It's not like we're not in danger. Bush's sneaking tactics make it worse.

His muckraking actually threatens to undermine any effort to actually catch folks who mean to do us harm.

is it ok that arbitrary search, seizure and arrest become normalplace? is it ok that media refers to honest pols as 'child molestors' and call their opponent murdering raping thugs 'born again xian and community stalwworts'?
is it ok if trillions of dollars are wasted on junk, which noone ever use or that gov produce movies of citizens stealing and false records even dna evidence to put on murdered teenagers so members of public who are known to dislike fascism can be tried and executed? Is it ok that the air and land and water be poisoned, or that law enforcement be so corrupted it easier to dissolve the country and start over again?
there is no war on terror, beyond what is fabricated by the same gangsters who are supposedly fighting it....

There has to be some rational way to keep track of those who would inflict violence on us. That shouldn't open the door to all of the meddling crap that you (and I) abhor. There are folks who are just itching to do our country harm. I'm not sanguine about the possibility of another terrorist attack in the U.S. or elsewhere. Bush's actions have pissed a lot of people off. The degree that folks are willing to strap explosives to themselves and end their life to get at their target is a sobering measure of the depth of animosity Bush's actions have engendered.

But, that shouldn't cause the rest of us to drop our guard and say, 'oh well, we deserve to be attacked because of what Bush has done.' The first line of defense should be diplomatic. Other countries have no problem talking to some of these opposing elements to try to work things out. But, there are some who aren't talking. Their voice is their violence. I'm not willing to be a martyr to that. There's nothing wrong with forming a prudent defense, of course, at the same time, we have to respect the rights, lives of the innocent and incidental who happen to get caught in the government's wide net, intentionally or not.

But, there are those who actively want to harm us. The NSA appears to have mostly restricted their activities to finding those individuals or groups, and stopping them before they strike. Unfortunately, we have this fascist administration in place who has bypassed the checks put in place to prevent abuse. They have apparently misdirected the program. I think they misused the information from the NSA to monitor their political opponents.

For Bush, the 'war on terror' is a mask to cover his hunger for conquest and greed. For Americans, the 'war on terror' has become another farce, a failure from a White House concerned mainly with their own predominance and political survival. There is no war on terror outside of Bush's own selfish ambitions, and those of his benefactors in the military industry. There should be, however. No matter what you want to call them, there are folks biding their time, waiting to strike Americans and our interests. Bush's clumsy, reckless, mindless muckraking has left us at greater risk, not just because he is obsessed with the wrong targets, but because his sneaking aroung the laws has undermined cases which now have tainted evidence, and has demoralized those agents and officials who work to protect us demonstrating the integrity that their mission deserves. They exist. Bush is a fool.

I guess you thought you told me something, I can't figure why. But I hate this kind of hit and run attack. This venom should be saved and directed at the opposition, republicans, the right.

Is it too much to ask to get some constructive conversation out of my posts these days?

i really don't think there's any danger to anyone on our side that doesn't fall under 'act of god' heading. If, say, a dedicated genius from africa decided to retaliate for all the horrors of colonialism (i once saw a picture of a pile a kid's arms, chopped off by the belgiums to enforce the parent labourers to work cica the 1900 belgium congo) by developing a disease that only attacked blue eyed people, there's nothing anyone could do (if he was such a genius to do it successfully, he certain to hide his nefarius plot)...same with other 'super abnormal incidences; a plot to hijack a nuke equipped jet and attack albany, or so on. The point is that geopolitics works largely out in the open. The USA has a military budget equal to the rest of the world's; can that be right? what is it about us that justifys spending 1/2 trillion /year on our defense, when history shows we are almost always the aggressors? To suggest some bogeyman somewhere might escape our notice says WE are not part of global international law, and the NSA complaint is simply obnoxious- any use of nuclear or biological or chem weapons is a crime against planet earth, and the US (WE!) think that's ok if WE say so! Wrong. Terrorism should be fought under rubric of international law, but the NSA mentality thinks inter'n'l law is beneath its contempt: NSA is the one that's beneath contempt.
=========================
Defense Spending
Experts once argued whether Americans would finally grasp the enormity of the
military budget when spending reached $100 billion. Now $416 billion, and
candidates still arguing over who will spend the most, it would appear people still
haven't grasped a budget beyond comprehension.
Here's how political leaders are
spending the discretionary budget.

World's Largest
Military Budgets:
($U.S. Billions)
United States 416.0
Russia* 65.0
China* 47.0
Japan 42.6
U.K. 38.4
France 29.5
Germany 24.9
Saudi Arabia 21.3
Italy 19.4
India 15.6
South Korea 14.1
Brazil* 10.7
Taiwan* 10.7
Israel 10.6
Spain 8.4
Australia 7.6
Canada 7.6
Netherlands 6.6
Turkey 5.8
Mexico 5.9
Kuwait* 3.9
Ukraine 5.0
Iran 4.8
Singapore 4.8
Sweden 4.5
Egypt* 4.4
Norway 3.8
Greece 3.5
Poland 3.5
Argentina* 3.3
U.A.E.* 3.1
Colombia* 2.9
Belgium 2.7
Pakistan* 2.6
Denmark 2.4
Vietnam 2.4
North Korea 2.1
Czech Republic 1.6
Iraq 1.4
Philippines 1.4
Portugal 1.3
Libya 1.2
Hungary 1.1
Syria 1.0
Cuba 0.8
Sudan 0.6
Yugoslavia 0.7
Luxembourg 0.2
Source: www.cdi.org.

But, there are folks tasked to keep our country safe. We don't see many of their faces, hear their voices, but I know that there are well meaning folks who have no intention of screwing with us.

Bush is the main problem with NSA. NSA did fine, I'm assuming, during the Democratic reign in the WH collecting data. I don't know specifically what international laws the may have broken during that period, but I'll bet there wasn't the type of illegal data mining that Bush has used. I assume that most of the spying was done within the law. Not so with Bush. Bush bypassed all of the checks and carried out a rouge operation, directing the NSA to subvert the intent of the laws that restrained them from catching Americans in their net. I won't assert that they have entirely clean hands, but I would hesitate to abolish the NSA. We still have folks out there who would do us harm . We have to have appropriate law enforcement to try to prevent attacks and catch those who do manage to get through and hurt folks. That may not be the NSA, but deciding on the structure of that defense is the function of Congress, which Bush ignored in his zeal.

Let's look at all that NSA has done, let Congress act if they will. Demand that they act if they won't. Let's look at all Bush has done as well. But, I think we have to keep in mind that we do need defenses against those who would do us harm. Not the massive expenditures that go to pad an engorged military industry, not the patronage that flows from the defense coffers to petty dictators in our most pernicious displays of imperialism, but, we need to maintain that network of individuals who are mostly removed from politics who serve, mostly behind the scenes, who keep a sharp eye on our nation's defense. Such individuals work within the NSA and other security institutions, unfortunately at the whim of the chief Executive. There has to be more oversight and accountability.

I still believe that our best defense against those who would do our country harm is diplomacy. Unfortunately, the State Dept. has been transformed into a PR tool for the Pentagon.