It occurred to me, sitting on the train to visit my parents, that there's a major flaw in George Bush's War on Terror; that is, that it assumes that American intervention around the world will lead to a decrease in terrorism.

Now, cast your mind back to the six years prior to 11th September 2001. How often did terrorism make the news? Compare it with the six years since. I was 9 in 1995, so not particularly politically aware for most of that period, but it seems that prior to 2001, terrorism didn't make the news anywhere near as often as it does nowadays. There was the IRA and assorted other groups in Ireland, Palestinian and Israeli groups making a nuisance of themselves, occasionally ETA; nothing like the scale that we've seen since 2001.

The question is, did the increase in terrorist activity happen before, and lead to, the World Trade Centre attacks, or did the attacks (and more pertinently, the US response) lead to the increase? Another interesting question would be: how much of the purported increase is actually real, and how much of it is media (and government) hyperbole?

The answer to the first question is reasonably simple; from what I can see, there was no increase in terrorist activity until after the World Trade Centre attacks. Strangely, fundamentalist Muslims don't appreciate having their countries invaded on fairly flimsy pretexts, and others who might otherwise be more moderate in their views may quite easily be driven to fundamentalism by the constant threat to, and defamation of, their religion and way of life.

That's not to say, of course, that I agree with their religion (or any other religion), or their society (or any other society that has basically non-existent women's rights and gay rights, and poor separation of church and state---like, for example, the USA [1]_). However, the US's heavy-handed approach has not made them many friends in the Middle East.

.. [1] I feel I should clarify here. Whilst yes, it is legal for women to go out in public without being accompanied by a man, or to show their arms, and yes, homosexuality isn't punishable by death despite the best efforts of Arnold Schwarzeneggar, US law and society is nowhere near what I'd consider reasonable, simply because race, gender, and sexuality are still issues. For the record, the same applies to the UK.