PHOTOS, PAGE 1

       Editor and prime reporter is Doug Terry, a veteran television and radio reporter in   Washington, DC, (details below)

The problem is that we are treating terrorism, and security at airports and other places, as though we can take measures which will, in the main, make us totally secure. We are running very hard, at high cost, in the wrong direction. We are spending vast sums of money and time to do something which cannot be achieved. Instead, we need to face the fact the terrorism is something that cannot easily be defeated nor easily go away, like a persistent, but not widespread, disease.

It should never be forgotten that bin Laden and his immediate followers believed that 9-11 would be not the start of a long war, but the big, final blow against America and its power around the world. Misjudging, horribly, from the examples of Somalia and Lebanon, bin Laden thought he could carry out an attack that would so shock and dishearten America that we would summarily withdraw from “the world stage”. His conclusion was based on self propagandized ignorance, but instead of keeping that in mind, we have, by invading two countries, conspired to put future terrorists on a learning course about America, our methods, our strengths and weaknesses. Looking for a new, lasting enemy in the face of the collapse of the Soviet empire, the US government treated the terrorists as though they were a government, too, complete with intense knowledge of our culture and our military power. This was dead wrong.

If the wars and the massive security measures can’t protect us, then what is our government doing? Well, for one thing, it is trying to cover all the bases and make it appear that everything possible is being done. So, why not do it three, four or five times over? A lot of it is just for show, a lot of it arises because the government didn’t know what to do, precisely, so why not go for big targets in a hundred ways? How can you be blamed for anything that happens in the future if you spend hundreds of billions of dollars every year to try to stop it?

The “fight against terrorism” will not be won by spending every cent we  have, and all we can borrow, on a multitude of wars, covert actions and endless security measures. It can only be won with calm, well reasoned and, most importantly, restrained leadership. We need to chose our targets more carefully and go after them more intelligently and intensely. The amount of money and effort that is going into the effort now probably helps to ensure its failure. Overkill doesn’t work if you hit the wrong target. At some point, when you can buy anything, you buy too much and start not just buying the same things, but actually creating a structure of self defeat.

To truly understand 9-11, one has to be able to turn it over and look at it not from the panic reaction of Americans but to think of it from the perspective of the Arab and Muslim world. Those attacks could easily be seen as the insane overreaching of a madman who could, in the end, accomplish nothing but heartache. While there is much talk in the west of the “Arab street” version of events, it is important to realize that mass public opinion is only one component there, as it is here. What do the educated elites think of bin Laden? How do governments view his grand “accomplishment”? To the eyes of many, bin Laden has bought nothing but trouble with no prospect of reaching his ultimate goals. Besides, how many people in the middle-east actually share his objectives? Whatever we do, we should not make new converts for him.

Terrorism came to the United States, big time, nine years ago. But, we should always remember that it had hit elsewhere for decades previously. The people and governments in those countries, including a good portion of Europe, learned to live with it without excessive fear and massive spending. What was new about 9-11 is they hit in our capitals of government and finance and did so in a spectacular way. We reacted as if the attacks of 9-11 had no prior antecedents.

In all probability, some form of terrorism, not necessarily from the middle east, will be a feature of our lives for decades to come, probably throughout this century and beyond.  The cat is out of the bag. Terrorism, while not effective in a larger sense, is a tool of choice for the disaffected and powerless.

We can never be fully secure, just as we can never fully guarantee we won’t be killed in a traffic crash or something happening in our own houses. We are going to have to learn to live with some elements of terrorism and we have to also learn to be smart enough, careful enough, to defeat it where we can without adding fuel to the fire.

Doug Terry, 9.10.10

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