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I'm not a Viet Nam vet, but I've read extensively about it, and there are some disturbing similarities. One of the big challenges in Viet Nam was that the South Viet Namese always preferred that the U.S. do all the fighting. The Northern Alliance remind me of that.

Another similarity is that the U.S. tried to calibrate its bombing for diplomatic reasons, and the North Viet Namese learned to use our self-imposed limitations against us. Again, look at reports that the Taliban are dispersing their military among civilian populations in order to take advantage of our fear of causing civilian casualties.

I hope that our leaders have not forgotten MacArthur's adage: "There is no substitute for victory."

The Council on American-Islamic Relations denounced the claim and asked the National Republican Committee to condemn the statements.

Just once, I would like to hear from an Islamic organization that is more eager to condemn terrorism than to scream "slander" at people who raise the issue.

With friends like the Saudis, ...

Seriously, I think that this is the most difficult issue that the U.S. faces. Our "friends" in the Arab world tend to be narrow, autocratic regimes that are either in cahoots with or intimidated by radical elements within their populations.

Before September 11, we would never have considered confronting these regimes over their anti-Americanism and authoritarian nature. Now, I see more and more willingness to make those issues. We're starting to think of winning these countries over to democracy, which is how we won the Cold War.

The invitation only audience will be comprised of business and civic leaders, elected officials, youth, community leaders and clergy.

In other words, we can't even FREEP this thing. It will be packed with pro-UN Naderites.

The question has never been whether the U.S. desires war on the Muslim world. We don't. A typical Muslim has more freedom of religion here than in countries where we have adversaries.

However, there is a question of whether much of the Muslim world desires war on the U.S. I am not an expert, but it strikes me that this is a possibility. If so, I don't think we should try appeasement or psycho-analysis. We should insist that they respect our way of life, and we have to be prepared to do whatever is necessary to preserve it.

From the point of history, however, Czechoslovakia fell on its own accord. First, it, too tried to appease the Germans, and gave up the Sudetenland. Regardless of the legitimacy of the Germans claim to the land, the Sudetenland was the natural line of defense for the Czechs. By giving it up, they yielded the high ground to the Germans.

What history book are you reading?!!

You make it sound like giving up the Sudetenland was the Czechs' idea. They hated giving it up. Some in their government wanted to refuse to sign the Munich agreement. But the Brits and the French forced the Czechs to give up the Sudetenland for the greater good of world peace (supposedly).

Winston Churchill famously said afterward that the Czechs could have done better on their own--that they certainly could not have done worse.

What Sharon was saying is that Israel is not going to do worse vis-a-vis the terrorists than it could do on its own.

I am sorry to see this apparent dispute between the U.S. and Israel. But you can see why Israel would not want to commit national suicide just so we can keep Egypt and Saudi Arabia in our wonderful coalition.

Can someone plase tell me what is Best For America?

IMHO, It would be best for America to be assertive in its foreign policy. We should give the Arab countries two reasons to oppose terrorism:

1. It is morally right.
2. We intend to make life worse for our enemies than for our friends.

If they come back to us and say that we have to promise to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict first, we should reject that demand. The two reasons are good enough.

Yasser Arafat is a master at talking out of both sides of his mouth--announcing cease-fires in English while encouraging the terrorists in Arabic. The "moderate" Arab states will play the same game with us if we let them.

At the height of British appeasement in the 1930's, Churchill remarked that England had to choose between war and dishonor. "We chose dishonor. We shall have war."

To sacrifice Israel to the Palestinian terrorists would be to go down the same path.

Thanks for the post.

So far, it looks as though our leaders are following this script. Now, if somebody could just put together a plan for Iraq. . .

Thanks for the post.

Robinson said it was vital to follow up on the recent U.N. Conference against Racism, held in South Africa. . .

It's a good thing for the U.N. that the conference adjourned before the WTC attacks, or there would have been videos of the delegates dancing in the streets celebrating them.

I'm proud that our President has the moral clarity that is lacking at the U.N.

I say, "Barney, welcome to the Freepers."

This site is about defending the Constitution. My impression is that the anti-terrorism bill would take a hatchet to the Constitution.

The powers that the Justice Department is asking for today to fight terrorism might tomorrow be used against people who fail to correctly fill out social security forms for their nannies, or against people who work for companies that lack the tree-huggers' seal of approval, or against whoever may be unpopular at some given moment.

My guess is that we would fight terrorism more effectively by strictly limiting the purposes and uses for surveillance by the government.

Just because Barney Frank is against rushing this through does not make me for it. My guess is that on this issue Barney Frank and Dick Armey are on the same side.

I wish they had detained them further in light of what happened, but I don't see how they could have.

