The "War on Terror" - Is There a Better Way?

One of my favourite (or is that "favorite"?) podcasts is Freakonomics.  If you haven't listened to any of their podcasts, you should.  I know it's about economics and economics has been called "the dismal science", but Freakonomics is economics delivered in a whole new way.  As it's creators put it, "The Hidden Side of Everything".  They also have books....

However, given the obsession with terrorism, state sponsored or otherwise, the White House hosted A Summit on Countering Violent Extremism late in February 2015.

There is also the Canadian Government's move to extend our role in Iraq, possibly bombing in Syria and it's own obsession with getting legislation passed such as Bill C-51, which some have dubbed the "Police State Act".

Freakonomics put out a podcast on this very topic earlier in February and it can be found here.  While it does examine some research into the whole issue, it does not just involve the opinions of what some might call "pointy-headed academics" (never mind that such people actually might have valid points to make on the issue).

Some take-away points made in the podcast:

• What should we expect from this summit?  Alas, very little.
• Many people might think we couldn't make the problem worse.  Oh yes, we can make it much worse, very quickly, as we saw with Iraq.
• Many think terrorism has something to do with religion.  Examining the data over several decades shows that most have very little to do with religion.  Instead, almost all terrorism and extremism shares a specific strategic objective - to compel a democratic state to withdraw combat forces from territory the terrorists see as their homeland.  This idea of occupation could be seen as the root (but not the only) cause of suicide terrorism. 
• In Iraq, for example, "we" (as in "the West", or, more specifically, the Americans), decided to go into Iraq to "wring the Islamic fundamentalism out of the country by introducing democracy to the region".  So before the invasion, there were about 50 suicide attacks per year (with none in Iraq), and almost none were specifically anti-American.  A few years after the invasion, there were over 500 a year, with over 300 in Iraq.  And we have seen very clearly how anti-American those have been.

There is much more, including a few comments about young people fro the West and the supposed allure of joining the jihad.

Listen to the podcast.  It makes some very good points.