Nice flamebait. I'll resist the urge to resort to profanities.

You seem to be very much stuck in an "us" and "them" mindset. You also seem to be missing several things. No one said anything about bending over backwards. As for negotiating, who exactly is there to negotiate with in the first place? You seem to be under the mistaken impression that there's some kind of top secret terrorist government hiding somewhere, and that "they" are secretly hatching evil plots to destroy "America". (Because apparently America is the only country that's ever been targetted by terrorists? Get over yourself.)

And who suggested making the US a "Muslim country"? The very notion is ridiculous. The US claims to be a "free" country after all, with freedom of religion. There's nothing stopping Muslims from worshipping Allah as much as they please in the US. Nor should there be. And there sure as hell shouldn't be anything to stop "them" from getting on planes, looking at their watches, praying, growing big beards or walking around in whatever outfits they damn well please.

"Nice flamebait. I'll resist the urge to resort to profanities."

Nice way to get out of a discussion.

"As for negotiating, who exactly is there to negotiate with in the first place?"

You said we should try to figure out why they are angry with us..as if it's the fault of the US for getting attacked (blaming the victim).

"You seem to be under the mistaken impression that there's some kind of top secret terrorist government hiding somewhere, and that "they" are secretly hatching evil plots to destroy "America". (Because apparently America is the only country that's ever been targetted by terrorists? Get over yourself.)"

Nice flamebait. In Many other countries, they have full-on profiling with armed guards on each plane. It seems to work pretty well on the middle east.

"There's nothing stopping Muslims from worshipping Allah as much as they please in the US. Nor should there be. And there sure as hell shouldn't be anything to stop "them" from getting on planes, looking at their watches, praying, growing big beards or walking around in whatever outfits they damn well please."

I never said they shouldn't be stopped. However, if there are a high number of attempted attacks and the description of the attackers match the type of people coming onto the plain, the TSA should be allowed to question/detain those people.

It's this type of thinking that stops a newspaper from putting a description of a criminal because it's not politically correct.

There are two kinds of terrorists: The desperate and the insane. A life of terrorism is very unstable, and usually quite brutal and short. The desperate join up because the only other alternative is rolling over and either dying or becoming enslaved in some way. Theirs is a rational choice. The insane are men who crave power to such a degree that there is little they won't do to secure it, but in order to succeed they need numbers. That's where the desperate come in.

People prefer order to chaos. Order brings prosperity and security. But when there's no hope of prosperity or security, people start to look for ways to change the political landscape to improve their chances of surviving as a group. The closer they feel they are to having their lives or culture or way of life annihilated, the more desperate they become. (It's worth noting that you can manufacture greater desperation in the minds of people around a kernel of real desperation, which makes for an effective recruiting tactic, especially among the religious)

If you want to stop terrorism, you must work to end the source of their desperation. Once you remove (or diminish) the desperate from the equation, the insane will neither be able to form numbers of any notability, nor secure the goodwill of others. They will be treated as they are: criminally insane.

Studies by Israelis (who have tonnes of captured Pakistani terrorists) have shown terrorists are often from well-off backgrounds (but from a poor country), and otherwise "good" people (empathic, sense of social responsibility, etc). If your country is poor, and you happen to be from a privileged background, you might feel the need to give something back. If your community believes that "martyrs" are good, then terrorism is an option.

And yes, they do tend to be 20-year-old males. Others can be poor, and unlikely to be able to get a girlfriend or wife.

Its not about desperate individuals, but a desperate community. The communities are often desperate because of poor governance, but you can't unilaterally bring good governance to the Middle East (or any other region).

Actually, there's a lot of reasons why communities are desperate. But a lot of those are hard problems, which are taking time to solve.

You raise a fascinating point about what happens to societies when the males have no chance of getting a girlfriend or wife (they may become destructive because they aren't stakeholders).

I wonder what will happen in China as their "need" for male heirs continue to drive their one-child family planning (not to mention infanticide and abandonment leading to out-of-country adoption).

There's a wave of young, unmarried men in China now, but it's not nearly as bad as the pre-revolutionary times when polygamy was rampant.

At the moment, men are marrying later than women, and chasing overseas brides. Brides sometimes come from Vietnam, where the girls outnumber boys and the culture is somewhat similar; also men occasionally marry African women, as China is now doing more business there; though there's a hell of a lot of racism in China towards anyone with darker skin than average. Also, men are expected to buy a house and car before marriage, which isn't great for men from poorer families (the boys parents usually foot the bill, as few men in their 20s can buy a house). Actually, the costs of male children is starting to reduce the prejudice a bit.

It will raise the crime rate, and cause social disorder (young unmarried men are the kind of people who throw molotov cocktails at authorities - and no authority wants that). China knows this, and has softened the one-child policy a lot. Women used to be forced to abort subsequent pregnancies; now they are more likely to face a fine. Also, prostitution is widespread.

Thank you for a very intereting bit of information.

Why would Israelis have any Pakistani terrorists? Is this a conspiracy theory?

Typo. Palestinian. Fixed. Damn that was stupid.

  9/11 still happened with people that didn't appear "normal"

Actually, they did appear normal. USA is a very multinational country, and these guys would not look much different from the rest of the passengers. Especially in international airports of large cities of the Eastern shore where they boarded the planes.

(Mohammed Atta could be an exception. Not by the looks, but by his facial expression. I believe I saw him with a few of his co-conspirators several months before 9/11, and he did stand out.)