Now that Osama Bin Laden is dead what has really changed? Not much I suspect, because behind al-Qaida there is more than just a bogeyman with a long beard and turban, who occasionally speaks to the world through Al-Jazeera, behind al-Qaida is an idea and ideas are bullet and bomb proof.
The War on Terror is a War of Ideas and the battlefield is the soul of human kind. War on Terror won't be won with bullets or bombs, since as said before ideas are bullet and bomb proof, it will be over only when the people involved see the true horror behind absolute ideas. The horror that comes when someone who, thinks differently, dresses differently, believes differently, speaks a different language, then you do is made into an enemy, that can be killed, maimed, butchered at will solely because they are different. That is the fundamental difference between militant islamists like al-Qaida and the western ideas of humanity and freedom. In the West we live in a society that is based on the idea that the differences which we have are valuable to the wellbeing of the society, while in militant islam dissent from the official rules carry the penalty of death.
Terrorism in its essence is not designed to defeat you, but to get reaction out of you. The reactions to 9/11 were mostly counter-productive to the war of ideas. Abu Ghraib, renditions and Guantanamo are the most obvious violations of what the west has stood for so many years. We suffered a catastrophic defeat with all of these. Al-Qaida won because we flinched, we gave up some of our most treasured ideals, such as due process, right to a fair trial, bans on torture and inhuman treatment of prisoners. This year marks the tenth anniversary of the War on Terror, this means that some of the prisoners in Guantanamo have been imprisoned for ten years without being convicted of a crime. The fundamental pillar of our legal system is that you have to commit a crime and be found guilty of it in a fair and open trial before you are imprisoned. We take a giant leap forward in the war of ideas on the day that suspects of terrorism are no longer sent to rot in some military base, but brought into trial in open court like any other criminal would.
Living up to the ideals of the West is not easy. You have to tolerate things that you find offensive. You have to live knowing that some day someone will take advantage of the fact that the police doesn't arbitrarily strip search people one the streets to harm you. That is the price of freedom. On the day that our governments find it more important to stand up to the ideals that our societies are built than to provide security, that is the day when al-Qaida will never win the war of ideas. We will on the day when you can walk proudly on the streets, thinking what you will, speaking what you want to say, believing what you want to believe, wearing the clothes of your own choosing regardless of what some extremist might do to you. It is up to you and no one else.
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