I'm not sure they would serve much useful purpose.
I just think estimates that we are going to get out of Iraq after 18 months don't square with the length of time we have been anywhere else. The Balkans, for instance.
Napoleon has just taken "Jaffa" (Tel Aviv) in the Bio I am reading. 1799. His problems were so similar to what we face that it is an interesting comparison. The main point that struck me was that even though he was preaching "Freedom" to the Arabs, he was getting very few takers. They regarded the French as the Christians come back to conquer over the Muslims. Sound familiar?
Yes, the tactics to get the Terrorists are different than the ones we need to do "Slum Clearance" in the ME. We know how to take down these ME states, but we are "Babes in the Woods," I fear, at setting up the right structure to take out the Terrorists. So we will bumble through to some sort of a conclusion with the ME states, but we need to do some long term evaluation of the Terrorist fight.
I think we need a well thought out "Clearing House" that gathers up info on all of these people, processes it, and keeps tabs. We are going to have to do a constant, world wide, "sifting" of possible terrorists, their friends and relatives, etc, from now on long, long, into the future. Probably forever.
It should not be based on present Police Forces, because it is not going to be an "arrest, try and sentence" program. It is going to be an "capture, detain, or kill" program. We don't need Lawyers and Police, we need hunters and killers.
This type of program can go "rogue" easily, so the oversight will need to be tight, and the longer the program goes on, the more pressure that will be exerted to stop it.
I just don't see any other effective way to do it. If we don't go this way to start, we will end up doing it after we take a couple of more hits from the terrorists. These people are not about to quit and go away. They are going to keep attacking us. |
