Dont get me started. All i will say is I oppose the war and bush

Such an old discussion. Well I dissagree with the war, we should've attacked North Korea. Thats my opinion, short and to the point.

Oh yes. Remember what happened the last time we invaded Korea? China attacked US. Back then they had one of the crappiest armies in the world. Now, they have cutting edge technology and nukes. Albiet, only fifteen nukes, but still. They're nukes.

I agree. The war on terroism is a big quagmire. Personally, if we ended up in Iraq, then we should might as well go to war with other countries that pose any threat to us.

The War on Terror has just done the same thing that the War on Drugs did.

They both made the problem worse.

i wonder how long it will take bush to say they have "won" the war on terror

Quote:

How do you work that out? When people cite the War on Terror they always talk about Iraq, where it turned out there weren't any terrorists until we arrived. However, most of the attacks commited outside Iraq wouls still happen regardless of whether or not we were in Iraq at all.

And you forget about Afghanistan. How can you say that taking the Taliban out of power has increased terrorism? PLus, the British Police confiremd that they have foiled several attacks on our country. Actively searching and stopping terrot attacks constitutes been at "War with Terror," but if you think that letting them attack us for a while will eventually stop terrorism, I don't know what to say.

Quote:

Yes. Lets attack a country that has shown little outright hostility towards us apart form politically. Look at Iraq - they didn't do much against us yet after we invaded it turned into a living hell.

Oh - and my moneys on Doikie closing this. It'll turn into a cycle of the same arguments over and over with no-one giving ground, until it becomes basically a flame war.

It wont turn itno a flame war if people dont start it Jax. As you did just now. By questioning people opinions. Thats all that Arwin asked for, opinions not an arguement on whos right.
Leave it at that

Ah, a fresh round of voices. Brings back memories...

The way I see it, the war on Terror didn't begin on 9-11, but rather some thirty-some years ago when Islamic fundementalist militant factions of assorted names and banners starting committing various terror acts against the United States and our citizens. 9-11 was a culmination of these events which had been long ongoing beforehand, through minor attacks here and there on US Emmisaries oversreas, and on US citizens abroad, various hostage takings, the bombing of the US Cole, etc. I think a lot of these modern day militant groups can be traced back to the Mufti http://www.palestinefacts.org/pf_mandate_grand_mufti.php who was a Muslim ally of Hitler during WW2, but I don't think Nazism is to blame so much as the nature of Islam itself and it's intolerance for non-believers when practiced in a certain form. Take a second and read the link and see if you agree with my theory about the Mufti's teachings and radicailizations of an already militant religion being the seeds that are bearing the bitter fruit of today's news.

I also think that there is a global movement among Islamic fundementalist militants to attempt to restore the Caliphate to power and become the dominant world power, and that these attacks we are seeig today are the predessors to a much larger global conflict that might happen in our lifetimes.

I see the War on Terror as being the Western response to this type of aggression, as history has shown us to do in the past. I think it's worth noting that no successful attacks have occured on American soil since 9-11. That would suggest that the War on Terror is, at least to some degree, achieving the purpose of protecting the homeland and fighting the enemy in areas where the colleterial damage of war will fall on the enemy rather then us.

The War on Terror won't be won by a simple kill-death ratio. It will be won when Islam changes into something else, when it undergoes a reformation of sorts to allow it to better cope with modern day issues that it was not meant to deal with, such as equality for women. Without that, I don't see any winnable scenerio besides killing all of our enemies - a plasible scenerio, truth be told, but one of questionable morality.

As to some of the comments other people have posted:

There is a connection between North Korea, Iran, and Iraq that I believe goes deeper then most people are aware of. The danger will North Korea isn't so much that they will attack the United States with a nuclear weapon, but that they would sell or deliver one to a group such as Al Queda, which might be able to detonate it inside the United States through the borus borders of Canada or Mexico.

I'm not sure a direct attack on North Korea would achieve the desired effect of stopping that from occuring.

I doubt that Iran has peaceful intentions for thier nuclear programe. They are sitting on a stockpile of over 200 years worth of energy from natural gas.

Defeating Saddam's forces and liberating Iraq was a great thing to do in the name of civility. We essentially stopped another Hitler from coming to power in the Middle East before he got too big.

The War on Terror and the War on Drugs are somewhat related, as an inordinate amount of money that is from narcotics ends up in the hands of Islamic fundementalist militants in countries like Afghanistan, which controls a high percentage of the production of poppies worldwide, which are used to manufacture heroin and other opiates.

Quote:

One of my professors has a fascinating take on Islamic fundamentalism and its role in terrorism. Basically he says that it is caused by the fact that Islamic culture is what he calls an Honor-Shame culture whereas the US and most European countries are Guilt-Integrity culture. His name is Richard Landes if you can find any of his writings. I'll poke around for any online.

