I disagree because..

Submitted by Thomas Herzel (Austria), Jun 20, 2008 at 09:39

To win a war, military tactic is very important, if not the most important. The islamists (but also other terrorists) are using - mainly - three tactics: - suicide bombings or car bombs - internet propaganda and hate propaganda - videos that shows the leaders like Bin Laden or Zawahiri Tactic two and three don´t have much impact on the west. But tactic one is very dangerous, specially thinking of mass murder bombs like a dirty atomic bomb or using chemical welfare.

So counterterrorism is the main issue for to fight the islamists and to prevent the west of further attacks. Tactic one is only possible if - there is (possible) help by dictators (like Saddam Hussein) or dictatorships - good financing - international networks So the main thing in counterterrorism lies in prevention against financial help and arm tradings with islamists

The other question is the influence of the islamistic ideology (caliphate...) in islamic countries. Maybe this influence is not as big as we all think because as far as I can see, the direction within the islamic states is more the contrary: The influence of liberalism and democratization within islamic and arabic states gets bigger and bigger, there are only a few exceptions.

In Iran it was specially under the presidency of Khatami (who was, by the way, supported by the west), that many schools were established where they teach to children islamism and hatred against USA and Israel. So, in my opinion, the main issue beside counterterrorism are those schools who teach this hatred. And the most important thing beside this "war on terror" (and it IS mainly a war against a tactic) is to try to hinder the establishing of such schools.

But it must be done all over the world because they are established everywhere and even in Western Europe One more thing: As I said, in my opinion it IS mainly a war against a militaric tactic, the terrorism. And it is because this terrorism is a development of what happens in our history, in our lifetime. It is a consequence of globalisation, of technological development and of free frontiers.

I mean it is much more easy nowadays getting such bombs in the hands or to build them just from instructions that anyone can read on or download from the internet. And so I believe the problem of terrorism will get worse with the time and so it is very important to start today to deal with those tactics (no matter which ideology is behind), to think what strategies can be right and are important for fighting against these terrorism tactics, against this strategy, against networks who have political targets and are trying to reach those targets with weapons like chemical bombs and others.

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