By CLIFFORD D. MAY, Scripps Howard News Service

Freedom of speech is under attack. Let us count the ways.

The first and most obvious: Those who criticize militant Islamists -- from novelist Salman Rushdie to Danish cartoonists to memoirist Ayaan Hirsi Ali -- are routinely threatened with deadly violence. It would be black humor to say this is having a chilling effect.

Five years ago this month, American troops liberated Iraq from Saddam Hussein. Then came the hard part.

Al Qaeda and other militant Islamist groups live in a shadow world where they plot to kill you and me. If we expect our intelligence professionals to prevent them from succeeding, we must give them the tools required to get the job done.

Are you outraged? You're supposed to be. According to Peter Eliasberg, a lawyer for the American Civil Liberties Union, in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, "everybody in the country" may have had their phone calls "combed through" for terrorist connections and, if that happened, he told The Washington Post, "lots of people will be outraged."

It's become a ritual: The economy grows sluggish and politicians rush to "do something" about it. What they do almost never has a beneficial economic impact, as any reputable economist will tell you.

Osama bin Laden probably does not get home delivery of Parade, but more than 30 million Americans do.

The definitive history of the role of oil in modern warfare has not been written, but a lot can be learned from Robert Zubrin's new book, "Energy Victory."

"We are financing a war against ourselves," writes Robert Zubrin, nuclear engineer and author of a new book responding to the distressing fact that Americans and Europeans are sending tri