CP: Your comments that 'targeted assassination' (for that is what you propose) would work wonders at eliminating terrorism hold no water when applied to the real world. Let's take an example where, for good or ill a government has ordered targeted assassinations: Israel.
When the Israelis killed the leaders of groups like Islamic Jihad, these same groups just responded with a wave of suicide bombers and the assassination in kind of Rehaim Ze'evi (sp?). This brought about all of the IDF incursions into Palestinian territory, leading to the deaths (accidental or otherwise) of Palestinian civilians.
No, that is not quite what I meant. The best thing would be to have the enemy leader(s) captured and imprisoned, since the people may follow a martyr into destruction but they will not follow a coward so easily, which is what a captive appears as to the public. Also, the critical thing that I think most nations do not get right is to instigate a clever propaganda campaign in the affected provinces; most of these suicide bomber type people are both poor and uneducated (which is why they joined a terrorist band in the first place) and if they are given some money and the appropriate information, their fury and fanaticism can just as easily be turned in the other direction. If the leader(s) cannot be captured for whatever reason (somewhat rare), then they should indeed attempt to just kill him and subsequently begin heavy propaganda efforts. Leaving the guys in place and not doing anything about terrorist attacks is definitely the most useless solution, though; that will just give lots of confidence to the enemy and spur further events.
Oh, and another minor observation: your 'social machine' theory being wheeled out again () seems to suggest that everyone, for some reason or another should die for the good of society. Everyone, that is, except yourself. Would you accept that fate if it improved society, even though you'd be dead and wouldn't give a screw about society (and vice versa)? Or would you behave in the "naturally cowardly" way that you say intelligent people should and duck it?
Since when did I single myself out? Obviously I would not "like" such a fate, but as I said in that other thread, my opinion would hardly matter in account of the whole. You are trying to bring social concerns to a personal scale and thus invalidating the whole question; it is like asking a cell in your body whether or not it "likes" to die for the organism.
Well, eliminating this 'sacred soil' idea is basically eliminating or alterting the beliefs of a religion or people, which is unacceptable. you cannot try to bend the will of another country or race to suit your own.
It is perfectly acceptable; in fact, that could be said to be one of the principles that the society operates on - a struggle between ideologies, with everyone trying to convince everyone else of their ideas. However, these religious ideas are fine at the moment as long as they have no influence whatsoever on a social scale, but the moment it grows out of the individual it starts to pose a threat. When the religion starts to interfere with state affairs, the line must be drawn right there. If there is some religious group who says that their religion dictates to kill everyone else on the planet and they go about doing so, would it be "acceptable" simply because people claim it to be a religious belief?
Sometimes, you have to do things you don't like for the benefit of others - and it's not the Saudi government, but the Saudi people that are improtant in this situation.
That is not the way world politics works. Again, you are trying to use the common human moral values on a completely different scale - the same error Gandhi made. No national institution ever does, or should do, anything for some other nation unless they are going to benefit in some way in the end. In fact, that is how morals came up in the first place when civilizations began to form. But that is all irrelevant, as the terrorist bands probably couldn't care less about getting the troops out of this "holy land;" they are just using that as an excuse to gain recruits and to make it appear that they are more civilized than they actually are. (i.e. they would stop hostilities if the demands are met)
There is no point in killing terrorists if you fail to deal with the conditions that create them (every martyr creates 2 more). In Ireland, for example, terrorism has been drastically reduced as a result of the Good Friday agreement. Granted, it's not eliminated, but the risk has been reduced - and it means there are a lot less terrorists to hunt down.
Well, the thing is that this does not work out so nicely 90% of the time. Making some "compromise" with these types of completely uncivilized and backward people (terrorist groups) is not going to make them stop with their assaults; if anything, it can (and has, in most cases in history) just increase the amount of terrorism since the enemy knows that they can get what they want through such means. The other solution, as you said, also leads to the same thing to some extent, but it is not nearly as bad if certain other measures are employed and it does not end up have detrimental effects in other ways. As I said before, the best solution is to use media maniuplation to stir up anti-government sentiments and fund internal revolts from the lower classes, which I think the US should be doing more in these rogue states. Using nonviolence against violence just ends up having disastrous long-term effects in a number of ways, some of which are not readily apparent.
