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I know I don’t normally do movie reviews, but if you’re looking for a great flick to watch this weekend, rent the old 1963 classic “Jason and the Argonauts.” It’s an adaptation of the Greek myth, featuring our hero Jason the adventurer traveling around the world, fighting and conquering his foes without much trouble.

However, at the climax of the movie, he faces the dreadful Hydra monster – a beast with seven fierce, fang-filled heads. To make matters worse, whenever Jason cuts one of the heads off, it just grows back even madder than before. Jason finally wises up, goes for the monster’s heart, and saves the day. Great scene.

Well, if you can’t get the movie at Blockbuster, just turn on CNN – it’s the same story, only with a few minor changes. Our hero, President George W. Bush, has been sending troops all over the world, conquering his foes without much resistance. Yet this pesky multi-headed monster, al-Qaeda, keeps causing trouble, and no matter how many times Bush attempts decapitation, it seems to come back. In his war against terror, Bush has failed to strike at the heart of international terrorism, and so the United States continues to remain quite vulnerable to future attacks.

Now, it’s been one year, 36 weeks and two days since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington D.C. During that time the Bush administration has – like it or not – engaged in two wars, spent hundreds of billions of dollars on national security and oversaw the largest reorganization and expansion of the federal government in over half a century.

Bush guaranteed an all-out war on terror, and clearly, it’s hard to rationally challenge his recent claim that “we’re making good progress.”

But very serious questions arise over what truly constitutes progress. It’s harder to smuggle knives onto airplanes, isn’t it? Everyone gets scanned with the metal detector before getting into the Rose Bowl, don’t they? The FBI, CIA and NSA can pretty much legally track all “suspicious” people now, can’t they? Those developments keep us safe from terrorism, right?

Wrong. During the past two weeks, there has been an enormous surge in acts of terrorism around the world. In a lightening-fast suicide attack on a “westerner” complex in Saudi Arabia, 34 people were killed and 200 more were injured. And, in Morocco, five suicide bombers struck within 20 minutes of each other, killing 41 innocents. These attacks were not the work of a ragtag terrorist group – they were highly professional, highly deadly attacks, aimed at hurting Americans and other westerners.

But those attacks were overseas – what could they possibly have to do with us?

Plenty.

Intelligence reports state that al-Qaeda might be entering an “operational period worldwide,” and FBI Director Robert Mueller said that these recent terror strikes “might be a prelude to an attack in the United States.” In this heightened state of alert, LAX – the airport many UCLA students will be flying out of in a week or so – is the number one terrorist target in California.

Now, the Bush administration can continue to send U.S. troops around the globe on countless missions of “liberation.” We can conquer Syria, Iran, North Korea, France, England or Canada in our war against terror. But the attacks on the United States and our allies will continue. Vice President Dick Cheney summed up the administration’s attitude when he said, “The only sure way to security ... is to go eliminate the terrorists.” And while this proposal is of course logical (eliminating all terrorists would bring security), in reality it’s not possible. Using warfare and covert operations will only get us so far.

We must strike at the heart of terrorism – this hatred of the United States that is so pervasive in so many regions of the world. We’ve got to educate our enemies. We’ve got to help open up the economies of the oppressed nations, from where so many potential terrorists come. We need to take our war on terror off the battlefield and bring a message of peace into the schools, the mosques and the banks.

Violence only begets more violence – cutting of the hydra’s head only causes it to come back angrier. Let’s hit at the heart of terrorism, and like Jason and his Argonauts we too can enjoy a happy ending: living in a world truly safe from terror.

Ludlow is a second-year political science student. E-mail him your comments at dludlow@media.ucla.edu.