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We live in a very dangerous world, maybe it is more dangerous today than it has ever been. At least during the cold war our fate was basically in the hands of only a couple of rational people. Today we face numerous attacks from many different people who hide behind the fact that they are anonymous. In the old days we knew if we were attacked by a certain country we could always strike that country back, but what do you do if individuals strike a blow that kills many people and causes much destruction? That same threat of retaliation really doesn't exist. Oh sure we may step up the pressure to find the guilty parties, but that is not the same as sending a nuke their way.

So we have decided to step up security and increase our forces all over the world to hunt terrorists and take over Afghanistan and Iraq. Does all this really make sense and are we doing the right thing? Lets address the last thing first. No one is saying that Saddam Hussein was a great guy, he was a petty dictator, of that there is no doubt. It may be that Saddam did hate the terrorists though and if we hadn't interfered in Iraq that may have been one less country we would have had to worry about. The Washington Post reported on June 17, 2004 that the Sept 11 commission reported that it found no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Queda. Tying this in with the fact that there were no weapons of mass destruction found in Iraq seems to indicate that we never should have gone there. This fact is reinforced by another fact. The country is filling with terrorists where none existed before and the people seem to be suffering worse now than even under Hussein, or at least as bad. We could have used the soldiers in Iraq to help hunt terrorists.

Lets forget Iraq for now and talk security. It may be impossible to protect this country. There I said it, as much as it hurts. Lets look at all that airport security. We are going to get machines that look through clothing and detects radiation. Tie those in with what we already have, magnetometers and searches and what do you get. Total harassment of the flying population that hardly will catch terrorists. To even half way protect the flying public a plane would have to be completely stripped down before it takes off. So many people work for different services that load the planes and clean them that anything could be planted on them. Then there are the passengers. Many passports are available for purchase in the middle east. These are not forgeries but real papers that anyone can buy. Even if no weapons are smuggled aboard a plane, maybe enough men could be put upon a plane to take it over. One air marshall might not be able to hold them all back.

What has history taught us about security. In World War II the Germans faced security problems in conquered territories. They were never able to get these territories fully under control. There always seemed to be partisans attacking them. They ruled with an iron boot and didn't have to worry about people's rights but still had security problems. If they had them, how can we expect not to have them in our free society. Some people think that we should give up more and more of our rights for the sake of security. They haven't learned the lesson that in the end, it doesn't help, especially in a nuclear and biological society. The British learned this lesson with the Irish. No one was really safe if a person was willing to give up his life to kill someone. Look at the security we throw around all of our presidents, yet look how Kennedy was assassinated and Reagan shot. If our presidents with all their security can get shot and even killed, what chance do we have? So what do we do, how do we conquer terrorism?

That is the million dollar question. One of the problems is that terrorism is born in very poor countries. In some areas people are so poor that the promise of food every day is enough to get someone on your side. I know this sounds impractical, but if we could only raise the standard of living in these countries there would be far less terrorism. We wouldn't wipe it out but people 'who have' are far less likely to risk what they have than people who 'don't have'. A second thing that is required, is to convince people that what is going on is wrong. We can not do this in this climate. After all we are seen as the big satan and our policies certainly don't help with that vision. Lets look at Iraq again. We were told that the people would be happy to see us liberate their country. That may have been true for a short period of time in some areas but we have killed so many in Iraq, even by accident, that we have become the hated Americans. When a terrorists blows up a bomb do your really think they blame the terrorists in that country? Many of them blame us for being there and causing the terrorists to come there. You can't win friends this way.

The only way to get rid of these terrorists is for the people to band together against them. If they knew that they weren't safe because the people in an area were on alert to them and would capture or kill them, they wouldn't be able to practice terrorism anymore. That is true security. You can't call it security when these people are free to practice and train all over the world without anything being done by the countries they are in. Do we think that examining 5% of cargo containers makes us secure? Did you know that for about $3,000 you can rent a container and have it delivered right to any address in the world, and the chances are it will never be opened?

Technology is not the answer for security. It helps, but man will always find a way around it. It is estimated that 80 countries have terrorist groups operating in them. The US is one of these countries. We have many home grown terrorist groups of our own. If they join up with the middle eastern terrorists, things will become even worse for us. We have and are still, throwing billions of dollars at the problem, but is that money being used wisely? Of course not. A good example of this is the face reorganization software that doesn't work very well. We would be better off hiring 50,000 more troops to inspect containers. Terrorism is going to lead this country into a state with less and less rights for the people and once we begin to go down that path the worse off we will be. Just watch what is going to happen in the next couple of years and remember how we talked about it here.

Yes we live in a very dangerous world, but the danger from terrorists may be secondary to the danger to our freedom.