William Pfaff on "The Long War"

I've always had a lot of time for the International Herald Tribune columnist William Pfaff, who reads and thinks a lot and who never pulls punches. In his February 11 column, Pfaff writes:

There are a great many dismaying aspects of Bush's Washington, but nothing more so than this combination of the unachievable with the hortatory in giving a name and purpose to the military campaigns that already have the U.S. Army and Marine Corps near exhaustion, and a major part of the world in turmoil. ...

Al Qaeda and individual international terrorists are the object of worldwide intelligence and police operations. They are a marginal phenomenon. The Bush administration's conflation of them with the social upheaval in their world is exploited to perpetuate changes in American society that provide a much more sinister threat to democracy than anything ever dreamed by Osama bin Laden.

The radical threat to the United States is at home.

Thanks to Mercedes Lynn de Uriarte, professor of journalism at the University of Texas, for bringing this piece to my attention.