Elimination by Isolation

Gandhi gave up his life to instill non-violence,
Terrorism is taking lives to defy all sense.

Day in and day out, there's news reports coming in on extremists' actions taking valuable lives. From being isolated incidents across the world, this is now stretching to specific regions of the world being isolated. The justification from the perpetrators is that of fulfilling their ideologies but no matter what angle you look at it, there can be simply no reason to consume innocent lives. The extremists or terrorists, however you word them, have no right to take away something they didn't create, period.
First it was the 09/11, then the London bombings, the Mumbai blasts in between - all gave widespread publicity. Interspersed between these incidents, I am sure there are other cases in lesser known places around the world which did not get the same publicity. Irrespective of the prosperity of the land affected, the bottom line was - human lives were lost. From being a regional menace, the issue on hand became a global problem with the mighty joining hands to eradicate this thorn of society.

There are various theories as to who helped groom the 'bad elements' of the respective societies. In some cases it was the local law of the land, in some cases external forces were to be blamed. In a few cases, oppression even was to be pointed at. I will leave the so called analysts and experts to provide judgmental opinions on the cause and effects of allowing this to blossom. The point I wish to make is simply this - there has to be a solution, and quickly at that, for the impact of every such incident has far reaching effects of gigantic proportions. I don't think there is any disagreement that the majority of such blatant activities originate from a specific region of the world. As soon as he took oath, the President of the United States, in spite of offering continued economic assistance and offering other support systems to the country in question, minced no words in highlighting this region as the problematic one, in one of his very first speeches. Canada and the United States are still debating how to get out of one side of this very region, and the Canadian premier even offered his honest insight yesterday that it may be impossible to defeat the insurgency there.

The political diplomacy didn't work, the governments resorted to using coercion and when that didn't work, they used force. But that isn't working by any stretch of imagination. What's the alternative? However controversial it may sound, I would take an "isolation" philosophy and approach to determining a solution - abandon all forms of trade with the region; stop providing economic aid or military assistance. Isolate the region by preventing anything other than medical or humanitarian support systems to pass through, either inside or outside. Yes, the initial going would be tough for the locals, but the governments' hands would be forced as its now a solely internal issue, instead of a regional or global problem, and they have to fix it. The most complex of problems have the seemingly simplest of solutions - maybe this does too.