Ake,

let me tell you what I consider a very fundamental omission (and mistake) in your thinking when posting about terrorism in this and many other threads. I see a similar mistake in some others' thinking (or at least argumentation).

Your thinking reduced to a very short summary (it may look like a parody due to the shortness, but that is not my intention):
(1) Understand the reasons for terrorism. Understand what they fight for and what grieves them.
(2) Remove everything that grieves them and do nothing that makes terrorism (more) likely.

At no moment I have seen in your thinking any indication of the third stage (between stage 1 and stage 2), namely an evaluation whether one wants (or should want) to give in to a demand or not.

Two examples from history:
(1) The British govenments confronted with terrorism from the IRA (I only look at that part now though there has been loyalist terrorism as well) had to try to understand (I completely agree with that part of your thinking) the reasons for the terrorism from the IRA and to look at the demands. One very big reason was the treatment of the nationalist community by the unionists (burning down houses, forceful evictions, gerrymandering 'majorities', differential treatment in housing decisions and in jobs etc). I consider it a very big mistake by many successive govenments not to have reacted early and quickly to these demands even against the will of a unionist majority. One big demand of the IRA was a united Ireland. I consider it a correct decision by the Britsh governments not to give in to this demand (against the will of a small majority) and to insist that such a result (united Ireland) only can be reached by parliamentary and democratic means.

(2) When the British government was confronted with demands from the Nazi government (verbatim or by action) it tried for a long time to appease the Nazi government. They also could have given them Poland or whatever came after without acting. They did act and as a result of their action many British people died and increased terrorism (by bombs from above) was one of the results. But I think they did the right thing at that time. Any politics that has as the sole aim to reduce the number of own people killed in the short run is predictable and invites to further (terrorist) threats.

And in that sense 'standing up to terror' is a good idea. There should be no immediate reward for trying to enforce an aim by terror.

If one reads what the hard core of those fundamentalist Muslim terrorists really want one can only say: We'll never agree to give you that (caliphate, sharia, treatment of women and people with other faiths...). Even if you kill more of us.

On the other hand, they make their immediate demands (retreat from Iraq, for instance) much more palatable for the large majority of Muslims who mostly do neither share their final aims nor approve of the methods used. To look how one can remove quickly the need for a demand that is shared by a large fraction of their co-religionists from which they sample the new recruits is a good idea that I agree with.

But one has to decide at each stage anew whether one wants to give in to one demand and not make this decision for once and all. One has to accept that such decisions will cost lives of the own and other populations.

I still consider the decision to attack Afghanistan the correct decision. Each government should know that harbouring terrorists can be the end of the government and can force them personally to a life on the run. That decision could hope for some understanding even among Muslims in that historic situation. I consider the decision to attack Iraq a bloody (in both senses) error. Understanding that move was very low even among most non-Muslims. A move that can be seen as a defense against an attack (like Afghanistan could be seen) is different from a move that hardly can be pictured as defensive (Iraq).

If one does not make the evaluation whether one wants to give in each time anew one gives the wrong signal to terrorists and risks more lives in the long run.

What if British rightwing terrorists attack Muslim targets and lives with bombs and just demand that all Muslims have to be expatriated? What if two terrorist groups threaten to target London with mutually exclusive aims (one group: we'll bomb you if there'll be no united Ireland, the other: we'll bomb you if there is no union)?

A politic that puts appeasements first at all (long term) costs is wrong.

Wolfgang