Here's an interesting idea I encountered.
Haven't found where I originally got it from - but the idea of terrorism is to deny Human(kind) basic rights. The effective approach is to not treat this as a "war" on terror, but a restoration of human rights. (Wars simply destroy a great deal of property and lives. Universal human rights means everyone can have a nice life.)
How this works is very simple - when people have choice, they will choose survival and a richer existence. Terrorism can only recruit where there is no or very little choice. (Reason why so many 9-11 attackers were Saudi and college educated? There was no future in that country, since very few people have to work - most of the country is on welfare; there was no work for them to do in their own country. Fundamentalist teachings took hold as a solution - blaming the West for their own problems.)
Back to our theme - by giving people choice over their own lives (goes back to Locke), people can be, do, or have anything they want. It's like the American Dream, but includes everyone.
Politically, if you chose to push this particular idea - which is greater than Bush's "Freedom" doctrine (there really can't be freedom without responsibility) - you actually defeat terrorism at it's core.
If women have greater choice without Sharia law, then they choose to become more moderate. If men can make any amount of income they want - to provide real riches for their families - then they would choose other than following someone who says that others should be denied those same choices.
So terrorism loses its ability to recruit.
Meanwhile, back in the States, take all these "Human Rights" groups and get them looking external for awhile. Why doesn't NOW take on terrorist groups who suppress women? Why is Jesse Jackson reticent to tackle current slavery in Africa?
Cowardice, maybe - but more like they only feel they are powerful within the US, that without backing of the government and its protection they would simply fail. But their results are counter-productive, since they simply become anti-US and so another example the terrorists can point a finger at in their recruitment.
However, if the government took them as "advisors" and "consultants" on "good-will missions" to these countries under State Department auspices, then they would have protection and could actually do something about these scenes. At least they could have press conferences when they got back and say that fundamentalist terrorists were the core problem, as they were denying people their God-given rights.
If the World Bank started giving out local loans to individuals (micro-loans) in order to get industry going on a local level, then those individuals would undercut the efforts of the terrorists to keep everyone poor and in bad shape - business enterprises can only succeed where there is protection of commerce. If there is no commerce, everyone is poor and fighting over the crumbs left from yesterday's bread. With commerce, the baker can buy flour from the miller who buys grain from the farmer, who can use the money to buy bread to feed their families.
Teach a man to fish....
Now, here's an idea for Afganistan. Get them to grow bio-fuel on that poppy land. Spend some money to set up some ethanol plants, or biodiesel plants - and suddenly they have all sorts of money coming in. Plus heating oil and what not. "We don't need no stinkin' poppies..."
And build the plant based on loans to individuals, such as tribal leaders - who have to pay them back out of the proceeds. The government can tax the sales and so improve roads and so on. Bring in contractors with the know-how and use local concrete and laborers to set it up, plus hire and train people to run it from the tribes. But set up many, many of these - throughout the tribes - so that they can compete with each other and get rich meanwhile.
There's tons of solutions out there.
Like most of the US's financial problems would disappear if they taxed consumption instead of production. People would invest like crazy in the US, because we would be the only nation that doesn't tax income. The Fair Tax Bill has it all figured out to even bail out Social Security. Read Boortz' book on the subject.
Earlier, I suggested that we pray peace.
Now, I would add to this - saying, let us pray humankind all with human rights. Nice world, that. Everyone with complete freedom and responsibility to use it would give us world peace.
(Ship the recalitrant terrorists to some desert island with their bombs and let them blow themselves up. Or choose not to. But don't let them off until they can all live together and build a society amongst themselves where everybody has full human rights. Don't tell them how to do it, just keep them from leaving. Self-education is a marvelous thing. They don't get rights until they can respect and support the rights of others...)
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