Good News/Good Question

Stories like this one answer the question…

One of the more elusive and mysterious figures linked to Al Qaeda — a Pakistani mother of three who studied biology at MIT and who authorities say spent years in the United States as a sleeper agent — was flown to New York on Monday night to face charges of attempting to kill U.S. military and FBI personnel in Afghanistan.

The Justice Department, FBI and U.S. military in Afghanistan said that Aafia Siddiqui, 36, was arrested in Ghazni province three weeks ago. She is accused of firing an automatic rifle at FBI agents and soldiers and is scheduled to appear before a federal judge in Manhattan today.

Authorities believe Siddiqui used the technical skills she acquired at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to do what virtually no other woman has accomplished — work her way into the clubby inner circles of Al Qaeda’s command and control operation, including its chemical and biological weapons program.

But questions swirled around her Monday evening, including whether she has been in Pakistani custody for at least part of the last five years and whether there is hard evidence that she was a trained, committed and hardened Al Qaeda operative, as former Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft and other U.S. officials have contended.

…is the Terror War a matter for the military and intel services or for the police and courts?

As my bride taught me years ago, the answer to most either/or questions is: Yes.

If this woman is guilty, our courts will put her away (I hope) for a very, very long time. But we’d never have gotten her here without cooperation from the Pakistanis, and that cooperation would never have come about without an adequate military threat to Islamabad on 9/12/2001, and without an adequate military and intelligence presence in Afghanistan.

Fighting Islamist terrorists requires a combination of stick and… a bigger stick. I wonder if a former “community organizer” and one-term Senator of no distinction would understand how to wield either one.