Combatting Terrorism At Home And Abroad.

Whether the President's NSA wiretap orders were legal or constitutional is an arguable point. This post by Orin Kerr (here), while not defending the President, presents a tentative analysis that the decisions were constitutional and arguably legal. Others vociferously disagree.

Whatever the legality, the present controversy over the wiretaps has revealed the divide that exists between those who believe we are fighting a real war against terrorism and those who don't. Those who don't believe we're fighting a real war find more resonance with this Cold War tagline from the recent movie, Good Night and Good Luck, "We cannot defend freedom abroad by deserting it at home."

Today we are locked in combat with fighters for another totalitarian ideaology. But unlike the Nazis and the Communists of the past the Islamist jihadis we are fighting today have already struck our homeland. Our war against them truly is worldwide. As lefties constantly remind us the USA is part of the world. Since that is the case, if we're going to fight terrorists around the world, we're going to have to be wiling to fight them at home as well as abroad. Those who believe we are in a real war against terrorism, not a metaphorical one, might find more resonance with this phrase. "We cannot win the global war on terrorism, if we are unwilling to fight it at home."

-tdr