There have been a lot of interesting discussions over the last few weeks about how to deal with the threat of terrorism. Sadly, the most interesting information is relegated to the lesser known or more biased news networks, so they are either ignored or dismissed out of hand. The mainstream discussion seems to revolve around "stricter restrictions via the TSA", "gitmo-ize the crotch-bomber", and "military action with Yemen". None of this will work, and will likely be counter-productive.

So why won't it work and what might work instead? First we need to look at a little history...

The first notion to dismiss is that "9/11 changed everything". While it may have been the largest attack on U.S. soil, we have been dealing with terrorism for a long time. A PBS Frontline article lists 12 terrorist attacks that occurred between 1979 and 1988. Of course, there have been others since then, such as the original bombing of the WTC, the anthrax letters, the domestic terrorism bombing in Oklahoma City, the bombing of flight TWA 800, etc. These attacks occurred under the "watch" of several presidents. They also show that terrorist attacks can occur in places other than an airplane, although airplanes seem to be a favorite target. Perhaps because it makes a spectacular splash... perhaps because there is this preconceived (and incorrect) notion that flying is unsafe.

We keep adding layers of "security" at the airports, but nothing seems to work. Why? I heard one person on the radio mention that al-Qaeda buys the same detection equipment we use at the airports and uses it to test their approach. That's why they ended up putting a chemical powder in a plastic bag in someone's crotch - it will never be detected, not by metal detectors, not by "puffers", and not by "nude" image screening. Other countries are loathe to install this equipment, and in fact the nude imaging devices may violate child pornography laws in England. The puffer machines have been discontinued because they're not very effective.

The best suggestion I've heard is to use bomb-sniffing dogs to screen every passenger. That would be much faster, more effective, and WAY less expensive.

Obviously the better solution is to catch them before they ever arrive at the airport (or other target). This requires good intelligence. Changes were recommended after 9/11 and some put in place, but none of it seems to be helping much. Add to that simple human error, and we're back at square one. The crotch-bomber was missed because of a simple misspelling.

The best solution, however, is to understand the goals of the terrorists, and the reasons they are able to keep recruiting young stupid disillusioned isolated kids, and turn them into living breathing suicidal weapons, and then defuse the psychology.

As reported last night, early tapes of Osama bin Laden show him proclaiming that he would bankrupt our nation by forcing us to fight him on his terms. On that goal, he is doing quite well. We've spent nearly a trillion dollars on our wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and the bloodthirsty (and war profiteers) are now eyeing Yemen (a country with a geography and tribal issues similar to Afghanistan). There's been a lot of talk in recent months about our country's financial security, but little of it aimed at military spending. It seems people are willing to spend a trillion dollars to fight a war that by it's very nature will never end.

Bush proclaimed that the "terrorists hate our freedom" which was both jingoistic and naive. They just hate us exploiting the oil in the Middle East and using our military and CIA to help that along. But along the way we changed our way of life and accepted more and more inconveniences to feel "safe". We've willingly given up those same liberties.

The general goal of terrorism is to force other people to do what you want by scaring them.

So in response to these actions, we've spent a trillion dollars on wars, millions of dollars on airport screening devices, untold lost dollars in productivity, loss of personal liberties, etc. Are the terrorists winning?... It certainly seems that way.

President Obama seems to want to push this pendulum back the other way. He at least is vocalizing that changing our ways means the terrorists win. How do we fight this? All al-Qaeda had to do was put one disposable foot soldier on a plane, and the entire TSA is in uproar. How much did al-Qaeda spend training and equipping that one person? How much are we spending to react to it?

Besides financial, we are also apparently willing to sacrifice ideals for the illusion of safety. As I mentioned in my previous post on this subject, 58% of Americans think the crotch-bomber should be tortured. As reported by Keith Olbermann, Rudolph Giuliani wondered aloud if torture worked so well at preventing terrorism, why did this event still occur? Because despite the revenge motive, there is nothing of value to be gained from torture, despite what you see on "24".

The best way to prevent terrorism is to prevent kids from turning into terrorists. How can that be accomplished? One of the first things is to repeat ad nauseum that al-Qaeda kills a LOT more Muslims than the U.S. does. They may try to frame it as a religious war, but we need to shine a light on the facts. Muslims (particularly Muslim extremists) kill WAY more Muslims than "Christians" do. See this clip from last night's Rachel Maddow show:

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We can also extricate ourselves from the Middle East as much as possible. They don't want us on their "holy land". I don't see a need for us to be there. We should close bases in Saudi Arabia etc.

Finally, we can stop "feeding the beast" by finding alternatives to oil, and cutting off the opium trade. Perhaps the CIA should infiltrate their banks and shut down their financial pipelines.

All of this assumes of course that the Pentagon and CIA want to eliminate the boogeyman. Sometimes I have to wonder...