the books, and we should be brave enough to say its name more often.

So what would you evaluate? And what would you change?
This is notwithstanding the “very big If” things get better in Iraq. Let’s play worse case scenario for sake of argument.

DK-
*When the 8 eventualities come to pass* from #107 it will be attributed to the resolve of a very simple-minded, determined, unlikely President of the United States and the CITIZENS who stood by him and fought for their country- on the battlefield and in their own communities againt jihadist violence and jihadist intimidation.

When it comes to this war, GWB has been on the same page as the men and women fighting it: See it through. He is our Commander-in-Chief with very simple wisdom.

But he has not been well-served by his lawmakers or the elite in the civilian and military brass a President relies on to see it through. (To back up this statement we need only examine the behavior of a Clintonesque CIA, Secretary of State and emeritus foreign service elites, the Congress, Pentagon, and Veterans Administration among others.)

IMO, this is the worst case scenario- disunity to the point of desecrating the authority of the Commander-in-Chief and the spirits of our fighting force.

The authority of battlefield commanders and their chain of command trumped by Judge Advocate Generals, and sensationalistic journalists- who said this is how war is to be fought? No one seems to know- power in America is so diffuse as to be reduced in strength to the point of a useless mist of no consequence.

Our Commander-in-Chief, endowed by law to execute a guerilla war as he and his advisors deem fit, is constrained to conduct it in a virtual theater not much unlike a criminal court in the United States.

Our soldiers are expected to make life and death decisions countless times each day based on rules of evidence, with the constant deterrence to their instincts to fight and win coming from the enemy’s propaganda and disinformation campaigns here in America.

Our enemies saw off the faces of civilians with piano wire. Our legal elites say nothing.

This is a worst case scenario.

We face a desperate enemy that we cannot engage with full military might. This is a worst case scenario.

Our enemies do not fight with one hand behind their backs. They do not have to figure out how to manage excess capacity of personnel, resources, and firepower. They do not have to control their line of fire. They do only what they can do; what we are allowing them to do (using IEDs because they cannot field standing armies with equitable firepower to their adversaries). They die by the hundreds each week.

Our enemies are pinned downed and contained in tight coordinate settings in every theater around the world. Their “combat” operations require the utmost secrecy, living in spiderholes, using the most brutal tactics to coerce the cooperation of simple civilians. They have to bury their munitions. They have to cut off peoples’ heads to control civilians who feed and shelter them. They control them with the ever present threat of violence, the lowest form of human association.

Imagine if we as a Nation were unified and paying attention to the lessons of history, observing time-honored principles of leadership and unity?

The worst case scenario is that we even need to entertain this question.

Why speculate about the worst case scenario? The fight that we are in- the fight for our national integrity and survival- has presented us with a real worst case scenario: a sizeable faction within our country does not a) understand the stakes or the complexity of this fight; and, b) does not have the will to fight it.

Speculating about what might be the worst case scenario for this fight of our National lifetime is folly. It is folly because it diverts our attention from the very important process these forums give us access to: sharpening our thinking, clarifying what we value and what we are willing to forego, and sharing the best of ourselves with each other to prevent isolation and fear of loss from paralyzing our national will to win this fight.

We must build further our resolve to prepare our communities to suffer deprivation and hardship, to sacrifice and endure the costs of war on the magnitude that has yet to arrive.

The confusion fomented and foisted into our midst, by the Left and those whose stated agenda is to destroy the United States, has taken root in our National soul to the point that this war will come home- that we will fight it here, until it is won.

We must win here, first, the war of ideas, the war for our Constitution, the war for the heart and soul of our very communities.

If we do not show up to fight, do not show up to fight and win, then the ultimate end game scenario will ensue. Try getting your head around that.

On August 9th, 2007 at 4:14 pm, jrlingreenbay said:

If we don’t – then we’ll have to evaluate things then.

So what would you evaluate? And what would you change?

This is notwithstanding the “very big If” things get better in Iraq.

Let’s play worse case scenario for sake of argument.

On August 9th, 2007 at 5:45 pm, bear1909 said:
Sir Knob! Thanks much. These blogs are a blessing of freedom of speech and freedom of thought. Glad you are here.

I second that. Thank you Sir Knob, bear1909, jrl… and Raging Republican… sometimes. j/k

Sir Knob, a well-reasoned and factual post. I think that many people are now aware (at least I hope they are by now) that the definition of “winning” the war now varies depending on who you ask. You could ask Sen. Biden and he’ll tell you about “3 countries and a central government.” You could ask BOR and he will tell you when the Iraqis step up and take the lead allowing the Americans to leave. You could ask bear1909 and read post #107 for his definition of victory (and if all of those things happen, Bush will be heralded as the greatest president…ever).

This is what is concerning because (as you note) the Middle East has been in turmoil for a long, long time. So when does the cycle stop? I don’t know. As jrlingreenbay said in #110 and #114 (thank you for being honest), there aren’t a whole lot of people who are sure when we can look at this thing and say “yep, glad we did that.” It could be 5 years. Could be 50. Could be never. Geraldo takes credit for the “never” POV by the way.

On August 9th, 2007 at 4:22 pm, olblueyes said:
Who knows if it is not a combination of law enforcement, intelligence and military operations abroad which are all having a cumulative effect on detering and disrupting attacks in America.

olblueeyes, that is the root of my question when I asked “what exactly is keeping us from being attacked again?” Is it the War? If it is, then the statement “attack them there so we don’t fight them here” would absolutely work. But then it also could be domestic intelligence that is doing a great job. So if we get attacked again (God forbid), whose fault would it be? I wouldn’t blame the military, that’s for sure. Because they are following orders. But I just fear everyone would point fingers because that is what I think this whole situation has deteriorated into.

On August 9th, 2007 at 2:34 pm, lgm said
That was the Clinton strategy — anti terrorism as law enforcement. The Bush strategy is to invade a country that was not responsible for 9/11, and cause an even greater and more tragic loss of US lives.

Well, I suppose we should have just went to war with Japan. After all, Germany didn’t attack Pearl Harbor.