What can be done about terrorism?

• Author: Freeh, Louis J.

Hundreds of special agents have been assigned to the FBI's Counterrorism Program and legal attaches are working with foreign law enforcement officials to combat, respectively, domestic and overseas-based threats against Americans.

The bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City brought terrorism to the nation's heartland. It also brought terrorism into countless living rooms across the nation - with images so graphic they shall not, indeed can not, be forgotten. This was another example of the immense suffering Americans have endured at the hands of terrorists:

* April, 1983: The U.S. Embassy in Beirut, Lebanon, was bombed, leaving 16 dead and more than 100 injured.

* October, 1983: The U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut was bombed, resulting in 241 deaths. 9 June, 1985: TWA Flight 847 was hijacked. U.S. Navy diver Robert Stethem, who was on board, was brutally murdered, his body dumped on the airport tarmac.

* February, 1988: Marine Lt. Col. William Higgins-part of the United Nations peacekeeping force in Lebanon-was kidnapped and later murdered.

* December, 1988: Pan Am Flight 103 was blown up over Lockerbie, Scotland, with 270 killed.

* February, 1993: New York City's World Trade Center was bombed by Islamic extremists, leaving six dead and hundreds injured.

* March, 1995: American diplomatic personnel were murdered in a hail of machine gun fire on the streets of Karachi, Pakistan.

Terrorists also perpetrated the murder of athletes at the 1972 Munich Summer Olympics, bombings in Buenos Aires, Paris, and London, and poison gas attacks in Tokyo's subway system.

Although there are different types of terrorism, one common thread in all of these dreadful crimes is that the innocent suffer. Too many Americans have been victimized by terrorists, in the U.S. and other countries.

It is essential that terrorism be viewed in broad terms. Inevitably, it is fueled by extreme hatred. Those who harbor such hatred live in a world that is colored by bigotry, shaded by conspiracy, and framed by ignorance. Some claim there are plots to take control of the world's financial markets and the mass media and to surrender the U.S. to foreign military control. Others direct their ire at corporate America and evolving technology. Paranoia drives some to lash out at anyone unlike themselves.

Take the Unabomber suspect, for example. This self-described terrorist, who is responsible for murdering three persons and injuring 23 others, followed up his most...