Doomsday?

A routine, mundane chit chat over lunch suddenly got interesting today. All started by discussion over the glorification of the biggest spectacle which is going to unfurl today evening...The World cup! But suddenly things got serious and drifted to discussing how terrorists should be dealt with.

I shocked to hear the views of my peers. All seemed to fervor decisive and ruthless approach towards terrorism. According to them they should be shot at point-blank range, even if he is willing to surrender. The reasoning was that terrorist are being asked to surrender all the time and if the thought of surrender is genuine then he should have done it before the time for encounter came. But what I want to ask is that from when did humans start to respond soft measures? Only when the going gets tough for a criminal only then can he even think of surrender.

A lot of animosity got reflected in the fervor with which they spoke. Haven't the terrorist won the propaganda war here? They have successfully infiltrated the minds of highly educated people and have change the liberal thinking into radical right-wing thoughts.
We all belong to one of the most liberal nations which recognizes the rights of every individual, of any caste or religion. And yet, people just want to kill each other at the first possible instance. "inhe toh bas moka milte hi khatam kar dena chahiye!". We have become on of them. As cold-blooded as them. No compassion. Unforgiving, and inhuman.

Imagine, a group of terrorists who have taken refuge in a temple/mosque/church are under siege. The security forces angrily the bleeding, no exit points. The commander then gives them a last warning. Ignoring this they start firing indiscriminately, from their vantage points in the building at the security forces. The forces rightly moving with an all out attack, taking down militants one by one. 10 militants perish and 2 of the security personnel are wounded badly. Near the end of the siege just one terrorist survives, Aseem. Aseem was a normal boy until the age of 7, when hunting for militants in the Kashmir valley his entire family was killed by the bullets of police and terrorists. Aseem was left alone in the world, and all in the name of wiping off terrorism. Aseem is then taken away by one of the terrorists to a training camp, where for 10 years he is brain washed and trained to become a hard lined terrorist. And now after 10 years he returns to a familiar sight, all his companions are killed in the battle with security forces. What should Aseem do? For him it is now a case of taking revenge. You tell me what should be done with Aseem if he surrenders as 8 commandos enter in to the room in which he is hiding. Under gun point he is willing to surrender. Should he be shot? Was he really wrong if at the tender age he was pulled into a battle which is been played by some religious fanatics? He is just was just the pawn.

But surprisingly, people supported the idea of him being shot and that he should not be given a chance to redeem himself.
The question now boils down to, will the right-winged attitude get rid of terrorism? Is it possible to kill and massacre each and every militant in a swift blow?
Even the greatest military might in our times hasn't been able to capture the biggest terrorist of all 'Osama Bin Laden'. Does the hard line approach yield the promised result. Even after the dismantling of the entire militant set-up which was present in Afghanistan we still had the 7th July attacks on London. It is impossible to curb this menace by all out attack. The only permanent solution is possible if the problem is dealt with in a compassionate and humane manner and not like animals got amok.

The single biggest virtue of our civilization is that we have never been hostile to anybody in the past 2000 years. We have not attacked anybody, we have been liberal, broad-minded and above all promoters of peace and harmony. And yet, after having long and gruelling (by the way) modern educations we have lost these virtues. Drawin's theory has come a full circle and very have become horrendous animals, eager for bloodshed of fellow humans, funny few people are fighting for Nature as a whole, where we are still fighting with other humans with no regard for humanity. How do you expect the nature to be conserved by such people. Truly Doomsday is near!