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The best solutions come from the slimplistic, at least for us who are actually fighting this war.

I would hope not. Simplism by its very definition is not a good thing.

The tendency to oversimplify an issue or a problem by ignoring complexities or complications.

I think you were referring more towards someone who challenges key assumptions and asks simple questions that others take for granted. That is certainly a good thing to do from time to time, but that really doesn’t support your argument.

The simplest assumption we ever make on this issue is “should we even have a ‘presence’ in the middle east?” Other countries don’t go around “establishing a presence” in various parts of the world. We sure as heck wouldn’t tolerate anyone “establishing a presence” near us.

Senator Webb: I’m Senator Jim Webb, from Virginia, where this year we will celebrate the 400th anniversary of the settlement of Jamestown – an event that marked the first step in the long journey that has made us the greatest and most prosperous na…

You aren’t just identifying who is for us or “agin” us, you’re creating more terrorists. They go to Iraq, train on how to set up IEDs and run a terror-cell, then they leave. Where do they go? London, Madrid, and if reports are to be believed, they have plans to come here.

It’s not here OR there, Macranger, it’s here AND there! The world is less safe now, not more.

“That is an incredibly simplistic viewpoint. ” The best solutions come from the slimplistic, at least for us who are actually fighting this war. The hornet analogy is actually what has been missing up until the Iraq war. Prior the enemy was underground and hidden, now they are out in the open. The Art of War paraprased, “Let your enemy make themselves visible”.

The point of the post is that Bush clarified the positions – either for or against – as it’s very simple now who is on what side of the war.

The NCC report isn’t talking about “Al Qaeda” attacks as much as through it’s methodogy includes every incident without differation between significant or insignificant.

Hold the phone. The very minute you start talking about the “War on Al Qaeda” instead of the “War on Terror”, you can feel free to start breaking down the source of the terrorist attacks. Until then, if the target of your “war” is a methodology, the relevant statistics relate to that methodology.

With the current definition of the war, if a Muslim extremist commits a terrorist attack, it makes absolutely no difference whether he is a member of Al Qaeda, Al No-bush, or just some random nutcase.

Bush has made it very clear that the war doesn’t end when Al Qaeda is made impotent. The war ends people (typically Muslim extremists) stop trying to attack us and our allies. By that same logic, we aren’t “winning the war” until the total number of attempted attacks (or at least the probability of success of said attacks) is decreasing.

But all the numbers aside, we care not about stirring up the “hornets nest” and allowing other terrorists to come forward. Better now than later and here than now.

That is an incredibly simplistic viewpoint. A hornet is a hornet. If you kill every hornet and every hornet larvae today, there will be no hornets tomorrow. But there’s little, if anything, biological about a terrorist. If you kill a terrorist today, you will turn some percentage of his otherwise moderate friends and family into terrorists. What was once a lazy bumblebee is now a hornet.

Now it is theoretically possible to kill the terrorists faster than you’re creating them, but we haven’t come close to proving that we’re doing so. As Greg pointed out, it is very possible that we’re doing the opposite.

Again, the Democrats haven’t the stomach for either.

Go right ahead and keep assuming that everyone who doesn’t agree with you is weak and stupid. It’s an easy way to get through life. I hope you sleep well at night with such assumptions. Just remember that the enemy is militant exactly because they make the exact same assumptions.

The return of al Qaeda:

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20070129&s=bergen012907

“But, today, from Algeria to Afghanistan, from Britain to Baghdad, the organization once believed to be on the verge of impotence is again ascendant. Attacks by jihadists have reached epidemic levels in the past three years, with terrorists carrying out dramatic operations in Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005, as well as multiple suicide attacks across the Middle East and Asia–not only in Iraq, but also in Egypt, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, India, and Indonesia. Meanwhile, jihadists have made inroads in the horn of Africa; the Taliban’s efforts to turn Afghanistan back into a failed state appear to be succeeding; and Al Qaeda’s Iraqi branch recently declared sovereignty over the country’s vast Anbar province.”

As to the rest of your post, well, I wish I could understand it. What is a “viewing total actual threaded attack?”

For instance a IED is an attack, but not necessarily a “terrorist attack”. Therefore no indicative of Al Qaeda in and of itself.

Once of key reasons the numbers are not accurate, and indeed viewing total actual threaded attack, the numbers are much lower.

Al Qaeda IS a wounded organization and NOT anywhere near as strong or effective as it once was. Yet “copy-cats” will surface – a truth that report made.

But all the numbers aside, we care not about stirring up the “hornets nest” and allowing other terrorists to come forward. Better now than later and here than now. Again, the Democrats haven’t the stomach for either.

In his sixth State of the Union speech, President Bush addresses — for the first time — a Congress

You sir need to read, um, a newspaper, or the National Counterterrorism Center’s report on terrorism.

“The number of terrorist attacks worldwide increased nearly fourfold in 2005 to 11,111, with strikes in Iraq accounting for 30 percent of the total, according to statistics released by U.S. counterterrorism officials yesterday.”

(It doesn’t take much math to realize that even when you take Iraq out of that number, worldwide terror was up more than double!)

Those are the most recent numbers available. And about Al Qaeda specifically:

“Unlike those of previous years, the 2005 report included a “strategic assessment” of the war on terrorism, which concluded that while “al-Qaeda is not the organization it was four years ago,” the group was “adaptive and resilient . . . and important members of its core cadre remained alive and were adjusting to our operational tempo.”

“Overall,” the 262-page report said, “we are still in the first phase of a potentially long war. The enemy’s proven ability to adapt means we will probably go through several more cycles of action/reaction before the war’s outcome is no longer in doubt. It is likely that we will face a resilient enemy for years to come.”