The never ending war

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Today is the eight anniversary of the 9/11 attack on the United States by the terrorist group of al-Qaeda which brought the World Trade Center down that has killed more than 3000 innocent lives and which also brought the United States to its knees. No one would have ever imagined that such a large scale attack can be carried out in the most powerful country of the world and which has the most sophisticated intelligence agencies like the CIA and the FBI where both have failed miserably against terrorism.

The accolades of martyrdom on the terrorists have ramified greater terrorist groups like the Jenamiah Islam Indonesia, Moro Liberation Front (MNLF) Philippines, Palestine Liberation Front(PLF), Hezbollah Lebanon and many more. And all of these terrorist groups have its own agenda and a myriad of reasons to fight: religion, land, oppression, freedom. The fight for land in Palestine with Israel against the backdrop of religion has been a long standing issue and with no solution in sight, the people of both countries can brace themselves for greater sufferings and destructions. Granted that this issue has been resolved, the terrorists will still have other reasons to continue to fight. They will fight a jihad war in the name of religion. They would want to liberate the Muslims in the belief that they have been oppressed by the west. So, the war on terror continues.

Why do these people so ever willing to fight and to kill? It is their religious beliefs or are they being brainwashed to fight for the sake of fighting? The fact that they have members who are willing to sacrifice their lives by becoming suicide bombers must have sent shivers down the spine of many. To achieve their objectives, they have no qualms to maim and to kill even the innocents. And history has taught us that a religious war is always long and bloody.

The resources to fight a war whether conventional or otherwise require a tremendous amount of manpower and finance. The ability of the terrorist groups to fight such a long war showed that they must have a huge amount of financial support. Can the United States identify its sources to cut this financial lifeline of the terrorist groups? Although President Obama has begun to reach out for peace to the Muslim world, especially Iran (but with a lukewarm reciprocation), he must continue to work with those countries where terror cells are rampant.

If olive branch diplomacy fails to work, then for the sake of world peace, should the United States leads an all out war, physically or economically against those countries that harbor terrorism?