Fort Hood and Afghanistan

Fort Hood, Afghanistan, terrorism, home grown, safe havens

All the facts are still to emerge from the Fort Hood massacre, but thus far the incident does seem to highlight one of the problematic arguments surrounding a surge into Afghanistan, and that is the need to eliminate terrorist "safe havens." While the threat from a centralized, save-haven operating, terrorist organization is no doubt real, free-floating radicals (assuming, as it looks increasingly likely, the Fort Hood shooter was one) seem much more dangerous, if only because they're inside the country already and can operate under the radar more effectively.

Given that we're operating in Afghanistan under the broad rubric of preventing mass-casualty terror attacks from occurring on American soil again, the attack on Fort Hood should raise the question of how much we need to invest in a single theater in what is obviously a global campaign.

(AP Photos)