ET CETERA

NIGHT CAP

Where's The Game Plan?

LAmF s

By Harry Kirsbaum

ol. Henry Blake [to brain surgeon
and college football star Dr. Oliver
"Spearchucker"Jones at football
practice]: "I had another idea. I think
we should have some plays. You know,
usually in football you have some orga-
nized plays ..."
Spearchucker:"If you don't mind, I
took the liberty!'
Col. Blake: "Oh, you have ..."
Spearchucker:"I drew up about
seven or eight plays. I figure that's
about all this bunch can handle:'
Col. Blake:"Oh, these are good. These
are very good. Uh, what are these little
arrows?"

C

- M*A*S*H, 1970, Roger Altman movie.

Yes, we all need some plays. A game
plan would be nice, too. Especially
when dealing with terrorist groups in
general.
Now that everyone in the adminis-
tration agrees on the semantics (war,
major counterterrorism operation,
whatever), a long-term strategy is sore-
ly needed against the latest headline-

grabbing terrorist group.
ISIL, (or ISIS, or whatever),
a more murderous version
of Al Qaeda, challenged
I
the U.S. last week in a video
called "Flames of War"that
was promptly taken down
by social media. The production value
of this video was far more sophisticated
than the typical video speech by an Al
Qaeda leader sitting against a cave wall
decorated with an AK-47.
Since ISIL has yet to use more than
guns, rocket-propelled grenades or
knives to make its point is a good sign.
It has captured jets but can't fly them.
It captured tanks but has only taken
them on joy rides that chew up city
streets. And if it captures Iraq's Haditha
Dam, I'm not sure its thirst for blood
could prevent it from keeping the
operators alive long enough to learn
how to release the water and flood the
country.
Somewhere between Lindsay Gra-
ham's "Chicken-Little strategy" and the
anti-war protesters who occupied seats

II

It

of recent congressional hearings lies
a long-term strategy to deal with this
problem.
There is no solution.The threat will
always be there; only the names of the
groups will change.
We can't arm foreign rebel fighters
like the mujahideen in 1980s Afghani-
stan or train foreign troops to defend
their own newly formed government
like the Iraq Army without risking a situ-
ation that those arms will come back to
bite us or those troops will give up their
weapons to the enemy and run.
And we can't just bomb the enemy
from the air without some support on
the ground from an army that's actually
willing to fight.
And we need a plan that withstands
the posturing of candidates during
election season.

And we need politicians in Washing-
ton to agree on something — even the
name of our enemy would be nice.
And we need a miracle.
My fear isn't another large 9-11-type
event. ISIL poses a threat of an Ameri-
can version of Israel's second intifada:
lone wolf bombings, shootings and
kidnappings.
We've dealt with big terrorist events.
Minus a few random spree killings that
usually happen on army bases, we
haven't had that steady stream of car-
nage such as bombings at train stations,
malls, coffee shops and all the other
places we usually use in relative safety.
What would happen to our economy if
regular bombings took place here?
I would hope that we could adjust
because the threat is bound to turn into
reality.
Just last week, Australia arrested 15
alleged ISIL terrorists in a plot to kidnap
random people and behead them in
public live on camera.
A note to ISIL regarding kidnapping
Americans on their own soil: If you want
to bring a knife to a gunfight — be my
guest. With an average of three guns for
every U.S. citizen, we aren't shy about
pulling the trigger.

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74 October 2014

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