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besides Iraq,Afghanistan is just.The muslims involved in 9-11,Britian's bombings and other attacks around the world are involved in a holy war in their mind.So Iraq may turn out to be a blunder,America foreign policy may need to be changed but that does not justify the civilians murdered in those attacks.If military targets would have been hit,it might have seemed more "fair".But we are not dealing with a enemy with a conventional military and goals.
It is right to fight back,caution just needs to be used on where we fight them and how.And by caution I mean on the terms but when we fight we must fight to win with a strategy that will not turn out as a occupation indefinately like Iraq.
I agree that we need to stop the perpetrators of terrorist atrocities but I don't quite see how occupation is the way forward. We are not fighting an army but an ideology and one we don't understand at that. It is not a war we can win by military means as other armed combat engagements in the past. We need to be pragmatic and realise that probably our best weapon against Muslim extremism is Muslim moderation and reason. Most Muslims are not blood thirsty monsters baying for our blood, most have the same concerns we do and most abhor violence ( especially as they are the ones who end suffering most for it).
I don't want the victims of 7/7, 9/11, and March 11 2004 to have died in vain.
We all want justice but justice is not killing innocent people , and destroying their infrastructure. This only makes them more likely to take up arms against us. All this is doing is radicalising people who until now were not antagonistic towards us.
Going in all guns blazing, is going to achieve nothing apart from more violence, more terror, more deaths and long -term will only make things much much worse.
We also have to realise that we our foreign policies do affect people in other countries and that not every one is marching to the same beat as us.
Afghanistan has been notoriously difficult to control for centuries as the Russians found out to their detriment fairly recently for example.
We must use the Muslim moderates , Islamic scholars etc.. against the fanatics. Nobody is born a Muslim fundamentalist, so we must understand why and most importantly how this shift happens and try to solve the problem at the root ( for example fundamentalist Madrassas). Radicalisation does not happen overnight , it's a long process with many causes and therein lies the solution to a long-term peaceful resolution.
Democracy and wealth go hand in hand and democracy cannot be achieved by occupation.
We do need to encourage better democratic process and engage Muslim nations in the political process but stability will never be achieved from a burning pile of rubble and on top of corpses. Desperate people do desperate things and it's time to realise our hands are not completely clean either.
By going after an entire country instead of the terrorists responsible for 9/11 we are turning it into a Holy War.
It would seem the other way around to me. By ignoring the host country and sending in a "police" force to capture individuals we would be creating much more unrest than by "assisting" the country to uproot them.
I agree with you on the appearance of the current situation being rather high handed to some people, but wouldn't the alternative look worse? How would it work if the US asked Saddam to permit us to arrest suspected terrorists and he told us "No". How would we look to the terrorist community if we just sat by and accepted that and waited for another action to occur?
Remember the old westerns when the Commancheros raided the farms and ranches and then ran across the border and shouted insults at the calvary standing across the river unable to continue pursuit? Is that situation more preferable today with terrorism being supported by groups and governments outside the US?
I don't know what the optimal solution is, but we are already embroiled in this one, so why not make it work rather than start over and waste all our effort thus far?
As to Holy War status, no I don't think we started any Holy War with Iraq or Afghanistan. The Holy War started thousands of years ago between Muslims and Judaisms and expanded to include all non Muslims. We just did not accept that because we felt ourselves above that sort of thing. The extremist on both sides of the Holy conflict do not care about our feelings on the matter, nor do they care about popular sentiment regarding the war on their own sides. They feel called to push this conflict for the betterment of their people regardless of whether those people know what is good for them or not.
When you have a Holy War, you must have fanatics or else it quickly devolves into negotiations for peace. Only fanatics have the zeal and perseverance to continue conflict until it's ultimate conclusion regardless of consequence. Once you have sufficient quantities of fanatics on both sides there is no longer any hope of a negotiated or political peace. It must play out according to the fanatics fantasies until one group of fanatics is suppressed by the other. History has shown that there is no other outcome possible.
Will this become a World Wide Holy War? It already has been for many years regardless of our thoughts on the matter. Even those who refuse to participate are drawn into it through terrorist activities. The only way to avoid involuntary participation is to eject all nationalities and religious groups actively involved from the country and any of it's territories, remove our interests and operations from every other country where these parties exists and cease all communication and trade with any country that has any contact whatsoever with any of the participants. As long as there is influence from or by our activities on anyone directly or indirectly associated with the warring participants, we are a target for terrorism because we can either contribute for or against or we can influence someone who can contribute in their war. As long as we have power, that power must be utilized toward their goals. We can only remove ourselves by eliminating all of our power, or we must participate no matter how unwillingly to the conclusion of the conflict.
