It's all a matter of perspective...

Pericles over at dailyKos has a long but engrossing post called "Terrorist Strategy 101: A Quiz." It does a good job of showing the counter-intuitive way that many actions aimed at defeating terrorists actually makes them stronger.

The first and biggest obstacle to your victory is that the vast majority of the people who sympathize with your issue are not violent extremists. They may agree with you in principle. They may even sound like violent extremists late at night over their beverage of choice. But when the hammer comes down, they won't be there.
. . .
So your first goal as a violent extremist is not to kill your enemies, but to radicalize the apathetic majority on your side of the issue. If everyone becomes a violent extremist, then you (as one of the early violent extremists) are a leader of consequence. Conversely, if a reasonable compromise is worked out, you are a nuisance.
. . .
In radicalizing your apathetic sympathizers, you have no better ally than the violent extremists on the other side. Only they can convince your people that compromise is impossible. Only they can raise your countrymen's level of fear and despair to the point that large numbers are willing to take up arms and follow your lead.

(Of course, this sort of cyclical effect should be obvious to anybody who's been paying attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict for the last couple of decades. But "obvious" is in the eye of the beholder...)

You can probably imagine some of where this goes, but I really recommend giving the whole thing a perusal. How the logic links terrorist attacks in, say, Madrid with the overall strategy, and what it means about effective long-term response... Really good stuff there. Of course, part of the take-home message is difficult:

Most of all, we Americans need to keep a leash on our own radicals. They are not working in our interests any more than Bin Laden is working in the interests of ordinary Muslims.

Ah yes, if only the way to do this were so clear . . .