GROUND ZERO, New York City, Mar. 13--It's a stretch of geopolitical hubris to imagine that a 37-year-old Serbian graphic designer has hammered out a solution to dealing Terrorism while a world of diplomatic Titans spit, argue and harangue one another over what to do next.
         The Serbian’s name is Dejan Medic.  He was quoted in today's NY Times as saying:  "It's crunch time.  Either people are going to get serious and take on the criminals trying to undermine our country or we're doomed."

        Mr. Medic's comments follow the recent assassination of Serbian Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic, a reformer who helped overthrow Slobodan Milosevic and send him to face trial on charges of orchestrating genocide in the Balkans.  Djindjic was shot by a sniper as he was getting into his car.
         Serbia, formerly Yugoslavia, has been wracked by internal conflict since the collapse of communism in 1989. Prime Minister Djindjic was trudging a path of stabilizing the fractionalized Balkan state.  His death leaves a leadership vacuum, and chalks up another more notch on Terrorism's war club.
        The assassination also, as Mr. Medic so clearly states in the Times, shifts the leadership responsibility from the politicians and power-seeking into the laps of Serbia’s 10.5 million Parents and Citizens of Vigilance.
        Terrorism--the act of inflicting physical or emotional Fear, Intimidation and Complacency upon an individual, group or society--cannot be managed by government alone.    Government, at its best or worst, is not Terrorism’s gatekeeper, its Sentinel of  Vigilance.  At best, it can keep its radar beamed, at the worst, it can spew apologies for being inept at counting the ants crawling around the elephant’s foot.   
        Government, in real terms, has no power to manage the grass roots nature of Terrorism--i.e., it cannot stop a suicide bomber from walking onto a crowded bus. (If that were possible, the most Terrorist-aware nations such as Israel would have solved that problem).   It cannot halt a sniper from taking down the innocent, as evidenced by the shooting spree around Washington D.C. when 13 Americans were randomly killed.  Governments cannot keep 18 madmen from flying airplanes into World Trade Centers, or halt a Serbian sniper from killing a Prime Minister bent on eradicating crime and corruption from his nation.
         The true role of  TerrorHunting begins with Parents, Citizens and Loved Ones of Vigilance who realize that to combat the Beast of Terror on emotional and physical levels, every degree of Fear must be balanced with Courage, each ounce of Intimidation neutralized by Conviction, and all shrouds of Complacency ripped away by Right Actions in behalf of the Children’s Children’s Children. 
         Abdicating the role of TerrorHunter to governments is about as logical as expecting the head of a nation’s Homeland Security to drop what he or she is doing and run into your neighborhood and lock your doors at night, check all your windows to insure they are shut, and assure your children there are no bogeymen under the bed or lurking in the closet.
          Terrorism is an insidious virus.  Its germ grows in the Petri dish of human emotions, erupting into states of violence when it finds fertile fields of chaos,  or  wallows in an environment of confusion or disorder such as Serbia where it can easily inject its venoms of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency with impunity. 
          As with the Serbian sniper, or the Nine Eleven attack, Terrorism yearns to cast its scurrilous shadow upon the innocent, forcing them to cower, whimper and cry in desperation, or, worse, to accept the Shadow of The Beast as a "way of life."   Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il have long ruled as Beast Shadows, driving fear into the hearts of all who might stand in their way.
         Tyrants and despots understand all they have to do to maintain control over Fear, Intimidation and Complacency is to shoot missiles into empty oceans as threats of things to come, or to warn the world that if it is attacked they will unleash biochemical weapons, or, as in the most recent example, kill a Prime Minister in broad daylight.
           On the Richter Scale of world events, the assassination of Prime Minister Djindjic will probably not nudge the needle in contrast to what is currently quaking the world --Iraq, the future of the U.N., North Korea, and an ugly spate between Europe and America over who rules the world.

          But, if one turns an ear to the "Voice in the wilderness" such as Mr. Medic’s, his twenty-four words trumpet a solution as well pitched as Joshua’s fabled horn that knocked down the walls of Jericho. Let me repeat them. 
        "It's crunch time.  Either people are going to get serious and take on the criminals trying to undermine our country or we're doomed."
         At first, his comment may seem innocuous.   But if inspected for its Vigilance Virtue, it has power beyond imagination.
         Let’s look at what I call his Serbian Mandate.
         His solution is the word "people."   Serbia's government, as almost all governments from Israel to the United States, is unable to provide protection of its leaders or citizens.  When a leader is assassinated, it reminds us all how easily we can be “eliminated.”   It is also an endorsement that government, if it cannot protect its leader from Terrorism, can do little for the lowly citizen.  Such acts validate that domestic as well as foreign security is the duty of the citizen, not the government.
         In Medic's frustrated view, he sees the "people" as the final alternative to restoring order in his war-racked country.   Either people are going to get serious…
        He also defines the impact of Terrorism on his county, and, its objective worldwide.   He uses the words "criminals trying to undermine our country,"  to express how  Terrorism--Fear, Intimidation and Complacency—gnaws and ingests the foundations of society.
          Specifically, his use of the word “criminal” can be exchanged with no apologies to the word “Terrorist,” for I see little difference between the two.
             To be criminal, under law, one must have what is termed "mens rea," or an evil intent.   An evil intent is evidence of one knowing the difference between "right" and "wrong" and choosing wrong over right--that is, violating the rights of others to achieve one's selfish goals.
             For example, in the case of Saddam Hussein, is his intent evil?   Does he seek to develop, use or sell weapons of mass destruction?   How about Kim Jon Il?   Is his intent evil--would he deploy nuclear weapons to control his greedy grip on leadership of his ravaged nation at his citizen's and the world's expense?  Some mud slingers might include George Bush in this arena, suggesting his intent is to "dominate the world" and he's fighting a war for oil, thus he has "evil intent."  (Were America a conquering nation that deposed one tyrant and became another, I might agree, but alas, this is not the historic case.   America fights for people, liberates them, and stands up while they throw garbage at them--i.e. France and Germany.)
             This word "criminal" is vital to the Serbian Mandate, for it brings Terrorism out of the alien category into the domestic.  It means that a father or mother abusing a child in a home is acting criminally, and, therefore, as a Terrorist.  

