The "New war" : terrorism

Terrorism is not a new concept. If we really look at this concept, it has been around since the first wars were fought.It is a simple strategy. If your are faced with a superior force, you try to disrupt their supplies and break their will.

 Let us go back to the Roman times in Palestine. They were called zealots in that time. These men fighting for freedom from the Romans attacked small bands of Roman soldiers. We as Americans are familar with this tatic. During the Revolutionary War, we attacked British soldiers in non-conventional fashion. The French did it during World War II. It is not a new concept. It was born in its modern form by the IRA in Ireland. They took old tatics and

elevated them to the "new" terrorism. Up until this point it was call a "revolution". It is only recently reached this level with the attack of 911. It changed in recent times, because the concept has turned more religious in nature, but it still breaks down to politics and revolution. Religious radicals now use the "suicide" bombers as a political statement. The violence has escalated and more and more innocent people are being killed. The attacks are reaching higher and higher levels of destuction. All we need to look at is 911. How do we fight the "new" war? We must look at the causes for people to strap explosives on to their body and blow themselves up for God and country. If you look at what hapened in Viet Nam and Afganistan recently, both the U.S. and the Russians underestimated the zeal and the fortitude of their enemy. They did not understand how deeply these people felt about their countries. They did not understand their customs and culture. We as Americans, do not understand the culture and customs of our enemies either. We must first understand a thing to defeat a thing. These people want one thing and one thing only, Freedom. Getting back to our question, how do we fight this "new" war? We must understand the political reasons first and then to tailor our response to that reason. We must understand their culture and customs. We must not push our society on them.

Terrorism has been with us for thousands of years. It is not a "new" war. It can not be politics as usual or we will never rid the world of terrorism. It has changed. We have seen this with 911.