Have Any Other Bright Ideas?

Reader Schrifty writes:

I love good old Western fun, but the reason we’re not at war is that there is no identifiable enemy. I’m sure it deflates you, not being able to use all that blustery, wonderful war vocabulary, but these terrorists are just criminals, plain and simple. Armies will never stop them, or even slow them down, but good old-fashioned policework just might.

Let’s smile when we say that Schrifty is fairly immune to facts. Here are a few for his perusal and your enjoyment:

Taliban: Identified and stopped, courtesy of American and allied armed forces.

al Qaeda: Identified, slowed down as an organization and killed by the thousands as individuals, thanks to American and allied armed forces.

Osama bin Laden: Identified, and most likely now cave dust, due to the efforts of American and allied armed forces.

Iraq’s Ba’ath regime: Identified and awaiting extinction, in due course by American and allied armed forces.

Yasser Arafat: Located and boxed in by Israeli armed forces. Can be exiled, jailed, or killed at a single order of Ariel Sharon, again by the IDF.

There are more examples, such as in the Philippines and Yemen.

I don’t mean to neglect the contributions of civilian law enforcement. Their efforts to halt terror money, arrest domestic offenders, and international cooperation with our allies’ domestic efforts are invaluable.

But if Schrifty thinks the NYPD, brave and well trained as they are, can do anything to protect us from madmen in Baghdad, Riyadh, Tehran, Pyongyang, or Bali, then I’d like to know just what his plan is.