Preventing terrorism

[sorrowmonkey]

How can we prevent terrorism?

So far, I really only three answers being discussed:

1. Don't prevent terrorism, it gets us what we want.
2. Find terrorists and shoot them.
3. Keep giving terrorists what they want until they're not unhappy anymore.

All of these choices have good points and bad points, however I don't see that any of them will actually prevent all terrorist activity. Obviously, there are a lot of side considerations as well.

One of my big complaints about all of the dialogue surrounding the war in Iraq and Afghanistan, etcetera, is that none of it addresses the real issue. People are concerned about the civil war in Iraq, and our losses there. The Afghani warlords, and our continuing inability to find Osama bin Laden seem more relevant, but still distract from the real issue. The Isrealis have been dealing with the terrorist attacks from the Palestinians for fifty years, but even today, suicide bombings still occur.

I don't want to wake up tomorrow to death squads, suicide bombings, or the like in my backyard. How do we prevent that? I don't think cameras or random bag searches are going to work. I don't think that intercepting international phone calls is going to work. I don't think that banning guns, explosives, or rocks is going to work. Some of those things may help, but at the end of the day, I really don't see any way to prevent angry people from doing bad things.

Any ideas?

Comments

[nrawling.livejournal.com]

Well, certainly the War on Drugs didn't work very well. But I have to admit, I also wonder if it would work better if we were more determined and less wishy-washy. I think that the democratic societies of the world have lost the backbone to win any armed confrontation.

World War II was a nightmare, but the half-hearted attempts to accomplish military objectives of the past fifty years are arguably worse. If you lack the conviction to win, all you do is waste lives and resources. The United States has the capacity to defeat any single enemy, but we fail to use it. Again, and again, and again.

The TSA alerts are pointless, as security professionals point out all the time. Still, when everyone is clamoring for the government to do something, they will, but they might not take the time to figure out what the right thing to do actually is.

After I watched the towers fall on 9/11, I wanted to kill terrorists and those that harbor and support them. At that moment, it seemed like nearly everyone agreed with me. I still do, but it seems like almost everyone else has forgotten.