Some people think terrorists will always exist (despite them very clearly growing in numbers) when it's actually governments and the US in particular that radicalise most of them by bombing their countries.

There will always be people willing to use violence to effect change, no matter how hard you try and fix the issues they raise.

> to effect change

What change? Why don't you let them effect those changes?

Because some of those changes violate human rights?

Mass surveillance and warrantless invasion of everyone's privacy does not violate human rights?

Reasons behind the kind of terrorism for which mass surveillance is enforced (e.g., Muslim fundamentalists against American interests) have deep historical roots, too messy to be addressed.

Britain and France had geopolitical and business interests in the Middle East since the 18-19th century. America since the 20th, when oil suddenly had all the spotlight.

Fundamentalists are convinced that "the West" is the Devil on Earth. No political force can pacify fundamentalists nor avoid future generations.

You're conveniently ignoring the fact that the US has historically ruined entire countries for multiple generations just to benefit itself. Maybe if we'd stop carpet bombing other countries we'd have fewer people that hate us.

Most of the problems in the Middle East, at least with regards to them hating the US, are because the US did something to directly make them hate the US. Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan - at least in their current iterations - are all problems the US created. This is barely even beginning to describe the list of atrocities the US has committed against other countries.

The US has terrorists because the US creates terrorists, sometimes from us terrorizing other countries that are too insignificant for the world to take notice.

If you think I'm being hyperbolic, look into the history of US drone strikes just for a very recent example of the US leveraging its military superiority to decimate other countries. What's interesting is it gets worse regardless of the president.

I'm not ignoring those facts about the destructive role of America in the Middle East. What I'm alluding to is that fundamentalists hating the West have way more "historical ammo" for their arguments than just pointing at the US. It's just that the current biggest offender is America (which makes it the main target for terrorism). Before that, it was Britain.

On a grand historical scale, the Powers That May at any given point in time become the main offender against those having something of value. Next time it'll probably be China (beginning with the "Security Theater" [1] in Xinjiang).

[1] https://www.schneier.com/essays/archives/2009/11/beyond_secu...