eric margolis, author of "american raj." here in los angeles harry humphreys, founder and president of the global studies group and former navy s.e.a.l. peter bergen, what is the yemen connection? >> well, by the suspect's own account, he received the device in yemen. yemen is probably arguably the second most important place in the world right now for al qaeda, substantial al qaeda presence there. al qaeda in the arabian peninsula is the name of the group. we've seen a connection to yemen in the ft. hood shooting with the cleric who went on al jazeera recently to explain that major hasan the lead suspect in the ft. hood shooting had asked him if it was okay to kill fellow soldiers. so we've seen that yemen is sort of a hotbed of militancy. >> larry: frances, apparently the suspect is claiming ties to al qaeda and talking a lot. what do you make of that? >> well, that he's talking a lot is good news. but the real test will be, what can vergts and intelligence official corroborate? as peter mentions, the terrorist ties back t

. >> larry: eric margolis, how do you win a war on terrorism?'t a terrorist born right now today? >> i think it is wrong to call it a war on terrorism. it is a police action on terrorism. it is not a war it can win. as long as the u.s. is deeply involved in the affairs of the third world we are going to face attacks and terrorism. this event in detroit is the opening salvo of deeper u.s. involvement in yemen as peter mentioned in the beginning. we have u.s. special forces, u.s. aircraft involved in combat operations in yemen. a three or four way civil war there. yemen is fast becoming the afghanistan of the arabian peninsula. we are right there entering into this. so as long as we do this, we are exposing ourselves. we need better security as they found in europe. they have been facing this problem a lot longer particularly in france. one of osama bin laden's objectives is to give us in the united states a national nervous breakdown. we musn't let him do this by overreacting to these events however ugly and nasty they are. >> larry: harry, how d