Right, i've collected my thoughts now: Trej has covered most of the points I would have written. I would mention that terrorists cannot be fought like a normal threat, they have no fixed base that we can destroy, they have no fixed point that we can invade. Trej is correct in saying that the voilence will not stop with the war on terror, in fact IMO this simply creates more. Terrorism is simply a different tactic of fighting a war, but again, in my opinion an attack targeted deliberatly on innocent civilians is anathema to any cause. This is where it becomes cloudy of course because we must reconcile the cause against the actions of the group. For example, Nelson Mandela carried out a lot of sabotage on targets in the apatheid government, I have found no information on civilian casualities but from the perspective of the (very evil) Apartheid government he was a terrorist. Terrorism is a very cloudy issue and exactly where to draw the line between terrorism and geurilla warfare for a worhty ideal depends a lot upon your perspective and how much you valule human life.