Let me step back and propose a “big thought” on how to win the Global War on Terrorism.

Simply put, the real long-term threat to American security isn’t so much the individual insurgent as it is those ideologists, financiers, and politicians who help to motivate, train, and equip the individual Islamist. The Islamists themselves can be fought upon the battlefield or caught by internal security. It’s the infrastructure, the whole awful edifice of Islamism, that’s the much greater problem.

The terrorists fight asymmetrically. We try to fight them symmetrically. In other words, where they’re armed, we fight them with arms. Where they engage in merely criminal activity, we try to fight them using criminal laws. This is flawed thinking.

Whenever we hear of asymmetrical warfare, we hear of it in the context of it being used against the United States. But, I ask you, why couldn’t the United States fight its own enemies using asymmetrical tactics as well?

What I propose is this: in addition to using force to bring armed Islamists to heel, we should also commence the use of force against unarmed Islamists as well. Those who spread enemy propaganda, those who participate in the financing of the enemy, and those who choose to stand in proximity to the enemy are valid and legitimate targets of war. Those who retail or purchase pro-Islamist materials are legitimate targets of war. Those who donate money to terrorist groups, even to their ostensibly humanitarian or political wings, are legitimate targets as well.

Turn the tactics of the terrorists back against them. Those in the Islamic world know which Mosques are affiliated with al-Qaeda. They know which newspapers are terrorist mouthpieces. They know which politicians are pro-terrorist. They know (or can find out) who has donated money to terrorist causes and who has Jihadi material in their homes.

My plan is simple: we should wage a brutal campaign of terror against the terrorists themselves.

The local Mosque is filled with Islamists and its preacher constantly calls for Jihad? Well, then it sounds like a promising target for a car bomb.

A newspaper prints anti-Americans lies and declares that fighting Americans in Iraq is an “Islamic duty”? It sounds like the editor is practically begging to be assassinated.

A little newspaper stand sells pro-Jihadist materials? An offense like that might not quite call for an assassination. But it would be worth it to burn the place down in the dead of the night.

A television station broadcasts a telethon for ‘martyrs’? It sounds to me like an improvised explosive device left at its gate might do some good. Same for the bank which handles the deposits.

Now, I know this last point is going to be controversial, but I’ll raise it anyways: adult male children of major terrorists are, almost certainly, going to turn out to be terrorists themselves. Even if they aren’t, anything less than full cooperation with American intelligence services on their part is a sign of their complicity in the crimes of their family members. The same goes for spouses. It may even go for daughters. Hell, if we can kidnap or kill their grandparents, I’m all for it. Anything to get at the Islamists.

Now, obviously, some senior terrorists won’t care for their families at all. That’s fine. As obviously, simply killing them would be a sub-ideal solution. Instead, US intelligence should keep them under surveillance and, when a good moment arises, kidnap them and remove them to a secure location within the United States. They might then (especially minor children) be held as a means of securing the surrender of certain individuals or, better still, as part of a plan to force certain Islamists to betray their comrades-in-arms.

Now, I’m sure some people will find the idea of kidnapping the children of Islamists to be morally objectionable. So be it. So far as I’m concerned, the Islamists forfeited their right to be parents the moment they first spoke a word against the United States. That they have been allowed to continue to reproduce to this point is less a reflection of their continuing rights in this area and more of our own laziness and timidity. They’ll all be better off being raised by good Christian families in the US of A.

The terrorists are our enemies. They must be more than defeated: they must be exterminated in totality. We must erase the memory of their presence from this planet. We must not only thwart their plans, but we must wipe them out, and everyone who shares, supports, or sympathizes with their ideology as a means of cleansing our race of its sins.

Total war, relentless aggression without the slightest trace of mercy, is what is called for in the face of this enemy.