Run, Hide, Tell? How about fight?

Terrorism is not going away anytime soon.

First off, let's not kid ourselves . . . it's not terror, it's war.  

Terrorism follows the pattern of frightening the public with a repeated list of demands.  It is meant to wear down a public through fear and eventually get them to the point of capitulation to an organization's goals.

So what are the jihadist's goals?

Yesterday a man in France used a hammer on a policeman in France saying, 
"this is for Syria."

Yesterday was about Syria.  Last week it was about God being great.  The Manchester bombing was believed to have been planned on the anniversary of the death of Lee Rigby.  There are no unifying aims coordinated to pursue a single goal of the Palestinians, Syrians, Egyptians, Saudis, Hezbollah, Al Aqsa, ISIS or just those that hate Israel.  The purposes for these violent outbreaks are all over the map.

That is not terrorism - that's war.  These are battles.  Radicalized Islam is at war with the Western World or the Western World is in the crossfire of Jihad in the most bizarre way - it doesn't involve holding land or claiming countries.  It wages war by never going away.  

It is never going away.  We can't run from it.

Which brings me to the "Run, Hide, Tell" policy of the London police.  An adaptation of the American, "run, hide, fight" protocol of an active shooter, the police are advising the public to have a response ready when terrorists strike.  Instead of freezing up, they want people to run or hide (or do both) and then let the police know what is going on.

The plan saved many lives in the latest waves of attacks in England because people actually had a plan.  No one played the hero - they got out of the way for the police to do their job.  

I don't disagree with the basic idea - but there is something that just doesn't sit right with me.

If we are in a war, maybe this is the time to be a hero.

If they are never going away, then why are we running?  Maybe we should aim to stop the attack the second it starts - with as many bodies as possible smothering the attacker.

I think of almost 75 years ago yesterday how tens of thousands of our young stepped onto a beach and ran into gunfire because we were at war with evil.  2500 men died that day, but tens of thousands lived on to defeat Hitler.  We changed the world by stepping into danger.

Those were soldiers, not civilians, I get it.  

But if this is a war and they are bringing it to our cities and civilians, then maybe we shouldn't be running and hiding.