I think the solution to terrorism is so simple.

I don't notice New Zealand, Switzerland and Sweden having much problem with terrorism.

Governments of countries first concern is the welfare of their citizens. Not profiteering for coorperations, not ruling the world, not becoming international statesmen.

If you elect a government for your country that doesn't put you as it's first concern, you get what you deserve.

I blame the apathy and ignorance of the British public for the bomb attack.

You want to know what will happen? Well basically I have looked at this from every angle and there is no stragetic answer to the problem, all that can be done is the introduction of measures to MINIMIZE the damage terrorism can cause. It is an unwinnable war, but to not fight it would be worse than anything.

Here is what will happen though, I predict. The war against terror will continue, for the plethora of reasons for individuals flocking to violent causes cannot be eliminated. Eventually there will be an attack on civilians which is positively devastating, a nuke or bio/chemical weapon strike which will wipe out tens of thousands or perhaps millions. This will be the sting countries need to propel them into drastic totalitarian measures which are designed to comprehensively ensure state security. Identity cards, tougher cross-border security, internal visas etc which will stunt the growth of our global village. Terrorism is the one incredibly pervasive and invisible force which will cause so much of civilization to retrograde. But in the meantime, the fight continues.......

I hope with the greatest sincerity my prediction is wrong.

Originally posted by hugoestr Originally posted by Constantine XI You want to know what will happen? Well basically I have looked at this from every angle and there is no stragetic answer to the problem, all that can be done is the introduction of measures to MINIMIZE the damage terrorism can cause. It is an unwinnable war, but to not fight it would be worse than anything. Here is what will happen though, I predict. The war against terror will continue, for the plethora of reasons for individuals flocking to violent causes cannot be eliminated. Eventually there will be an attack on civilians which is positively devastating, a nuke or bio/chemical weapon strike which will wipe out tens of thousands or perhaps millions. This will be the sting countries need to propel them into drastic totalitarian measures which are designed to comprehensively ensure state security. Identity cards, tougher cross-border security, internal visas etc which will stunt the growth of our global village. Terrorism is the one incredibly pervasive and invisible force which will cause so much of civilization to retrograde. But in the meantime, the fight continues....... I hope with the greatest sincerity my prediction is wrong. Tell the truth, Constantine. You must have gone to the thomas database and read over American bills, didn't you?

Sorry mate I don't quite follow.

Im not quite sure if that would completely work although the U.S should get the hell out of Iraq. however the U.S has a long history of sticking its nose where it does not belong. We are the most hated country around the world! Stands to reason.

i think i agree on many of the points you stated there.

the No.1 is the most important one and add to it more important part and that would be US policy in the Middel East, its presence and its support to Israel.

i know it was obvious that American Governmets, media and the rest of the population didnt like to hear WHY this happened when the US was under attack at 9/11. they just wanted to hear that these terrorest are attacking their freedom and Democracy and that they are jelouse from the US's life style.

which is not that true since the Attacks were mainly about what the US doing outside the US nothing to do with what is happening Inside the US.

Till now i think we have been fighting symptoms of the particular problem and not solving the problem itself. Actually it isnt entirely clear what the problem is. Some aspects of it have religious backgrounds, rich - poor gap, distribution of powers in international level, expelling the west from Mid-East in general - most notably stop supporting Israel , maybe even simple jealousy etc. Unfortunately some of these aspects do influence the lack of cooperation between countries and the desired unified stance against terrorism as it should be. 

Some of the most measures against terrorism should be rooting out the funding of terrorism, cut off the financial supporters of these groups - either they are governments, groups or individuals, with even more increased cooperation between countries intelligence services to get them,  of course active persecution of these criminals, prevention of people to become terrorists aka reducing their recruits.

If they address the needs of moderates within the community that spawned the terrorists this will isolate terrorists and robs them of support and recruits.  By contrast harsh actions against innocent civilians in the community that spawned the terrorists increase the support for these groups. Indeed one of the key aims of terrorism is to provoke these harsh measures.

This statement is not intended to diminish the horror of the attack, but terrorism has been a world-wide problem even before Sept. 11, 2001.  The attacks of that date made it obvious that terrorist had grown (wrong word--sorry) only much more monsterous in their thinking and methods, but much more wide-spread.

I do not think any one post here will solve the problem of terrorism, but the situation seems to me that defeating the terrorists should begin with understanding their methods and who they are.  The reasons for thier acts is, in the beginning, secondary.  How do they work? Who do they recruit? How are recurits trained?  How are the lower (also probably the wrong word) members within the organization/network kept in line?  How are communications facilitated?  Where does the money come from?

Mord.

  ..

What about settling it with Chinese? We have an excess number of them. Or with Japanese? Jarusalem would be the center of world tech in a couple of years with its new skybridges combining it to Cyprus in the west and Mecca in the south. And no problems for Cyprus and holy lands would appear again, we would be three times more adventageous with a cheaper budget.

