The terrorists really do want to win...

I saw Lilek's post from last week about the NY Times expose on the CIA's secret airline.

I like Lilek's commentary on if this kind of thing should be revealed. But the sense I get from this expose is that the NY Times sees this as a "covert operation" and doesn't think that the US should be engaging in "covert operations".

Aero's much-larger ancestor, Air America, was closed down in 1976 just as the United States Senate's Church Committee issued a mixed report on the value of the C.I.A.'s use of proprietary companies. The committee questioned whether the nation would ever again be involved in covert wars.

The war on terrorism (and yes, I am one of those crazy right-wing nutjobs who belives it is a war, and one we need to win) must have covert wars. It's not covert in the sense that we deny that we are fighting it, but it's covert in the manner that we must fight. The terrorists are the very definition of covert - blending into civilian society, using cars and planes as weapons, trying to attack office buildings and amusement parks. We can't fight that war without being covert ourselves.

One thing that makes me realize what a tough battle we have is the Al Queda training manual(via Protein Wisdom.

It's worth skimming - to get an idea of how organized the enemy is in their goal of establishing an Islamic state "by the dialog of bullets, the ideals of assasination, bombing, and destruction, and the diplomacy of the cannon and the machine gun" since "Islamic states are established... by the pen and gun, word and bullet, tounge and teeth".

Yes, their goal is to establish a state religion via violence. And some of the same people who are usually opposed to any form of religion in government seem to have no problem with that...