Belial,

The War on Terrorism is, indeed, not a holistic initiative to eliminate terror. It is rather, a holistic initiative to reduce terrorism to an acceptable minimum. Any fanatic with access to explosives may become a terrorist. With a population in excess of 6 billion, it would be unreasonable to set 0 as the upper bound. Terror is an internal experience. Terrorism is the behavior which has been targeted.

The proximate tools are conventional police work to interdict terrorists within national borders, and the armed forces (both conventional and unconventional) to combat those outside national borders. These tools function first to incarcerate or kill terrorists. Their second function is to reduce the opportunities for terrorist funding, recruiting, training, and the practice of their trade.

Two other tools are long term: political liberation and economic advancement. Take a moment to look at the countries of origin of the world’s terrorists over the last 50 years. I believe that you will see a correlation between the ratio of terrorists by nationality and lack of political freedom/autocratic rulers etc. I think you will also see a correlation between the ratio of terrorists by nationality and their poverty/absence of wealth.

The ratio of Palestinian to Dutch suicide bombers is, I think, striking.

To illustrate the point, as the PRC has become increasingly integrated into the world’s economy, and as the per capita income of its population has grown, so too has it reduced its support for international terrorism. The same cannot be said of pariah nations which have few or no economic incentives to moderate their idealisms. Permit me to point to Afghanistan as an extreme example of this.

As for the Taliban giving sanctuary to al-Qaeda: Either the Taliban was or was not the legitimate government of Afghanistan. If it was, and it provided a safe haven to an organization, al-Qaeda, which was demonstrably a clear and present danger to the United States, then that support constituted the casus belli for action under international norms. If, on the other hand the Taliban was not, in fact, the legitimate government of Afghanistan, then any arguments in support of them by their apologists are irrelevant.

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Eudaimonia