On July 14, at 10:40 p.m. local time, the city of Nice was hit by another act of terrorism. A man loaded a truck with guns and explosives and went to a local Promenade (a paved public walk) and began running over celebrators of the French holiday, Bastille day. The man drove for 1.25 miles killing 84+ and critically injuring at least 20 more before he was shot to death. This comes less two weeks after a Baghdad bombing killed more then 250 people in a shopping center. And only two days before that, 20 hostages were killed at a cafe in Bangladesh. These brutal attacks are happening so often we are becoming numb to them. But why are they happening? Why are people doing this? To understand what is truly going on with groups like ISIS and Al Qaeda, we must first understand terrorism.
Terrorism if defined as "the use of violence and intimidation in the pursuit of political aims." Because of the inherent nature of the terrorism, the bigger and more brutal the attack, the more effective it is. This means that a terrorist will always attempt to do something as large and horrific and possible. They are seeking a public face, a way to show the rest of the world that they are to be known and feared, and there is no way to stop them. To fulfill this, they will attempt to make the public feel unsafe in places that we should feel the most safe. Large gatherings turn from people celebrating something, into a target. Airports that move millions across the globe each day, turn into targets. Hospitals, land marks, parties, theaters, anywhere that we feel is a safe place to come together for any reason, turns into a target. That is what the purpose of terrorism is, to scare you. To make you think that an attack is just around the corner.
The objective of the terrorist leader has little to do with faith. Groups like ISIS and Al-Qaeda are nothing more then tools for their leaders to obtain the power they seek. They use fear and hate to twist the minds of others until they believe that committing these terrible acts is the best way to defend their way of life. The people who are dying for these causes are convinced that it is only a matter of time until the west pours into their homelands and eliminates their way of life, a belief that is told to them by selfish leaders who's only goal is to obtain as much power as possible. If we threaten them or attack them, they are proven right in the eyes of their followers, and even a military victory will only end in the people hating you. If we ignore them and weather the storm, they will never stop, spreading throughout the world until every man, woman and child lives in fear of stepping outside their homes. This is what an ideological war is, a war between two very different ways of life, not between Islam and Christianity, not the west and the east and not a war between two armies. It's a war between the ideals of liberty and fear, justice and power, freedom and subjugation.
This lose-lose situation may have a way out of it though. The people who are hurt most by this are the people who live under and around these organizations. They live in constant fear that if they speak up they will surely end up dead. They are afraid to help us because we cannot defend them if they do. But when they do speak up, people like Malala Yousafzai are beacons of hope that no one from the outside could ever be to her people. These are the types of leaders who can end the war on terror. The only true way to win this war of ideology and stop the attacks that result in mass deaths every year, is to show those who have the power to disassemble the system of fear and hate, that they can stand up. Violence will only create violence, and any "victory" achieved by it is only momentary. In order to create real change, we need to stand with those who live in fear and refuse to bow. That is the only way to win a War on Terror.
