In reply to one reader's question to my last blog (a retired USMC Col.), "When do you suppose the population of the USA will wake up?" my answer unfortunately, at least for a significant portion of our population, is probably never . The recent decision of that federal judge (Anna Diggs Taylor) that President George W. Bush's phone tapping of enemy phone calls to intercept terror plots is illegal is further proof that too much liberty is detrimental to our survival. Such opinions are extremely dangerous. We are at war and anyone who says we should not use every ounce of technology we can come up with to gather intelligence about our enemy is simply not on our side. I do believe Joseph McCarthy went way over the line in his efforts to black mark individuals in his anti-communist campaign following WW ll. We need to learn all we can from that incident and move forward with greater caution. But this is different. Unlike the cold war, we are currently deeply involved in an open armed struggle to preserve our culture and our enemy is very smart and adaptable and focused on targeting unarmed, defenseless civilians as well as our military. The enemy is extremely difficult to locate and totally dedicated to the belief that they have an obligation and a right to kill or convert the entire world or go to heaven trying. As radical as it sounds, I believe it may be time to begin identifying members of our own society who are either too ignorant to understand our desperate condition, or are aligned with the enemy. Laws of treason need to be enforced or new ones need to be enacted to remove such individuals from positions of power and incarcerate them, at least for the duration of this war. Unlike certain members of our own society, our enemy is smart enough to understand that opinions such as this Judge's play to their advantage. Incidents such as the public outing of CIA field operatives, revelations of US Government intelligence operations by newspapers and inaccurate pronouncements from politicians that we are involved in an ILLEGAL war are beneficial to the enemy's efforts. Such events severely damage our ability to mount a concerted effort to defeat our enemy and they allow our enemy to divide and conquer us with greater ease. They cannot and must not continue and must be dealt with swiftly and severely.

Over the years I have tried very hard to avoid aligning myself with any particular political group. But this war on terror has forced all of us to face our inner selves and make decisions that we may never have had to make otherwise. As the war continues (and yes. this IS World War Three) it is becoming apparent that our very survival as a nation may depend more upon the attitudes of conservatives than upon those of liberals. The irony and conundrum of course, is that our country is dedicated to preserving everyone's right to their own opinions. This is a lofty and worthy philosophy but when it comes to survival it may prove too costly a philosophy to preserve.

How much longer will we continue shooting ourselves in the foot? Americans have huge (and one may say. unreasonable) expectations when it comes to personal liberty. The attacks of September 11, 2001 changed things fundamentally in America. As this conflict proceeds we will eventually be forced to confront these issues. Delaying that confrontation will result in more loss of life and will risk more extreme reactions when that will leave deep scars on our own society for all time.

Those are my opinions, for what they are worth. Do you agree or disagree?