Terrorists as criminals? duh. Follow the money

A UPI article says a General insists that we don't have a "war on terror" but merely criminal elements who should be handled by the police.

"... The way to do that is to diminish the acts of suicide bombings and car bombings to acts of criminals rather than jihadists.Tactically, the United States and its partners need to separate al-Qaida from the groups that do its bidding in service to their own local agendas, said Kilcullen..."If we can reduce this to a criminal act, the local government has the capability to act," Cheek said. "The real trick is finding the right time to do that."

Well, that's a simplistic way to put things.

I've lived in several countries who have insurgents and terrorists. Let's follow the money.

There are local thugs and paranoid schizophrenics. Fine. Get the police. Think Unibomber.

There are cults that encourage violence and get money from true believers. Think Timothy McVeigh and the London and German terror cells might be in this group: Local cults that turn to violence to protest. Again, a police matter. Alas, many Okies supect the FBI and ATF dropped the ball on investigating the funding and people behind the OKC bomb, since they had "insiders" at the cult that hatched the plot, which is why Okies refused to execute McVeigh's partner (they hope eventually we'll find who funded and taught McVeigh: the white supremist cult or AlQada in Makati).

There are thugs hired and guided by international mobs. Think Narcoterrorism, that has killed hundreds of police and judges in Colombia. And think the Russian mob. They are funded by drug money. Fine. Think Interpol.
These groups connect with each other and alas with groups that sponsor international terrorism...so you have IRA personnel training with Palestinians in Libya and later IRA personnel teaching Colombians to promote terror, and AlQuada being welcomed in Venzuela...

But what the General is overlooking is government sponsored terrorism. When Iraq, Iran, and Saudi Arabia support terror groups with money, logistics, and by giving them safe places to live and train, it is war.

So the war on terror is NOT Viet Nam (do the Democrats really want another blood bath like Cambodia or the Kurdish massacres of S.H.?) and it may or may not be Hitler ( the Saudi's spread of Wahhabism resembles the funding of communist cells and groups by the USSR and the philosophy of Trotsky more than Hitler's more conventional aggression).

The REAL parallel is the War against the Barbery Pirates.

One wonders why a General schooled in military history can be so naive...maybe there is a Marine out there who can explain to him the line in the Marine hymn "To the shores of Tripoli"....