The Fight Against Terror

So, the architect of so much suffering is dead. Justice is served. We can and should congratulate and thank the few brave souls who carried out the execution.  And I hope that no one – not the legitimate press, not a wayward blogger and not the cretins at WikiLeaks – will be so careless as to publically identify the SEALs and CIA operatives and aircrews who most directly brought about this victory.

The world has been told that if you attack us, we will never give up, we will find you and we will visit our wrath upon you. We have drawn a line in the figurative sand.

The trouble is, this zealot isn’t the last we’ll see. There are plenty more where he came from. And as long as the next one can find volunteers for immortality, we’ll remain exposed.

I’m proud of the (mostly young) Americans who daily put themselves on the line to protect us from the threat. But unless we identify and remove root causes, these heroes will only be fighting an interminable holding action.

Without volunteers for martyrdom, these people will never be able to pull off another 9/11.  Because, it’s important to note, those “leaders” don’t generally fly the planes or strap on the explosives. They cloak themselves in religious double-speak and stoke the fires of historic hatreds. And they rely on the fact that the poorest of the poor are tragically easy marks for gurus of revenge.

We have no choice but to maintain a strong military stance to keep the hounds at bay while we work out solutions. But the solutions themselves won’t depend on superior firepower. The way to win the war is to deprive the despots of the destitute.  

We need to launch campaigns of education and public health – calibrated to the local culture and sensitivities – that will help people across the world to believe in their own future. We need to help the poor of the Middle East and the Congo and Malaysia to see a future for themselves. We need to apply the same ingenuity that builds electric cars and composite airplane wings to work solving problems such as providing abundant clean water, growing sustainable crops, and harnessing natural energy resources for responsible uses.

It may be true that the world is flat – now we need to make it level. The consequences of failing to do so will be expressed in the blood of those young volunteers who struggle in faraway lands to keep the wolves at bay. And as we’ve learned, the battles will no longer be fought entirely on distant shores.

It’s just too easy to sell martyrdom to a young person who feels no investment in tomorrow.