Woolwich, Boston, and the End of the War on Terror

[SecularMotion]

Back in January, 2002, when George W. Bush’s war on terror was getting into full swing, Terry Jones, a British comedian who was part of the Monty Python troupe, asked an awkward question: “How do you wage war on an abstract noun? It’s rather like bombing murder.” Eleven years later, nobody has come up with a convincing answer, perhaps because there isn’t one. But in the past couple of days, we’ve seen some laudable efforts to reframe the question in a manner that’s more amenable to rational discourse.

I’ll get to President Obama’s speech about resetting U.S. policy in a moment, but he wasn’t the only politician who spoke yesterday about combating terrorism. In London, David Cameron, the British Prime Minister, delivered a commendably measured response to the brutal murder of an off-duty British soldier outside an Army barracks in Woolwich, south London. After paying tribute to the victim, Lee Rigby, a twenty-six-year-old private who had served in Afghanistan, and issuing the standard declaration that Britain “will never give in to terror,” Cameron noted that the attack, carried out with kitchen knives and meat cleavers, “was also a betrayal of Islam—and of the Muslim communities who are give so much to our country. There is nothing in Islam that justifies this truly dreadful act.” Cameron went on:

We will defeat violent extremism by standing together, backing our police and security services, and, above all, by challenging the poisonous narrative of extremism on which this violence feeds.

He ended the speech thus: “The police have responded with heightened security and activity—and that is right. But one of the best ways of defeating terrorism is to go about our normal lives. And that is what we shall all do.”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/johncassidy/2013/05/woolwich-boston-obama-the-war-on-terrorism.html

[dipsydoodle]

1. It was originally foreseen

that blowback of some description or other would likely last through to c. 2030. Long ways to go yet.

[DCKit]

2. Multi-generational is far more likely.

In some of the Muslim cultures/sects, Jihad is inherited.

[dipsydoodle]

3. Yes

The children, grandchildren and further back of those who feel affected will perpetuate the jihad the actual moral being to not piss people off in the first place.

[HooptieWagon]

4. Although in the Woolwich case, the perps were Islam converts.

They weren't avenging past acts against their families.

[dipsydoodle]

5. I didn't mean relatives exclusively

Its inevitable they will row in others in the quest.