News from Somalia, confirmed by US officialslink, reports the death of a leading Al Qaida figure by missiles fired from an American helicopter. The embattled government of Somalia is delighted. The insurgent group, unsurprisingly, vows revenge on America.

The cycle of violence continues:

Firstly (as far as we can say at this moment), certain Islamist groups, particularly Bin Laden’s al Qaida, take issue with the West, particularly the US, and the result is 9/11.

In response, the West, particularly the US, respond with decisive action in Afghanistan, ousting the Taliban and sending Bin Laden running for the hills.

In response, Saleh Ali Nabhan carries out the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, as well as a hotel in Mombasa.

In response, the US tracks Saleh down in the wastes of Somalia, and take him as he drives along in a car. They take his body with them.

In response, al-Shabab (Nabhan’s group) vow revenge.

And, in response…?

The endless cycle escalates, drawing more and more actors into the violence. Civilised Moderns find the biblical ‘An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ to be a barbaric relic of a primitive past. But it was, and is, a restraining influence on an unlimited cycle of revenge. Who will hear?

What has been accomplished in these eight years? How many dead? How much closer to peace? How much more do the combatants understand each other now, beyond the refining of the techniques of killing?

In the aftermath of 9/11 the Editor suggested that a response to the atrocity might be to engage with poor Muslim countries to address their poverty rather than to bomb them (see The Daily Gazelle archives for September 2006). It was considered then, and no doubt will continue to be so considered, ‘airy-fairy’ thinking.

But, has the policy of bombs solved the problem? The present US administration may have dropped the name ‘War on Terror’, but the policy has not changed.

The cycle continues.