Naivite => Arrogance

I saw a bumper sticker today that said, "Terrorism is a symptom, not the disease."

I would like to argue that this is an arrogant way of thinking. Here are some building blocks:

1) The idea that terrorism is a symptom implies a belief that terrorism is an understandable reaction to something, be it a policy, cultural imperialism, or whatever. This is not an obviously unreasonable thing to think. At some times terrorism is a very legitimate response. The French Resistance was undoubtedly viewed as "terrorism" of a sort, but few people around today question the legitimacy of blowing up bridges to slow the Nazi advance. The key is that terrorism is seen as a response to an external stimulus.

2) External stimuli ALWAYS exist. Unless you live in the only country in your known universe, you are affected by your neighbors. Sometimes they attack you outright. Sometimes you trade with them and have petty disagreements about tariffs.

3) No policy on the part of a country could ever make all people outside that country happy. No country that I know of comes anywhere close to keeping all of its own citizens happy. The US comes the closest in many ways. Despite disagreements, people seem still to be glad they live in the US instead of somewhere else - at least most people most of the time.

Let's take these three premises in reverse order and see where they lead. Since no country's actions will always make its neighbors happy, and those actions will undoubtedly reverberate in, and be felt by, other countries, terrorism is an understandable and basically inevitable response, on the part of the "losers" in any given situation.

I assert that believing this shows a fundamental arrogance on the part of the believer. If they believe that the terrorism going on now is justified, they must believe that it is a legitimate response to the policies of the US (or some other Western countries). If this terrorism is a legitimate response, then the US should presumably have pursued a different policy which would not have "created" terrorism abroad. But therein lies the rub. What policy wouldn't create terrorists? Supporting Saddam Hussein, even tacitly, would encourage Islamic Revolutionaries who want to supplant him to attack the US. Supporting the opposition to Saddam Hussein makes the US a target for his supporters (read: insurgents). Lest you think that we could have stayed out of this altogether, think about this problem:Before the first gulf war, Saddam killed innocent allies of the US (Kuwaitis). After the Gulf war, he tried to assassinate the former US President. Vladimir Putin has recently revealed that in the last several years Russian intelligence has gotten wind of multiple plots by Iraqi agents to attack targets in the United States. We didn't go to Iraq for fun to steal their oil. We had little choice but to deal with the situation there.

EITHER WAY SOMEONE IS GOING TO BE PISSED OFF.

If you believe that there are actions that the US could take which would somehow stave off terrorism against us, you are failing to take into account the multidude of differences between people OUTSIDE the United States. Some of them are diametrically opposed to one another. Peaceniks are mad when we encourage rebel insurgencies and they're mad when we try to counter them. This is naive and stupid. You can't have it both ways. The only way I can see that someone can believe that radical Islamist, anti-American terrorism is justified is to essentially say they Iraq was right and Iran was wrong, or vice versa. It's to say that the Palestinians are right and the Israelis are wrong, or vice versa. Many people have called me arrogant, but I don't pretend that I understand the Israel-Palestine problem so well that I know who's "right" and who's "wrong." But to believe there are choices the US could make which would prevent terrorism is to assume that there is one right answer to the Israel-Palestine problem.

According to dictionary.com, arrogant means "Marked by or arising from a feeling or assumption of one's superiority toward others". For someone living in the United States to think that some certain policy is so "right" that no one would rebel against it and be driven to terrorism seems quite arrogant to me.

To the person with the bumper sticker: I guess terrorism is a symptom. It's a symptom of a diseased mind that believes problems are solved by bombing innocent people riding the bus. Arrogance is a disease, too. Believing that you know better and everyone else out there just doesn't get it is arrogant. Maybe there's a reason why you're not the president of the United States, you idiot.