Chapter 3: Stopping terrorism

Since the very beginning of society, war has been among us, as a direct consequence of human behavior, and within it terrorism, as a mean to debilitate our foes and take control over them. So, how could we manage to fight against something derived of human greed and ambition of power? How is it possible to stop something that has been an intrinsic part of society since we could remember? Although at first sight it seems completely impossible, it is plenty of sociologists, historians and philosophers studying, investigating, a deliberating about this topic, especially nowadays that we live in a constantly threatened society in hands of terrorism, with famous terrorist attempts such as the 9/11 attack to the twin towers in New York. Some historians, as B. Kuipers see terrorism as a wrongly accepted part of our everyday life, which we have to confront with a united society coopering with authorities in order to make some advances towards a mayor security against terrorism. Terrorist acts can never be totally eliminated, but a cohesive community that trusts its authorities can defeat a continuing terrorist movement. B. Kuipers, How to defeat terrorism, (2004). This position support directly our hypothesis of terrorism being ineradicable, but yes minimize and controlled with the cooperation of all the society working for common benefit, not only the authorities taking in charge of fighting a war against the terrorist organizations. In his essay Kuipers make reference to a concept he called the thin blue to describe the importance random citizens have at the time of kipping the law and order, and supporting the police, which might be completely inefficient without this cooperation. It is not the police and the courts who keep criminals at bay. It is the society as a whole. It is the ordinary people who call the police when they hear a problem starting. It is the ordinary people who trust the police and cooperate with them to bring criminals to justice. The "thin blue line" only works when it is backed up by the vast majority of ordinary people. B. Kuipers, How to defeat terrorism, (2004).

Kuipers also mention that the trust society have in authorities and the power of influence terrorist have in that society is related in a way that the more people trust in their local authorities the less influence and success terrorist will have. Without community backup, the "thin blue line" starts to feel very thin indeed. And criminals become bolder. Likewise with terrorists. Terrorists are defeated when the large majority of the community feels that they can trust the local authorities to maintain law and order and work for the common good. Then ordinary people will turn the terrorists in to the authorities when, or even before, they strike. B. Kuipers, How to defeat terrorism,

(2004).
In order to make a front to terrorist movements, authorities, sooner or later will have to start defining some extreme security policies as some affected countries had already successfully done. The most popular case is United States, that after suffering the 9/11 attack has executed some changes in their policies and relationships with other countries for them to enhance security and provide their citizens a comfortable lifestyle, the further from danger where possible. As it is shown in the Progress Report of 2011, made by the U.S. DHS (United States Department of Homeland Security), ten years after the 9/11 incident, there have been implemented the recommendations of the U.S. Commission of Security, just as developing and implementing a plan for transportation security, protecting cyber networks and critical physical infrastructure, ensuring civil rights and civil liberties safeguards, target terrorist travel, track and disrupt terrorist financing. All this improvements in security are directed to attack the bases of the terrorist movements and organizations in order to make them less efficient and dangerous, as well as protecting the country and their inhabitants. In the past ten years the United States has shown a considerable decrease in the terrorist attempts it has suffered, this shows that the policies that the governments has implemented were the correct ones and they represent important and successful means to go against terrorist without recurring to a violent conflict, as it has been for several and is happening now. A. Wood, refers to the problem of confronting terrorism with armed attacks, just remarking that uncontrolled violence only lead to more violence, and only contributing in a strong and inevitable growth of the circle of terrorism. The fact is, that as long as

we think we can end terrorism by changing the terrorists behavior, and thereby be at peace, our peace is dependent on their behavior. This is an exceedingly vulnerable position. No wonder we seem to go off at the slightest provocation. Going off to fight a war on foreign soil is neither brave nor courageous. We do it because we are scared to death. We dont know how to end terrorism, so while it exists, we want to be the biggest and baddest on Earth, hoping everyone will leave us alone. Thats why we go to war. A. Wood, The end of terrorism (2004). She maintains that attacking terrorist is the wrong way to stop them, as we only generate more anger and resentment in their behavior, and we should need to find alternative tactics to go against terrorism. This idea is also supports by B. Kuipers, making clear that pure military strategy, not only would not work against terrorists, but they may take advantage of it. It's tempting to think that a war against terrorism can be won by killing all the terrorists. In the real world, this naive plan doesn't work. A serious attempt to find and kill all the terrorists also sweeps up many ordinary people, and some of them and their relatives become new terrorists, creating more terrorists than were destroyed. B. Kuipers, How to defeat terrorism, (2004). In this cite the author express how inefficient the military strikes are, and how they boost the emergence of new terrorists. Kuipers defines in his essay three important rules for combating terrorism. The first one is called Avoid getting killed, it makes reference to authorities protecting the society trying to preserve as many lives as they can, this might make people trust their local authorities, leading us to the second rule Gain trust and cooperation. This one also refers to normal people, as we saw previously they are the key to a country. The last rule derivates from the second, People will turn in the terrorists, if people value the efforts make by authorities to protect them, and make their lives secure and safe, will make them more likely to help the authorities containing terrorism. To sum up, terrorism might be stopped, but is needed the support of normal people working besides authorities in order to achieve an acceptable level of competence to confront terrorism.