The problem with terrorists I think is that actually its such an amorphous band of people- all the way from a loon with a home made bomb to a popular uprising- perhaps one of the problems with analysing the issue is that we use this catch all term for both entities.

I’m reminded of an article by Matthew Parris a few months back, suggesting that we should treat terrorists as crimminals. He made the point that this was how the (right-wing) government dealt with the IRA, while the Left were more eager to paint them as freedom fighters. With Islamic terrorism, the opposite is true.

In the aftermath of the failed Picadilly/Glasgow bombings, the emerging concensus from the blog hive-mind was that a good tactic for dealing with terrorists might be to treat them as figures of fun! This would hopefully blunt the appeal of joining such groups. However, this depends on the idea that terrorists are a small and
disparate band. If we are talking about networks of tens of thousands of people, then clearly the approach would have to be different.

If there’s one strand I would add it is that the vast networks used by large numbers of Western corporations to move money around in tax avoidance schemes, typified by banks in the Cayman Islands and Jersey amongst others are also centres for moving “criminal gang” and “terrorist organisation” money around. That’s a large vested interest in the top ranks of our society in not rocking the money-laundering boat too hard, which isn’t helping…