some thoughts for everyone
 

I have been wanting to post this since last tuesday but I couldnt find the 2 urls, I just had the text.

The first one describes the Prisoner Dilemma which was a game invented in the 50s at Princeton, and is a way of describing the relationship between two opposing parties http://www.spectacle.org/995/pd.html

The second one describes how this dilemma works for terrorism and other related areas. http://www.spectacle.org/995/scorp.html

Its a really great read, so if you have 10 minutes take a look.

Here is a quote from the writer of the above articles and how the Prisoner Dilemma works for ethics. And I believe it is pretty much where we are with the terrorists

"I always cooperated in earlier years because I was a naive optimist. I always believed that if I cooperated long enough, even unilaterally, the other player would come to trust me, and see the value of cooperation. What I refused to see is what the prisoner's dilemma teaches: anyone who plays the "All Cooperate" strategy is a sucker, and incents the other to defect on every move. I now believe that the lesson of the prisoner's dilemma is that a robust ethic succeeds where a weak one fails. Be fair, be strong, reward cooperation and punish defection, and you will have nothing to regret."