Remember that Israel is rarely under attack from an organized military. It's usually under small scale, criminal attacks like molotov cocktails, suicide bombs, and sniper fire. It's the same with the United States and its War On Terror. The correct response, in my opinion, is to remove the motivation of the attackers.

Currently, the families of suicide bombers receive $25,000 from terrorist governments upon completion of the attack. That's a solid motivation to people living in poverty. Israel and the United States should counter that motivation. Minimize their full scale military operations and focus instead on sending paramilitary units after the terrorist families, killing them in their entirety, as Ghengis Khan might have done. This is consistent with the Bush Doctrine that states that anybody who helps or harbors a terrorist is a terrorist.

Some terrorist family members, such as the children, are innocent, but so are those killed as "collateral damage" in large scale military actions. How many families would need to be killed before other suicide bombers opted to stay home? I doubt very many and the overall number of lives lost would be minimal. A suicide bomber does not care for his or her own life, but might care for the lives of family members. How could a suicide bomber kiss his wife goodbye knowing that she will be hunted down and killed after he completes his mission?

It is an extreme answer to the problem, but it's an extreme problem with few solutions. The terrorists hold all the cards. They have nothing to defend, they have no timetable, they kill indiscriminately. The West has a lot to defend, its operations are finite, and we insist on pursuing only the guilty parties. (Except in our own country where political correctness has us spending more time checking obviously innocent air travelers than people who look like terrorists.) Now that the scale of terrorist attacks is on the rise, we need to raise the bar of our response. Our goal should be to kill as few innocent people as possible in the elimination of terror. I think that targeting the families of terrorists is one way to do so.

We, the West, will keep arguing these points. While we do, terrorists are working their way ever closer to truly devastating attacks like biochemical and nuclear. Will it take the loss of an entire city to put us in the right mind set? I hope not, but I think so.

The beauty of America is that we can disagree on topics like this without blowing each other up. However, if we disagree long enough and remain inactive during our discussion, a terrorist might someday blow us both up.

Nolan Carlson: I just finished reading your article and I have to agree with you about the airport security issue. We don't see the old blue hairs hijacking and blowing up our aircraft. We do see middle eastern men ages 25-40. Arguable case for racial profiling and the need for political correctness for sure.

I don't necessarily agree with you about the outlook of the War on Terrorists. Being an active member of our military forces, involved in the specific mission of defending our homeland, I hold a different perspective than you. The American people want a clean, fast and solid victory. This isn't going to happen. In fact we are looking at years to accomplish our mission. Here we are, not even one year after the attack on America, and people are beginning to lose hope. Reflect about how long it took the combined allies to shut down another regime during WWII. We need patience as a country and we, the military, need the support of America to accomplish our mission.

I'm a firm believer that these terrorists have a huge jump on what we ever expected them to be capable of. Now that we have seen it, I think there are heroes lying in wait around every corner. Think of it this way, if a terrorist were able to somehow board another airline, would we as civilians just sit there and do nothing? Not anymore. We know what the dire consequences due to lack of awareness could be and therefore we are much more diligent than we ever were. We have already proven that since September.

I'll admit, our leadership has their faults and I don't agree with everything they are doing oversees in the middle east. But they have a tough job to do. We are dealing with an enemy that has no conscience when it comes to using innocent people as targets. They don't fight by the rules so maybe some new rules need to be developed to deal with these barbarians. I would also have to lay some of the blame on our past leadership for their openness in sharing some of our nation's technology and training to current and future potential enemies.

JK: Good points, all. The military does indeed need our support. I hope when it comes time to give it, we provide you with more than the Bush Administration is providing Israel. As for previous administrations, you are being too kind. They deserve more than just part of the blame, they deserve the lion's share. Aside from sharing our technologies, how about neglecting to see the rising tide of terrorist success? In Clinton's case, a little less time spent in the hallway and a little more time spent following up on the first World Trade Center attack and various embassy bombings might have kept terrorists from growing so confident.

Leslie McDonald: You are absolutely right about everything you wrote in your article. I too, am getting the sense that everyone is going soft on the issues you address. Since everything seems to be back to "normal" we (as a society) are unfortunately back to our apathetic ways.

And yes, as the guy you met on the plane stated, political correctness will be the end of us. It's like a rapidly-spreading terminal cancer in this nation. I heard a woman caller on a talk radio show tell how she'd recently flown and had several lay-overs where each and every time she was pulled out of line for an individual check. Being fifty-plus and very Scandinavian-looking, she finally questioned (on her third time being singled-out) why they kept picking her, someone who obviously did not fit any terrorist profile. The response was that they'd been instructed to purposely pick people completely non-middle Eastern looking so that it couldn't be said that they were racial profiling. Amazing isn't it?

I totally think we are caving to the enemies with the Israel-Palestinian problem. I saw where Israel withdrew from two Gaza Strip holdings. I find it unbelievable, the pro-Palestinian-anti-Israel sentiment in the media. What I don't think people realize is that just as Israel is being asked to back off, the same will be asked of us. We are setting a dangerous precedent and I'm truly afraid that we are going to be coerced into giving up our fight or calling it done. The leveling off of world support is already very apparent, as is the growing lack of interest in our own nation. And for that we will get bitten harder next time.

Al Qaida is patiently lying in wait for us to again not be paying attention (evident at airports). And the Anti-American sentiment throughout the Muslim world continues to grow. It's as if we haven't learned a thing.

Now I ask: What do we do? How do we again begin to refuel waning hearts? I am troubled, ashamed, and deeply saddened by where we have evolved. God help us.

JK: Much as I hate to mention it again, I'm afraid we won't awaken to our plight until we lose a major city. That's what it's going to take to shake the liberal coloring off this war and fight it right. No more grandmother bomb scans. No more pretending not to notice that the terrorists all look the same and come from the same area and practice the same religion. No more big explosions with little results.

Les Taranto: I think you've hit the nail.... This is one war that will never go away. The worst part is that it is on "our turf" for the first time in recent history. We may be getting a taste of what the "other guys" have received, Vietnam, etc., and you can't get away from it. Being a Navy Reservist in the Seabees, makes my concern that much more. Not to mention that I have 2 kids. What kind of world will they grow up in?

JK: One with lots of security measures.

Brent Clanton: I'm in agreement, the Bush Administration is fast losing credibility. Unfortunately, the Israeli-Palestinian issue is a lose-lose proposition, and I fear we're going to be inextricably ensnared, while Saddam, bin Laden, and the other henchmen from the Middle East laugh behind their sleeves.

Let's hope Junior's not too much like father, like son!

JK: We can hope, but unfortunately the son chose to work with the father's people. Colin Powell is placing his feet in the same footprints he left the last time he failed in the Middle East. At this rate, he's going to be the world champion for number of enemies left in power under his watch. First Hussein, then bin Laden, and now Arafat. Who's next? A sure sign of a bright future as a tin pot dictator or terrorist is to have Colin Powell involved in the fight against you.

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