Kindess is the basis of Security.

Dear Editor,
Michael Chertoff is right. ‘There has not been an attack on America soil since 9-11’. This is also meaningless for at least 3 reasons.
First, Al Qaeda doesn’t need to hit us here if we are destroying our own economy and constitution through an endless global war that also corrodes our cherished domestic freedoms. Bin Ladin’s primary goal wasn’t mass murdering Americans on American soil. His primary goals were to ‘break us economically’ and ‘divide us politically’. Bush’s policies have been doing this quite well.
Second, Al Qaeda doesn’t need to come here when they can kill us over there in greater numbers. More Americas have been killed and maimed by terrorists during the last 7 years of the Bush Presidency than from all the terrorist attacks on Americans proceeding and including 9-11.
Last, Americans are now directly and indirectly responsibility for the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent Muslims in Iraq and the displacement of millions more as a result of Bush’s post 9-11 policies. These losses have aided the recruitment of future terrorists that may yet succeed in mass casualty attacks here -- perhaps using biological weapons.
Chertoff claims that “at our ports, we have deployed radiation scanning equipment to check virtually 100 percent of incoming cargo for WMD”. He doesn’t say these scanners are incapable of detecting biological WMD that could be more devastating than a nuclear blast. Unlimited border patrol/control expenditures won’t be able to detect or stop such weapons without completely destroying our economy and shredding our constitution. Then there are domestic sources of WMD like the post 9-11 anthrax attacks by a US citizen ‘with’ security clearances.
And, the power to commit mass murder grows exponentially with both old and new technologies. And, the same technology growth curves give every government increasing capacity to invade the privacy of our lives.
Real security lays in common principle within each of the Abrahamic religions. Be kind to one another. U.S. militaristic foreign policy based on “US interests” has not always been kind to innocent people. Our best interest is to ensure the security of all people who share this troubled world with us. Our Savior once said, ‘Those who live by the sword will certainly die by it.’ In this light sufficient U.S. expenditures towards Helene Gayle’s advice (“Do the right thing: Strike at the roots of Poverty” 12-26-08) would do more to yield security than any military or DHS expenditures.

The Surge IS working. But not for us.

It sounds like the “surge” is working! But for who?

If I were Bin Ladin or an Al Qaeda strategist and wanted to:

a) continue killing American Soldiers instead of making the 9-11 mistake of killing American civilians

b) continue to drain finite US financial resources away from their domestic education, health, transportation infrastructure, border control and other vital elements of homeland security

c) continue to exacerbate political divisions within and between Americans, and

d) continue to benefit from the recruiting windfall of anti-American sentiment in both Arab nations and within the US itself…

I would insist that my murderous recruits, be they Sunni insurgents, foreign suicide recruits or Iranian Shiite allies slightly refrain from attacking American forces (or creating insecurity for the Iraqi people) . This would hopefully lul the American generals and the peace (or victory) loving American public into thinking the Surge was working…and only needed a little more time or a few thousand more troops to be successful.

I would ensure that the Iraq war environment be manipulated however possible so that American forces would be bogged down there as long as possible.

Is the Surge working? I think it is. But not for us.