DID THE MUMBAI TERRORISTS HAVE TO BE STATE-TRAINED? NOPE...

The Mumbai terrorists didn't do anything which wasn't already done by other jihadists in Fallujah or Ramadi or so many other towns they took over using TERROR. So I think they might have easily been the enemy's Iraqi War vets, and not jihadist trained by rogues within Pakistan's ISI.

More importantly, I think hypothesizing about the terrorist's organization and organizational means is a total distraction.

I think the key to winning the WAR is demolishing the ideology which motivates them to attack.

That is ISLAM.

I think there are a few non-military means of attacking that ideology we should use:

1 - ON CLASSICALLY LIBERAL AND STRICTLY HUMANITARIAN GROUNDS we can and should isolate all nations which permit islamo-misogyny. Kick them out of every Western club: the UN, the IMF, the World Bank, GATT/WTO. We should no more accept islamo-misogyny than accept slavery based on race.

Islamo-misogyny in the Muslim home is the matrix in which jihadism grows; it's the how they turn children into jihadis; it teaches them that a class of humans - women in their own family - are mere chattel. This is one of the first lessons they learn. They first learn to dehumanize the women in their family and then the men outside their tribe. After that they learn that the men and women outside their religion are - in their minds - justifiably targets of genocide.

As long as Muslim children learn islamo-misogyny Muslim adults will commit terror.

2 - We should stop buying anything from these nations. YES; ANYTHING -INCLUDING OIL. This means we have to build nuclear and coal power plants and wind farms etc. And it means we have to extract all the oil we can from ALL domestic sources. ALL - including ANWR.

3 - We need to demand that RELIGIOUS FREEDOM is available to all humans everywhere, and shun all nations which don't allow religious freedom. AND THIS MEANS SAUDI ARABIA, TOO.

4 - Military counter-attacks have a place to - wee MUST stay on the offensive and be willing to use ANY weapon in our arsenal - and we have to make the enemy realize we will. ALL WEAPONS - AND HARSH/SEVERE INTERROGATION TECHNIQUES.

This will give us a better deterrent with many of them - especially the state sponsors who have some degree of "plausible deniability". For example, we have to tell Pakistan that if they cannot control the FATA that we shall consider it non-territorial and feel free to attack at will. (As it stands now, the Pakistanis get to have their cake and eat it, too: arguing we cannot have free-range in their territory, but then failing to police it themselves).

This strategy could actually win WW4.