War on terror

It just struck me what the whole problem with this terror business is. The aim of terrorists is to frighten people as much as possible with the minimum of effort. They’re probably not really that bothered about killing people, perhaps they don’t even like it (although my guess would be they probably do a bit). I think they just want to cause panic and get maximum attention for their cause. So by getting in a big flap about the whole thing, and by this I especially mean the press and government reactions, we are actually giving them exactly what they want, and in a sense encouraging them to do more. I don’t mean to diminish the suffering of those involved, but seen on a macro scale, the response is really disproportionate to the events. In the last 4 years, about 10 islamic terrorists have killed a total of about 5000 people (if my figures are correct). For instance, compare the reaction of the press and government to the war on terror to their reaction to say road deaths, which kill millions of people worldwide, or chemical factory disasters such as Bopal, or wars, genocides, smoking, alcohol, global warming to name a few. The reaction is totally out of proportion and it is playing into these people’s hands.
Sometimes, perhaps even mostly, macropsychology is an exact parallel of micropsychology. When children have tantrums it’s best not to give them attention for it, even negative attention, because it teaches them that they can get your attention by playing up. I’m not hoping to change the worldwide reaction to it, just pointing out why our measures seem to be making the problem worse rather than better. Why the war on terror has made the world a more dangerous place.

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