[Family Security Foundation] Stephen Schwartz - Some observers claim that Islamist extremists are impossible to defeat because they desire death and will not stray from their violent path. But there are cases in which terrorism was defeated. The Irish Republican Army was convinced to give up terrorist activity. Before it, violent radicals including the Italian Red Brigades, the German Red Army Faction, and the Japanese Red Army vanished from the political landscape. Above all, terrorism is always dependent on extensive, external financial support. It is a principle of war enunciated by the great German strategist Clausewitz that "irregular," "insurgent" combat - of which terrorism is a subset - cannot survive without foreign help. Terrorism is not unbeatable. It will be beaten by arms, by psychology, and by cutting off their foreign support.
2007-01-19 01:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive