I'm sure the terrorists love having the Republicans in control. The invasion of Iraq has placed over a hundred thousand soldiers in easily accessible Iraq. It places Americans right next to the second and third most holy shrines in Islam and there's nothing like desecration to get the proles riled up.

And let's face the ugly facts: Iraq is or will shortly be in a state of civil war. The only question is how many of our troops have to die while they figure out if they'll have a Shi'a or a Sunni theocracy.

Withdrawing from Iraq and actually putting enough troops in Afghanistan to keep that place from sliding back into anarchy might actually help the war on terror.

for the President to ship Orrin Hatch to Gitmo or at least get a LEGAL wire tap on the senator's phone since he has apparently been communicating with terrorists.

I'll bet his wan, tick-like body wouldn't last two waterboards before he confessed to whatever they wanted him to.

I guess having Repug war profiteers in power stopped terrorists from bombing trains in London, India and Spain, nightclubs in Bali??

I think it was Rove who wondered why Bin Laudin wanted George Bush re-elected when he released a new video just before the election.

terrorists are "waiting for the Democrats here to take control, let things cool off and then strike again."

Oh, really? Like how they waited for GW Bush to take office before they executed the 9/11 attacks, or how they waited for Clinton to get elected before they hit WTC in '93, or ...... Has anyone considered (Orrin Hatch obviously hasn't) that terrorists don't really care who the POTUS is?

Has he missed the recent airline bombing plot?

I was having a political discussion with my Republican, Bush-supporting father over the weekend. We didn't agree on much, but he made the point that the terrorists can't tell the difference between a Democrat and a Republican, and if they could, they wouldn't care.

So either my father is smarter and more astute than Orrin Hatch, or Orrin Hatch is a partisan hack with no sense of shame whatsoever. I'll just say for the record that I'm pretty certain that Orrin Hatch is smarter than my father.

...it will work. It always has in the past, and it will again. Come September we'll be stuck with the Republicans still firmly in control. The public falls for it everytime, and the Democrats do nothing of substance to counter it.

...then what Hatch said could be true.

Since Al Qaeda (et. al)'s interests are best served by the Republicans being in charge, they should be holding back from any direct attacks on the U.S. right now; rather, they'd just be putting infrastructure in place. If the Democrats got contol of the power structure, Osama or whoever would then give the order to trigger some attacks, and hopefully get Republicans back in charge. Then the program to radicalize the Islamic world could continue.

I do hope I'm wrong, of course, and that they're not actually that smart, or that their goals are more simplistic and short-term.

Someone really needs to sit Senator Hatch down and explain to him that the most successful terrorist attack in the history of the United States took place under the Republicans watch. He may have forgotten about it.

I know that seems like a dumb question, but hear me out. Really, is that what we're dealing with? Does the Senator (as well as the VP) really believe or want us to believe that terror is currently being kept in check because of our aggressive involvement in the Middle East? Is this a real suggestion that our military actions have been effective? If this is so, why are there new restrictions on what we can carry on a plane at airports?

I believe that war is politics at gunpoint. I believe that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. I believe that there are mundane reasons for terror and as such the term "terrorist" is applied by those who are on the other side.

American policies have been labeled as "terrorism" in other parts of the world. Do you agree that we are a nation of terrorists? I don't either. So the term "terrorist" is total and utter bullshit. The people we refer to when we use that term have a real list of objectives and among them isn't total random carnage for total random carnage's sake. We aren't dealing with nihilists, anarchists, or even dead-enders. What we are dealing with are groups of people who can become (in)famous by leveraging fear. Fear is not their ends, it's their means. We call them terrorists because it is a convenient political label. We all know that you don't negotiate with terrorists. Using "terrorist" as a label completely marginalizes these people and their political wants and needs. We don't even have to see them as human beings. To us, they are just terrorists! Quick, kill them before they kill us!

The irony is that the language from Cheney and Hatch leverages fear as well. By that definition, they too are terrorists.

That just goes to show the utter uselessness of the word. The counter argument from Democrats I believe should be just this: we are a people of ideas and not merely ammunition. It is time to use our heads and not just our arms. Politics through bloodshed alone has and will not work for either side. We have the capacity to destroy everything and as the world's only super power also have the ability to change the status quo. Putting down our weapons isn't a sign of weakness, it's a sign of intelligence. Those who suggest otherwise would continue to lead you down the path to ruin.

Bush has used the fight against the Islamic terror to prop up his presidency. Bin Laden is the bogeyman in Bush's closet, remaining conveniently uncaught so that we can be scared into submission again and again. And Kerry would have been bad for Bin Laden's purposes because he would behave less predictably and more thoughtfully than Bush.

It's striking how the Republicans have nominated new enemies to fill the void left by the USSR. The Chinese were being groomed as the enemy du jour until the 9/11 attacks happened. Then Bin Laden, "Islamofascists" and the so-called "Axis of Evil" were nominated to fill Joe Stalin's old shoes. And of course the press and us "4th columnists" who disagree with Bush are always there to be vilified.

It's always the same with Republicans. They can't unite people behind a common goal, so they try to unite them against a common enemy. Trouble is, they've defined the enemy so broadly at this point that it includes a majority of Americans.