Looking under the wrong rock

Michael Totten looks at the murder of a top investigator in Beirut. What was he investigating? Syrian intelligence activity in Lebanon. Totten quotes Abu Kais:

"He worked in the police’s intelligence unit, reportedly in counterterrorism. Terrorism in Lebanon is the nickname for acts sponsored by Syrian intelligence, and their contractors in the fundamentalist world. Wissam was probably involved in Lebanon’s “war on terror”, which, mind you, was never officially declared."

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For those at the sharp end, the War on Terror is frighteningly real. I spoke to a cop who said his cell phone text message inbox was so full of death threats it was hard to read them all. You get partly inured to the danger, but never quite get used to it. James Michener described those whose who chose an intimate acquaintance with danger to keep the rest of us ignorant of it in his novel, The Bridges at Toko-ri. "Where do we get such men? They leave this ship and they do their job. Then they must find this speck lost somewhere on the sea. When they find it, they have to land on its pitching deck. Where do we get such men?" That question has been asked through history. But only when it receives no answer do we realize how much we've lost.