Love Maureen Dowd, But Don't Let Her "Ensorcel" You

You can't but help love Maureen Dowd's wit and style.  Also, if you love words, Maureen won't disappoint.  In her op-ed piece, "The C.I.A.'s Angry Birds," I was introduced to "ensorcelled, " as in the line, "Our sophisticated, sleek, smart, detached president was ensorcelled by our sophisticated, sleek, smart, detached war machine."  (Ensorcelled: bewitched.)

I just love it.

But, if you're looking for substance in her columns, forget about it.

Consider her the "The C.I.A.'s Angry Birds," just referenced above.  Her message in the op-ed seems to be that drones are bad because, at best, they turn the president, the C.I.A director, and counterterrorism advisors into a star chamber that runs a war beyond war zones.  She points out that David Petraeus was the first to conduct a robo-targeted killing of an American citizen.  And, she asks whether the drone strikes might not be creating more terrorists than we are killing?

She also objects to the C.I.A. conducting military operations, and, with equal vigor, the army being engaged in collecting intelligence.

But, what are the bases of her many objections to the way the U.S. is currently conducting war?

Are we, in fact, creating more terrorists than we are killing?  Good question.  I suspect the non-combatants are well aware of why the combatants are shooting at one another.  I further suspect that their sympathies lie with one side or the other.  And, if that's true, how exactly do we create more terrorists than what we started with, even when truly regrettable incidents of injury or destructions of innocent parties occur?  Did we produce more more hostility towards America than what already existed when we firebombed Tokyo or Dresden?

As to intelligence: there are two types; namely, operational intelligence (intelligence that informs us as to where enemy troops are located and what sort of weapons they have), and that which can penetrate the thought process of the enemy.  In his book, "The Best And The Brightest," David Halberstam explains that we got into the Vietnam debacle largely because we had such poor understand of the motives of  the North Vietnamese.  As it turned out, our domino theory proved to be total nonsense.

But, understanding people and nations and determining their true intentions has traditionally been under the purview of the state department.  I see no harm, however, in allowing the C.I.A. and the army and anyone else to second-guess the state department and offer alternative theories.

As to drones:  They are simply another evolution in weaponry.  And, they won't be the last.  They follows in the foot steps of other weapons, such as the machine gun, the fighter plane, the submarine, the land mine, and the stinger missile.  There are aspects of drones not to be overlooked.  For example, they can be tethered to any command location by electronics.  It allow them to spy as well as fire ordnance without endangering the life of any American, unless he's in the field of fire.

After the Vietnam War, it was decided not to let the C.I.A. and the F.B.I. speak to one another.  That proved to be a nonsensical restriction and was changed after 9/11.  The roles of the army and the C.l.A. may well continue to evolve over time.  Such changes may be fostered by changes in how future wars will be conducted.  There is no reason that a particular pattern should endure for all time.

And, finally, war is not something generally anticipated between people who share the same values.  When such values are found in a onstitution, people can turn to the constitutional institutions -- institutions for which they will all, presumably, show respect.  When we confront people with no respect for our values, we may well find ourselves in a state of war.

And, that's leads to one of the problems that Maureen Dowd doesn't come near to addressing.
How do we deal with people who are Americans, but who have chosen to move to a foreign country, whose hostile environment makes it difficult for our law enforcement people to penetrate.  And, there we find such people openly developing  plans for taking American life; indeed, people who not only do that, but gloat over it in public forums?

Yes, Maureen Dowd, let us hear from you.