Wars and terrorism

Some give the credit to the oldest profession, to, well we know what. But I believe we've been having wars and fights for about as long. Which makes the soldier as roughly the second oldest profession. Soldiers have always been the focus of our attention, be it accolades or derision. And they've always been needed, wars have never been a rare quantity in our history. And if you ever track what wars actually accomplish, they mostly cause more wars. The most famous of these are the crusades and ensuing battles over Jerusalem. I always found them interesting as religious wars never quite die out. And one can consider the modern day phenomenon of terrorism as an extension of the conflict. The current "war on terror" as dubbed by the media always reminds me of a story in Hindu mythology. It's the story of a demon named Raktabeej, which literally translates as blood seeds. His power was that for each drop of his blood that fell to the floor, he would be born anew with a thousand times strength. Eventually, the goddess Kali slayed him by collecting all his blood in a tumbler, and drinking it while she was fighting him.

This story, atleast to me, has odd similarities with the terrorism situation. The problem that most of the west faces is the seemingly deluge of people who come up to replace slain terrorists. This to me has eerie similarities with the demon I talked about. And it seems like the west is trying to almost bleed the monster to death. to truly resolve the problem requires something other than war. Like Kali drinking the blood, the west needs to address the actual source of the problem. Though neither party may agree on the actual issues causing the conflict, it is obvious that a direct assault is futile, they simply have to resolve the underlying issues. And even though terrorists have done some very bad things, they have had some pretty bad things done to them and their families as well. So unless both sides come together and drink each drop of their sins, a solution is unlikely, and the future remains dark.