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

Re: no easy answer

[nrawling.livejournal.com]

More significant results, but still not perfect. Racial profiling wouldn't have caught McVeigh. I think really, we just have to accept the reality that terrorism cannot be prevented, only reacted too. It's painful, but I don't really see any real option. The best medicine I can see is to make the punishment swift, forceful, and determined, in order to maximize the amount of deterrence.