Back to Square One.

[kentuck]

It is understandable why so many on the left are pissed off.

For eight long years, since 2001, they waited for the "war on terror" to end. They would rejoice on the day that George W Bush left the White House with the Constitution stuck under his arm, and with brown stains all over it. They didn't join the cause after the election of 2004 or the election of 2008. They were there from the beginning.

We were told that the Al Qaeda were greatly diminished after the assassination of Bin Laden. We waited patiently for the change that our nation so desperately needed. It never came.

Now, we are told that we have to shut down 19 embassies in the Middle East and North Africa and that we are about to be hit again. We don't know where or when but according to the "chatter", it is coming. Our country has ordered all our citizens out of Yemen, where the attack is suspected to begin.

So, it appears we have not made the progress we had hoped for. In fact, we may have lost ground? We may be in worse shape, taking everything into account, than we were in January 2009?

If some are pissed off, I would say that they have every right to be so. All the editorializing, the marching, the fighting since 2001 appears to be for naught. The war on terror is not ending. The spying has increased exponentially. The drone bombing have made us more hated in that part of the world and created even more enemies.

Our only choices are to join the cheerleaders for war and spying or to simply give up? We can start all over. The last 12 years have been wasted. And for those that have been fighting the fight from the beginning, that is enough to be pissed off about.

[KoKo]

1. It's possible...

the NSA revelations will be the last straw that starts to bring a change as more Americans wake up to what is being done "in their name..to themselves" with their own tax money.

They seem so "unhinged" about NSA and other Spying being revealed that they had to resort to doing a Dick Cheney/Tom Ridge Alert. So desperate that "dusting off" the code word "chatter" seems to show panic. Aren't they aware that informed Americans realize that these days sophisticated terrorists (of the ability to do "massive attacks" like they are warning us of) aren't likely to be holding high level planning sessions on SKYPE, Facebook, Twitter or with any kind of Cellphone that they know can be monitored. Even the unsophisticated ones know that we are monitoring everything and have found other ways of managing. The Administration has had to deal with recent prison breaks in Yemen and elsewhere (that have been downplayed in MSM)...How come their "chatter" didn't warn them about those actions coming...or even going back to Benghazi?

I think they went too far with this one.

[kentuck]

3. I think the "war on terror" has mostly morphed into a political battle...

Who is strongest on defense?

Democrats cannot permit another Benghazi incident. Republicans would whip them over the heads with it. I think that is part of the present decision-making. We are spending trillions of dollars, mostly for political gain of one Party or the other.

[KoKo]

5. Pretty sad that, though. But, I think you are correct.

It was disgusting to see that clip of blowhard Saxby Chambliss pontificating about NSA ...terror...etc. on Democracy Now yesterday. And, this after the other two blowhards McCain and Gram went over to solve Egypt's problems.

I felt that Obama said..."You guys handle it the way you want...go for it." and is off doing something else Which in in itself...is not such a good thing...for us out here still trying to work for change, if he's left it up to them, like he did with Wall Street.

[leftstreet]

2. The NSA revelations could wake up!! the antiwar movement

They've been hibernating since Bush left office

We'll see...

[MindPilot]

4. It's some dejavu that's fer sure

The administration runs into a little rough patch, maybe caught doing something a little shady or maybe the approval ratings are dropping a bit, so they have to back pedal a litt...TERROR ALERT!!

Sure smells a lot lot like the same bullshit.

[KoKo]

6. dejavu...Ground Hog Day...The Ghosts of Christmas Past....

Reliving Hell" Whatever.. It does wear one down.

[Savannahmann]

7. I was at work when the word went out about the embassy closings.

A friend asked me what I thought. This is almost verbatim what I told him.

It's bullshit. For more than four years we haven't had a bullshit terror alert, and now that the Congress has voted 205 to 217 to defund the NSA, and people are demanding that the NSA be reigned in, all of a sudden we're supposed to believe that now there is a wide spread conspiracy that we caught in the nick of time thanks to the NSA intercepting chatter? Now thanks to the NSA we saved lives. It's bullshit. The coincidence factor here is off the scale, and when that happens, you're seeing the tail wag the dog.

Nothing has happened to change my opinion on the matter. Yet the attack didn't come, perhaps the CIA funded mercenary squad was unable to get their people in place to attack the now abandoned embassies in time. So now it is going to go all week.

So let me ask a question. If the war on Terror is still so engaged that we have to close embassies and order civilians out of Syria, then why are we pulling out of Afghanistan again? Shouldn't we be ramping up our operations there instead of winding down? I mean, the enemy is so powerful that we have to abandon 19 embassies due to explicit chatter, then we aren't any closer to winning the war on terror than we were right?

Gang let me repeat. It's bullshit. It is a scare in the nick of time to make sure we all understand how lucky we are to have the NSA watching out for us.

[kentuck]

8. Sometimes I think it might be best to withdraw from the entire debate...

...and leave them to their own devices?

[KoKo]

9. That's an Option for sure....for some of us who've been dealing with this for Decades..

and some of it here on DU since the Early Days...when we had so much hope.

I don't know. I think about this a lot lately. I see the avenues for change morphing more locally...which we tried to do early and then it faded...then came back...then faded..and now is BACK again with local.

Part of me want's to just get on with whatever my own life is. I get tired of it. The breaks that used to be there for us are fading with the "melding of America into vapid Fast Food..Malaise...Wall Street Revival...MSM Kardashian Crap...Celebrity Crap.

I want to take my Roku Box (I'm not spamming something here) and my OWN MEDIA...and TUNE THE REST OUT. I even think of just cutting off DU and going in peace to wherever I can find it.

These are some definitely "TRYING TIMES." The "Boring" pushing of candidate for 2016 is so superficial. The lack of interest in the latest revelations about NSA and Payoffs to Wall Street, the Fracking, Environmental Damage, the Decline of Unions Further...and On and On and On and On.

There's part of me that says: "NEVER GIVE UP" and I am involved locally as much as I can be...(and that's another story about our Dem Party...I don't want to get into) but...I just wonder for some of us ...that exhaustion and lack of reinforcement doesn't start to make one think ...that there are better ways to live ones LIFE...than to get into what's become a battle over "1% and whether Hillary will win in 2016."

I'm rethinking...what is life's priorities...and where to make a difference that doesn't involve being constantly bashed for one's beliefs.

Don't know...will see...