Could be the new atrocities just haven't happened yet, suppressed by countermeasures with our nation standing on Orange Alert. But what about tomorrow, and the year after that, and the decade after that? We need a sensible framework in which to think, plan, and act. Living in constant dread of revenge attacks, while trying to keep our heads down in neo-pacifist isolationism, is the exactly wrong perspective for Americans to take. There's no way to appease a homicide bomber.

Every culture has its share of sociopaths -- to be fair, including ours: the Oklahoma City bomber, or the two car snipers in Maryland. If vicious Islamicist demagogues hope to capitalize on this fact in their own populations, our job as the world's policeman is to flush them and make the arrests. If you disagree with my underlying philosophy here, recall that America's role as earth's top cop has been forced on us repeatedly by events outside our borders for many years. I don't see this as something we do out of choice or for the fun of it. (And it's not about being the sole superpower, either. That sort of rhetoric, founded on envy, is only a red herring now. It's much more like we're filling the role of police chief.)

Let our actions show other countries -- including Muslim ones -- that for the second time since 9/11/01, in Iraq as we did in Afghanistan, our goal is only positive: local self-determination free from tyranny.

But to homicide bombers everywhere, our wisest posture is perhaps to be extremely pragmatic, and think of them as what they truly are, dead men and dead women walking. Seize the tactical initiative for ourselves in the War on Terror, and exploit it to the full with the momentum we already have. Compress the timeline of events down to a rapid pace of our own choosing, and protect ourselves most strongly from each corpse-to-be's worst intent. There are ways that this can be done, because even an unstable homicide bomber is human. Everyone has their hot-buttons, their emotional vulnerabilities and also flaws in their mental defenses. Everyone, therefore, is subject to covert manipulation. And every group can be infiltrated, eavesdropped against, detected when on the move or when trying to talk.

The fundamental question is, Do we wait for the "mules," the bomb-carriers in this modern kamikaze campaign, to strike us first, or do we go after them? Every sane doctrine of warfare says to take the latter course. Layers of protection and preemptive attack-at-source are crucial.

We can strive to solve the social ills that give the homicide bombers a lot of their impetus, but this sort of solution might take forever and thus might fail. We can try to undermine their confidence in their own leaders, who can never claim that they're setting a good example for them by leading from in front! We can seek to help them see for themselves the futility of their methods, by pointing out how little those who went before them achieved beside senseless deaths. But the latter approaches assume they have rational minds.

What's left is to think of homicide bombers as bullets -- that is, as ammo. In that case the optimal strategy is to goad their decision-makers into squandering the ammunition stocks.

There are effective techniques for accomplishing this, when the munitions are people: Bait them and their leadership, taunt them to draw them all out, through Special Forces sneaky tricks and psychological ops. Let them hurl themselves against our best, forward-deployed, prepared and alerted bastion targets -- soon, not months or ages from now -- and throw back at them the insulting slogan, "Die now while supplies still last." In this manner the modern plague they represent might burn itself out.

If this sounds a bit blood thirsty or callous, remember they're the ones who started it. If I seem to advocate that our whole nation and our friends might become the front lines, then wake up! We're all in the front lines already. It's the terror-mongers who started that too. They won't go away by themselves. We and they are locked in an unforgiving, brutal conflict -- one it does not pay to over-intellectualize.

This suggested plan-of-attack does raise some rather hard-nosed questions. Can our homeland security forces clamp the lid on homicide bombers and weapons of mass destruction quickly enough? They darned well better. Can we get the kinks out of our upgraded staffing, procedures, and laws, before the bad guys find a loophole they can ooze through? Pray for success.

One way or another, it's vastly better in the long run to get the messy stuff over with fast.

This problem of lethal "pest control" can be made intense and finished quickly, or allowed to get deep under our skin and drag on endlessly. The former approach, I posit, though maybe more painful in nearsighted terms, is optimal for us when seen from a sharp wide-angle view of America's future. A lengthy, simmering fight would prove debilitating, draining. Let's take the inevitable hits while we have our guard up, get it over with quickly, grieve, and move on with life for the living, a thriving life without this awful fear. Uncertainty undermines us.

To repeat for emphasis, now, while we hold the initiative and have the momentum, now is the time to shake the trouble-makers from the trees. The falling "fruits" will come in all varieties and fronts. Some, like North Korea and Iran, we maybe talk to and reason it out. Some, like low-level al Qaeda mules we interdict, we put in prisons. Some, like the Palestine Authority versus Israel, we work with and follow a roadmap to peace. And some, like Saddam Hussein or bin Laden -- or a hundred new bin Ladens if that's what's actually involved -- we help hurry to early graves with no regrets and no looking back.

More Americans, and more men and women among our Allies, will almost certainly die as we fight this necessary fight. Some victims will wear the uniform of their countries overseas, while others will be civilians killed at home. More collateral damage and innocent foreign casualties are sure to happen also, no matter how hard we try to avoid it. The Muslim States must learn they're not immune to these very same dangers, as extremist sects if left unchecked will pull the Arab world down into anarchy.

Closure must be accomplished on what the terrorists of 9/11 began. Otherwise a new cancer will have been unleashed upon the world, and will metastasize emboldened until no nation, no person, of any creed or any religion anywhere is safe.

JoeBuff.Com / Joe Buff Inc. Joe Buff, President Dutchess County, New York E-Mail readermail@JoeBuff.Com