There a lot of competition for seats
in the US House and Senate.

So, basically one thing we are waiting for
in the US is House and Senate candidates who
want to make speeches strongly in favor of
restoring the First and Fourth Amendments.

It would be good news if the present members
of the House and Senate would come out
strongly for the Constitution.

So, why not? Candidate reasons:

(1) Currently the Dems have the White
House and the Senate so don't want to
appear to claim that the situation is
rotten.

(2) Everyone in office is afraid of
being accused of being "soft on
terrorism". And if a politician gives
a speech saying we should restore
the full meaning of the First and
Fourth Amendments and another
loser, wacko, Jihader Boston bomber
kills/or injures some people,
then the politician's political opponents will
scream "soft on terrorism".

(3) While some people are quite concerned
about the NSA and Congress with the
Patriot Act, etc. trashing the
Constitution, likely and apparently so
far not enough people are raising hell.

(4) Somehow the political dynamics
in the US are strongly toward: Once
the US takes some step for national
security, reversing that step is
very difficult.

A big example was
Viet Nam: There the US went on and on and on
spending more and more and more and
right along, really, doing less well,
for a very long time.

How long? In the
late 1940s, the
US supported the return of the French.
When the French lost in, whenever,
1954, the US tried to prop up
a 'US friendly' Saigon. By Kennedy's
term starting in 1961, as Saigon
started to lose, Kennedy said some
of the right things:

https://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/kentv.htm

"I don't think that unless a greater effort is made by the Government to win popular support that the war can be won out there. In the final analysis, it is their war. They are the ones who have to win it or lose it. We can help them, we can give them equipment, we can send our men out there as advisers, but they have to win it -- the people of Viet-Nam -- against the Communists. We are prepared to continue to assist them, but I don't think that the war can be won unless the people support the effort, and, in my opinion, in the last 2 months the Government has gotten out of touch with the people."

During his campaign, LBJ also said
some of the right things:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/amex/honor/timeline/

"We are not about to send American boys nine or ten thousand miles away from home to do what Asian boys ought to be doing for themselves."

Then, once in office, LBJ
wanted to win a "coon skin cap" and added
and added.

Then Nixon wanted only
to 'win' -- I know, "Peace with honor".

From about 1961 on, a growing fraction of
the US voters were very much against
the war and wanted, really, just, to, in a
single word, leave. In two words, leave
immediately. McGovern ran on that, and lost
badly.

The US demonstrations got
bigger and stronger. The 1968 Dem
convention in Chicago was a small war
in the streets. There were many
marches on DC. "Hay, hay, LBJ
how many kids have you killed today?".

Still the White House
and Congress wanted to "stay the course".
As we were actually losing and
people were hanging off the last
helicopters out of Saigon, President
Ford still wanted to send more money.

Gotta tell you, next to no one in
Congress or the White House wanted
out of Viet Nam. How'd we get out?
The requests for much more in
blood and treasure did fail in
Congress. Then the North Vietnamese
basically took South Viet Nam and
Saigon and drove us out.

Then, for the "war against terror",
the other side has no hope of
driving out the US like the North
Vietnamese did.

Viet Nam was the big example we
were never to repeat, but we did.
It didn't take much: A few
wacko Jihaders hijacked four
airplanes, and the US went
all wacko: We ruined our
airline system, trashed the
Constitution with the Patriot Act,
etc., occupied Iraq and
Afghanistan, and
stayed for well over 10
years.

Gulf War I was an exception:
There we remembered Viet Nam and
the fairly simple and obvious
lessons and applied them.
So, we asked what's the goal;
can we achieve it; how do we
achieve it; how do we get out?

Goal: Drive Saddam
out of Kuwait. How to achieve it:
Have the Saudis give the US
space for some airfields.
For a few weeks, run one heck of
an air campaign against the Iraqi
forces. During that time, build
up some ground forces. Then,
release the ground forces
into the Iraqi desert west of
Kuwait for a big left hook,
cut off Iraqi access to Kuwait,
and kill off the caught
Iraqis, all in just 100 hours.
Invite the Iraqi military leaders
to a tent, make them an offer
they can't refuse, have them
sign, and then mostly just
leave. It worked as planned.

