... or get off the pot
"... we ought to devote every ounce of our energy and will to preventing future attacks on our shores, and also going after the terrorist network."
-- Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, quoted in the New York Times, Tuesday, September 5, 2006
OK, then why are we not doing just that? Why are we playing games with NSA, with the size and structure of the military, with civil liberties? If this is, in fact, our absolute highest priority, then should we not publicly and openly say that sacrifices are necessary from all Americans including our governing officials. If we need to open access for NSA to communications, the let Congress say so. If we need 300,000 troops in Iraq to decisively conclude this foreign adventure, then authorize it, raise and commit the forces, and GET IT DONE.
It seems to me that we have been taking halfway measures. We invaded Iraq on the cheap with insufficient forces to control the population until security was established. We left Afghanistan partly in control. Our government has been blustering about "you must, or else" when we seem to have no effective "else" in hand. One consequence has been to bleed our troops without accomplishing the mission while glad-handing the public with self-congratulations.
I am very jealous of our civil liberties and of our constitution. I don't want to see protections suspended. But if that's what it takes to get our people out of a part of the world where I don't think we should be, then let us openly take those actions, endure the pain, and then reinstate our protections when it is safer to ride a train, fly on a plane, or walk down a street. Stop throwing away lives for an ideological dream of a lean, super-tech army. Do the job right. Now.
-- Tony Snow, the White House spokesman, quoted in the New York Times, Tuesday, September 5, 2006
OK, then why are we not doing just that? Why are we playing games with NSA, with the size and structure of the military, with civil liberties? If this is, in fact, our absolute highest priority, then should we not publicly and openly say that sacrifices are necessary from all Americans including our governing officials. If we need to open access for NSA to communications, the let Congress say so. If we need 300,000 troops in Iraq to decisively conclude this foreign adventure, then authorize it, raise and commit the forces, and GET IT DONE.
It seems to me that we have been taking halfway measures. We invaded Iraq on the cheap with insufficient forces to control the population until security was established. We left Afghanistan partly in control. Our government has been blustering about "you must, or else" when we seem to have no effective "else" in hand. One consequence has been to bleed our troops without accomplishing the mission while glad-handing the public with self-congratulations.
I am very jealous of our civil liberties and of our constitution. I don't want to see protections suspended. But if that's what it takes to get our people out of a part of the world where I don't think we should be, then let us openly take those actions, endure the pain, and then reinstate our protections when it is safer to ride a train, fly on a plane, or walk down a street. Stop throwing away lives for an ideological dream of a lean, super-tech army. Do the job right. Now.
posted by AkLewy at 12:46 PM
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