“What do terrorists want?” Excellent LTTE in Birmingham News

What do terrorists want?

Terrorist acts against people in cities of world powers are a daily occurrence now. Let's face the facts: As long as things remain the same, these attacks will never end, because there is no hope of stopping all the people who want to create chaos.

I would have to assume the people in power of the major governments know why terrorists keep on making their attacks. They wouldn't be just attacking for no reason. I sense there are two basic choices: Ignore the demands of whoever is responsible and continue fighting the terrorism (a very costly and never-ending choice) or yield to whatever demands they have once and for all and return to a state of peace (the choice that could possibly end the terror).

Seems like an easy choice to me.

James Todd Shelnutt
Homewood

if you yield to demands. yes for one group it will end, but then another group will make demands.
You can't always fight & you can't alwyays give up, the answer is in the middle.

Are you gonna give up on abortion rights?
are you gonna give up on civil rights?

No!

For rightwingers, it smacks of defeatism and appeasement.

However, to solve a problem, one must understand the problem before beginning to address it. The blanket answer of force is not going to cut it in Iraq. It didn't work in Viet Nam, and it won't work in Iraq.

The problem is a lack of understanding (or a deliberate failure) to understand history or the events that led to this, not to mention a lack of understanding of different cultures. If we don't overcome this and assess the problem properly, the end result is going to be more problems and many more lost lives and wasted time to the detriment of all involved.

A few of us on these boards have been saying as much for a while now (i.e. you cannot win with military might). To fight a war on terror is to fight an ideology. You cannot pit military forces against a belief. It would be like, I don’t know.. a war on Christianity? A war on Islam? A war on Judaism? A war on Liberalism?

The only way to win is change how we think, how we behave, and how we treat other nations. Terrorist don’t need to “win” by our standards. They only have to meet their objectives.

It starts with me.

the middle East and Central Asia for strategic reasons and for oil. Dictators who wouldn't have been there had we not backed them (including Egypt) The West should stop invading Muslim countries and stealing their resources killing tens of thousands of them in the process. The West should not have its troops based across Muslim holy lands in the Middle East humiliating sections of the population. The West should stop its unwavering support for the treatment of the Palestinians at the hands of the Israelis. the west should stop demonising Islam and Muslims in popular culture. (And this is not to mention Christian fundamentalists drooling for a new crusade).

The West should do all this not in appeasement of the Terrorists but becausae its the right thing to do.

A by product of this right thing to do is that far less young, (either disaffected and poor, or highly educated and alienated), Muslims would be driven to terrorism due to the lack of any ideological drive and persuasion by the nutters.

= Less dead people

The foreign policy of this country is seriously flawed, and should be corrected. But to explicitly capitulate to terrorists' demands would be foolish and dangerous.