An Answer to Terrorism
by Ron Crawford
Islamic terrorism is nothing new. The blueprint it uses is similar to that used during the Crusades. The kings of the nation states of Europe and the Catholic pope claimed religious support as a rally point to obtain and hold power. People were obliged to support the Crusades or go against the God the majority believed in.
The Catholic Church and the Catholic kings were able to maintain their dominance by promising after-life rewards and requiring strict obedience to their power because God was giving them instructions. Does this sound vaguely familiar to what today's leaders of Iran, ISIS and other Islamic extremists require?
The have-nots of the Islamic world today are being told that "God" wants them to rise up against non-believers much like the Catholic Church and the Catholic kings of Europe claimed "God" wanted to recover the "Holy Land" from the non-believers during the Crusades.
The elite of the current Islamic Jihadists worldwide all have some common characteristics. The elite get the power and most of the benefits. The elite have no problem with the sacrifices of their followers or the pain inflicted upon the non-believers. The elite, when they are successful, get to rule over the subjugated area and all the people within. The elite are never satisfied.
So how does America protect itself from this threat? How many people believe that a stronger border fence or improved immigration procedures are the answer? I don't! How many people believe that bombing the fighter-flunkies on the ground at any particular location is the answer? I don't! How many people believe that sending in our military to defeat the fighters on the ground is the answer? Haven't we already done this more than once? (i.e. Iraq, Afghanistan, etc.)
Let me give you an example by analogy of the real problem. Say someone has a large fenced garden with a weed problem. Every year they have to till, hoe, spray, and new weeds still pop us because they grow unchecked outside the garden fence and they spread their seeds through the fence. America needs new leadership this election and I don't care from which political party. Our next president and congress have to recognize the need to kill the weeds of Islamic terrorism at the source outside our fence.
I call for attacks by the United States unilaterally to cut of all financial resources of the supporters of the Islamic terrorist weed wherever they are. If a Saudi Prince is funding the terrorism, cut off his income at the source, including bombing his oil wells. If this is not possible or practical or if he continues his support from undiscovered resources, then we kill him. If we can kill Osama Bin Laden inside Pakistan, we can kill anyone anywhere. Why should we not kill someone who is trying to kill us?
The alternative is to continue to try to do the nearly impossible task of protecting ourselves from the flunkies of the elite terrorists that we cannot identify. If the financial resources are removed the flunkies are less able to do harm. Our current protections provide a means to catch up to them eventually even if it is after the fact. We certainly would be no worse off with this proposal.
I can forecast the future if we continue down our current path. When the pain of the attacks becomes too great, we will send thousands of our soldiers and spend billions of our resources to again kill thousands of innocents. The only beneficiaries of our time worn knee-jerk reaction process are the industrialists who make money from the wars.
I will guess that the greatest objection to this idea will come from those who say we would be playing God when we target these elite terrorists. I submit that we do this every day as a society in our law courts. I propose a Grand Jury system to examine guilt with information provided even by the accused if they will.
Targeting should be on an escalating scale of economic punishment first. We should not allow any international influence on the decision making of the jury. We should not fear reprisals from the country of the terrorist elite. We should be able to provide incontrovertible proof of complicity to any nation.
It would be nice if the nation where the terrorist resides would rein in the culprits, but what do you think the chances of that are? Maybe after a time or two of pain for the terrorist elite host country they will. If they do, then we accomplish improving our security without attacking and that would be a good thing.
