De Selby:
I am not sure I know a good answer to the problem we're facing, but let us consider the problem.
Given:
1. Terrorist organizations exist.
2. Terrorist organizations will not vanish, even if the US will announce total isolationism. Even if these specific organizations vanish - unlikely - the problem itself will rise again in another context.
3. Terrorist organizations number thousands of men and wae what is effectively war again the US or its allies.
What do we do?
Clearly the toolboxes we have aren't too good for this.
We have a military toolbox - which works quite nicely, our guns kill theterrorists quite dead - but we are not always certain who the terrorists are. If it is a terrorist training camp in North Waziristan we can of course blow it up - but if it is a guy standing in line at an airport in England, blowing him up would be less desirable.
We have a police toolbox. We're certainly not reading the guysi n North Waziristan their rights. On the other hand we want to do that if we spot a terrorist suspect in Nebrasks.
How do we build a terrorist toolbox is a question which is so far non-resolved by our society.
Clearly "let us huddle in our caves and nuke all the foreigners" isn't a workable solution.
But "let us pretend that the problem doesn't exist and we should treat Al-Quaeda the same way we'd treat an enemy army, or, alternatively, a group of criminal suspects" isn't a workable solution e3ither. Neither is "let us pretend any collateral damage is entirely non-acceptable and accepting even one innocent man being killed is the same as being Hitler".