The problem with this speech is, it really doesn't offer viable alternatives to the dilemmas the nation faces.

The view that the terrorists are just a gang or the mob and so we should sign blank check is all swell and fine if he has an alternative.

I read this piece through and nowhere can I find any alternative to the method we have been using to go after the terrorists.

Taking bin Laden's message about this being 'about Caspian Sea oil' and Unocal is preposterous - but is what bin Laden wants. Osama would love everyone to pack up and go home and say this is a 'war for oil' and 'business as usual'.

It is ironic that these same folks who want to blame the oil companies - never support drilling on our soil so that we would be less dependant upon foreign oil. There are VAST reserves yet untapped - but these folks oppose drilling every chance they get.

You can't have it both ways.

You can't be paranoid about the three-legged spotted warbler and then complain when oil companies seek new locations outside the US for acquiring oil.

Of course their answer is everyone should get into a gas or electric coffin-mobile or ride a bicycle.

This war is not about oil.

As for personal liberties being given away...

The few changes made for detainment of suspected terrorists and military tribunals will discourage many non-suicidal would-be terrorists.

These sorts of laws are not intended to be used on John Q. Taxpayer and I think it is safe to say the 1200 people detained under this law following 9-11, are statistically insignificant, and that 99/100 of these people - are not normal folks who are being abused by our government, but are indeed folks intimately connected with the terrorist cells in the US.

I feel compassion for that 1 in 100 that's innocent or a victim of circumstance - but I feel confident that true innocence will exonerate these folks anyway.

As you are so well aware - government is based upon power. If the people do not empower a government - it is worthless.

On 9-11 we saw the pillars of our government assaulted in a way we are unaccustomed to. If indeed the White House had been destroyed, and the Pentagon and the Senate Building decimated - the President and many of our leaders dead - it is fair to say that we might see the faith in our government shatter entirely.

Regional marshall law might be imposed by states or even local regions as things get out of hand and the negative half of society - which is normally kept in check - unleashes itself and the looters and rioters and price-gougers create a mini-anarchy in the US which is hard to bounce back from.

I witnessed anarchy in LA during the riots - when armed thugs rode down the streets in stolen cars and shot at passersby and robbed and looted while some storeowners mounted their rooftops with rifles firing back - with the LA police - nowhere to be seen and afraid or inequipped to handle mass rioting.

I would prefer not to see that happen again or on an even larger, national scale.

The world would really go to pieces if the US fell.

That said...

I hope to see the Homeland Defense office emerge as a well-funded Civil Defense agency and not an intelligence or policing arm of the Executive Branch.

The FBI and CIA should be the ones to monitor national and international US interests.

Looking upward and onward,

SDAI-Tech1