[quote=johnrex62;1340547]It would seem the other way around to me. By ignoring the host country and sending in a "police" force to capture individuals we would be creating much more unrest than by "assisting" the country to uproot them.
I agree with you on the appearance of the current situation being rather high handed to some people, but wouldn't the alternative look worse? How would it work if the US asked Saddam to permit us to arrest suspected terrorists and he told us "No". How would we look to the terrorist community if we just sat by and accepted that and waited for another action to occur?...
QUOTE]
The terrorists were in Afghanistan...the phantom WMD was in Iraq. Two separate issues.
The Iraqi country has now been crushed, directly and indirectly, by our "assistance."
How many terrorists have been "emboldened" by the fact that Osama still churns out his Greatest Hits from his cave and we don't/can't do anything about it?
How many new terrorists have we created by the Arabic 6:00 news showing poor Iraqi people getting slaughtered, and meanie U.S. troops pushing people around. Sure some of it is probably staged propaganda, but the end result is the same.
I think the terrorist community is absolutely thrilled we sent our army in to break apart Iraq. Now we are mired there, thousands of more Americans dead and hundreds of billions of dollars down the tubes, and anybody that can put together an explosive devce gets their free shot at killing some invading infidels.
It would seem the other way around to me. By ignoring the host country and sending in a "police" force to capture individuals we would be creating much more unrest than by "assisting" the country to uproot them.
I agree with you on the appearance of the current situation being rather high handed to some people, but wouldn't the alternative look worse? How would it work if the US asked Saddam to permit us to arrest suspected terrorists and he told us "No". How would we look to the terrorist community if we just sat by and accepted that and waited for another action to occur?...
QUOTE]
The terrorists were in Afghanistan...the phantom WMD was in Iraq. Two separate issues.
The Iraqi country has now been crushed, directly and indirectly, by our "assistance."
How many terrorists have been "emboldened" by the fact that Osama still churns out his Greatest Hits from his cave and we don't/can't do anything about it?
How many new terrorists have we created by the Arabic 6:00 news showing poor Iraqi people getting slaughtered, and meanie U.S. troops pushing people around. Sure some of it is probably staged propaganda, but the end result is the same.
I think the terrorist community is absolutely thrilled we sent our army in to break apart Iraq. Now we are mired there, thousands of more Americans dead and hundreds of billions of dollars down the tubes, and anybody that can put together an explosive devce gets their free shot at killing some invading infidels.
We screwed this one up big time.
While terrorism must be confronted I have to agree that the situation in Iraq has worsened the US's position..........Osama,the man or apparition probably is laughing his seedy beard off in utter amazement that we took the bait in Iraq........
Maybe we can still wipe the smile off of his face by using other means to confront terrorism...It won't be done by Starting more "Crusades" Ain't it funny how crazy s____t gets when people unfurl the "Holy" flags...
Spiritwalker
Tiptoeing around this issue is getting old IMO.......Are we seeing the world engaging in a "Holy War?" Is Afganistan and Iraq the starting points? When and where will it expand? If "The World" will not define what is truly happening let us here on CD be "The Deciders." Holy War or not ....What is it?
Spiritwalker
If the current conflict is a Holy War it is between fanatical Islamists and equally fanatical Mammonists. This is a colonial war by two western colonial countries, the United States and Britain, over the potential profits of the oil under the Iraq colony. IIRC the profits amount to over a trillion (10^9) dollars split between Wall Street and the City of London exchanges. Black Gold indeed.
That much money seems to be well worth a few hundred thousand lives to the people running the show. Particularly as the dieing is not being done by financial elites but by the soldiers of the occupying forces and the residents of the country
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Quote:
Originally Posted by spiritwalker
Maybe we can still wipe the smile off of his face by using other means to confront terrorism...It won't be done by Starting more "Crusades" Ain't it funny how crazy s____t gets when people unfurl the "Holy" flags...
Spiritwalker
I think they need to be fought in the same manner they fight. They need to be taught that if a facility of theirs is discovered it will be visited by B-52s within 24 hours and vaporized. They need to be taught that involvement with a terror plot may well get them a bullet between the eyes anytime, anywhere.
I think they need to be fought in the same manner they fight. They need to be taught that if a facility of theirs is discovered it will be visited by B-52s within 24 hours and vaporized. They need to be taught that involvement with a terror plot may well get them a bullet between the eyes anytime, anywhere.
One bullet.... one kill !!!!!!! Satellite picks them up, one BIG BOMB,many kills....
Less chance of putting our troops in harms way. I like this strategy.
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We screwed this one up Big Time........ Yup.
