"Trapped in the War on Terror" by Ian Lustick

Begin forwarded message:

From: Ted Kircher <[email protected]>
Date: November 8, 2006 10:37:53 AM EST
To: Dave Farber <[email protected]>
Subject: "Trapped in the War on Terror" by Ian Lustick
Reply-To: Ted Kircher <[email protected]>

Dave, for IP if you wish.

An excellent review of Ian Lustick's book can be read on page 12 of  
the PDF of the
Arts & Science magazine of the University of Pennsylvania at
<http://www.sas.upenn.edu/home/news/SAS_Sum06.pdf>.

The first sentence of the review is: "The Americans took the bait and  
fell into our trap"
crowed al Quaeda security chief, Seif al-Adl.  The overwhelming U.S.  
reaction to 9/11,
in particular the unjustified preemptive war with Iraq, has allowed  
al Quaeda to grow
dramatically.  It was also an act costing al Quaeda less than $200K  
that will wind up
costing the U.S. $1T - an amplifying effect of 5 million (5,000,000)!  
- in addition to
both increasing our threat of terrorism and reducing our individual  
freedoms.

I think the U.S. needs to realize that our primary threat is economic  
- and in particular
from China which does NOT have to be very concerned about terrorism  
including
the tremendeous expense of trying to prevent it.

The focus of our capital, to remain highly competitive globally,  
needs to be on educating
all of our citizens (think of them as employees of our company, the  
U.S., who can't be
fired) and funding new ventures to create attractive (price as well  
as function) products
for the rapidly expanding global marketplace.

Ted