I remember many stories of American fund raising events for Irish freedom fighters the IRA. It's funny how opinion changes when things happen to you.
One person’s freedom fighter is another ones terrorist.
Meeting force with massive force never seems to work. Once the UK government started talking to these groups and taking the criminal element out of the equation and got to the real issues these groups have less to be angry about because they have a say in there and our futures. Yes there is still along way to go but the IRA bombs have stopped.

What makes people feel so desperate that it seems a good idea to strap a bomb to yourself? Going in to Iraq with no evidence of WMD and just because Sadam was a bad leader only made certain elements feel stronger and feel more justified to strap bombs to them. I don’t see us invading North Korea with its WMD and bad leaders.

Terrorists or guerrilla fighters always will have the element of surprise and by there very nature do not fight by the normal rules..You could train to be a kungfu expert but there is no defence to a surprise Baseball Bat around the head.

I can’t think of a major war where a massive force won this type of conflict against those sorts of tactics, they just keep coming back.

Although the loss of people close to us makes us want revenge I feel we have to rise above it and start to get an understanding of why these people want to fight or bomb us, it’s easy to label them as evil and religious zealots.
Understanding, compromise and love are better weapons in my mind than sending vast armies of our sons and daughters to foreign lands or being so terrified in our own homes that security becomes so invasive and common place.