There are three roots to terrorism
- teaching prejudice, bigotry and hatred;
- poverty and poor economic conditions; and
- money.
Today prejudice, bigotry and hatred tend to be taught by fundamentalist religious schools, be the schools Christian, Moslem, or Jewish. bin Laden recieved his education from the Saudi Wahhabi of Sunni religion that is largely funded by oil money. Fundamentalist Identity Christian sects also teach a narrow brand of superiority and hatred. Any attack on terrorism long term must start by ending this teaching of hatred long term.
The second fundamental root of terrorism is poverty. Poverty provides a fertile excuse of look at what they are doing to my people. The words are said by those who are slightly better off. Poverty provides that backdrop. "Look at what the Americans are doing, they take our oil and give my people little. Conditions are terrible." These are the cries of the fanatic leaders.
The third breeding ground is money. Money can come from some enforced poverty on other cult members. Look at the polygamists in Arizona and Utah for example. Or money come from some form of wealth such as the Mellons or the oil money given to Saudi Arabia.
To deal with the solution we need a long term approach, a n intermediate term approach, and a short term approach. Over the long term we need to eliminate the teaching of hatred, bigotry, and prejudice in the world. In the long term we need to eliminate poverty and bring all people up to a high standard of living. Over the long term we need to track all monetary transactions. Those three things will reduce terrorism to the level of making it virtually zero.
In the intermediate term as we start our long term efforts we need to change from a military approach to terrorism to a police approach. Consider for example, Waco and the action taken there. It was basically a police action, against a group of terrorists. But, the fallout and cries of horror from that action were incredible and it laid the foundation for someone like Terry McViegh and his bombing in Oklahoma City. Thank heaven McViegy was captured and publicly tried. The evidence used to convict him makes clear is was an evil man. The fact that we did not attack militias willy nilly, but rather publicly condemned them went a long way towards reducing their impact. The same needs to be done in the case of the bin Ladens of the world. They need to captured, tried and given the appropriate sentence in open court. Through open trials (not Kangaroo Court Style get Hussein who is evil) but open fair and just trial and public scorn we can end terrorism. The current strategy of too much force, group punishment, and torture only leads to creating more terrorists.
This leads to what to do now. We have two serious problems, one in Iraq and one in Afghanistan. Both are serious and yet both yield to the same solution. We must convince the world and in particular the Europeans, the Russians, the Chinese, the Japanese, and the Indians to help us. We must cede military leadership to another country. We must put enough troops from the world in each location to create peace. This may mean 2 million or more troops in Iraq and large numbers, 500 thousand or more in Afghanistan. We must build infrastructure and schools with local labor and above all we must let the group make decisions. We must also admit we have screwed up in both countries and apologise for invading Iraq. We must also not only impeach President Bush, but we must hold him and other senior members of our government responsible for war crimes, having them publicly tried in the World Court. Yes, this is radical, but such change in the short term will enable the world to come together and end terrorism.
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