The war on terror is not a war that can be won. All human beings have the potential to be terrorists. The more you kill in the name of anti-terror action, the more will rise from the ashes of the past generation with a renewed and vigorous hunger for vengeance. Terrorism, in some form or another, has existed from the dawn of civilization - nay, mankind. To get rid of terrorism, you would have to kill off the entire human race, because it is in our nature to fight. Retaliation against an enemy which cannot be defeated will only weaken ourselves and strengthen them. Like all other wars of its kind, it shall fail. Whether it fails silently or with a bang has yet to be seen.

Unfortunately people don't grasp the war on terrorism is just a politically correct way of saying war on (radical) Islam.

The war on terrorism began in the 1920's when Islamic militaristic societies in Egypt began to do bombing on bars and western establishment to drive GB out.

These wars usually subside if you just basically leave them be. We stay out of their country, politcally and culturally, and they won't blow up Pizzerias.

The Only way we could have peace with the radicals is to give up Israel, which I am not willing to give up.
even then, who's to say they may not want more land?

Quoted from Doitzel:

Exactly. As long as their are two humans on this earth at one time, there will aways be war. So the question is not "Is the war on terror succesful or has it been a total disaster?" but "Can't we all just get along?"

Quote:

Western values are not universal. A reason we have a tough time out there is that we assume that all humans, in general, are the same as us. They dont want to give equality to women, and many women don't want equality. Some do, but some are perfectly happy. Rather than starting a war on these moral issues we shoul do missionary work. I would also like to point out that our own culture has serious sex divides, and that we are in no position to lecture others.

Quote:

How regional. I live around Washington D.C., and was here during the sniper attacks. John Lee Malvo, and another man whose name escapes me, both muslim, though with no ties to al-Quaeda, killed around 17 people before being caught, by luck. I am sure there are tales of this from all over the country, including tales that do not include muslims.

Quote:

Yet we did not use the issue to contemplate our foreign strategy. Saddam Hussein had a large and resonalbly trained army because we gave it to him, we wanted him to fight Iran. We have to stop supporting the enemies of our enemies, when these people are lunatics at least.

Quote:

True, many terrorist groups have gone under the radar recently. We are not fighting a war on terror as much as a war against those who attacked us.

Quote:

It is in our nature to establish dominance. We do not have an innate urge to fight, only when that dominence is seen as threatening or weak do we begin to fight.

En contraire.

Humans are inherently greedy. They fight because they seek to gain what another has. It is a flaw that is present in all animals - and we are no exception. War, at its very core, is the product of people giving in to their base instincts. It is the product of avarice. Think of every war in history - how did they all start? Name me one war that, when broken down to its foundation, did not spring from human greed. It is the same way in all the animal kingdom. Humans that give in to the desire for war are nothing more than simple beasts.

However, we are apart from the rest of the animal kingdom in that we possess the ability of complex thought. With this comes a degree of responsibility and control over ourselves that humans, and humans alone, can use to fight the basic sensation of greed. When humans are able to free themselves from greed and selfishness, war will cease to exist.

If you hadn't noticed already, I'm a pacifist.

However, there never will be a human that's entirely without greed. Evil has a way of using people. It's the same thing that works against communism; there's always going to be someone contrary to your design. Always.

Join the Dark side!

face it. Terrorism had been here since Roman times and before that.

Cool Fact: the boston Tea party is a celebrated event in American history. But if repeated again, it falls within the definition of terrorism, which includes property destruction as a means of political coercion.

Yeah those bombings

far out.....our government constantly sends warnings not to travel to Indonesia, Bali and still they go

ahhh.....

people these days..........

However, there was no human life taken in the Tea party.

First of all, war is not evil. Some of the results of war are evil, but the act itself is not. The American Revolutionary war was not an "evil" war. It was about the American people wanting to be more than a second rate colony. The Civil War was not evil. While the practice of slavery certainly is, the Civil War brought us closer together as a nation, and while we still have our problems, we are not nearly as divided as we once were.

World War II was an evil war. It was started by a man who was inheritly evil, and had evil designs for mankind. I wonder if the European powers had attacked Hitler as soon as he began rearming Germany, if they would have received the same slander in the press as America has gotten for invading Iraq?

I agree with Euriah about the war in Iraq. The removal of Saddam, kept a minor Adolph Hitler from doing too much damage.

As for the war on Terrorism, while I agree it is not a simple thing to gauge with a simple win/loss record, the absence of attacks on American holdings would suggest that the scales are tipped, a bit, in our favor.

We must ride the tsunami until it dies down, and see where we stand then.

NAY! THERE IS NO SUCH THING AS NON-EVIL WAR!!! All wars will have it's moral casualties. Besides, YOU ARROGANT COLONIST REBELLED AGAINST THE LEGAL AUTHORITY AND CLAIMING IT AS JUST!!! Such farce amuse.

Washington's intentions are good but they always do it the wrong way. Like stopping commuism by deposing a fairly elected President and replace it with a bloody dictator. Oh, and don't even talk about the Somozas.

