Terrorism One Of Many Losing Battles

Remember how quickly we won the war against terrorism?

Remember how easy it was for us, the greatest superpower the world has ever
seen, to wipe out the nasty global network of al-Qaida terrorist cells that
had so suddenly brought thousands of deaths and a perpetual state of
insecurity to our happy homeland?

Didn't think so.

We'll be fighting -- and not winning -- the war against terrorism for
decades. Long after Osama is dead, long after a Saddam-free Iraq becomes
the Switzerland of the Middle East, we'll still be standing in lines at
airports and duct-taping our dens.

Why? Because, says the current Foreign Policy magazine, the war against
global terrorism -- like the wars governments have waged for centuries
against the illegal trade in drugs, arms, intellectual property, people and
money -- is almost impossible to win.

In its cover story, "Five Wars We're Losing," Foreign Policy shows how
impossible it is for modern governments to defeat stateless, decentralized
networks of well-financed, highly dedicated individuals that move freely,
quickly and stealthily across national borders.

Whether they're terrorists blowing up bridges for religious or political
reasons, or creepy cocaine smugglers seeking high profits, the bad guys
have increasing advantages over governments today, says Foreign Policy
editor Moises Naim.

Thanks to globalization, illegal markets are bigger and more lucrative than
ever. And thanks to all the wonders of the modern age, the bad guys are
better "armed" and more agile than the cumbersome government bureaucracies
that he says are still fighting with obsolete tools, inadequate laws and
dumb methods.

The war on drugs is the most infamous war we're losing. The illicit drug
biz, worth $400 billion a year worldwide, dwarfs illegal arms trafficking,
but both are more successful than ever.

So is people-smuggling. It's a $7 billion-a-year global industry involving
millions of humans, including 200,000 children who are enslaved each year
in Central and West Africa and those who voluntarily pay $35,000 to have
themselves smuggled into New York City from China.

The biggest illegal industry is money laundering. Because computers,
electronic money transfers and slippery part-legal/part-illegal financial
trickery make regulation nearly impossible, it's now worth between $800
billion and $2 trillion.

Naim says flat out that governments can never win these wars unless they
start coming up with new, better, smarter ways to fight them. Governments
have to cooperate more and strengthen multilateral outfits such as
Interpol, which fights international crime with a paltry force of 112
police officers.

But more important, he says, governments should begin trying to regulate
these illicit global businesses rather than trying to repress them with
even tougher laws and ever more Coast Guard patrols.

Naim, who points out that governments also are losing their worldwide wars
against illegal trade in human organs, endangered species, stolen art and
toxic waste, doesn't advocate making heroin sales legal or allowing weapons
of mass destruction to be sold at Wal-Mart.

But he says if governments -- and everyone else -- want to start winning
these wars, they should wise up and look for ways to use market-friendly
regulations instead of restrictive (and often self-defeating) laws that
only screw up the balance of supply and demand and create high-profit
opportunities for bad guys.