Islamic fundamentalists are like cockroaches, an infestation to be eliminated. The phrase "War on Terror" elevates the fundamentalist to the role of soldier or warrior, which they are not simply because warriors and soldiers do not hide themselves among the civilian population, especially not among children. Wouldn't a better phrase be "Extermination of Terrorists"?
2007-10-14T15:25:33Z
To Yeahboy1: It is actually a big deal. The phrase "war" gives them recruiting clout back home. After all, what could Jihadist doesn't want to go to war with the big bad Satan?
Anonymous2007-10-14T15:26:47Z
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no you have no idea what the terror is so your question is ridilucious!!!!
Yes it is, because we're not fighting a war, we simply have done tactical operations, and destroyed the countries and have no real plan to fix the problems we've started. We should went after Iran, but we had to go into Iraq for some foolish reason. Terror is a serious problem, but we should be having a War on Illegal Immigrants, and secure our own borders before worrying about the Middle East. But the winning strategy in the Middle East will be to attack in serious force, and annihilate the problem sources, which we will not do, so really there is no such thing as a winning strategy in the Middle East.
As so well-known with democrats, they twisted McCain's assertion which suggested that usa of america could have a "presence" and not a conflict in Iraq for a a hundred years. Our having a presence in yet another usa for an prolonged time isn't some thing new. We entered Germany and Italy in 1943 (for the period of WWII), Japan in 1945 and Korea in 1950 and characteristic no longer left yet.
The most unprofessional group of terrorists to attempt to attack the US to date were the ones who pulled off the 9/11 attack.
They could have been stopped on several occasion, each time because of completely stupid mistakes made by members of their group, but were not.
This was only because no one was taking the threat seriously enough.
Whatever it takes to keep American alert enough to take the threat seriously enough to continue to stop future attempts is fine with me.
What's not needed is Fascist legislation like the Patriot Act.
That act presumes that the attack could not have been stopped without new laws giving the government more power. It was the government's refusal to use the power they already had that led to the success of the attack.
The day after 9/11, President Bush met with his advisors. He called it more than an act of terror, it was an act of war. This upped the level of rhetoric to "war". Not a criminal act, but war.
However, this stretches the definition of war beyond its normal use. Usually war is between countries or between different groups within a country (civil war). A loose organization committing crimes in a foreign country without any declaration of war, no uniforms, no army, etc. is generally not considered a war.
I agree with you. The rhetoric was unfortunate because it elevated criminals to the position of warrior or soldier, giving them much more credibility among their constituency- fellow radical muslims. We should have just called them criminals.
Also, the defeat this group requires the cooperation of thousands of people in foreign countries. Local police and sheriffs are often the front line in stopping terrorists, as we found here in capturing Eric Rudolph. We need to work with such people to help reduce terrorism.
Instead of pursuing a law enforcement approach, the U.S. has allowed Osama Bin Laden to remain free and instead gone for a war strategy. This has helped Al-Quaeda recruit new members and raise more money and has hurt the U.S. reputation throughout the world, so the U.S. is less likely to get cooperation from local law enforcement in foreign countries, which is the key to capturing real terrorists.
There is a reason why the U.S. has pursued this war approach instead of a law enforcement approach. It is because there is a strong push from defense contractors- the military industrial complex. They don't make any money by diplomacy, by working with foreign law enforcement agencies, etc. but they do make lots of money by having wars. U.S. policy is driven by corporate interests to a large degree, so corporate preferences become U.S. policy.
Actually defeating Al Quaeda would hurt their profits, like they saw with the end of the cold war, so the goal is actually not to defeat Al Quaeda or to end terrorism. The goal is to make profits by selling lots of weapons to the U.S. military in an endless war.
Everytime politicians use this war metaphor to attack a problem, such as the war on crime, war on poverty, war on cancer, etc. it doesn't work. It usually means that they want to spend lots of money on something so that some corporations/bureaucracies can get lots of money. They pretend to be trying to solve the problem, but never do, because if they actually solved it, the money would dry up.
The incentive is not to solve it, but to have greater problems, so there is even more money in the budget because it is such a great problem. So, we keep wasting billions of dollars on these "wars".
On another point, we need to be careful about our language. Islamic fundamentalists are not necessarily supporters of terrorism. Many devout moslems are very opposed to terrorism. And many of the terrorists are not really devout moslems and do not really practice their religion- don't pray 5 times/day, observe ramadan, give alms to the poor, etc.
It's the criminals we should be going after, not the religion. But, as I stated above, it's not really about solving the problem, it's about raiding the U.S. Treasury for private gain.