K. P. S. GILL

Successful counter-terrorist strategies are based on accurate and detailed intelligence on terrorist networks and activities

It is only through the complete and surgical isolation of the extremist element within Islamic nations and societies that a way can be found out of the tidal wave of terror and hatred that is being built up.

Terrorism and its executioners have their own agenda, entirely independent of the popular will, of democratic considerations or institutions, or of the aspirations and desires of the community they claim to represent. They are defeated, not by the operation of some mystical force called ‘popular will’, but by the force of arms. Their activities are not some convenient substitute for the ballot box; they are an absolute rejection of every value integral to democracy.

The defeat of terrorism in Punjab … was unambiguously the result of the counter-terrorist measures implemented in the state by the security forces. Moreover, the use of this coercive force was (and is) not just a necessary expedient, but a fundamental obligation and duty of constitutional government, and its neglect inflicts great and avoidable suffering on the innocent and law abiding

If we seek a true victory, we must defeat the fundamentalist ideologies that threaten to plunge the entire region into a conflagration that may well destroy us all. The greater war that we must now engage in is the war for the minds of men.

The entire civilized world, the world that has been painstakingly claimed by liberal democracy, must now accept the inescapable and inevitable truth: there can be no compromise with terrorism and its perpetrators. This is a lesson that India must also learn in its fruitless and suicidal quest for a ‘negotiated solution’ with mass murderers, or with their state sponsors in Pakistan. The world must understand, equally, that there is no geographical ‘locus’ of terrorism; terrorism is not just a threat to the limited areas where it temporarily finds the largest number of its victims.

The defeat of terrorism in Punjab … was unambiguously the result of the counter-terrorist measures implemented in the state by the security forces. Moreover, the use of this coercive force was (and is) not just a necessary expedient, but a fundamental obligation and duty of constitutional government, and its neglect inflicts great and avoidable suffering on the innocent and law abiding

Terrorism and its executioners have their own agenda, entirely independent of the popular will, of democratic considerations or institutions, or of the aspirations and desires of the community they claim to represent. They are defeated, not by the operation of some mystical force called ‘popular will’, but by the force of arms. Their activities are not some convenient substitute for the ballot box; they are an absolute rejection of every value integral to democracy.

It is only through the complete and surgical isolation of the extremist element within Islamic nations and societies that a way can be found out of the tidal wave of terror and hatred that is being built up.

The entire civilized world, the world that has been painstakingly claimed by liberal democracy, must now accept the inescapable and inevitable truth: there can be no compromise with terrorism and its perpetrators. This is a lesson that India must also learn in its fruitless and suicidal quest for a ‘negotiated solution’ with mass murderers, or with their state sponsors in Pakistan. The world must understand, equally, that there is no geographical ‘locus’ of terrorism; terrorism is not just a threat to the limited areas where it temporarily finds the largest number of its victims.

Successful counter-terrorist strategies are based on accurate and detailed intelligence on terrorist networks and activities

If we seek a true victory, we must defeat the fundamentalist ideologies that threaten to plunge the entire region into a conflagration that may well destroy us all. The greater war that we must now engage in is the war for the minds of men.