Investigating terrorism

Submitted by BC (United States), Jan 8, 2004 at 16:47

"The primary response [to terrorist attacks in the 90s] was to dispatch the FBI to identify individuals for prosecution. Recognizing the September 11 attack as war was a departure from the established practice. It was President Bush's seminal insight, the wisdom of which I would say is attested by the fact that it looks so obvious in retrospect."

The change of approach is indeed welcome and long overdue. But when US diplomats were murdered in Gaza recently, the Bush administration responded by, um, dispatching the FBI to identify individuals for prosecution. Reports are the Palestinians have been totally uncooperative, to the point of outright contempt. But the diplomatic repErcussions have been nil. Why is the administration engaged in outright appeasement in the one area, the Israel-Palestinian conflict, where an energetic change of approach is most desperately needed?

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