CF,
Nice post except for a few things. We have had September eleventh because our security was not up to par. You say I operate as an extremist because I bring up the possibility of a nuclear attack. I positively guarantee you that if we pull back on the surveillance, it will occur. There are states out there like North Korea who would like nothing better than to attack the United States with a nuclear weapon. They are working on delivery systems to do that very thing right now and being able to do it through the use of terrorists would suit them just fine.
Our whole post Hiroshima world has been defined by nuclear weapons and the use and deterrent of them. Remember the mutually assured destruction (MAD) that ruled the world from the early fifties until the Soviet Union collapsed. Barack Obama's main aim in his senate tenure was to get a handle on nuclear weapons, particularly in the former Soviet Union.
As a nation, we have moved beyond nuclear weapons since the end of the cold war. However, to our new adversaries in the terrorist world, they are the ultimate desire. These people do not care about our western traditions because they want to take the world back to what it was in the eighth century in the deserts of the Middle East. It does not matter if we attack them with drones or not. We were not using drones before September eleventh and look what happened. These people sell hate to an audience eager to receive it because they have nothing else in their world to look forward to except the promise of paradise. And to many of them, the quicker they get to it the better. Just look at all of the suicide bombings across the Middle East and South Asia!
With all due respect to you, you can talk to the top of your lungs all day about your precious traditions and origins about freedom and how the United States is content to dwell in an Orwellian state. If they set off a nuclear weapon in the center of London, your precious traditions will be literally blown to hell!
Regards,
Joe
To say that "God exists" is the greatest understatement ever made across space and time.