Krauthammer misses the point

Published 3:42 pm Tuesday, June 18, 2013

Charles Krauthammer’s June 14 column started out surprisingly sensible but it appears he couldn’t help himself to use the NSA revelations to also get in some good old GOP Obama bashing. (“More spying at odds with fewer threats.”) God love em. If you’re a hawk and hopes that the United States continues to be the big bully on the block with its military enterprises then Charles’ closing statements make sense, but he and others like Sen. McCain are missing the point.

As explained during the election campaign, the president believes the days of the gallant Calvary charge with cannons blazing away are over and our enemies are probably not going to be racing over the hill. Computers and intelligence are our biggest threats today with our enemy free to walk among us. Try imagining standing at the corner of Hewitt and Broadway in Everett and an IED goes off taking you and a school bus out. Iraq was another Vietnam, only this time played out in the sand but with nearly the same results; thousands of Americans and hundreds of thousands of noncombatants dead or scarred for life. And protecting what again?

By action, the president’s message seems very clear; if you mess with us we will hunt you down and we will kill you but now you won’t know when it’s coming or from where. He believes a drone is better sent than our sons and daughters and a lot cheaper than a tank. To those who fret over the loss of jobs in their district here’s an idea; create jobs building up our declining infrastructure rather than over producing unnecessary tools of war or God forbid, some green project to get us away from our dependence on oil. Silly me, right? Where’s the profits there?

Dennis Doolittle

Arlington