Here's my suggestion. Give one of our nuclear warheads to the Iranians. Make sure that it's an outdated design and attach a condition that, should it be detonated as an act of aggression that we'll deliver another via missile. This way we can go ahead and get it over with so that we don't have to go through all this idiotic speculation and posturing over what their intent is for nuclear enrichment. Given that there are many countries with many nuclear weapons but only ONE that has actually used them, the evidence seems to show that possessing them is self-deterring.

I'm a Democrat and voted for Barack Obama. Despite that, in the absence of a significant Democratic voice criticizing this state of affairs, I would love to see a Republican of stature taking on this issue and making political hay with it. I have no way of knowing, but I strongly suspect that the actions of the Goldman Sachs Department of the Treasury is less about conspiring than it is about people's ability to justify their own actions. Conspiracies imply secrecy. This is hiding in plain sight.

Instead, the irrelevance of the GOP is demonstrated on a daily basis by their rank and file being enthralled by people like Glenn Beck devoting time to pointed out the supposed socialist, fascist and communist imagery in the Depression-era artwork at Rockefeller Center. Instead, we have a majority of self-identified Republicans questioning whether or not Barack Obama was born in the United States. Instead, we have Congressional Republicans participating in scapegoating Muslims over the imaginary conspiracy to "Muslimize" the United States.

I suspect there are Republicans who despair over the takeover of their party by the fringe. In fact, all Americans, including Democrats should despair of that fact.

What's the difference between Marines trying to win the trust of the local Afghan population by protecting them and limiting their contact with the Taliban and the Strategic Hamlet Program that worked so well in Vietnam?

Thank you for the vote of confidence, Little Brother. I just hope the Luxembourg version of the NSA isn't monitoring that for their equivalent of Dick Cheney's "dark side".

Thank you, also, LondonLad, for taking my point so exactly.

The reason we don't need to indefinitely detain anyone who is at war with us is that we don't really have anyone "at war with us".

As an individual, I might decide that I'm "going to war" with, say, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, because I think government by sovereign in antithetical to my religious beliefs. Perhaps, I even go so far as to induce some proxy group to set off a bomb in Esch-sur-Alzette that kills and injures several hundred people. Clearly, I've engaged in a criminal act. However, does it make sense for Henri, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, to declare that his nation is "at war" with me?

If I'm trying to persuade others of the meaningfulness of my cause, which is more likely to help me-being treated as a pseudo-state at war with Luxembourg or as a politically/religiously motivated criminal? Every time someone blows hard about fighting a war against al Qaeda all it really accomplishes is to reinforce their internal and external narrative to other Muslims that they are fighting a real fight against the Crusader West. Personally, I don't want to them to feel like warriors because I know that's how they want to see themselves.

The reason we don't need to indefinitely detain anyone who is at war with us is that we don't really have anyone "at war with us".

As an individual, I might decide that I'm "going to war" with, say, the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg, because I think government by sovereign in antithetical to my religious beliefs. Perhaps, I even go so far as to induce some proxy group to set off a bomb in Esch-sur-Alzette that kills and injures several hundred people. Clearly, I've engaged in a criminal act. However, does it make sense for Henri, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg, to declare that his nation is "at war" with me?

If I'm trying to persuade others of the meaningfulness of my cause, which is more likely to help me-being treated as a pseudo-state at war with Luxembourg or as a politically/religiously motivated criminal? Every time someone blows hard about fighting a war against al Qaeda all it really accomplishes is to reinforce their internal and external narrative to other Muslims that they are fighting a real fight against the Crusader West. Personally, I don't want to them to feel like warriors because I know that's how they want to see themselves.