When facing terrorism, especially in the wake of awful events, there is a tendency to despair, to see in the battle a problem without a solution.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
Terrorism is a real despair. These are people for whom life has been so negative that they're willing to die if they can take down some of their enemies.
It's frustrating; terrorism is rare and largely ineffectual, yet we regularly magnify the effects of both their successes and failures by terrorizing ourselves.
Helplessness induces hopelessness, and history attests that loss of hope and not loss of lives is what decides the issue of war.
Loss of hope rather than loss of life is what decides the issues of war. But helplessness induces hopelessness.
As the war on terrorism spreads and prolongs, the fruits of ending the threat of terrorism around the world will be tempered with a whole new series of problems to be addressed and resolved.
It is not enough to tackle the mechanics of terror organizations. We must also tackle the situations that create terrorists. We desperately need to address the frustration, the loss and the despair that drive some to these actions.
The risk of a terrorist victory is greater when in fighting terror, democracy betrays its own essence.
Terrorism is a psychological warfare. Terrorists try to manipulate us and change our behavior by creating fear, uncertainty, and division in society.
When it comes to terrorism, governments seem to suffer from a collective amnesia. All of our historical experience tells us that there can be no purely military solution to a political problem, and yet every time we confront a new terrorist group, we begin by insisting we will never talk to them.
The diagnosis that poverty, lack of education, or lack of opportunities have much to do with terrorism requires a fundamentally optimistic view of human nature. This diagnosis leads to the prognosis that all we need to do to solve the terrorism problem is to create societies that are less poor, better educated and have more opportunities.