Quote:

Greed is no more than an afteraffect of dominance. Someone has to be better than someone else for greed to take effect. They have to have more. We are animals, and we lose sight of this sometimes. Just like lions and wolves, we form packs with alpha males. There is a guy who has everything, nice new car, a hot girlfriend, money, friends, everything. He gets it because he established himself as dominant. Greed is a function of the envy you feel towards him. You want to be the dominant one, you want the power, or at least some of the trappings. If noone was dominant, then everything would be the same. And therefore there would be no need for greed.

Quote:

There have been acts of terror. All over the country. They may not have blown up iconic american buildings, but do they have to? MAdrid was not exactly a sign of victory, nor was London. This is getting rather ethnocentric. We are not the only ones in the war on terror. Britain is, and Spain was. They dont have to attack us directly, acts of terror are taking place all over the world, yet we sit here waiting for terrorists to blow up the pentagon before we admit we need to do more.

Humans are greedy and selfish. If humans wern't greedy and selfish, we would be no better than common animals. But we arn't. We are superior. And its because we wanted more. And we got it. Whoever you are, you always wan't more. I always have. I don't think it is truly possible to be content. Which is good. Its not dominance; its skill and luck. You don't get money by asserting your dominance unless you are a cultural icon. Bush didn't assert his dominance; he invested in oil. Thus, Bush is a billionare. And I wish I was in his shoes. Greed is not jelousy; greed is simply the disire for more.

That is why capitalism is superior than other forms of ecinomic systems. Because capitalism harnesses greed instead of holding it back. And we all know it is impossible to hold back human nature.

There are three forms of ecinomic systems. There is Feudal, a system that focuses on the Aristocracy. This system was best championed by Meternicht. The aristocracy is those who have asserted their social dominance. There is capitalism, which focuses on the Bougiouse, those who have established their material and intellectual dominance. This system was best championed by Adam Smith. And there is communism, which focuses on the Proletariat, those who have nothing. This, of course, was Marx's territory.

Terrorism is a problem because it threatens Capitalism, which I have already stated is the highest possible method of ecinomic power. Terrorism must be crushed, but the government is inept, mainly because no matter what one side does, the other side hates it. Imperialism is the best form of government: A strong, centralized authority with minimal input in the economic situation, complete control of the millitary. It was a government like this that built empires, not some hypocritical democracy. Who won the Pelopenessian war? Not the democratic government. What made the Roman Empire? The Roman Army and the Rome Emporer.

People talk about Americans harnessing resouces. I'd say we've done pretty crappy. Stuck on a large continent, favorable climates, fertile soil, and no enemies, we barely got to the other coast. Now look at britain! They came from a tiny island, with poor soil, and surrounded by hostile powers. And yet the British EMPIRE controlled ONE THIRD of the world! ONE THIRD! No other empire has ever come close to that kind of power! Under the British, we came the closest we have ever come to world peace; after they pulled out of Africa, civil war sprang up! And you can believe Ossama and Hussein wouldn't have gotten very far if the Brits still owned Saudi Arabia and Iraq! We wouldn't have Israeli and egyptian probelms, because one would be the Colony of Egypt and the other would be Palestine! And the world would be an open economic market, for the power of greed to increase human power the likes of which we have never seen!

Thus, we have to stop terrorism before Anarchy takes root. And the only way to fight ruthlessness is with ruthlessness. Impose a gun memorandum in iraq; anybody seen with a firearm is shot on sight. Bam. Impose strict boder protection. Set up a neutral zone near the Syrian border; anybody seen within ten miles, perhaps, gets vaporized by the USAF. We have to be strong. We have to show them we mean buisness. The British and Germans should help; those are the most powerful nations in Europe. We have to get the world back to what it was at its height: a completely Imperial state.

[This message has been edited by mebertus (edited 10-04-2005 @ 11:20 AM).]

That gun memorandum would work better if:
1) The terrorists actually cared. Killing them is martyring them. The only people who this would matter to would be the people using guns to protect themselves

2) We actuall gave protection. We control maybe a third of the country, the people who sided with us have basically been betrayed, and they need guns to defend themselves.

3) Bombs strapped to chests were easier to spot. All your memorandum would do would be to kill innocent people. And why would you not just institute this everywhere? Anyone in the U.S. carrying a gun is shot on sight.

Quote:

Except that the British, no offense meant, have a fraction of their former power. There was a time where they could call upon Hundreds of thousands of men, from Canada, India, Africa, Australia, even some from China. Now they can't do that. Plus, the Germans disagree with the war.

Quote:

True Capitalism is a joke. It has almost no economic power after a short period of time. Power collects in a few areas, and the whole situation gets out of control. The current system of capitalism you see all over the world is an imitation form. What happened to Laissez faire? Currently the only way our economies stay afloat is through massive government spending. The Military industrial complex has completly taken root. Withdraw the farm subsidies, cut the 400$ for a hammer spending by the army, get rid of the antitrust laws, then see how strong your precious capitalism is.