IT'S A SMALL WORLD, AIN'T IT?

I see disturbing news reports of American teenagers trying to leave the country to join up with ISIS. A few if them have apparently been successful . . . and I'm glad.  What disturbs me most is that we actually go to lengths to stop them from leaving because a part of me says, or rather shouts, "LET THE LITTLE BASTARDS GO!  Another thing that disturbs me is how small the world is getting to be due to all the media devices now at our disposal.  As long as we have Facebook, Twitter, global websites, cell phones, and other electronic gizmos, we're shrinking boundaries that have protected us some in the past.  Everybody seems to know what everybody else is doing these days, and that's not always good.

The war against terrorism has become one of technology, ours against theirs.  Bombs are no longer as important as we would like for them to be . . . not unless we resort to using the really big ones . . . you know, the nuclear bombs.  That's a quick and easy solution to the problem in terms of disposing of those who want to tear you down, but it presents an even bigger problem:  Who and where would we bomb?  We knew exactly who the enemy was and where they were when we nuked the Japanese back in 1945, but we can't do that with terrorists.  For one thing, if we did, we'd have to consider bombing ourselves.  We could bomb Iraq, or Syria, or Iran, or any number of middle eastern countries, but that would cause problems we might not recover from.  That would make us one of the bad guys, and we don't want to wear that tag forever.

Perhaps the solution is really in the very thing we find most threatening right now, and that the technology explosion that makes the world a smaller place.  We can no longer protect our borders because they aren't as clearly marked now.  And then there's the threat of disease, like the ebola thing. Here we become victims of our own craving for liberty, the freedom to move about at will, go where we want, do what we want, all that.  We might also be victims of our inclination to be the good guys who rush to the aid of stricken nations . . . like doctors going to Africa to help fight ebola . . . and then bringing it home with them.  We hate any form of government interference with our freedoms, even during times when we're under attack from disease or terrorists.  A good, far-reaching propaganda campaign against that might be in order . . . and some good old common sense might work too.