++ [ originally posted by Martin ] ++
It seems you weren't willing to adhere to my core basis on this and after all it is my opinion so you don't have to agree with me. But the way I see it, these terrorists leaders don't have any ideological objectives, all they want is power. And the means to obtain power is to use the discontent in the population to recruit operatives for their operations. The leaders never blow themselves up of course, they're too important for that, so it's the brainwashed common man if you will, normal people who actually commit these crimes. Now since the hatred towards the US is pretty damn strong and growing, recruitment probably won't be a problem in the time to come, it's been said that these various terrorist organizations actually have more volunteers than they need. So the key is to do something about everyone hating the US and its government, that's how you eliminate the cause for terrorism. Once that happens, these "warlords" who seek power will no longer find the people they need to launch such attacks. More importantly, once the general public in any said country starts condemning terrorist acts instead of supporting them or at least seeing them in some way justifiable, it becomes much more difficult to recruit people to do these things. Because what is the reality of today? Well, the suicide bombers, the people who actually plan and carry out the bombings are hailed as martyrs, they're actually seen as celebrities, movie stars in their own community, people look up to them. It's like blowing themselves up to kill a couple of Israeli soldiers is the noble mission in life they've been waiting for. So how in the world do you plan to eliminate the problem of terrorism by terrorizing them further? Doesn't work, does it. The more military action, the more people hate you, the more people willing to commit terrorist acts.
And Tommy, negotiating with the terrorist leaders is recognizing the power that they have, only makes their position stronger IMO. The only solution is to cut off their recruitment channel.