We Must Not Take The Bait

We Must Not Take The Bait is an excellent assessment of the "war" on terror and the recent bombings in Egypt. The writer notes the decade-long battle in Egypt between the government and militants.

So now the ruling Egyptian elite is challenged by two home-grown forces at once. It is challenged peacefully by its own civil society and political opposition that have launched a growing campaign to retire Mubarak after his 24 years of rule. It is also challenged violently by a brazen, self-assertive new generation of Egyptian terrorists allied to Osama Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network, who now attack the symbols of the Egyptian state head-on. This is in-your-face terrorism, by small groups of men who are not afraid of one of the mightiest Arab states that has been unable to respond to the challenge through any means other than police force—which only generates more angry, humiliated young men who become terrorists.

So what lesson should we learn from the Egyptian and London bombings:

The combination of the London and Sharm el-Sheik bombings in such close proximity to one another also highlights the dangerous new trend of terror groups and movements decentralizing and localizing all over the world, while simultaneously using more lethal techniques and materials. Harder to track down and eliminate, these neighborhood killers also are not afraid to directly challenge the great and powerful states that are their nemeses, such as the United States, England and Egypt, among others.

Gravely, we have probably now passed the tipping point in the business of producing or deterring terrorists: the policies of the United States, Britain and most Arab governments now are promoting and fostering more terrorists than they are killing, capturing or deterring. The American- and British-led global war on terror, with its purported fulcrum in Iraq, may have started to produce a new generation of skilled, wily and localized killers operating throughout the world. Including Saturday in Sharm el-Sheik.

A scary assessment - W has opened Pandora's box and now aall must suffer.