"If the point of terrorism is to inspire terror, the terrorists have won again."

That is very true - but also completely wrong, and I'm quite shocked to see people still writing things like that at this point. If the point of terrorism - but that is no longer the point of terrorism. If one is, say, an Irish terrorist, and one's goal is to unite the Emerald Isle under honest Catholic rule (or alternatively to keep the clean Protestant counties of Ulster away from heathen Papist rule), one is fighting for a cause. I absolutely deplore the indiscriminate targeting of innocents, but a rational mind can understand and respect their cause, and argue that if they lay down their weapons - as has largely happened in Ireland now - honest men could get around a table, debate the issues, and come up with a compromise. I'm not saying it's easy, and I'm not saying it would be a solution - but it's possible to come up with something which everybody is capable of living with, as opposed to dying for. Incidentally, and without wanting to bring Israel into this, I would put a large majority of Palestinians into this group - they have a largely just cause, and although they are fighting for it in the wrong way, there are possible - painful, torturous, but possible - routes to a compromise which would, on a day-to-day basis, make it possible for everyone in the region to get on with their lives.

The people who blow themselves up on trains in London, Madrid and Mumbai, and in clubs in Bali, who fly planes into skyscrapers and try to destroy 10 planes on the same day leaving Heathrow are not the same people. In the past, the old chestnut that "one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter" did have a kernel of truth. Terrorists - or freedom fighters - were fighting for Palestine, Ulster, the Basque country, Tamil Eelam, for freedom from foreign or oppressive rule. In general, while their methods may have been condemned, they were fighting for a relatively popular cause, at least within their own circles, and so they enjoyed some support, usually have a 'political wing' (or constitute the 'military wing' of a larger political group). They could be negotiated with - and in the case of all 4 examples given above, have gone at least as far as a 'cease-fire', which has held for a while, allowing some people and businesses in their areas to get on and start making something of their lives - to help the people for whom they are supposedly fighting to gain some level of normality.

The new breed of - let's be frank - Islamic fundamentalist terrorists are not like that. Their goals and motives are so alien to a rational, 'western' mindset, that there can realistically be no negotiation, no cease-fires, no compromise and, I am coming to believe, no beating them. For what it's worth, when I say 'western', I do include countries like Russia and China, although the Islamic terrorist groups acting in and around those countries fall more into the older mould, fighting for freedom for Chechnya or East Turkestan, for example. It should also go without saying, but probably wouldn't, that when I say Islamic terror, I am not talking about Muslims in general, or Islamic belief in general. While Islam may well be a more militant religion than Christianity or Judaism, the mainstream thought does not condone mass murder. Most Muslims are, in my experience, like most Jews, Christians, Buddhists, whatever - they want to live their lives, make a living, fall in love, bring up their kids right, and so on - they are sane enough to believe that mass murder is wrong, however many virgins you're promised in heaven afterwards. They know the difference between being willing to put their life on the line for a cause, and desiring to die for a cause - one is sane, the other is not.

These people - and the groups which fund, supply and provide ideological support to them - are non-rational. The older 'freedom fighters' were fighting for a recognisable cause, and as such, in general, were after attention ("Notice our cause!") and fear ("It'll be easier to give us what we want in the long run!"), but they were also aware of their reputation and support. They tend to restrain themselves, to some extent, because they understand that they can easily go too far and start acting against their cause, they care what third-party groups (e.g. US, UN) think of them. The newer groups simply have different methods, different goals, and do not care what people think of them. They are effectively anarchists - their goal is to destroy societies outright.

In other words, "If the point of terrorism is to inspire terror, the terrorists have won again." - I honestly believe that the point of modern fundamentalism Islamic terror is not to inspire terror - it's to destroy and kill on a massive scale. I think a more correct phrase for today's world is "If you die, the terrorists have won again."

None of this - hopefully obviously - is to condone terror, be it Irish, Tamil, Basque, Zulu, or Arab/Islamic. It's to point out that terrorism and terrorists have changed - and so attitudes towards them have to change as well. I currently have a flight back to the UK booked for a couple of weeks from now, and I fully intend to be on the plane - and if the authorities still believe at that time that safety demands that I carry nothing but my passport and a wallet, so be it. When I get to London safely, I will have beaten the terrorists.