Does terrorism work? Richard English asks in his new history of Al Qaida, the IRA, Hamas, and ETA, the Basque separatist group by that name. English’s aim, says moral philosopher Thomas Nagel “is to interpret the campaigns of these four as the work of rational agents, using violent means, in the pursuit of political ends…

“All four examples have been explicit about what they want and how they hope to get it. And all of them failed in their main aim,” says Nagel, “with a few important exceptions.”

And all he means by exceptions is that the terrorists at least got revenge when they failed.

The U.S. did not retreat from the Middle East after 9/11. Bin Laden is at the bottom of the Indian Ocean.

England was tired after World War II and the Irish Republican Army might have liberated Northern Ireland and united it with Eire—if the old Catholics living in that Protestant stronghold had wanted to live under new Catholic terrorists. Given the choice, they preferred the English devil they knew to Irish devils still in the making.

The Basque movement, never popular among Basques, failed. Basques talk a lot about a country of their own but cannot imagine living in one that is run by their masked Basque confederates. You see, Castilians can always be blamed for Basque failures but ETA will kill any Basque who complains.

The brightest prospect of success is Catalan independence. Even other Spaniards pay Homage to Catalonia for its courage in fighting fascism in the past, and for its moderation in pushing for autonomy today.

Hamas is a doomsday machine, not because it can erase Israel, but because it can be erased by Israel only by using the same German methods that resulted in the creation of Israel. So Hamas stays. Boxed in. Shot at. But powerless to achieve its purpose of getting back a country for a vanishing race.

Nagel thinks (or at least I do) that English’s book proves one thing only: that terrorism is about hatred. And hate is as strongly attached to the hateful means it uses, as it is attached to its political purposes.

There is no protection against revenge. Killing the innocent among the enemy is its own reward. Even in strategic failure and tactical un-success, the terrorist takes consolation in having taken so many of the innocent with him.

So when you think about it, in the gloom of the Davao bombing—one of many in Davao’s history—the Abu Sayaf are not terrorists of the same blend.

They do not have a serious political aim. They are bandits whose aim is the extortion of anything within reach. And that reach goes only as far as the weakness of national government is deep.

But there is no hatred—like Bin Laden’s for America’s desecration of Islam’s holy lands by American physical presence there.

Not yet.

So the ASG can be talked to.

But that requires keeping a tight rein on our rhetoric. (That is, shutting the f*** up.)

Meanwhile, keep safe; keep mentally normal—because going crazy is not good; and keep well.