Patience is the best cure for terrorism

Submitted by Lars Nielsen (Denmark), Aug 4, 2013 at 08:29

Terrorists are people trying to get attention for their cause. They use violence to get in the media. So what gives them most attention ?

To send out warnings to prevent terrorist acts, or not to do, and suffer from an attack. I think the last, because a succesfull attack appeals more to people favourable to the terrorist cause.

But then, what about retaliation ? Retaliation maybe scares off active terrorists. But terrorists always claim their victims too hostile to those, they are appealing to. So in their own backward way, terrorists and their potential supporters will see retaliation as proof of that hostility, and that may increase the number of active terrorists and active supporters. Therefore retaliation shall be used with care. Enough to scare the terrorists and make terrorist acts more difficult, but not enough to increase the support for their terrorist cause.

The main thing is to keep down the terrorist rate of success. As time goes by, the interest for the terrorist cause will vanish, if they have no success.

Note: Opinions expressed in comments are those of the authors alone and not necessarily those of Daniel Pipes. Original writing only, please. Comments are screened and in some cases edited before posting. Reasoned disagreement is welcome but not comments that are scurrilous, off-topic, commercial, disparaging religions, or otherwise inappropriate. For complete regulations, see the "Guidelines for Reader Comments".