security and insecurity

Tangoman,
way too much politics for this list IMHO, but since you and Paul started it,
the big lie of the Bush administartion is exactly this black and white
paradigm. You are with us or against us means to bring matters to the
extreme consequences, cutting out any possible middle way solution. In other
words means using a lot of big expensive weapons and force everybody else to
do the same, or be out of the game. The fact that all the largest world
weapon manufacturer are close friends of key figures in this administration
is of course a pure coincidence. There has never been the *need* to
radicalize problems and solve them with violence, it has always been the
favourite approach of fascist governments and they can force it on others,
but no-one really needs to do that. There was no need to invade Iraq, and
that's precisely why the 90% of world population was opposed to it in the
first place.
OTOH there was the need for this administration for something big and
terrible to happen to justify their politics of invasion in the ME (which
were already public domain since the 70' BTW) and that may be why a tragedy
like that of 7/11 has happened, while the Clinton administration proved able
to stop dozen of groups who were planning similar attacks.