Confronting the Threat
The aspiration of these radical Muslims is to make Islam the world's dominant religion. This kind of messianism and totalitarianism is almost incomprehensible in the West, with its long tradition of cherishing the life and liberty of every man, woman, and child. With 20 million Muslims in Europe, a population likely to double over the next 20 years, national borders are no defense against the insidious ideology of radical Islam.
What should America do?
First, we must tighten our scrutiny of people coming here. Most second-generation European Muslims are citizens of the European Union and, as such, eligible for U.S. visa waivers, which permit them to pass through U.S. immigration checkpoints easily. Greater scrutiny of such visitors is needed immediately. Two, we must harden our determination not to compromise with Muslim terrorism or explain it away by any mealy-mouthed "understanding" of it. "Explanations" of terrorism are unforgivable. It isn't war; it's murder. Terrorists aren't soldiers; they're criminals. Third, we must increase security funding for public transport by land, rail, and buses, where 16 times as many people travel every day as they do in airplanes. This must be done on a risk-based formula, as supported by the 9/11 commission--not as another pork-barrel program for greedy congressmen.
Fourth, we must invest more in intelligence and revise overly restrictive rules on its dissemination and use.
Today, we face a threat to the most fundamental values of our free and democratic way of life. In this modern version of the Thirty Years' War, there is only one objective: We must prevent the 21st century from becoming the century of terrorism.
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