Lacking a comprehensive, bold strategy to eliminate Islamist terror altogether, like the one President Bush demanded of counterterrorism officials in his own administration in early 2001, authorities in England and the Philippines engaged in half-measures today in the war on terrorism.

In England, eight terrorism suspects were arrested and half a ton of ammonium nitrate was seized.

In the Philippines, four members of the terrorist group Abu Sayyaf were arrested and 36 kilograms of TNT were seized.

Philippines president Gloria Arroyo boasted that this use of a Clintonesque, law-enforcement approach to the terror war prevented "a Madrid-level attack" in her country. President Arroyo failed to acknowledge that, in spite of the fact that the arrests may have prevented the loss of dozens if not hundreds of innocent lives, Islamist terror networks still exist throughout the world.