Or settle Turks there if you really hate Jarusalem that much. It would be dirtier than Istanbul in a couple of days...

The real solution of getting rid of terrorism is too hard. Now, some of them are UN members with rights to veto, and they have a couple of other terrorist colony states such as England always ready to follow their masters' orders. They also dont sign international treaties banning overdose population and they dont obey the international laws, that once they have written for their own national benefits, such as considering the hostages as life forms.

The other terrorists, who were and some of them still are fed and educated by the first group of rich ones, who dont deny they are terrorists and who dont hide it with shortening their beards and masking their purposes are easier to handle, if the 1st group of terrorist would agree on not torturing their families. So then they wont be able to torture theirs. And if the 1st group of terrorist dont try to deliver them their kind of petrolodemocracy again, they would have no obvious exccuses such as religion to feed their cowardness and they would continue to torture their own families like they usually did before and dissappear in the pages of history with their idiotic brains and hungry nations.

So just avoid the 1st group of masked terrorists to continue feeding their overrich voters, and then the second group doesnt have any chance to survive, maybe if the idiotic western medical embargos to their tens of sick children were totally ended, they can spread their genes to their new, innocent generations.

Most of you are missing some of the most important facts in the way the current world works:

1. Every single country needs a cheap source of energy to run its economy. That source is currently fossil fuels, particularly oil.

2. The largest reserves of oil in the world (and the cheapest to exploit) are in the Middle East. The West, and for that matter all other countries need to ensure that this source of oil is secure.

3. It is therefore a vital matter for the US (and Britain, Canada, Italy, France, etc. etc.) to do their utmost to protect this source of oil and ensure its availability by all means. This has meant a military presence in the area for the US, and also indirectly provoked the Iraq invasion. It has also meant propping up unpopular and undemocratic governments in the region (and in the world), because they ensure the security of the oil.

4. The holy places in Islam (Mecca, Medina, Jerusalem) happen to be close to the area which the US needs to secure militarily. This military presence by a non-muslim power consitutes a great offense to fundamentalist muslims.

5. The powerful Western Jewish diaspora and the Christian fundamentalist  movement unconditionally support Israel. Israel controls Jerusalem and treats Palestinians rather badly. This is a big source of resentment from Arabs and muslims in general towards Israelis, and the West who supports them.

6. Islamic terrorism is caused by the resentment felt by the muslims over the US and other western military presence in the middle east and by its support of Israel.

So the solutions:

1. Lessen dependency on oil. Perhaps find an alternate source of energy. Exploit oil in other areas, such as Canada and Russia.

2. Do something about Israel. In this case I'm none the wiser! I don't know what...

Hmm, If USA retreat from the Middle east, terrorist will win the case.

So In fact, There is not much think, USA can do against the terrorism.

For  destroying terrorism, USA should lost the war.  Earlier is better for world.

Since when the Americans became others' cities so called bodyguards? Why does USA needs to militarily secure those places? Are Mecca and Medina under danger of nonChristian threats? IS USA the one to secure our lands from us?

Jarusalem is an Arab city that is holy for three big religions. Was Jarusalem under danger before UN served Jews by settling them in others' countries? Was it under torture and colonization since one thousand and five hundred years? Who cause the problem and who wears the good bodyguard mask? Com'on...

Read the post: it's all about energy and controlling the oil supply. The US needs to secure it and control it for the US, not for the Arab countries... By coincidence, the oil supply is close to the holy cities.

Jews will disagree with you: they will say that Jerusalem is a Jewish city, which has been founded by Jews,  and inhabited by them for 2000 years before the Arabs came on the scene.

The problem is that both sides have a valid point of view. There isn't a "right" and "wrong" side in this argument.

Being an information junkie, I'd like to know about the reports you mentioned.  From what I understand, Al-Quaeda recruits form Arabic (or is Muslim?) students at college in other nations.  They do not seem to recruit from the poor, but from young, educated middle-class or upper middle-class men--especially with technical degrees.  I find this particular recruiting stratedgy troubling--sucessful revoltutions are often middle class phenomenia.  Is this true?

Mord.

Folks this is a joke--

Howza 'bout the Dalai Lama? 

OOOOOOMMMMMM...

Mord.

Yup all imperial powers throughout history have been hated.  The US is no exception.

Originally posted by hugoestr Here is the link for the conference. She is so fast http://www.cspan.org/Search/basic.asp?BasicQueryText=terrorism&SortBy=date&ResultStart=20 - http://www.cspan.org/Search/basic.asp?BasicQueryText=terrori sm&SortBy=date&ResultStart=20 These are the links that you want once you get to the page. PLAYNew America Foundation & NYU Law Center Panel on Al-Qaeda - Part 1 and 2

Thanks much.

Mord.

