Written by John Glassco   

To: Representative Dan Newhouse, 4th District in the U.S. Congress,

Dear Mr. Congressman, All this talk about terror attacks is giving me Déjà vu. The terror attack of 9-11 set the pattern we are revisiting now. Let’s look at the cost of our furious overreaction to 9-11. It cost us thousands of human lives, trillions of dollars, and much of our reputation in the world for fairness and for following the rule of law.

Osama bin Laden’s strategy is again being recycled in the recent terror attacks in France and Mali. This strategy is designed to produce the same result as the 9-11 attacks, or at least the same level of cost.

During his planning, bin Laden lectured his Arab brothers about ridding the Middle East of the Jews. This burning Arab ambition pre-dates our sad national xenophobic record with all of our non-white and white minorities. Americans and Arabs understand that fanning racial and tribal hatreds will motivate masses of people to act. The routine mass chant sessions of “Death to America” organized by the priests and politicians are no accident. Bin Laden stated it simply, that without stopping America from supporting the Jews, wiping them off the map would be impossible.

His plan was to create an act against America, so monstrous as to have us blindly counterattack, and deplete our treasure so that we could no longer afford the luxury of protecting the Jews. This plan was outrageously bold, given that the US was the sole standing superpower, with the world’s strongest economy. We surely must look a lot like the ancient Romans to much of the Arab world, mostly because we seem to act a lot like them. If you ask me, looking at the food in this country being taken off the tables of children because of “belt tightening,” their plan is working quite nicely. Our military belt is being let out.

Now, the terrorists get to try out bin Laden’s plan on the French, the Russians, and the people of the Republic of Mali four-hundred miles from Timbuktu. Today our President claimed the lead in the fight against ISIS. He vowed to the world in our name: “Our objective is clear: we will degrade, and ultimately destroy ISIL.”

I would be a lot more optimistic regarding the outcome of this latest war that we have just declared, were it but for two questions:

First, have our leaders understood what just happened in Iraq, and what it cost us?

Second, if a small number of well-prepared suicide squads can make our President vow revenge and punishment at possibly any cost in our name, then I can see the day when eventually we will be an exhausted enemy. The other side already has the pattern memorized.

My argument is to look at Iraq today, and to measure whether the enormous cost that we and they paid, was worth going in in the first place. This analysis in my mind would be mandatory before even considering a strategy to defeat ISIS.

Then, perhaps we could decide between doing nothing, just dropping bombs, sending hit squads, sending spotters and advisors, sending defensive troops for our facilities and stations, or just going back in again.

Congressman Newhouse, I have observed that few of those, mostly on the right side of the isle who promoted and engineered our first disastrous excursion into Iraq, have ever taken ownership of their role. I firmly believe that without a realistic view of how we wound up here in this mess, will we be able to figure out how to deal with ISIS, when all they want is for us to do exactly what we seem to be doing – creeping back in to an earlier time that was arguably our worst hour.

Yours truly, universlman