This is a good summation of our options to avoid being killed by jihadis:
At the risk of over-simplifying, assuming we are not suicidal or (entirely) foolish, our methods of self-defense can be offensive in nature, defensive in nature, or a mixture of both. The PATRIOT Act is primarily defensive. It creates the legal mechanisms for greater intelligence-gathering and information-sharing that allows law enforcement to react more quickly to emerging domestic threats. It was specifically designed to close many of the legal holes in our defense that helped ennable the 9/11 hijackers. The Afghanistan invasion was offensive, designed to destroy the terrorist infrastructure, kill terrorists, and create a nation-state that would be an effective ally going forward. The Iraq invasion was similarily offensive, destroying a terrorist-supporting enemy regime, defeating the follow-on insurgency, then (at least by design) leaving behind a successful, democratic ally that could do military and ideological battle against jihadism in the heart of the Middle East.
The offensive strategy at least had the potential to render the comprehensive defense less and less necessary. After all, if jihadists were defeated and discredited, stripped of financial support, and decimated in the field, then they would have less capability to mount attacks against the United States.
I accepted the defensive nature of the war we were in as a complement to offensive action.
But I have always argued that we have to have a sense of urgency about going on offense so that our defensive measures didn't ratchet up controls on us and erode our civil liberties over time. I noted it 2-1/2 years ago, as well:
I've said it before (noting here a March 2003 post on my original site on the issue) and I'll say it again, our civil liberties depend on destroying our enemies on offense overseas (using military and non-military means) where the Islamists fight us and draw their justification and recruits. Sitting on defense, focusing on homeland defense inside our country just means our civil liberties will erode a little more every time the enemy hits us at home as we ratchet up defenses to cope with the last attack or attempted attack.
Fighting the Islamo-fascists isn't curtailing our civil liberties--failing to defeat them is doing that.
So the NSA revelations merely show what we must do--for the rest of time--when we declare the war is over while jihadis still try to kill us.
I know, I know, the Cairo Outreach was supposed to be the first step in convincing the jihadis that we aren't so bad. But that isn't working out.
I don't want an endless war. But I kind of assumed we'd try to win it rather than just deeming the war over while putting the screws to our own people as the superior alternative to killing jihadis; destroying or neutralizing governments that arm, encourage, and support terrorists; and supporting change in the Islamic world to move towards modernity and rule of law.
