Who's Calling?

Usama Bin Laden is, by the best estimate, hiding in the region of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border known as Waziristan. The best estimate of American intelligence is, as we are all too well aware, not something on which we can bank unconditionally. Waziristan is a cold, rocky, barren region know for lawlessness and tribal rule. It has been inhospitable, both personally and physically, to outsiders for millennia. It is isolated, and Islamic. In other words, it is the perfect place for an Islamic sheik with millions, both on his head and in his pockets to hide. It is here that many believe Bin Laden is holed up in a cave, shaking his fist at the West, apparently reading books by miscreants, and plotting our demise through Islamic Jihad.

Waziristan cannot be taken by military force. Of that there is no disagreement. We cannot then, get at Bin Laden now. We must fight, and kill, his terrorist minions as they go about their murderous master's pursuits. Terrorists do not wear uniforms, and they announce their dissatisfaction with the way of the world via explosives, not government decrees. They alternately inhabit the sunlit expanses of the world, and the seedy, shadowy underbelly of criminal refuge. They are not, usually, as they seem. They walk among us plotting our violent demise. We must be able to eavesdrop on their conversations, casting ever widening nets if we are to catch them before they kill innocents. That is what has, as of late, been called into question by the leftist fringe. Specifically, the recently revealed NSA electronic eavesdropping program. "Intelligence agencies can't spy on citizens," they stammer, self-righteously; forget that we do not even know if citizens are involved. Quoting Ben Franklin they scream, "Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither." A wonderful part of our history, to be sure, but a part that ignores 21st Century concerns. Simply put, if Al-Qaeda is calling someone in the United States it is crucial, inescapable, and obligatory that we know who they are calling, and why.

The same people who are currently decrying the electronic eavesdropping are the same one's who complain we have not found Bin Laden after four years. They ignore the fact that Eric Rudolph, the murderous right-wing fanatic, hid in North Carolina for five years, while every law enforcement agency in the U.S. searched fruitlessly for him. They want us to catch Bin Laden, but do not want us to do anything unseemly. Unseemly is what the NSA program is. Illegal it is not. The law so casually espoused was written in a different age, technologically speaking. That it needs to be addressed by Congress is not in doubt, that the program it seeks to cover should be stopped, is. We simply cannot move forward in this global war without every tool at our disposal.

Let me say that I do not believe the membership of the Democratic Party is unpatriotic. I believe that we, as a nation, are stronger for diversity and legitimate dissent. What we must not do though is allow ideological differences to prevent us from fighting a war against those who would destroy us specifically because of our freedom to dissent. I believe this war can be won, but only if we are united as a people. The Democratic Party must leave the lunatic fringe behind in the fight against the evil of Islamic Fundamentalism. If someone had been listening to overseas calls on 8/11/01, maybe, maybe, we could have prevented the attacks that occurred a month later. Balanced against the lives of 3,000 of our fellow Americans, isn't maybe enough?