Thursday, August 21, 2008

Terrorism is getting worse

Source: The Human Security Brief 2007.

So much for the success of the "War on Terrorism." I think we should have used a different metaphor.

On the one hand, it seems to me, and I admit I am no expert, that to reduce terrorism we should have focused more in the short term on the use of police powers and in the long term on education and promoting a culture of peace, not to mention the soft diplomacy of being a good neighbor. The metaphor might better have been "policing terrorists".

On the other hand, it does seem to me that military power should have been used in Afghanistan if economic and other diplomacy had not sufficed to eliminate that country as a sanctuary for Al Qaeda. But that might better have been described as "a war against a sovereign government" that allowed the training and support of international terrorists.

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