Terrorism: Your Opinion

[Gooble]

The worst thing about the past 8 years is this:

9/11/2001: Attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon leads to the war in Afghanistan.

2003: Iraq has 'WMDs' (i.e. oil); I have no idea how the hell they (the US and UK governments) got away with this, it was blatantly just a resource-attaining mission which was unecessary and has caused huge casualties on both sides-over 1,000,000 casualties in direct relation to the conflict.

7/7/2005: Bombings in London.

2004-present: Steadily increasing conflict in Afghanistan. British involvement could continue for decades, rebuilding and stabilising. The Taleban are unlikely to stop attacks unless they are all killed, which is highly unlikely; and by the time the 'original' Taleban members are dead, between 1-3 new generations will take their place.

So basically we have 9/11, which led to the war in Iraq, which provoked further hatred from Muslim extremists, which led to the 7/7 bombings and a greatly increased resistance against the troops in Afghanistan. The West have basically shot themselves in the foot do to their own greed and stupidity.

Now, we're going to be stuck in Afghanistan for decades to come, we've completely fucked up Iraq (I know under Saddam it would have been frightening, but at least the country was stable), and the terrorists are going to get angrier and garner more support (especially in Britain) and going to plan more terrorist attacks, which could provoke more wars, in a long, horrible, bloody cycle.

 

[Mcface]

The numbers of terroris attacks against western targets has been reduced. The number of terrorist attacks worldwide has either remained unchanged or been on the rise.

this

 

[ElephantGuts]

Um, terrorism is bad, m'kay?

 

[freakaknight]

What?! Terrorism was always good regardless xD

But trolling aside, terrorism getting better is really an oxymoron or at least a poor phrase >.<. However it has become less frequent I guess. Or we've gotten more used to it...

maybe terrorists have been hit hard by the credit crunch? xD

 

[NeutralDrow]

One man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. Hezbollah has kicked Israel out of Lebanon in the 60s and did it again, and that much I can respect. At least they do good things for their people, build schools and stuff.

But Al Quaida, just a bunch of lunatics. Murdering their own people ( and failing miserably at hurting their enemies ) etc ... The Taliban, well, another group of miserable wackos who stand in the way of progression for the Afghans people.

I think our biggest problem is how many people really don't distinguish between those two types (including, frighteningly, those in power). Mainly because there are two very distinct ways of dealing with them.

The first group can be reasoned with, because they have temporal gripes. We know what Hezbollah and Hamas are pissed off about. Regardless of how much we agree or disagree with them, we can at least tell what they're after, who specifically they're against, and manage accordingly with negotiations or violence as the case may be (preferably the former).

The second group have no earthy goals. They cannot be reasoned with, and their enemy is just a vague "them." We can understand sort of what their plans are supposed to accomplish, but not how to ultimately stop them from doing what they do. The only way to deal with these groups is to kill the ones we know about, and deal sympathetically and effectively with the disaffected worldwide who form their primary recruitment base. A poor person who's life is complete shit, or a middle-class person truly frustrated by their imagined plight, are the ones who need to be helped; if they have a modicum of control over their lives, they're less likely to consider blowing other people up to be a viable outlet.