Summit May Favor Tackling Causes of Terrorism Over Military Response

[kris10ep]

MADRID, Spain - Governments afflicted by extremist violence must address its causes if they hope to defeat it, not just strike back as the United States has done, say experts who will take part in a world conference on terrorism in Madrid this week.

Those causes include poverty, religious intolerance and failures to integrate a swelling tide of immigrants.

"The consensus ... is a 'soft' power approach based on prevention - not like the United States has in mind, but (rather) with engagement with North African Muslim nations, economic development, assimilating and integrating immigrants into host nations," Charles Powell, a history professor at San Pablo-CEU University in Madrid, said in an interview.

The conference, which runs from Tuesday to Friday, brings together world leaders including U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, Afghan President Hamid Karzai and various heads of government or state, as well as about 180 experts from 50 countries

more
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines05/0307-04.htm

[Nancy Waterman]

1. I hope someone in our government is listening

This is the only solution. All this military aggression just makes it worse. The more you actively resist something, the more you strengthen it.

[Roland99]

2. Gee...imagine that. Treat the source instead of attacking the symptoms

[Malikshah]

6. Yup-- I've give a number of public lectures on the topic

and have always found it useful to discuss Terrorism as a symptom-- as with all symptoms, if you only treat the symptoms and not the cause, the symptoms may go away for a bit, but will always return--in some cases with more virulence.

Usually--the audiences "get it" at that point. Terrorism as a tactic or terrorism as the end result (because "they hate us for a freedom") are not as useful as definitions.

[uppityperson]

8. Wow, what a novel idea.

rant rant rant rant rant rant rant. Thank you.

[mmonk]

3. That's not "manly"

That's not taking it to the terrorists over there so they won't come over here. Besides they are not Christian but are Islamic Jihadists trying to take us over and convert us.

[bullimiami]

4. i wish some of these counties would get a spine

and stop accepting our behavior just because it comes from the all fucking holy USA.

[TahitiNut]

5. They get today's KSOTO award.

KSOTO = Keen Sense Of The Obvious :shrug:

[peacebird]

7. but the first step in tackling this issue is to discuss it! this is good.

at least they are opening the dialogue andit is getting reported in the MSM. Even if to you & I it seems blindingly obvious that dealing with the root causes such as poverty is the only sane path - you must remember that a large chunk of the american public has NO CLUE.

They have never really thought about it, have been told repeatedly that "They hate us for our freedoms" and that is what they believe. Amazing tho it seems to me...

Let's cheer people who open a public dialogue over the root causes of terrorism, because as we know - the only way to defeat terrorism is to quit generating terrorists.

As my bumper sticker says "We are creating enemies faster than we can kill them."

[rodeodance]

9. very few were listening to Kerry during the campaign when he

continuousing called for these talks.