Roots and Solutions

They were discussing terrorism on MSNBC’s noon edition of Connected today. Craig Crawford asked one guest, Nile Gardiner, “Are we doing enough to deal with the root causes which seem to create the jihad and suicide bombers that become pawns in the hands of the terrorist leaders?”

Mr. Gardiner responded: “We are dealing with an evil ideology, a perversion of Islam which feeds on hatred and anger among a small minority of Muslims across Europe. But we simply cannot appease this ideology, and I don’t think that we should be entering into a major debate about addressing the root causes. We’re dealing with an enemy that simply cannot be negotiated with or reasoned with, but it simply has to be destroyed.”

Wow, that’s a happy picture. You could tell that Crawford was left virtually speechless by such a bleak appraisal.

In response to the above statement, first I would say that if the enemy cannot be negotiated with or reasoned with, and if the United States cannot be negotiated with or reasoned with, then where does that leave us? With a long, protracted struggle, and with much suffering and death. The American government may want this, but I don’t think the American people do.

Second, I don’t think that examining the root causes necessarily leads to appeasement. That would be a fallacy in reasoning. By examining the root causes of terrorism, and by working with the majority of Muslims (instead of the small minority that’s causing all the problems) you might actually improve our world and their world from the ground up. And the Muslim majority might actually put pressure on the minority to stop their evil acts. Why not try?

You cannot defeat terrorism by just trying to stop or kill suicide bombers, because you cannot stop them all. There needs to be a balanced approach to the problem of terrorism, one that involves the Muslim community in seeking a solution.