You'd think that our agents would have kept the folks under surveillance until the film was developed, so that they could be picked up again and questioned. I agree that we were fortunate that somebody sensed that they were taking pictures for something other than tourist purposes, but the lack of follow-through is disgraceful.

It is SO obvious what's going on. 3 MORE DAYS TO STALL. After 5 days of stalling. Nothing like giving Bin Laden 8 days of freedom to move around. This is ridiculous. Hand him over NOW, and maybe we'll only reduce 80% of your infrastructure to rubble instead of 100%.

Maybe it will take us three more days just to get the forces in place and the plans completed to carry out whatever threat we make. In that case, the deadline makes sense.

I wrote, "I was alarmed to read this morning that U.S. is pressuring Israel to meet with Arafat. What can Arafat do about Bin Laden? To me, this is a sign that the State Department still is a bastion of appeasement. "

You replied, "Nope. It's a sign that the U.S. Government doesn't want the children quarreling while we're taking care of business.

I wish that I could agree with you. But if what Powell wants is for the two parties to stop fighting for a while, then he can give that message to Arafat and Sharon separately. An Arafat-Peres meeting does nothing to stop fighting.

My fear is that the "moderate" Arab states are demanding that the U.S. help the Palestinian Authority in return for their participation in the fight against Bin Laden. If we are caving into those demands, then we are dealing from weakness, not from strength.

What is Krauthammer's exit strategy - unconditional surrender and disarnament of all Arab states?

It depends which side they choose to play on. If they want to be on our team--which means that they crack down on terrorists, take the anti-American hate out of their state-controlled media, etc.--then they do not have to surrender and disarm. Otherwise, they do. Probably some of these countries that don't play on our team will end up under a U.S. military government for a while--as happened with Japan after WWII.

I wish there were a more palatable alternative. But the status quo, where these governments protect terrorists and build arsenals of hatred, is unacceptable.

I was alarmed to read this morning that U.S. is pressuring Israel to meet with Arafat. What can Arafat do about Bin Laden? To me, this is a sign that the State Department still is a bastion of appeasement.

I wrote a longer rant about this at A Tack Toward Appeasement.

Speaking of Israel, would anyone care to speculate on how the American people would react if the Israeli government asked us to "show restraint" and "stop the cycle of violence?" That is how our State Department wanted (and still wants) them to deal with terrorism.

I believe that authorities are justified in using the ethnic factor in screening for terrorists. Anti-Americanism is strong in the Arab world. Moreover, the risk that someone is a terrorist is higher if that person is not a U.S. citizen, and the reality is that the risk that someone is not a citizen is higher for certain ethnic backgrounds.

As civilians, on the other hand, we should not foment hatred of Arab-Americans or Muslims. I believe that most Arab- and Muslim-Americans love peace and democracy. President Bush has said that we should treat them with respect. That makes it our patriotic duty, plain and simple.

In May, 1940, the last appeasers remaining in England were the elite. The British public was solidly pro-war.

I think that is what you will see here. The last people to let go of the paradigm that "this is a tragedy" and "we need to heal" and "President Bush is not up to the job" will be the liberal elite.

President Reagan was able to connect with the public in spite of the media. I sense that President Bush has that same ability, and the polls would appear to bear this out. The pundits who are questioning his competence are only credible with a minority of die-hard liberals.

In England in May 1940, there were still some in the elite who favored appeasement, but the public was already dug in for war. I think we're seeing the same thing in the U.S. right now.

I went to a service at my synagogue on Wednesday night, and the knee-jerk liberals had come up with their usual idea of a program. They had arranged for 6 therapists to meet with us in small groups.

When it came time for the therapy sessions, the social workers were left standing by themselves while everyone brushed past them to go out into the hall to talk about bombing.

The country is awake, and it likes what Bush is doing. The media are playing catch-up. Although Ted Koppel doesn't know it yet, the therapeutic culture vanished along with the WTC.

On the issue of security vs. rights, polls rarely show public support for civil liberties. We need Constitutional government rather than direct democracy in order to protect individual rights from mob hysteria.

In an essay I called Remembering Pearl Harbor I wrote that I thought that in the long run we will preserve our liberties. We will make our worst mistakes in the immediate aftermath, but eventually we will gain wisdom and experience.

This is exactly what we do not need.

The goal of terrorism is to divide Americans, and a demonstration against a mosque will do exactly that.

A grim wager that I would make is that the victims of the attacks include Muslims as well as Jews and Christians, and Arab-Americans as well as people with European origins.

We're all in this together, and we are going to need to show some patience. My full comments are at http://arnoldkling.com/~arnoldsk/aimst4/aimst426.html