That statement in the National Security Project you quote above is a false statement and puts us down the same dark road the Republican party and their neocon friends want us to go down. Because it is their turf. They have ramped up the fear and are playing that game to the hilt. As long as we don't question it at its base, then we are on their ground and will continue to lose. And will continue to spend billions for defense and nothing for the vast majority of people in this country. No more social security, no more Medicare and Medicaid, no more pensions, no health care insurance advances, no more even for education.
That is just where they want us. In fact, yes, there is a threat of terrorism that has existed for many many years. There are going to be terrorist incidents that continue, and yes, maybe someone will try something here in this country again. But building up the military and fighting wars in the Middle East and expanding areas, the so-called "Long War" described in the lastest Pentagon QDR, will not make us safe or prevent future terrorist attacks in this country. As Robert Dreyfuss lays out in an article found at TomPaine.com (
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/20060208/the_neocons_long_war.php):
Of course, it ignores the fact that the blunt instrument of the U.S. military is precisely
the wrong tool to use against radical right Islamist forces. As the war in Iraq has proved
to everyone but the most hard-core neoconservative, ham-handed U.S. military attacks in Muslim
countries create more terrorists than they kill. The Times , in reporting the Pentagon’s
counterterrorism plan, quotes a Defense Department official involved in writing it who points out:
'...the American military’s effort to aid tsunami victims in southeast Asia and to
assist victims of Pakistan’s earthquake did more to counter terrorist ideology than
any attack mission.'
...So once again, President Bush is trying to scare us about the threat of terrorists with WMD,
just as he did before the war in Iraq, even though not a single terrorist in history has ever
come close to possessing WMD and even though the Bush administration has not documented a single
instance of a serious effort by terrorists to acquire weaponized chemical or biological
agents—never mind a nuclear device.
... It’s a shocking misallocation of resources, one that makes a mockery of the fact that the
Cold War is long over and that the world is mostly at peace. At peace, that is, except for wars
of America’s own making.
Where we do need to build our strengths are at home with real protection concerning our ports, our nuclear plants, our national guard reserve who who should remain at home instead of fighting in foreign wars, our fire fighting and other emergency response personnel and equipment, which have been completely neglected to fight this war in Iraq. These are all areas we can and should challenge Bush on. He has been a failure and leaves us more vulnerable to further attacks because of this neglect and his failed policies in Iraq.
We need to turn the table and get away from this fear mentality. Democratic politicians need to step up and say these things loud and clear, just as Murtha has done. We will never beat the Rebublicans at fear mongering. We seriously need to change the discourse on this subject.