Fighting the last war in the GWOT

Globalization of Terrorism Obliges Police Constantly To Adapt Response:
"The old continent has barely converted to the pre-emptive arrest of suspect terrorists, but the profile of the new extremists, sometimes disconnected from the terrorist networks, now makes this method less effective."

The article cites examples of recent arrests in Europe which involved individuals and small groups embarking on careers in Islamic terrorism without any definite link to a higher leadership structure like Al Qaeda.

This is a serious part of the problem, but by no means new. The man who shot up the Israeli airline ticket counter at LAX was a classic lone gunman acting on his own. So was Sirhan Bishara Sirhan who said he shot US Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-NY) on the night of the California presidential primary in June of 1968 because of Kennedy's position on the Israeli-Palestinian controversy.

It isn't enough to to wait for these folks to fall for the radical Islamic line and give themselves away. As Dr. Daniel Pipes of the Middle East Forum keeps saying, the answer to radical Islam has to be moderate Islam.

Of course, as the recent undercover TV report on British mosques makes clear, there aren't as many moderate voices of Islam, even in the West, as Western leaders like Bush and Blair keep telling us there are. I suspect Nicolas Sarkozy will have fewer illusions on that subject if he is elected to lead France.