It's a war for civilization all right but the enemy is no more Islam than
Timothy McVeigh was a Christian patriot. This situation is only going to be
resolved when the societies that produce the terrorists change so that there
are no longer large numbers if the disaffected that see terror and
fundamentalism as the only path. These are Islamic societies and nothing
short of sterilizing the ground with nuclear bombs is going to change that.
Terrorism is as abhorrent to true Islam as it is to Christianity. Unless we
are prepared to kill millions to eliminate thousands of terrorists we will
not solve this problem until the Islamic societies become our allies in the
struggle. Your kind of thinking, and just about everything our government
is doing, works directly against this.

The distortions of culture, society, and government in the mideast that lead
to this are largely of our (the West's) doing. The very borders of the
nations were established by Britain and other powers of the time without
regard to ethnic borders that would create stable nations. We threw the
economies and cultures completely out of whack with oil money and tolerated
and supported brutal dictatorships that would keep the oil flowing.

Bin Laden and Sadam themselves are largely creations of the CIA supported
struggle against Russia in Afghanistan and our meddling in the Iran / Iraq
war. We need to accept that our decades of mistakes and meddling have
created a situation in which terrorism is as inevitable as hurricanes. We
don't go into a tizzy of breast beating, changing of society, and
restriction of civil liberties when a hurricane does millions of dollars in
damage and kills many. Hell, we even give the rich folks on the barrier
beaches money to rebuild (until recently). Hurricanes and earthquakes are
not manhood and virility challenges to our leaders so everyone shrugs and
life goes on.

Israel has proved that terrorism can not be eliminated by force even within
a small geographic area where some of the toughest people in the world have
enormous control and decades of understanding the situation on the ground
and the culture they are dealing with. What chance do we have over a huge
area at the end of a long logistical trail when the Pentagon can't even find
enough translators?

This is now an intractable and long term problem that is going to have to be
managed. The solution will take decades and patience. Thinking of
terrorism as something that has to be eliminated before the next election or
we'll need a new president will make true solutions impossible to pursue or
implement. Nothing constructive will happen until Islamic societies start
to function properly in the modern world, leadership in them is supported by
the population at large, and they see themselves as allies with us in the
struggle against terror. Everything being done now is probably being
cheered by Bin Laden.

It's much like trying to glide to a landing spot after an engine out. Pull
back on the yoke and you will land shorter or even stall and crash. Right
now, all the passengers are screaming, "Pull up, pull up!" and big burly
fellows are struggling to the front to try and grab the yoke to pull it back
further. Kerry isn't going to do any better unless he can become the kind
of leader who can calm the passengers and regain control. I don't have a
lot of confidence that he can do that but I'd rather not have a pilot in
this situation who clearly thinks that how hard he pulls back on the yoke is
the test of his leadership.

--
Roger Long