Reply #4: And we will continue to be defenseless as long as we treat terrorism [View All]

as a military problem rather than a police problem.

Nobody had ever succeeded in defeating terrorists with their military. Those who have faced the problem as a criminal enterprise, and fought with police solutions, have all succeeded. Baader/Meinhoff, Red Army Faction, Red Brigades, etc., were all stopped with good police work, not by moblilzing the military. International cooperation, sharing of police intelligence is what brought them down.

In places where terrorists were treated as a military threat, they grew more and more powerful. Sendero Luminoso, the PLO, and so many others morphed from terror groups to guerilla armies to, in some places, alternate governments. Point to any place that's been fighting guerillas for 25 years, and you will see a place that mobilized its military to take down a terrorist group in its inception.