International Terrorism and the Contemporary World

There is an imaginary myth that terrorism is basically a law-and-order question, involving few people and amenable (despite all the opposite evidence) to tough, simple measures. But why should terrorism be suppressed, when the large scale publicity arousing a single act of terrorism will considerably outweigh decades of peaceful representation and lobbying? Why should it stop, when concentrated government actions have generated no effect of prevention. Terrorism is copiously publicized in newspapers, news magazines, television and radio. But in the quest of truth one has to investigate both sides of the act. There are in effect two stories here: the story of the terrorist incident, and the different story of the government response to terrorism. Every terrorist act induces predictable and deserved condemnation of violence from government spokesmen, but such reactions seldom unfold the real face of the incident. The prime objective of this study is to create a sense of comprehension and realism on the problem of terrorism and its dangers for world peace and to show that pragmatism must visibly replace dogmatism and grand principle is the sole viable response to terrorism.