Firstly, there is nothing wrong with criticizing, as long as it is justified criticism. I am supportive of things I agree with, and critical of those things I am not.
Secondly, as I have already said in this thread, it can be better to do nothing at all than do something for the sake of doing something and making things worse.
On the ground, we have to have proper intelligence. We evidently don’t right now, as the WMD foolishness showed. We have to try to infiltrate these groups. We have to know who they are. We have to work behind the scenes. When was the last time terorrists were defeated by a massive military campaign against them? You create more terrorists than you destroy that way. Instead you work quietly, slowly cutting off their support, their funding, their lifelines.
You may have setbacks in the meantime. Attacks may happen, and that is deeply regrettable, but may well be the case. Terrorism has always been with us to some degree, and probalby already will. A knee-jerk response of new legislation, or more police powers, or declaring war against a country involved at most only peripherally, again fuels the problem rather than put it out. Do we pass more legislation every time a murder is committed? No. We learn lessons hopefully, but we don’t invent rafts of new laws.
You also have to work to not give the perception of injustice, and frankly the flame of injustice burns very brightly in this world right now. When people are bombed from 30,000ft by vastly superior technology, they feel injustice. When people look at the way the Palestinians are treated, they feel injustice. When people look at the way we trade, offering some countries special status and calling others pariahs, based on narrow economic or political aims, they feel injustice. When they feel America and other western countries can do what they like but they are tied to having to toe the line, they feel injustice. When they see thousands of children dying every say from avoidable poverty in Africa because of unfair trade rules, they feel injustice. When they see camps like Gitmo set up, that the US would decry if it were anywhere else in the world, they feel injustice.
Injustice, wrongly, leads in some to violence, and in others to vulnerability to indoctrination. The more badly-treated a person feels, the more likely they are to lash out, or turn to those who they feel have the ability to help them lash out. And they lash out at those they feel perpetrate the injustice.
There is of course a problem with extremist Islam as well, and that is less easily dealt with - but you will find their support withers on the vine if the other matters are dealt with. You are left with a small core of people who would like to do things, but have no power or influence left to do anything.
Basically, there is no easy answer. The problem is that people understandably want an easy answer to stop the ‘terror’, and want to feel comfortable with soundbites like ‘war on terror’. But, like many things in life, it isn’t an issue that can be solved easily or just by throwing enough firepower or men at it. We need patience, we need intelligence, and we need to work towards justice. Then we might make progress.
Mike
