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You have my respect for your thoughts, Henry.
To touch on a couple of points, you mentioned Bin Laden's activities since 93. That point has been brought up before, by people quick to claim that because he has been at large since 93 we have no choice now except war. That is a bogus argument and here is why.
Take for instance the analogy of a domestic criminal. There are all kinds of criminals at large in the US right now. There are thousands of outstanding bench warrants for the arrest of criminals who have skipped bail, not shown up for court when summoned, etc. Most of those are relatively minor offenses, and the police are in no particular hurry to find them. They are content to wait till chance turns those people over, typically from a new arrest or a minor traffic stop which reveals the outstanding warrant through routine checks. Some of them will be lucky enough to fall through the cracks and will never be picked up. Exceptions are made for the more serious criminals. The more serious the charge, the more effort and resources are expended to locate these people and bring them to justice.
The situation with Bin Laden since 93 is analogous to a domestic criminal who has been wanted for relatively minor charges (compared to his most recent endeavor) since 93, who then goes out and commits a particularly gruesome murder. The fact that the government did not spend the necessary effort to pick him up before on his minor charges does NOT mean that it cannot now do so, with the changed situation and the greater motivation. This is the essential point that the "he's been at large since 93" argument overlooks.
Which brings us to the other point I wanted to address. The war approach has been justified repeatedly on the grounds that we cannot sit back and do nothing. Well, i agree wholeheartedly that we cannot sit back and do nothing, but to claim that the only other option is a war in Afghanistan is totally in error.
Think of how mighty this country is, how powerful our resources are. Think of how much more mighty those resources are when allied with other countries. Our options are limited only by our imaginations. If we are prepared to expend the massive amount of energy required to wage war, surely we could afford to expend the resources necessary for any number of other possible approaches, including for example covert assassination efforts against Bin Laden and his organization.
However, instead of fully exploring such other options, Bush seems determined to follow in daddy's footsteps by playing with his military toys, determined to pursue the very course, military action, that will maximize further terrorist hatred against us. I think it an unimaginative, shortsighted approach that will come back to bite us, sooner or later.
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