In light of the bombings in London, and the previous one in Madrid, it is has become apparent (at least in my mind) that if our country's efforts to fight terrorism is working, it isn't showing.

Let me point out something. In the 90's the only terrorist attack upon the American (or any European homeland for that matter) homeland was by a white supremacist. Suddenly, we have a new millenium, and now we've had 3 attacks by Islamic extremist groups (Al-Qaida) in Europe and the U.S. What did we do to (*)(*)(*)(*) them off? Since I'm not living in a muslim country, I couldn't tell you. (Though the president telling them to "bring it on" couldn't have helped.)

I do know that whatever it was, it was not a strategic or military thing. It was a mental thing. Which leads me to one conclusion: You can't solve a psyche problem militarily. You have to strive for social change, you have to socially engineer a society to be friendly to you.

No matter how many terrorists we kill, the negative image military action coupled with extremist propaganda allows the terrorists to recruit new followers faster than we can kill them. How can we defeat the terrorists when have the power of popular muslim opinion on their side? (Okay, the vast majority of muslims aren't extremists, but I'm sure most hold negative views of westerners.)

We have to take away our enemy's advantage. This involves a number of things. First item on the list is propaganda. If other countries want their people to hold negative views of us we need to build radio towers in nearby friendly countries and send out an opposing message. We need to improve the U.S.-run arab news channel Al Arabiya. (Currently it gets far less viewers than Al-Jazeera and another station based in Dubai that I forgot the name of.) Second, we need to push harder for democratic change in totalitarian governments. How can we hold moral high ground if we're hypocrites, supporting the Saudi government that won't let women drive cars? While we wax philosophical about freeing Iraq, we do absolutely nothing to help the victims of genocide in Sudan.

But inevitably, this process is slow and will take time. In the meantime, change is needed at home. We need some changes to how we handle homeland security. If we could take a chunk of money out of aviation security this country would be a lot safer. I honestly think that something is odd when aviation needs 18 billion, and mass transit only needs 220 billion. What do those 18 billion dollars go towards paying for anyways? I mean, the TSA is under-trained. The metal detectors can't possibly cost that much. Where the hell is all that money going? Why is it that we spend 18 billion on aviation and yet anybody is allowed to get on a bus or train without any security at all? Forget about terrorists, any wackjob can make a homemade bomb and take it on a subway train, no questions asked.

There's also the issue of state by state homeland security budgets. I'm almost absolutely certain that Idaho is not going to be the victim of a terrorist attack in the next million years. And yet we're still wasting money giving states like Idaho protection. I think we need the CIA to put together a risk assessment list. The list should rank buildings, transportation systems, power plants, and chemical facilities from Major Risk to Some Risk to Little or No Risk. Then money should be allocated based on ranking.

I also think there is the issue of the messages we send people. We treat terrorism as if it it the greatest threat our country has ever faced. I think this reflects that our country is overly pessimistic, forgetting that terrorism is nothing compared to some of the wars this nation has fought. We can't let terrorism get us down. We will never be able to completely defeat terrorism. But in order to reduce terrorism we have to understand the terrorists.

Ultimately, the goal of the terrorists is not to kill people. If that was their goal then that would make them very stupid people, because they will never be able to kill enough people to win their so-called "war against the Great Satan." They are trying to achieve recognition. They want to feel important, like they actually matter. They are like a hyperactive 5-year old on too much caffeine. So far this is where we have it all wrong. You don't tell your 5-year old off and spank him until he stops misbehaving. That gives him attention, and that's what he wants. What you do is ignore him. He may keep trying to get your attention but when you ignore him, he loses steam and eventually shuts up. This is how we can defeat terrorists. We can't tell them "You are a major problem that has to be dealt with." That's what they want. They want to be heard so that more people join them. We have to say to them, "You, terrorists, are irrelevant. You're puny and tiny. We are an elephant and you are a fly. You're a has-been, we are the now. We don't need to waste our time with you."

With no-one giving them the reaction they desire, nobody will want to join the terrorists and they will shrivel up and die.

I assume you're talking about the Oklahoma city bombing. There was also the bombing of the WTC orchestrated by good old uncle bin laden

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It is more patriotic when you don't ask questions

Orchestrated by good old uncle Bin Laden? Huh?

It sounds like you have some info that the good folks on the 9/11 commission could have used. The report states:

"Yousef ’s instant notoriety as the mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing inspired KSM to become involved in planning attacks against the United States."

Page 147, 9/11 Commission Report

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"George W. Bush surrounds himself with smart people the way a hole surrounds itself with a donut." —Dennis Miller

My guess is that the change was not in the change of U.S security strategy, but in the islamists offencive strategy.

I saw a BBC document about the subject. In the 90s the islamists terrorized almost solely other muslims. This strategy failed. It destroyed their support within the muslim masses and mobilized the authoritarian goverments against these islamist groups.

This failure obviously forced them to rethink their strategy, which they eventually did

- BtD

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"Freedom is the freedom to say that two plus two make four. If that is granted, all else follows."
[George Orwell, 1984]

Agree.
Having lived in Israel, and gone through Homeland security, I still think Homeland security is only a pathetic mirroring of what Israel has done.
(and they don't ask you to remove your shoes...)

Terrorists will go on bombing even if we ignore them. But this is not about directly fighting them. This is about socially engineering them out of existence.

It's sort of like white supremacists. In the 60s, they were all the rage. (Okay, bad pun.) But the civil rights movement socially engineered our society to be more tolerant of black people. It was a slow process, but now, 40 years later, people don't look at white supremacists as serious threats to society. They look at them as something to shake their heads at, or point and laugh at.

That is the goal. If you go to Iran, Egypt, or Saudi Arabia for that matter, extremist groups are "in". We have to work to make freedom and democracy cool again (Was it ever?) in the Middle East. (I think if one good thing has come out of the war in Iraq it's this.) We have to make terrorism outdated. When that happens, they will no longer be able to recruit the young'uns and they'll die from lack of oxygen.