donnie65's Blog

You're certaily right about terrorism being a "global reality." But what we in the US need to understand at this point is that there are no simple solutions.

True, we can use law enforcement agencies to arrest the kinds of characters that were planning the Fort Dix operation. But given the rather large number of terrorist groups operating in the world today -- ranging from Islamist/jihadist groups to the ecoterrorists that are becoming increasingly militant in the US -- it will certainly strain our law enforcement resources. Law enforcement agencies are trained to deal with the usual kinds of criminal problems, not the types of actions that require an understanding of world-wide funding and "suicide bombers." Even the FBI faces the need to change its standard operating procedures -- and to recognize that they have severe manpower limitations.

The challenge for Americans, then, is to recognize that a commitment to deal with terrorism in the future is going to require a real national commitment of the type that we have seen only in times of war in the past. Of course, the type of mobilization that will be required will be very different from, say, WWII, but the commitment -- the resolve -- will need to be at least at that level.

SG