combating terrorism and cockroaches

I was suffering from a weird problem at my new house in Bangalore- Small size cockroaches. They started with a small number, coming sneaked in somewhere in my suitcase handle. Initially, small size and harmless nature earned them enough ignorance from me - I made no effort to get rid of them.

What has this to do with terrorism ?

Within a few months, I realized that I was paying for my ignorance. They stationed and settled themselves in the kitchen, and multiplied. Kept multiplying the way humans do. They were mostly harmless, but thousands of harmless little cockroaches can become a big nuisance. And they were everywhere in the kitchen, and every time I pick something up, there runs the tiny little thing. And they were occasionally expanding their territory out of the kitchen too, and that raised the alarm. They were a threat now.

Tried using Mortien and other pesticides on them, but no use. There is almost a 50 percent chance that the little creature dies if you are spraying the venom on its head. The other ways to mitigate the situation were - buy a refrigerator - as they can enter any utensil, buy a cot (I used to sleep on the ground) - as they will easily climb on you at night, or, kill them all, one by one, manually.

After everything else failed, I tried the last resort. For hours together, using my slippers, I'm doing the massacre. I was as cruel as needed, and determined to kill every last one of them (Just as Sri Lankan Army is to LTTE). But I still failed. There were just too many of them. And unless I make them completely extinct, all they need to do to bug me more is breed more, the one thing they do easily.

But right now, there is not a single one of them left. As my sister gets transfered, the kitchen is left unused for a few months (I used to eat out). And after those few months, I notice they have all disappeared. Not even corpses left behind. Migrated ? died ? - no idea. The cause to this effect is the essential, life-sustaining supply of food material being cut off all this time. No cooking, so no atta-crumbles, no random rice grains, and no garbage. Nothing to eat. Over.

I have been toying with the idea of applying this to a bigger scenario - the biggest threat and nuisance to human (at least Indian) life - terrorism. We (as a country) want to get rid of terrorism and terrorists, no second thoughts/arguments on that. We have already made the mistake of not curbing it in its infancy, probably, and rather ignoring it initially too. Now we want to fight them. We have tried strong defense, tight security, and want to try offense to. We might want to KILL THEM ALL, dismantle and destroy and annihilate all the terror related infrastructure and people and nations supporting them.

We have tried some, and can try most or all of the above. But, by common sense, how can you win over a fidayeen by killing him? Fighting is what they want, fighting is what we give them. Nothing against that, because fighting is what we are left to do.

But not only fighting. Fighting and dying is the only purposes they are there for, but not for us. We are a civilization, we have to fight to win, not to fight to get destroyed. The terror eco-system has its own supply chains. We must cut those supply lines ALSO. No, I'm not hinting at the more abstract end-poverty-and-injustice rhetoric. Terrorism thrives on religious-racist extremism, on emotion, which flows in terror money (illegal trade and donations). Find some ways to curb them too. Find ways to hit some or all of the supply chains of the eco-system.

The idea appears endorsed by a recent Times of India Article (editorial 23 April 2009).