The end of terrorism

What is happening now in Russia is historical.

Compare these two events:

11 September 2001: A terrorist attack in New York results in a series of wars that have already killed 5 million people, more than 90% civilians, and are still festering.

23 March 2024: A terrorist attack in Moscow results in all the attackers arrested and produced in court in less than 24 hours, and no new war or revolution is started.

What a difference!

Otherwise, 2 aspects are the same: 1) A massive killing of innocents, broadcast live in the media, and 2) No consensus on the responsibilities, as different theories are competing.

What we are witnessing now is a great civilisational event, marking the beginning of the end of terrorism as we know it, since 2001 or even since the murder of Archduke Ferdinand on 28th June 1914 that triggered the World War 1, resulting in 20 millions deaths, half of them civilians.

It is an undeniable fact that the Russian people are teaching us how to deal, as a society, as a civilisation, with terrorism.

Also truly remarquable is the ratio of military to civilian deaths in the Ukraine war: Less than 10% civilians deaths. We need to look at the pre-Napoleonic wars to see such low casualties among civilians!

Again, whatever side our sympathy tends to favour and whatever propaganda each side would like us to believe, let's give the Russians and the Ukrainians the credit they deserve: They fight between soldiers, like the aristocrats of the very ancient times, and not against civilians.

This forces respect, and Russian and Ukrainian soldiers behave in a more civilised way than the Western promoters of this war for which, in the words of the half-crazy former advisor of the Ukrainian government, Arestovich, who sometimes says things that would send maybe anyone else to jail or worse, "Russians are barbarous with money and we are barbarous without money, that's why they (the West) can utilise us for their purposes"...

The West is unable to end terrorism because it is possessed by it. Even philosophically, René Girard has not really been able to "end Clausewitz", and the nazi philosopher Carl Schmitt remains, de facto if not openly, the dominant figure in the Western concept of politics and war.

Beyond rhetoric, if we look at the basic facts like the remarkable respect for civilians from the Russian and Ukrainian sides, we must admit that both countries are well on the way to "denazification".

Then the collective West will have to denazify itself also. Let's work to do that without a war. If possible.