"Maxprop" wrote
Max's memory is has greater longevity and is far less selective than you'd
like to believe. What you have conveniently overlooked is that your analogy
is entirely inappropriate for several reasons: 1) Our enemy (USSR) was
easily identified and nicely compartmentalized. Al Qaeda is neither. .....

On the contrary, while al Qaeda - Islamic Extremism - is more spread out it is
just as easily identified and dealt with.

Dealing with the Soviet missle threat was simple--MAD, or mutual assured
destruction, kept both sides from pushing buttons for almost half a century.
We have no such arrangement with Islamist terrorists.

The Soviets were rational, religious zealots are not, so one must deal with them
more directly. Saddam was doing an excellent job of that in Iraq - he simply
killed them out of hand! In the short term we should follow his example rather
than making life harder for our own people. In the long term we must replace
"schools" that teach radical Islamists to kill "infidels" with moderate schools
that teach the three R's - right after we hang the mullahs running them.

Our war with terrorists is more like a war against rodents. A population of
rodents can be virtually invisible, but inflicting constant and persistent
damage. You can't threaten rodents, and you can't simply aim a bunch of
missles at them and expect them to cease and desist. You take the war to
them, with traps, poisons, and by blocking their entry into your zone of
occupation. ....

True, but as you have pointed out there is NO effective way to block their
entrance, so we'll have to accept a few rats in the house til they can be killed
while we take the war to them with traps, poisons and more. I gotta believe that
a few flame-throwing tanks would help but I'm an amateur - we otta consult
Saddam and Chemical Aly.