Terrorism now and then

Last night I went to see a really bad movie, "300". Don't go! I wish I'd read reviews of it before I impulsively jumped in the car and went to the theater. On the other hand, the popcorn was delicious.

In the movie, there were massed armies and heroic warriors. I thought about our "war on terrorism" (since the movie allowed plenty of time for my mind to wander from the action on the screen). We have approached this as a traditional war with massed armies, air support, and a military victory as the goal.

We need to rethink that model. The concept of "war" needs to be replaced. We had a war on poverty, on drugs, on crime and we still have poverty, drugs, and crime. A war on terrorism will suffer the same fate. Terrorism is too vague. Terrorism is a tactic used by the enemy, not the enemy. The enemy we face has more heads than Hydra and we need a multi-faceted response. This enemy is more like organized crime than a nation.

We need to spend time studying who is attacking us and why. We need a better understanding of these extremists. Members of congress don't even know the difference between a Sunni and a Shite and they are making decisions for us. Once we've gotten a good understanding of the issues, we need a more creative approach to removing the causes. We need both the carrot and the stick.

We need an international agency or an extension of one - such as NATO. We need an international agency to combine police forces, diplomats, military special forces, spy agencies, aid agencies, and more. We are making things worse now and we need to get out of Iraq as best we can and start over.

In the movie, the 300 warriors were slaughtered by hoards of Persians. Persia is the historical name of Iran.