Chechnya Gripped by Stalinist Terror, or Where Do Suicide Bombers Come From - FEATURE - MOSNEWS.COM
Although I believe that those who resort to terror are essentially cowards for involving civilians who have in no way harmed them, I also realise that terrorists are not born--they are created. Their home life, their oeconomy, their sense of losing all sovereignty over a land and over their own lives, etc., may play a far bigger role than religious or patriotic fervour. I believe, for example, that if the education and oeconomic levels for your average Palestinian equalled the average Israeli, then a lot of the impetus for terror would go away. In the end, people are most concerned with building a life for themselves and their children. Oh, there are those with plenty of money who use terror as a means of power and control (like Osama bin Laden) in the name of some cause. But the ones who take $10 to walk across a border with bombs on them...they're not patriots. They're desperate and see no real future ahead.
For those who make the decision to spread terror, I certainly think they should be prosecuted to the fullest extent. But I think that sometimes our society puts too much focus on consequences rather than prevention, in everything from health care, building prisons but not doing well with schools, and 'fighting' terror rather than preventing the conditions that spawn it and promoting tolerance in the first place.
Yeah, I know, I'm one of those. But I think these issues are too complex for one approach to solve. There are those who'd rather go for the heavy-handed approach. I'll go for the other. Maybe together, we can come together in a certain amount of peace and respect.
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