The Liberty Lamp: Libertarian News & Editorials

Counter-terrorism, or the practice of investigating and capturing or killing suspected terrorists has been a big issue among foreign policy and national security experts for many years prior to September 11th, 2001. The response to international terrorism has been largely a military one, based on obsolete Cold War strategies and tactics. It is true that Al Qaeda has been largely disrupted as a centralized, effective organization. Decentralized splinter groups are far less capable, but they are still a problem to be dealt with.

In this new essay, the author gives a good overview of the current national security situation, what the federal government is currently doing, and what should be improved. The argument focuses around three major suggestions:

1. The US military must be restructured to deal with a terrorist threat. Special Operations forces should be relied on, supported by improved intelligence gathering technology and pinpointed, targeted killings if live capture is not feasible. Doing this would improve the military's success, and reduce spending by as much as 50%!

2. The War on Drugs must end. Lacking state sponsorship after the end of the Cold War, terrorists have begun to finance many of their operations, including the Madrid train bombings in 2005 via funding from the illegal opium trade. Legalizing these drugs would cause prices to drop exponentially, thus robbing terror groups of their lucrative funding strategy.

3. Restore Americans' individual right to bear arms. Police can't be everywhere, and an armed, population would be more capable in deterring terrorist and generic criminal activity.

Click the title link to view this article, in PDF format.

Labels: federal government, military, war on drugs, war on terror