With that success, for Gulf War II
it was back to Viet Nam style
many years of badly conceived
mud wrestling. Similarly in
Afghanistan.

Net, again, once the US
decides to pursue some such a national
security effort, we
go for years and years
pursuing nonsense goals,
being silly and ineffective,
and just will not
see, say, and act on the
obvious -- leave.

More generally, the US wants to
police the world. When the world
doesn't look nice enough to
justify the police effort, the
response is more time, blood,
and treasure for more policing believing that
less police work would yield
a disaster.

Alas, we ignore
the lesson of Viet Nam:
We couldn't have lost any worse
than we did, both militarily
(at the level at which we fought the war)
or politically. Politically? We never
could find anyone who could run
the South from Saigon. So, with that
big loss, what's happened? Did the
world collapse? Did dominoes fall
from SE Asia, east, all the way across
the Pacific and land in Malibu? Did
Thailand, Burma, Indonesia,
Australia, Singapore, the Philippines,
Taiwan, Guam, etc. fall? Did Peking
and/or Moscow dominate SE Asia?
Heck no. Instead now Viet Nam
is doing well making, e.g., Brother
laser printers. The US should be
totally thrilled with Viet Nam.
Likely and apparently the US
could have had that outcome in
1947, 1954, ....

Bluntly, the US military and State
Department, etc. just do not know
how to do nation building. E.g.,
in Saigon we didn't know how to
pick an effective leader. Apparently the
situation is the same in Kabul.
One
reason is domestic US politics: So,
if the nation building doesn't try to
make the place look like Peoria,
or some TV sitcom (Green Acres), then US politics
gets all fired up. E.g., the US
goes into a very traditional Muslim
country and, for domestic US
feminist politics, tries to
educate the girls and
have sexual equality, all of which
is in wild conflict with
social mores going back
a few hundred years. We want
them to have a constitution,
a parliament, free elections,
modern laws, a judicial system,
roads, bridges, schools,
hospitals, etc. Meanwhile the
US loses out to some indigenous
leaders who promise no such things.
They have a way of doing things
over there. That's not the US
way, and we don't like it.
But, we are total fools if we
believe we can change their
ways to being like our ways
and more foolish if we believe that
they will like our efforts at doing so.

Instead, if we are to work in
such a country, then we need to
accept, understand, and work
with their ways of doing things.
And, yes, that might mean that
don't send the girls to school.
And it might mean that structures
of power and leadership selected by
means not
close to free elections.

Whatever, the US needs to make its
policing efforts fast and effective
and then leave.

Politicians need to speak something
closer to the truth to the US
voters and not promise
to pursue foreign adventures
to create shining cities on hilltops.

Until the US starts to look at
reality and become effective,
the US will continue to waste
time, treasure, blood, the
US Constitution, domestic tranquility,
etc. In simple terms, on foreign
adventures, the US needs to
give it a rest, f'get about it,
back off, cool down, relax, and
then, something like it did after
Viet Nam, rethink.

For defending the US, do that
both more effectively and mostly
closer to home and without
nation building.

I'm not soft on terror or US foreign enemies: For
Afghanistan, I would have leveled
large areas of the place, all from the air, until
the Taliban desperately called for
peace at any price. But I wouldn't
set foot in the place. Similarly
for Saddam -- make him an offer
he couldn't refuse, with
B-2 bombers circling overhead just
for practice, but again not
set foot in the place. I wouldn't
give them schools; I wouldn't give
them so much as a short pencil.
Then I'd leave.

The need is to defend the US.
There's no need to trash the
US Constitution.

Millions of
US voters need to tell the politicians
in clear terms to stop the
brain-dead nonsense of
wasting US time, treasure, blood,
domestic tranquility, the domestic
economy, and the US Constitution,
wise up, and become effective.