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Below is an hour long Youtube video (via 3Quarks Daily) with Stephen Holmes who wrote 'The Matador's Cape'. The introduction covers a variety of topics including the importance of classical studies in political thought and law and its relation to power.

The rest of the video is a discussion of political psychology and the relation of panic to political decision making. There is also a nice discussion on the neo-conversative psychological bias towards rogue state actors (like Iraq and Iran) rather than non-state actors (like Al Qaeda) and how that can be exploited and abused.

After that Holmes talks about the instruments terrorists use to maim, frighten, destabilize and kill us are instruments we created e.g. cheap airline tickets, the Internet, petrodollars. Holmes assertion is that these facets of the modern world will never go away, and therefore neither will terrorism. We can only manage it and reduce terrorism. The "war on terror" will never end because we are intertwined with our enemy (or as Holmes states we can never have a "war on cheap airline tickets").

For more Conversations with History terrorism related videos and transcripts click here.