[Rhodes22-list] Politics: How's It Going? Badly!

[DCLewis1 at aol.com]

Brad,
 
Your post this morning about free speech, and the film clip, were the  
highlight of my day.  Thank you for that.
 
I would also like to comment on something you put in you "How's It Going?  
Badly!" post.  You said that Evan Bayh said Al Qaidah had spent perhaps a  
million to attack us (actually, I think it was less), but the cost to us ( I  
presume to respond) was in the billions.  Actually, the cost to us is in  the 
hundreds of billions if you're counting just Iraq.  Suppose Al Qaidah  were to step 
up their level of effort to maybe $100M.  A proportional scale  up in our 
national response would consume more than the entire federal  budget, and with 
only a little effort could consume more than the entire GDP of  the United 
States.  This is a big problem.  I don't think we can  fight the "war on terror" 
with this type of grossly asymmetric response.   We simply can't afford it.  We 
don't have the people, we don't have the  resources.  There has to be a more 
reasonably thought out, and  affordable, approach to the "war on terror".
 
I'm not blowing smoke here, remember the USSR ultimately caved in because  it 
simply couldn't afford its military expenditures.  I'm not suggesting it  
would be a good thing to find a better thought out and more affordable way to  
deal with terrorism, I'm suggesting it's absolutely imperative - or we'll go  
broke and they'll win by default.
 
Dave