Education is the only answer.The one and only

I see a lot of good posts here---although I am disappointed that Shabanshah did not explain what the link does so one can see his point when they open it. 

Zagros Purya has an answer or solution that goes right to the cause of the whole terrorist problem.  It is our presence in Islam that drives recruits into the jihad groups.  The longer we try to impose our way on them to protect the oil supply and, as well, Israel, the more terrorists we will have to suffer from.  America has been the invader in Islam every since it gave military, diplomatic and financial aid to Israel.  It is nice for the Jews to have their homeland, but driving out the Palestinians so the Jews can create their own majority at the expense of millions of refugees is quite an aggrivation!  Now, the US is more aggressive still.

So, Zagros and Purya got to the heart of the matter.  Jeruslem!  Imagine what the rest of the world will be like when things get so bad that the Jews actually feel strong and secure enough to tear down the two mosques on the Temple Mount and rebuild their Temple there!

It is no wonder that Shalianshah looks to the future with dread.  So do I.  We know that the US. is not going to abandon Israel (and ignore the most  powerful lobby in Congress) or dismantle its new military bases in Iraq.  And we can be sure we are going to go to war next with Iran.  We'll leave Syria to Israel to take care of. . .

Actually, the situation is even worse than Shalianshah pictures.  He overlooked the fact that all the contestants in this terrible drama are religions that center around the coming of the End Times.  Since these fanatics all believe it will end in the coming of The Lord and a Millenium of peace and lovliness, people are becoming so fed up with the terror ridden world they are beginning to welcome this dream (or nightmare)! 

This whole subject is taken up fully and seriously in this link:  http://humanpurpose.simplenet.com - http://humanpurpose.simplenet.com

Charles

People in those categories tend to have higher suicide rates, at least in Western countries. If you are looking for people with the profile to be suicide bombers, that's the place to start,

A couple of people touched on the real answer of the original question. If you want to get rid of terrorism, leave the middle east alone. Not just Iraq, im talking about the whole region.

Terrorists obviously dont care if they die, so how long do you think the west can go by fighting people who dont care about dying? Terrorists fight for ideology, the west fights for capital gain. In the end, sorry to say, ideological causes will defeat a materialistic society anytime. Theyre not fighting for money, they believe they are fighting to protect their homes. So go ahead, keep fighting terrorism with guns and bombs, spend billions on security, it wont make a difference. The ONLY way to get rid of terrorism, is to take away their cause. In order to take away their cause, we must take away their injustice. And theres a lot of injustice that we must relieve them of.

And the Spaniards and the Turks and the Greeks. And the Algerians and Moroccans and the Saudis. And the Russians. And the Israelis. And...?

They dont attack without reason, is this reason justify killing innocent?

No.

So lets give all they want, So this guys will stop.

than will come new terrorist groups. Because they will see to gain their aim, they can use terrorism as best choice.

To give what they want will destroy these terrorists, but It will enforce terrorism.

I appreciate that the current focus has to be on 'Islamic' terrorism - at least terrirism carried out by self-styled Muslims.

That is however only the current wave. Eventually it will recede, but as someone already pointed out, terrorism will never go away completely. And there is nothing new about it, though technology of course increases the scale of its danger.

What all terrorists have in common is mental disturbance, invariably paranoia, usually a sense of being discriminated against, of in some way being a loser. One way such people seek a resolution is through violent acts against the shadowy enemy, the oppressor, the infidel, the people of the other side, the happy people.

Lindsey Germaine, the London bomber, is a good case in point. Born a black West Indian, not a Muslim. Brought up in a normal British school. Someone who from age 15 started displaying much the same symptoms as the Columbine shooters, who found his cause in Islam, or what he perceived Islam to be, and satisfied his essentially suicidal urges through the bomb.

The US has had its wave of school shootings (and one shouldn't forget the Washington snipers, either). Such people will always seek release in violence, and there will always be a cause to find, and people ready to use them for political ends. (For al Qaeda is a politically ambitious movement, not a religious one: it seeks to dominate, not convert.)

We need to find a way to identify the potentially violent, and find ways of reducing or eliminating that potential.

I don't disagree with that. But it fudges the issue to imply that only the US and Britain - or even only those countries with troops in Iraq - are terrorist targets. The invasion of Iraq (which I deplored) undoubtedly provides a reason to focus terrorist agitation against the participants.

However my point is that the people who are terrorist material, including the ones who are manipulated into becoming suicides, are in fact, for psychological reasons, 'bombs looking for a reason to explode', whether they do it as suicide bombers for al Qaeda, or by going to school and shooting their classmates and teachers.

Lindsey Germaine is a good example of someone who displayed all the symptoms of being ready to explode before he became a Muslim. In the chain of events that led to his life ended in blowing up a bomb in London the invasion of Iraq and Blair's duplicity played a part. But he was headed for some kind of tragedy anyway.