by Ian Loft

Created on: May 03, 2008

Terrorism is with little doubt the most deadly form of covert warfare that is a scourge on world peace. No amount of military muscle in recorded history was able to eradicate terrorism and little has changed today. This is an unfortunate and unpleasant fact of life continually demonstrated with each new atrocity moreover no amount of 21st century technology or advanced weaponry has proved totally effective.

The IRA once sent a chilling warning to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in the 1980's with words to the effect of: "We only have to get lucky once, to survive you will have to be lucky always!" This in many ways describes the entire purpose and effect of terrorism on the world in that to succeed a minority group can afford to fail as many times as it takes until one successful attempt inflicts a mortal blow.

The world awoke on Tuesday morning September 11 in 2001 to the horrors of a cowardly act of terrorism that killed thousands of innocent men, women and children yet this was only the beginning of a determined and deliberately planned wave of horror soon to be unleashed upon the world. President George Bush declared war on terrorism' wherever necessary in the world yet he may as well have declared war on the wind. Troops were soon deployed to Afghanistan followed by Iraq yet the deployment of one of the world's most technologically superior military forces gained little beyond the destruction of two Middle Eastern countries.

In spite of the shock and awe' of US military retaliation in the Middle East, the September 11 attacks were soon up with similar atrocities around the world. More than 200 holidaymakers killed in a Bali nightclub blast in 2002, a Madrid train was bombed during peak hour rush in 2004 followed by the inhumane slaughter of innocent children attending a primary school in Beslan Russia later the same year, and of course the London bombings of 2005 stand testimony to the failure of military force to combat terror.

President Bush wasted resources and time trying to apply brute force inappropriately and without identifying the root cause in this case it seems most of the world fear to openly speak of the root cause thus further emboldening terrorists and inviting more attacks on the soft underbelly of a politically correct and timid Western mindset. So much for the con of military force against terrorism yet it cannot be said that military force is always ineffective.

One of the few nations to significantly reduce terrorism using military

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