>>Can you provide an example of where honey worked with terrorists? Where the country is not a target of terrorism now because of that tactic? Where the country did not basically placate the terrorists (give in to them) and that country is not now an immediate target because another larger target is more important?
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>Maybe not honey in the short term but the long one. The west antagonizes these people and does little to help them overcome their problems. Thomas Friedman gives examples (in his books and in a TV interview he did with T. Russert) about the situation of the poor in Pakistan.
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>He proposed that if we helped these people out of their poor economic situation, by providing investments and jobs, they become middle-class. The middle-class in Pakistan, in his example, wants to better their kid's education. As always, public education is sub-par, so they prefer to send their kids to private school. What decent private schools exist inthe area are religious schools (madrassas), run by an Islamic Fundamentalist mafia that instills hatred of the west and the 'infidels' into their young minds.

The Dutch are peacekeeper in a part of Afghanistan. Their job is to provide security and to give support to NGOs (http://www.ngo.org/index2.htm). The Dutch parliament has approved the whole mission on the condition that the NGOs help rebuild the country.

Currently, the big problem is that the NGOs do not want to openly co-operate with the army forces. Why? Because this would make them a target for the Taliban. Perhaps they would be safe during the day due to the presence of the military, but they would be easy targets at night. So, can't they do their job completely 'independent' of the military? Not really, indeed. The actual situation is that therefore NGOs are not capable of effectively rebuilding the country. First the military - even the Dutch - must fight ALL Taliban and othertype terrorists. It's a dillemma, don't you see that?!


>When a country gets out of poverty and people reach middle-class, it's in their interest to maintain order and reject fundamentalism, and the terrorists in their midst. They want peace, security and stability. It's the only way to do business and aspire to maintain a decent standard of life.
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>Unfortunately, for many decades now, the USA and the west has not cultivated their friendship; has not - by and large - provided investments and jobs for these people. Contrast these examples with India, or Indonesia, Morocco or even Egypt. They get loans, they get tourism and trade, and they are more-or-less stable.