Rummy Explains Why We Can Never Beat The Terrorists With Defense Alone

by John Hawkins | October 27, 2003 1:46 am

I ran across an excellent Oct 10 speech[1] by Donald Rumsfeld that explains why we have to go on the offensive against terrorists. Simply put, defense alone will never work because the terrorists will always change their tactics and hit you at your weak point. Just look at our experience in Lebanon….

“When President Reagan asked me to be a Middle East envoy, right after the 241 Marines were killed in Beirut, Lebanon, I went over there, and George Shultz was the secretary of State, and he sent me over there. The truck went into that Marine barracks and killed 241 Americans. The next week, month, and year these barricades were put all around buildings — these little concrete things. You’ve seen them; there are some out here. So then they started lobbing rocket- propelled grenades over them. So the next thing, you go down to the Corniche in Beirut, and here was the building, the British Embassy, with a metal mesh all the way around it so it drove off these rocket- propelled grenades; when they’d hit the mesh, it would bounce off. So what did the terrorists do? They go to school on you. They started hitting people going to and from work.

So, you can’t — I do not believe — I’m convinced President Bush is right. I am convinced that the way to deal with this terrorist problem is to go after them where they are and not think that we can simply hunker down here and defend against every one of those attacks. (Applause.)”

Beefing up our Homeland Security is certainly something we should do. But if we don’t aggressively go after the terrorists in their homes, in the camps where they train, in the nations that shelter them, we will be doomed to be hit over and over again with future 9/11s…or worse. In the war on terrorism, the best defense is a good offense…

Endnotes:
  1. Oct 10 speech: http://www.defenselink.mil/speeches/2003/sp20031010-secdef0582.html

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