OK, I’m done; I surrender. I don’t want anything from Muslims: I don’t want to convert you, I don’t want to kill you, and I don’t want to prevent you from making women wear silly clothes. As long as you don’t want to change my country I don’t care what you do in yours.
So, how do I surrender so you’ll stop blowing up planes, subways, and buildings? What do you want?
Want to surrender? No problems. Just convert to Islam, make sure everyone else also does that, then make also sure than the USA becomes an Islamic republic. While you’re at it, if it’s not too much trouble, arrange for the rest of the western world to follow your steps.
Simple, isn’t it?
How will you know if you’re the right kind of Muslim? From what I’ve seen, they’re pretty casual about slaughtering each other.
Nope, sorry. Sort of like the Nazis. You can surrender. You have to die. Or fight.
Can we please not over-state the threat? Thank you.
To answer the OP: there will not be an end to terrorism in our lifetimes. Sorry, but the only things that would stop terrorism completely are
(a) wholesale genocide, one way or the other, or…
…
…actually, I can’t think of a (b).
The flip side, of course, is that odds of terrorism actually overthrowing western society is about the same, i.e. damn near zero. Western society will endure, assuming that we don’t destroy ourselves in a fit of panic. And you’re still far more likely to die behind the wheel of a car.
Did you vote for John Kerry?
Well you’re fine then, since the vast majority of Muslims feel the same way. It’s a shame you feel you have to capitulate to the murderous idiots rather than chill out with the nice ones.
While I appreciate your frustration (I was on a London bus when an IRA bomb exploded a few hundred yards away), may I make these points?
There is not a conventional ‘war’ against terrorism.
Frequently the terrorists (who think of themselves as freedom fighters) want a change in Government. (The IRA wanted a united Ireland and I believe Al-Qaeda initially wanted US troops out of Saudi Arabia.)
The US is not facing all Muslims or the whole of Islam. Like every religion, there are passionate and wide differences of opinion between believers.
You may not care what other countries do, but your Government does act on them, with policies from economic (consider Cuba / Israel), through overthrowing Governments to invading. Whether these actions are justified is already being discussed in other threads, but the US does take such actions.
That is, of course, the crux of the whole issue. To whom do you surrender? Answer: there is no one country that is at war with your country, so you can’t surrender like in a “normal” war to the enemy forces.
The only way to deal with terrorism is police and intelligence. Helping the countries where terrorists come from to live better is also a good idea. (Spouting of rhetorics when following your own self-interests isn’t “helping”, though.)
And learn to live with it - terrorism goes way back before 9/11.
Ahh… but the nice ones aren’t proper Scotsmen, I mean, Muslims.
I know my govt is fucked up and making things worse, I just want to “personally” surrender.
Personally I’d rather be a Sufi than a Wahhabi, but whatever lights your candle.
Actually, option a won’t work either, simply because terrorism is a tactic, not a group or even an ideology.You might as well try to end murder or stealing or lying. I can think or only 3 methods that would work, all self defeating and impractical : species suicide ( instead of the mere genocide of a single group ), species wide mind control or species wide total physical restraint ( like sticking us all into the Matrix ).
The weird thing though, is that most of the 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia, one of the richest countries in the world. They don’t need my help; anything I could do would be intervening in their internal affairs. I wish the terrorists had stayed home and taken out a few sheiks instead.
So you can live with terrorists, as long as they don’t kill Americans, just fellow Muslims? Okay, noted and confirmed.
But “helping” the people in the country doesn’t mean only “raising the GDP of the country”. Part of recruiting people comes from inequality in distribution of wealth in Saudi Arabia; part of the problem is simply lack of education (same as the fundie extremists in the USA, who also bomb and shoot people.) As long as the US self-interests are served, it didn’t admonish or otherwise help the ordinary Saudi citizen. NOTE: I’m not advocating forceful or covert intervention by the US (as done in Latin America and Africa). But between outright interventions and ignoring human rights and democracy/civilisation/education issues outright, there is a whole middle path.
If you, as individual, want to help, sign up for Amnesty International or any other Human Rights org., and then go and help educate the fanatics, and pressure their government as concerned human being. At the same time, don’t forget to write letters and protest to your own western govt. for the rightful grievances the “Muslim world/countries” have with the treatment they receive. (E.g. stopping the Iraq occupation, preventing the upcoming attack on Iran, stopping training torturers to prop up convenient regimes, …)
By “take out a few sheiks” I meant forment a democratic revolution. I wouldn’t shed a tear if it took force to convince those expoiting the masses to yield power.
There you go. It’s all your own fault. Good thing I’m not American, must be hard to carry the weight of the world on your shoulders. Anyway, there’ll be no surrendering and there will be no negotiating.
I propose start supporting the many people in the Middle East that actually support democracy, human rights, secular societies, etc. and stop giving support to fascist the like of Hamas or Hezbollah (We’re all Hezbollah!), etc. - as was done by large portions of the left wing no more than a few weeks ago, and stop supporting Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Ahmadinejad maniacal rants (60 Minutes with Ahmadinejad), etc.
C’mon; if presented with the choices: “Shall I kill you, or someone else?”, I think most people would answer “ummm… someone else, please”. It doesn’t seem that unreasonable.
Point taken. I was only referring to terrorism from the specific groups, which seemed to be all the the OP was worrying about.
Although if you do bother to expand your focus to other groups, the question becomes more interesting. For example, there’s the IRA, which (to my limited knowledge) has effectively closed up shop. To call the situations in Ireland and the Middle East “disparate” would be a bit of an understatement, but it’s still heartening to know that sometimes the terrorists just figure out that it’s more effective to become politicians.
Turning America into an Islamic republic is like turning Iraq into a modern democracy; it’s a dream for a few people but the more realistic people in the movement don’t regard it as a working goal.
Realistically, what the terrorists want is for the United States and other western powers to withdraw from the Middle East. Pull all troops out of the region and stop backing friendly regimes in the region.