COLUMN: I Don't Know, but Here's What I Think

Image by Julio Martinez via Flickr

By Tobin Barnes
Admittedly, I have absolutely no background or expertise to discuss the following. But then, when has that ever stopped me?

Nevertheless, I am, as are most of you, a very interested observer of the world scene, and I, like you, have my opinions. So here they come.

But yet I hope I won’t appear as presumptuous here as Alfonso the Wise, who said, “If I had been present at creation, I would have given some useful hints.” Let’s just say I have a few modest proposals to throw out there. And I’ll qualify my assumptions much as Bette Midler did with, “I never know how much of what I say is true.”

Anyway, this on-going, never-ending War on Terror has me concerned. How about you? Now we’ve got underwear bombers in addition to shoe bombers and the potential carry-on snack and soft drink bombers. Travel life has become painfully circumscribed as well as too often tedious.

Here’s the War on Terror situation:

We’re going to have to have more things scanned and prohibited and, it looks like, revealed: our underwear and even what’s under our underwear.

As for my personal whole-body scan, I say to any potential TSA screener, “Hey, Buddy, knock yourself out.” I don’t care. It’s either that or our coming to accept losing a plane every once in a while. And most of us cringed mightily during the Russian roulette scenes in the movie “Deer Hunter.”

Because the underwear bomber allegedly got his instructions in Yemen, our counter-terrorism efforts are now focusing on that 13th century lackwater. Holy-moly, how many of these self-troubled trouble spots are we going to have to attack, bomb, mop up, rebuild and hand hold? There’s a never-ending supply out there.


I read the other day that there are some ninety countries in the world with unstable, Rube Goldberg-type governments, and a goodly number of them are Muslim.

Countries with unstable governments, Muslim or not, are jam-packed with unstable, rightfully restless people who are clawing for solutions—perfect breeding grounds in the Muslim countries, if not elsewhere, for more terrorists.

And these terrorists are religiously inclined to use the ultimate weapons, not only nuclear but self-immolation. In their pinched, myopic, fundamentalist worldview, everything, from babies to old ladies, is fair game if it’s in the name of Allah. Amen.

Of course, all religions have had their crackpots who having been willing to reek mayhem on society whether society needed it or not, but these are the crackpots we’re dealing with right now. And few times has western civilization had to deal with people intent on destroying themselves and the general vicinity to make a point. Patriotism to the point of heroics is one thing, but single-minded dedication to self-destruction is a whole nother ballgame rarely played in the West.

How do you stop suicidal fanatics, especially these suicidal fanatics who think God wills what they do? The obvious answer is “Sometimes you don’t.” It’s the nasty reality of the current predicament. Suicide attacks are potent and will necessarily take their toll.

And what about the Muslim religious leaders? We often hear that Islam is a religion of peace. So why don’t we hear the outrage from the mullahs against these perversions of their beliefs? Wouldn’t muslim protests for peaceful avenues help the situation, even somewhat? Well, maybe the outrage is there, but as far as can be discerned in the West, it seems to be on the back burner.

So there’s the situation as I humbly see it. No revelations, of course, no burning bushes, but I wanted to lay the ground work for my modest proposals.

And here’s the first one: We need to change our current approach to remedy this mess and get on top of it from a position of strength, rather than guessing where the next trouble spot is going to be. Yeah, that’s right. Change the entire strategy.

Instead of invading these trouble-spots and expending young lives and borrowed treasure, we need to fight this war from outside these places, not in them. Uh huh, stay out of these cesspools and battle terrorism from outside the borders of these countries. In other words, we need to stay out of other people’s nasty back alleys.

I’ll explain this preposterous notion next time.