The way to fight terrorism is to provide an environment where people not want to be terrorists. Terrorism requires no state sponsored infrastructure. Bombing places to hell doesn't stop the spread of hopelessness, of desperation, of taking comfort in extremism.
Note: Using the "anti-establishment guerrilla fighters" definition of terrorism, not "causing terror". That's a whole other bag of bagels.
In Palestine, most of the terrorists (but maybe not the leaders) are alturists. Israel has captured quite a few, and profiled them - http://utexas.academia.edu/AmiPedahzur/Papers/209890/Altruis.... The same may have been true of the IRA, and it may be true of the Tamil Tigers. People only blow themselves up when they believe they are fighting against evil oppressors. In these cases, you are right - you need to address the root cause.
In the case of 911, the terrorists themselves may have been altruistic, but they were given support by Afghanistan (and maybe a few Saudis, but we need their oil). Knocking out states which support terrorism (which the US can do quite easily) may be an effective way to stop state-sponsored terrorism.
In any case, it's partly the result of peer pressure. If everyone in a community sees terrorism as a good thing, a few people in that community will become terrorists. Threatening states forces them to fight this attitude. In other cases, there is no state to threaten.
That's a strategy of altruism and failure.
Not "reasoning" with the enemy is absurd--that's how eventually you conclude a conflict. How many wars have ended with the complete annihilation of one side? How many of those victors are regarded with anything other than disgust or shame nowadays?
There is a very concrete point past which the cost of preventing an attack exceeds the damage inflicted by an attack. "Bullies" or "enemies" or whatever you want to call them can trivially exploit this for a civilization that cannot run numbers and face facts.
I believe that I showed in another thread that the TSA alone has wasted human-life-equivalent years equivalent to the 9/11 attacks.
On the schoolyard, in the pub, yes, you should stand up to bullies. But at a national level? As a civilization? You can't reason in the same way.
Nazi Germany? Japan? There was only one way to deal with them; we did it; the world greatly respected us for it; and it's a success story. (This is not to downplay the role other, allied countries also played in these conflicts.)
I believe that I showed in another thread that the TSA alone has wasted human-life-equivalent years equivalent to the 9/11 attacks.
Right - I completely agree - I'm advocating the alternative.
(More modern: Please check the resource curse on wikipedia, or something. You can't reason with dictators which keep their population down so they can steal oil money.)
Edit: Hrm, Wikipedia says it is "for", not "in". Updated.
The way to fight terrorism is to act kindly and justly, and to promote the racial welfare to the extent that everyone is happy and well fed enough that they don't go starting trouble. Also, you get productive enough that the occasional bouts of crazies can be ignored in the long-run--a suicide bomber can only kill once.
Conversely, the way to fight a state such as you propose is to conduct the cheapest attacks possible while causing your enemy to expend lots of resources to fight an ill-defined threat, and to make public statements that are easy to flaunt and vilify.
EDIT: by racial welfare I mean human race, not Caucasian or whatever damn fool distinctions little minds want to draw.
Do you have any evidence for this? The typical suicide bomber is middle class.
There will always be relatively isolated wackos who want to cause damage to you, for real or perceived injustice. As long as you are not provoking a movement against you, it would seem that those can be considered random events which don't need to shape policy.
And we undercut our ability to even attempt such things when we overthrow people's governments and occupy them for a decade, bring war-with-American-flags to their literal doorstep day in and day out.
What else do you want to do? Lay down and die? Build more sewers and help them elect mullahs? Expand the TSA?
Anyway, you'd be surprised at the degree to which others will actually respect you for standing up to bullying, and winning; and the degree to which appeasement actually fuels more bullying (i.e., terrorism). In practice, what would happen is the opposite of what you think. (But if not, stand up to 'em.)
Have you ever considered that many of these groups develop as a response to our own neocolonial actions in their backyard?
That said, I very strongly oppose occupying foreign countries, the TSA, sacrificing our troops, providing foreign aid to nations that operate concentration camps (NoKo), etc. If I want to oppose these things effectively, I have to propose an alternative. I am.
By the way, I think the term "neocolonial" is stupid. I don't know precisely what you mean by it, but I'm assuming you mean roughly the preceeding paragraph, and I'm stating that my solution should not be considered a part of the imaginary "neocolonial" set of actions, but I don't know if you'll agree with that.
The actual method is simple: You won't get stung if you don't poke the hornet nest.
How many poor teenagers do you think would join terrorists if they had better options and understood more about the world than the limited view they are purposely given?
Why do you think the first thing they do is destroy schools and ban women from attending them?
And the right way to do that, is by painting a bright "thou shalt not cross" line in the sand, and then enforcing it (if necessary) with overwhelming airborne superiority.
As opposed to a massive ground invasion and occupation, which has clearly been shown to be self-sacrificial and counterproductive.
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To respond in one place to the most common responses I'm getting:
It's fairly obvious in day-to-day life that and military history that (1) you don't appease or tolerate bullies; (2) you don't try to "reason" with the enemy. What I'm saying is a straightforward application of this, and what you're all saying is a straightforward denial of it.