First Line Of Defeat

Commentary-an Gabriel Schoenfeld hoses us down in chopped ice today on what is preventing another al Qaeda offensive on American territory and what is not:

What is preventing al Qaeda from striking us again? There can be little doubt that the offensive war that American military forces have been waging against the terror network in places like Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, and other points around the globe has greatly complicated the effort to carry out a second plot. But we don’t know what we don’t know. We do know that in al Qaeda we are facing a very patient adversary: eight years elapsed between the first attack on the World Trade Center and the second which brought it down.

In contending with the unknown dangers facing us, we depend heavily on an intelligence apparatus that has had chronic problems in carrying out its basic functions. The FBI and the CIA are at its center. Both organizations have invested heavily in counterterrorism in the six years that have passed since September 11, 2001. But both organizations have had chronic problems. Have they been resolved? Have they even been addressed? So far we’ve seen reconfigurations of the organizational chart and the recruitment of new personnel. But have the dysfunctional internal culture of these bureaucracies been significantly altered? The evidence suggests that it has not been. [emphases added]

And in what direction do the Democrats want to take the country? Quit doing what is working and go back to what has already repeatedly failed and gotten thousands of American civilians murdered.

There's nothing like national security advice from the "reality-based community" in a time of rampant WMD proliferation to undeterrable theocratic berserkers to ensure "eventful" dreams in the, er, "dead" of night, is there?