...but do you have a plan that does not involve surrendering?

Call me skeptical, but to hear a man proclaim over and over about having a plan, while never once describing any actions contained therein causes me to doubt that that man really has anything other than an overblown sense of himself. This is compounded by the man's history of contributing nothing to the public debate except endless criticism of this nation as though we are the primary villian in the world.

John Kerry wants to have a summit, but he will never act pre-emptively. The bridge player in me says: you will lose with that attitude, mister Kerry. In fact, you may never even win a bid. Don't take up chess either. In fact, you'd need to be quite lucky to win so much as a game of parchesi with an attitude like that.

It is at this point that the summiteers would assert that we are not playing a game and that we shouldn't be talking about winners and losers. Those who are making war on us clearly do not agree. They have defined victory as the annhilation of anything we might recognise as liberty. They have asserted that it's "on" and acted on this assertion.

At the very least even a summiteer must acknowledge that if we wish something more than surrender for ourselves then we are indeed engaged in a competitive enterprise. Perhaps the semantics are just too much for some, but if someone declares that they are at war with you and acts accordingly, are you not necessarily at war with them? Why is it even necessary to ask such a thing? [The math student in me would call this the reflexive property of war ]

Jimmy Carter had a summit with Leonid Breshnev and kissed him on the cheek not long before Breshnev's army invaded Afghanistan. What did that summit accomplish? Ok, not fair, how about, "what did that summit accomplish which was to the benefit of any free people anywhere in the world?" Oh, I have one: it showed us the utter vacuity and unrealism of Carter's dictator-smooching realpolitik.

Carter-ism has been tried mister Kerry. I don't know who you think you are going to kiss to get the jihadists to stop murdering innocent people, but it's a non-starter.