Does Anyone Else Have a Problem with this?

I've been listening intently to the debate on just how much of a fascist Bush gets to be because he claims we are at war. So he claims he can eavesdrop on anyone without oversight as long as he assures us that he will only target the bad people.

The problem I have with this today is mostly that people keep acting like the terrorists embody some sort of new, horrible threat to the United States.

1 - terrorists are not new. Indeed, the vast majority of military encounters throughout history have been between asymmetrical forces -- which is to say "conventional" army vs. "unconventional" forces. To say differently: whenever someone invades someone else, the invader has to deal with guerrilla warfare. Duh. To act as though "unconventional" warfare is new is to totally forget that "unconventional" warfare is far more prevalent in warfare than "conventional" warfare. Thus, let's stop pretending this is new. If the United States military is surprised at the kind of war it has to fight - then it is blatantly incompetent. No surprise there Rummy.

2 - terrorists are not the scariest enemy ever. Seriously, as a society, we just spent decades cowed by the red menace. Decades fearing that one side or the other would nuke the entire planet, leaving roaches with big (literally shit-eating) grins! Now we fear the occasional attack, that though heinous will certainly not come close to the scale of destruction which we feared for the previous 40 years! One would rationally think this is an improvement. Time to read 1984 again.