Submitted by Edward Lavoie, Sep 28, 2007 11:55

I think Michael Barone is one of the very top political thinkers in this country. Great respect have I for his opinions. But that does not mean he is always right and I always agree with him. In "Lawyering The War To Death" he is 100% right ... as far as he goes. I fear he needs to take a step back and look at the bigger picture. We -- and our allies -- are no doubt catching lots of terrorists and crushing their plots. And the more freedom we give our protectors, the better they will be able to protect ... to a point. But what if the sum total of our actions are as though we chop off the head of a Terrorist Hydra only to see two (or maybe many more) grow back in its place? Just because we do not see them grow back does not mean they are not multiplying in staggering numbers. What if behind the dam of protectionism we are trying to build there is an uncontrollable storm brewing? Hercules won his battle with borrowed wits, not just his mighty sickle or sword or club. Yes, another top mind, General David Petraeus, is trying some new approaches, but they are limited in scope by the very battle we seem committed to, on a front seemingly far removed from the real battle on terrorism. Is not the extension of the liberty to take away liberties here that Michael Barone calls for a numbers game, roughly equivalent to Israel's checkpoints on two million Palestinian crossings a day? Would not the monitoring of everyone all the time (even with computer profiling and filtering) require such vast resources of people, time, and equipment that it would sink our economy? So what should we do? Clearly not what we are doing. We must consider things drastic and unacceptable to many. Things like calling for a summit with all recognized leaders in the Arab and terrorist worlds, guaranteeing them safe passage in a press conference before the world. Then at that summit before the world we must apologize for some of the actions we've taken. We must admit our mistakes to the world (not just to Americans). We can explain why we did what we did, but in the end we must say where we were wrong. Then we must ask all these leaders in front of the world in the most public forum possible what we should do to end all of this. Let them speak. Let them say whatever they chose to say. If they say "Death to Israel ... or the U.S." is the only acceptable solution, we make sure all the world hears it. Then when they are finally done, we answer. To those who say "Death" we say that is unacceptable, of course, and ask their reaction if we were to say the same about them. To those who offer compromises we offer back, again with everything happening on a world stage. Then we make what agreements we can and stick to them, with some kind of monitoring of those agreements by an international panel. Then lastly, in as unthreatening a way as possible, indicate that should any of these agreements be broken that a World Court will adjudicate those violations that do not result in deaths. Those that do, however, will be dealt with in a surgical, but lethal, way by the US, with a stated goal of (perhaps) no more than a ten-fold payback in lives and property. We will invade no country, but no country is immune from our attacks should terrorists who attacked us be present there. We will give every country a very limited time frame to deal with the terrorists themselves. Should they not we will take action, which will be less surgical due to the delay. And in the future they will not have the option of dealing with an incident on their own. One huge benefit from this approach would be to free up our Armed Services to protect our borders and ports with renewed vigilance. Another would be that we would announce to the world that henceforth we would once again be on the path to setting a transparent example of what a free society can achieve for both its people and the rest of the world. This by necessity would include giant steps towards cleaning up the environment and finding alternative renewable energy sources. Edward Lavoie globalview1@gmail.com

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