I'm always fascinated when writers use the phrase "defeat terrorism." It would be equally stupid to say: defeat murder. It's the kind of jingoistic bull that led to the Patriot Act and Homeland Security.
If someone told you the price for living in the most free society possible, is that 5,000 of your fellow citizens would die annually by terrorism, would that not be worth it? I would willingly risk my life, given the threat ratio, for that exchange. Particularly given the counter-terrorism efforts are already killing that many now.
If someone wants to blow their self up, or randomly stab you in the throat with a knife, the odds favor they're going to do it. You can try to prevent it, you can deal with the outcome, sometimes you'll succeed, sometimes you'll fail - what ultimately matters is that you don't fail big (nukes). That's it. You battle and deal with terrorism, you don't defeat it. You can't argue with irrationality or insanity, and someone somewhere is always going to be willing to commit terrorism.
>> If someone told you the price for living in the most free society possible, is that 5,000 of your fellow citizens would die annually by terrorism, would that not be worth it?
It depends how many people are in that society. If everyone else is too scared to join you, you might just be the only one and be 1 of the 5000 next year, if you're lucky this year.
I sometimes wonder how many violent crazies are out randomly walking the streets. I'm impressed (and glad) that there isn't more random violence as you described. It would be very easy to stab someone, run off, and never be caught. But it just doesn't happen (well....extremely rarely anyway).
If someone told you the price for living in the most free society possible, is that 5,000 of your fellow citizens would die annually by terrorism, would that not be worth it? I would willingly risk my life, given the threat ratio, for that exchange. Particularly given the counter-terrorism efforts are already killing that many now.
If someone wants to blow their self up, or randomly stab you in the throat with a knife, the odds favor they're going to do it. You can try to prevent it, you can deal with the outcome, sometimes you'll succeed, sometimes you'll fail - what ultimately matters is that you don't fail big (nukes). That's it. You battle and deal with terrorism, you don't defeat it. You can't argue with irrationality or insanity, and someone somewhere is always going to be willing to commit terrorism.