If you teach a man to fish...

Speaking at the Global Terrorism and International Cooperation Symposium, [General] Pace called for patience and collaboration, repeating U.S. assertions that it will be a long campaign.

"Iraq and Afghanistan will over time become stable," he said in a keynote address. "But the war on terror will continue long after Iraq and Afghanistan have had success in standing up their own governments."

Pace also told the crowd that military action alone will not be enough. Economic growth, good education systems and solid governments also are necessary to quell terrorism. [Yahoo News]

This is not the first time I have said that you cannot kill an ism, and terrorism is one of the hardest to stamp out because it is such an effective weapon. What surprises me is that General Pace is not as dumb as most of the current members of the Administration seem to be. Either that or he has very good writers because he is bang on with the solution of one of the root causes of the current round of unrest, that being lack of anything better to do because the economies of these nations are in the tank. Solid governments only evolve from good economic drivers (or strong dictators) and the middle east region has been economically out of whack (I want to say depressed, but it has the wrong connotation) for so long that no one quite knows what to do. A danger that is lurking in the United States as well, but that is a different issue.