The dodo bird? So you're saying that non-muslims face an existential risk due to muslims. No. The amount of ordinance required to even wipe out a tiny country like Lithuania (no disrespect, but it is tiny) is more than any terrorist group can muster. Muslim extremists aren't the whole story, either, there are also right-wing extremist (neo-nazi, white supremacist, etc.,) groups roaming the Deep South. I'm not talking about the odd redneck that forgot that the Civil War ended; these are fully armed militias that are not affiliated with Al-Qaeda. A good example is the scores-strong group that planned to kill hundreds or even thousands of U.S. government employees with ricin gas in an effort to "save the country". Luckily for those employees, the cell was caught before the plan could be put into action. Regarding the KKK in particular, besides normal police work and smear campaigns, there wasn't much done about them. Racists lost faith in them and the group petered out on its own. There was no assassination campaign needed. The same applies to groups like Al-Qaeda; they are not so much self-sustaining movements as the manifestation of fear and frustration.
That is to say that being part of Al-Qaeda in, say, modern Afghanistan, is akin to being part of the KKK in 60s Alabama. Though in each case the existence of the native culture gave it ammunition (more so for the KKK) the culture itself did not spawn the group. For instance, if I took a bunch of Wall Street investors and showed them that a stock was undervalued and expected to skyrocket, then they would likely buy the stock. However, until I came down and showed them the stock, they probably wouldn't have bought it. The same applies in regions like Afghanistan: If you take a bunch of villagers who hear rockets, bombs, and screaming going on daily and you scare the pants off them and tell them that it's all somebody's fault, they're likely to believe you if you are at least somewhat good at persuasion. However, those villagers would have likely just sat it out until the fighting ended and made some nice rugs or pottery or built a house if you hadn't come by. Therefore, the villagers shouldn't be punished, they need to be educated about how this mess got started in terms that they can understand. Likewise, the terrorist cells need to lose credibility more than their members need to be killed. As long as Al-Qaeda can recruit new members, killing one of them only puts things off for a bit because a new member will join. The job is so risky that even severe casualties won't deter them. It's a war of hearts and minds, not guns and ammo. That's a good thing, too, because fighting the latter kind of war means a lot more people on both sides don't come home to their families- no matter who you are or what you believe, and barring imminent threats to others' lives, you have the right to see tomorrow.
-Penguin
