The Terrorist Threat Is Exaggerated

From the Democratic Debate in South Carolina: BROKAW: ...Senator Kerry, let me ask you a question. Robert Kagan, who writes about these issues a great deal from the Carnegie Institute for Peace, has written recently that Europeans believe that the Bush administration has exaggerated the threat of terrorism, and the Bush administration believes that the Europeans simply don't get it.

Who is right?

KERRY: I think it's somewhere in between. I think that there has been an exaggeration and there has been a refocusing...

BROKAW: Where has the exaggeration been in the threat on terrorism?

KERRY: Well, 45 minutes deployment of weapons of mass destruction, number one.

Aerial vehicles to be able to deliver materials of mass destruction, number two.

I mean, I -- nuclear weapons, number three.

I could run a long list of clear misleading, clear exaggeration. The linkage to Al Qaida, number four.

That said, they are really misleading all of America, Tom, in a profound way. The war on terror is less -- it is occasionally military, and it will be, and it will continue to be for a long time. And we will need the best-trained and the most well-equipped and the most capable military, such as we have today.

But it's primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world -- the very thing this administration is worst at. And most importantly, the war on terror is also an engagement in the Middle East economically, socially, culturally, in a way that we haven't embraced, because otherwise we're inviting a clash of civilizations.

And I think this administration's arrogant and ideological policy is taking America down a more dangerous path. I will make America safer than they are.

From today's headlines: Airlines Ground 6 Flights to U.S. Over Concerns About Terrorism

Comments

[Mitch H.]

So, when asked a question about the general terror war, Kerry responds with a laundry list about Iraq. Good to know that he thinks that Iraq is part and parcel of the greater terror war.

What, that wasn't what he meant?

[Tongue Boy]

But it's primarily an intelligence and law enforcement operation that requires cooperation around the world -- the very thing this administration is worst at.

Yes, and an operation the Reagan (after Lebanon), Bush I, and Clinton administrations perfected, unless you count Lockerbie, the Achille Lauro, WTC I, Kobar, U.S.S. Cole, various embassies located in Africa, etc. At least Bush II was able to change his policies regarding terrorism with sufficient prompting. Apparently, three thousand deaths won't prompt Kerry to change his. How would B.F. Skinner adjust his theories on operant conditioning to account for the seemingly conscious person whose behavior cannot be modified through outside stimulus?