The Unbearable Lightness of Jihad

Perhaps it is refreshing for statesmen and journalists of the older set to strike a Cold War pose after taking it on the chin for so long with this terrorism junk. Don't get me wrong: terrorism is great in a pinch, but will it really buy you a fleet of F-22s and an X-Box 360 for every soldier? Maybe the notion of Osama Bin Laden turning the free world into a seventh-century Islamic caliphate using horse-riders and Kalashnikovs isn't the best long-term narrative for a defense-based economy after all. China and Russia on the other hand: they can't disappear into the mountainous borders of Obscuristan; nor can they disperse their armies like swarthy, bearded spores across all continents while occupying none, scarcely sustaining a ripple in the minds of Americans for very long, especially when gas is $4 a gallon. All I know is that if I-95 is going to be propped up with sheetrock and particle board because using public money for public purposes = socialism, people would probably feel more comfortable subsidizing invisible tanks and nuclear-armed Wall-Es if they got to focus their wrath, a la competitive sporting events, on the palpable evil of existing nations.