Of course, these strategies only work in the movies, which were written to "teach a lesson" and end with a victorius situation for the "Good Guys", who remain good, even if they violate other's human rights, including killing innocent people. The "Dirty Harry" movies were all about how a good cop supposedly HAS to violate the rules to catch the bad guys.

"Eliminating Terrorism" is an impossible task. Terrorism is the act of people who feel like they've been unheard, misunderstood, unequal, denied justice, and otherwise powerless. When we kill a terrorist, 10 sympathizers will replace him in the ranks, and 100 more will become supportive. When we kill a non-terrorist, someone defending his country, 1000 countrymen will take his place. When we bomb or invade a country and kill non-terrorists, 10 countries will become sympathetic to the invaded one. This isn't WWII, with uniforms and fronts and territory you can call "ours" or "theirs". Did we learn nothing from Viet Nam?

The only reasonable strategy to take against terrorism is to work on the CAUSES of terrorism. How can we increase communication with the people we call "terrorists"? How can we treat them with even-handed justice--not just "Well, Bin Laden seems to be the top terrorist, and we wanted him for something before, anyway, so let's pin it on him". That kind of justice was called "lynching" in the pre-civil rights era (apartheid era) South.

There have been MANY occaisions when the US has sponsored and supported terrorism--that's what the School of the Americas teaches. Coups, assasinations, death squads, etc. Now that the shoe is on the other foot, "Terrorism" is the new unforgivable sin. Of course, stock brokers died instead of peasants, too.

I'm not trying to say that I think terrorism is ok, and we should just let it go, but I am trying to say that you can't just have a neat little operation and "remove it". And I am saying that we have used, and encouraged others to use many terrorist techniques.

Feedback is welcome.

Mary McCaffrey