         Mr. Medic's point, while germinated from utter frustration, means to me that "criminals" or "Terrorists" are termites.  They are, in his words, "undermining our country."  That translates into weaving Fear, Intimidation and Complacency into the fabric of social justice and social security.   It means a child can't walk the streets in safety, and a parent can't expect a policeperson to rush to his or her rescue against evil forces.  It means that no one is free from the Beast of Terror's Shadow.                 "Crunch Time," as Mr. Medic so eloquently points out, means there is a time in every citizen's life when he or she realizes that individuals must stand up to Terrorism.
            On a grander scale, America is in the throes of "Crunch Time."  For more than a dozen years the U.N. has sat back and allowed Saddam Hussein to develop his weapons of mass destruction.   In yesterday's VigilanceVoice article, I noted how Saddam Hussein killed his two sons-in-law because they defected to Jordan in 1995 and gave U.N. weapons inspectors information on all Saddam's weaponry, including a host of horrid biochemical ones.
            As the years passed, Saddam, a clear and present "criminal" who uses Terrorism to rule his nation, his arrogance grew.   Then the "people" reached "crunch time," only the "people" who elected "crunch time" were not Iraqi people.   They were Americans.

            Post Nine Eleven it became clear that Terrorism could be exported from any place on the globe, and that what fed it were nations such as Iraq whose leaders have no compunction about selling their weapons of mass destruction to anyone.  Kim Jong Il's great threat to the world is his lack of conscience.   To maintain his power, he is more than capable of doing whatever is in his best interests, not necessarily the best interests of his nation or the world.  Were he to be truly interested in his nation, he wouldn't let them starve while he placed half his country's revenues into shoring up his military might.
           "Crunch Time" is that convergence between Complacency and Right Action.   It is the crossing point of moral duty and immoral neglect.    The United States chose to not wait for the United Nations to act.  It based its decision on a dozen years of toothless management of a known Terrorist, a human rights criminal, and a man who killed his grandchildren's fathers and dragged their bodies through Baghdad, let alone invaded another country and has vowed to unleash deadly weapons of mass destruction if attacked.
           In Serbia, graphic artist Medic, has reached the same point that President Bush stands at today--Crunch Time.    Both realize that unless Terrorism is destroyed at its roots by the people, it will keep proliferating, cancerously gnawing until it consumes the Children's Children's Children.

         Mr. Medic also knows the only alternative to "inaction" is "doom."   His statement--"It's crunch time.  Either people are going to get serious and take on the criminals trying to undermine our country or we're doomed."--does not stray far from President Bush's hard-line that America will disarm Saddam with or without the support of the United Nations.    Both know society is "doomed" if we sit back and try to negotiate with known Terrorists, known criminals of humanity.
        The rub in all this revolves around the world "people."   Ultimately, it means that each individual must take on the duty of Homeland Security.   Each must stand up to Terrorism in all its many forms, including the smallest drop of Fear, Intimidation and Complacency.
          It means that citizens not only of America or Serbia, but of all nations, must become a Sentinel of Vigilance, must drive his or her selfishness to the side and look long at the horizon to the future of the Children's Children's Children to spark the Courage, Conviction and energy to take the Right Actions that will secure the future of generations to come.
         This is a major shift in the idea of security, for it removes the responsibility of it from the heads of nations to the people.   It forces the people of all nations to no longer sit back and wait for "someone" to take charge.
          That's the "Crunch" in Mr. Medic's "Crunch Time."  
          Doom is not an option.  Mr. Medic knows it and so does President Bush.   But France, Germany, Russia and the U.N. at large seem to ignore it, favoring instead attacks on the issue of Crunch Time.  The U.N. is trying to manage Crunch Time.  They are waiting for the Termites of Terrorism to collapse the world, and then, and only then, rush in with ambulances and aid to patch up the survivors.
         No more.
         Mr. Medic and Mr. Bush both know it's Crunch Time for Serbia and Iraq.
         And, it's Crunch Time for the world.

         It's time for every Parent and Citizen of Vigilance to stand up and stop watching CNN and shout:  "It's Crunch Time."
         You can start today.  Take the Pledge of Vigilance.   Mr. Medic has!  Only he calls it the Serbian Mandate:  "It's crunch time.  Either people are going to get serious and take on the criminals trying to undermine our country or we're doomed."

Mar. 12--Why Grampa Saddam Hussein Killed His Grandkids' Fathers