Also, no hurricane has ever been policed away

Jollygreen alerts me to an article in which Britain's Hugh Orde, police chief in Northern Ireland, says Britain should talk to al-Qaeda. His reasoning:

"If you want my professional assessment of any terrorism campaign, what fixes it is talking and engaging and judging when the conditions are right for that to take place. Is that a naive statement? I don't think it is ... It is the reality of what we face If somebody can show me any terrorism campaign where it has been policed out, I'd be happy to read about it, because I can't think of one."

I just can't agree with his reasoning. Almost all terrorist movements are actually ethnic secession/liberation movements (a few are just fancy drug gangs). Those can't be policed away because the ethnic group is still there and still wants self-determination. But al-Qaeda, a stateless bunch of globetrotting glamour-jihadists, will go away on its own, just like the anarchist movement did a century ago. Landless terrorist movements tend to blow themselves out like storms, I say. Just wait and it'll go away.

PS - On an unrelated note, it's the end of Hillary. Yay!! I'm glad that the first female president will be someone who's not such an asshole.