Lizard_King wrote:

I think you fail to distinguish between domestic issues and foreign policy ones. Not that they aren't related, but they are problems that need to be dealt with somewhat separately to have a coherent solution to each offered.

While Osama does in fact want, by all accounts, what you attribute to him, his approach is predicated on a fundamental misunderstanding of military facts, which require any pragmatist to understand that in any East-West conflict, the West will in fact triumph, whether through raw attrition or other means. Unless his goal is suicide, it is completely delusional to pretend that by confronting him and the nations that support him directly we are doing anything other than winning our case.

Lizard_King wrote:

The Patriot act, and its bipartisan support, is a significant problem. However, it is utterly absurd to bring it up in discussions of foreign policy, where from a military strategic perspective it does in fact provide our government with numerous advantages. The appropriate forum for discussion lies in questions of what that means for US, not in what it means relative to Osama.