This interesting article from The Gaurdian highlights some worrying blinkered thinking by many people.

In the piece, Stan Grant points out the fallacy of the statement, echoed many times in the wake of the Paris terrorist attacks: "Now we're at war!". As he so powerfully describes, we have been at war since at least 9/11. The reason why so many westerners have not understood that we are at war is because attacks in the west are sporadic, because of the degree of our security and anti-terrorist intelligence activity. The majority of terrorist attacks are against Muslims: "The American government’s National Counter-Terrorism Centre estimates that up to 97% of terrorism fatalities are Muslims." This is the nub of the problem: most westerners see terrorism as an internal problem of, and in, the Muslim world. So, not our problem, apparently. To paraphrase protesters in the USA, "Muslim lives matter!"

Well now, with the Paris attacks, this tunnel vision is biting us in the arse (again).

I have worked in a number of Muslim countries (Tanzania, Indonesia and Malaysia). I have several Muslim friends. I can say without a shadow of doubt that Muslims are in general good people. The problem is not the religion of Islam itself: Islamic State (aka ISIS) does not have a sound religious basis for how it governs and wages war. The Koran itself is very clear about killing being a sin.

There have been major terrorist campaigns in other parts of the world: the Baader Meinhof Group, now stamped out by strong policing, the republicans in Northern Ireland, now much less active, the FARC in Colombia, now in the process of negotiating peace, and others. These campaigns did a lot of harm, and were not easy to stop, but the difference was that the public saw them as our problem. The British government was spending £4 billion per year on anti-terrorist "policing" in Northern Ireland, for years! The public do not seem convinced (except maybe for short periods, or in relation to very specific threats such as Osama bin Laden) that the threat posed by radical Muslim terrorism is our problem. Until they do, it will not be solved.

Experience should by now have taught us all that terrorism must be fought all fronts, in order to have a good chance of success. Not only must we apply policing and intelligence capabilities, but we also need to address the propaganda that radicalises people to become terrorists; we need to cut off supplies of money and weapons; and we need to work to resolve the poverty and injustice that drives people into the arms of terrorist organisations. This is not rocket science, and most anti-terrorist experts would give you exactly the same list of action items. The problem is not that the experts do not know what to do; the problem is that the public does not yet accept that it is our problem, and therefore there is no public commitment to the necessary remedial actions. Our politicians are weak, cowardly and obsessed with re-election; they are not likely to bite the bullet until the public are on board.

So, Muslim (and other) terrorism is our problem, which means that it my problem and your problem. You know what to do!