Matthyro said:
My nephew and his family live in London so hope all is well with them. Will there ever be a time we don't have to worry about terrorism. I guess in some way we can blame our forefathers for the way they treated the rest of the world.
It seems that there are two ingredients that make terrorists act. 1 an attempt of the powerful to manipulate the weaker, and 2 a misguided attempt to retaliate to those attempts.
Ever since WWII the major governments have meddled in the affairs of smaller countries. Sadly, my own government is first on that list. First it was to fight the other powerful government in the world, the USSR. When that government fell a quarter of a century ago the manipulations didn't stop, they just shifted from a political goal to a financial one, backing one country against another in order to obtain the riches of that country regardless of the character of it's leader. Saddam Husain and Manuel Noriega being just the latest examples.
Now we are paying the price of both the initial meddling, and the effort to clean up the mess that the meddling caused.
The second part of the equation is the inhabitants of that region who just don't want us there, period. Whether it is because they see us as an obstacle to their attempts to gain power or whatever their reason, they are fighting back with the only means at their disposal, terrorism.
Ironically it is a reflection on the U.S. revolutionary war. England was used to fighting wars where both sides lined up in groups and marched at each other. When the colonists invented guerrilla warfare hiding behind rocks and trees they didn't know how to fight that kind of war. Now we are faced with effectively the same dilemma. We are used to fighting a war with an entire country with established battlefields and rules of engagement. This war has neither.
Robin, you wondered if there will ever be a time when we won't have to worry about terrorism. I'm afraid that it's like getting the genie back in the bottle. As long as there is a group of people who are dissatisfied with their situation, it will most likely be via the violence at their disposal and not words that they feel will be the only means of retaliation.
It is doubly sad that most of these groups will be the radical fringes of legitimate groups, usually religious, which will tarnish and threaten the majority of those groups who are peace loving people.
We are living in a new world my friends, and I personally feel that the clock can not be turned back.
So much for my rant. If it is inappropriate the moderator has my blessings to delete it.