Terrorism is a global reality. No nation is immune from hit-and-run attacks.
The challenge for industrialized nations such as the United States is to find ways of using its advanced technological expertise to outwit terrorists before their mass-murder missions can be executed.
This is an unprecedented war. Nations fighting it don't face uniformed armies or states. The enemy is a culture of disparate religious and political firebrands operating furtively and outside the conventions of the traditional battlefield.
War means sacrifice and inconvenience for all, plus ways to detect terrorist threats that're one step ahead of the enemy.
Yet, not everyone has been persuaded that this war requires a wartime mentality—even those within the White House.
It wasn't until this week that the Department of Homeland Security got around to asserting itself and requiring airlines to submit names of passengers on flights bound for the United States prior to takeoff so they could be compared with "no-fly" lists of suspected terrorists. Airlines had resisted because flights might be delayed, and illogically submitted names after flights were airborne.
As the leader of the war on terror, President Bush must order DHS to allocate its $40 billion budget based on threat risks, not political pork. Shortchanging U.S. cities targeted by terrorists and disproportionately funding unrelated programs in pet congressional districts is absurd.
So, too, has been DHS' incomprehensibly sluggish response to screening air and sea cargo entering the United States. A sizeable explosion in a major port could shut down vital shipping for months.
And what of the Bush administration's coddling of the chemical industry and companies' unwillingness to spend on tighter, 'round-the-clock security at urban installations where a terrorist bomb might detonate fumes of lethal toxins for miles in all directions?
Although the Transportation Security Administration has been thorough in banning airline passengers from carrying a wide range of personal items on flights, it needs to give as much emphasis to detecting people as it does to detecting things.
For decades Israel has successfully trained security screeners in behavioral characteristics to identify terrorists. This proven system is a must for U.S. airports.
The traveling public has shown its stamina and patience in accepting screening and security precautions that are bothersome as well as inconvenient.
If the Bush administration is serious about this war, now it most reject industry resistance to security measures as well as light a fire under homeland security bureaucrats to close gaps that could provide terrorists easy ways to carry out their murderous plans.
