WHY THE IRAQ WAR MAKES US SAFER AT HOME

Senior U.S. intelligence officials tell ABC News new intelligence from Afghanistan suggests a small al Qaeda cell is on its way to the United States, or may already be here.

Sometimes I just want to scream at the mainstream media. They seem to exist for two reasons: first, to shill for liberal causes in any way they can, and secondly, to scare the bejesus out of everyone, because fear excites, and thus, sells. This new scare conveniently does both because it not only alarms, but it fits the "al-Qaida is much stronger now" (since George Bush attacked Iraq) template.

Does anyone really doubt that the assets to perpetrate a major debacle on American soil HAVEN'T been in place within our borders since 9-11-01? If the ABC report is true, why now? Why wait five full years to mobilize another attack?

I am not in the camp that believes that the reason we haven't had another terrorist attack on our soil since the first one, is that somehow our preventive efforts have broken up or pre-empted all the planned attacks. No, our enemy has maintained its capability to do us great harm for the entire five year period. There are too many football games, concerts, and malls that could have been bombed with or without willing martyrs.......if.......our enemy.......only had the will.

Am I saying that somehow our actions post 9-11 have somehow had an effect on the willingness of our enemy to strike us again? Yep.

Think about it from the perspective of the enemy camp for a minute...let's try to imagine what's in their heads....."we jihadis massacre thousands in the heart of the Great Satan, and we knew there would be a reaction. We knew they would come to Afghanistan, but there, we would cut them and make them bleed, and they would run as they had before from Beirut, Mogadishu, etc. We never imagined we would scare them so much that they would go take out Saddam, and then, shock and awe, ATTEMPT TO ESTABLISH A DEMOCRACY IN OUR MIDST!"

Wars are fought on both strategic and psychological battlefields, and the all important psychological one is holding sway in favor of the good guys, in my opinion.

The jihad hasn't returned to American soil because Bush's aggressive actions have kept them on the defensive. They worry what he would do if they struck us again at home, and for this reason our land has been off limits for terror attacks. The enemy doesn't WANT to stick its hand in the hornet's nest again, at least not while Bush is in the White House. They are waiting all right...waiting for Bush to exit. There may be an event perpetrated by some stupid, un-aligned cadre of muslims, and we should all be vigilant, but there will be no major strike from al-Qaida this summer for the same reason there hasn't been one for the last five years.