War on terror

[G10]

So, how are we doing so far with our war on terror?

If you have a few mins spare, this also makes an interesting read.

For each civilian killed by "terrorists" on and since 9-11, the USA and its allies have brought about almost four non-combatant, civilian deaths in return.

The war on terror is far from over, hell, it is only just begining.

I find it difficult to see how we think we are going to stop this with our current techniques.

If another country invades your country, you see people you love get blown apart or shot, you witness your family being killed (which is just counted as collaterral) and you must be thankful for it as you have now been set free from an evil dictator, you have nothing left other than hurt and misery caused by the 'coalition'.

Chances are you are going to want to kick some butt for what they have done.

How the hell do people actually think this is going to stop terror?

If they also kick off on Iran, they will open such a can of worms as they will be inciting more people to follow suit.

[Ferre]

Creating more terror is the agenda dude. Wake up and smell the fascism.

[John Scott]

If those countries do not allow terrorist organizations to exist, they do not have to worry about getting invaded.

[G10]

But almost every country has it's terrorist organisations, we can't invade them all and just because we don't see them blowing things up, doesn't mean they aren't active groups.

We are classed as bullies for invading a country based on the propaganda fed to us by our political system and my comment earlier; for each civilian killed during 9/11 the USA and its allies have brought about almost four non-combatant, civilian deaths in return. Does that make us the good guys?

Probably a complete coincidence here but it's interesting how both the countries involved have oil.

I disagree to terrorist organisations just as much as the next guy but this just seems like we are creating more of them than removing the problem.

Look up the figure on how many suicide bombers there have been this year alone and compare it to every other year.

Not sure if we are succeeding on this.

[cloudtrance]

Originally Posted by John Scott

If those countries do not allow terrorist organizations to exist, they do not have to worry about getting invaded.

More terror organizations will be created by these invasions. If you think innocent civilians termed as collateral damage losing their parents, lovers, sisters and brothers will lie low and not fight back you are sadly mistaken..

The cause might not be terror or religion, it can even be revenge...

The way to peace is not war or invasions. An eye for an eye makes the world go BLIND.. Thats what is happening

[Aureliano]

Originally Posted by G10

for each civilian killed during 9/11 the USA and its allies have brought about almost four non-combatant, civilian deaths in return[/color]. Does that make us the good guys?

In some way it's one of the funniest things I heard lately.
You know, In ancient Japan when two armies started fighting each other, each samurai would stand and call another samurai for a duel. Therefore both armies lost more or less the same amount of soldiers.
Today some things work differently. Unless you have a way of creating a duel between Bush and Bin Laden, or Ulmert and Nasralla things will work differently. Let's say that in Iraq there is a village with 10 known terrorists. Now. If you put a field unit in there you risk them immensly, because fighting in an urban place is very dangerous thing. A commander would not like to endanger his soldiers so he would order an artillery cluster on the village. Result - 25 dead, 7 of them are terrorists and others "civilians".
So who was wrong here? The commander? Should he endanger his soldiers?
The terrorists are smart - they know that hiding in villages is good for them and therefore they creep mostly within, knowing that any fighting inside the village will cause civilian deaths. I think I wrote it here once, but Hizballa forcefully kept the citizens of southern Lebanon from moving away from the battlefield.

[Ferre]

The USA didn't bomb the hell out of Timothy McVeigh 's hometown and kill his neighbors because he lived there now did they?

[G10]

In some way it's one of the funniest things I heard lately.

One of the funniest things I heard was how our governments aim to make us so much safer by taking out the WMD that Iraq has and was willing to use on us, which was so well presented by our un-intelligent services.

We have now made the world a safer place by sacrificing our soldiers and theirs, plus lots of civillians by taking Iraqs wmd away from them.

My friend, when they said they didn't have any and the UN said 'wait until we have more proof' and we invaded them anyway strongly but not completely based on that premise, we have just created a bigger terrorist threat.

So, we attacked based on an intelligence report that was not correct and did not follow official UN protocol. - Again, does that make us the good guys?

Kofi Annan, the Secretary General of the United Nations, speaking on the invasion, said, "I have indicated it was not in conformity with the UN charter. From our point of view, from the charter point of view, it was illegal."

Iraq war (wikipedia)

[Zap]

Originally Posted by Ferre

The USA didn't bomb the hell out of Timothy McVeigh 's hometown and kill his neighbors because he lived there now did they?

They would have, if his hometown was in Iraq.

Some governments never learn. You reap what you sow. Violence creates more violence.

[sitetutor]

Originally Posted by Zap

They would have, if his hometown was in Iraq.

Some governments never learn. You reap what you sow. Violence creates more violence.

Not reacting to Muslim violence will encourage them to commit more acts of violence.

[Zap]

Originally Posted by sitetutor

Not reacting to Muslim violence will encourage them to commit more acts of violence.

I couldn't agree more. No reaction, would be a bad move.
But, killing civilians and calling it collateral damage doesn't make anyone safer.

[sitetutor]

Originally Posted by Zap

I couldn't agree more. No reaction, would be a bad move.
But, killing civilians and calling it collateral damage doesn't make anyone safer.

If there was a way to locate specific areas where only terrorist supporters are hiding, it would be a lot easier to target those. But we're talking about countries where everyone seems to have an uncle or some cousins who are more than ready and willing to commit acts of violence in the name of Islam.

[Zap]

Originally Posted by sitetutor

If there was a way to locate specific areas where only terrorist supporters are hiding, it would be a lot easier to target those. But we're talking about countries where everyone seems to have an uncle or some cousins who are more than ready and willing to commit acts of violence in the name of Islam.

Very sticky business... separating terrorists from everyday folks. An almost impossible task.
But, there are innocent people getting killed, and not just a few.
Some of the family members of these innocent victims are future terrorists, created by collateral damage.
These actions seed new future acts of terror. We're not safer, we're in more danger than before.

Find the guilty and punish the guilty. Leave the innocent out of the whole mess.
(Or, better yet, if you're going to invade their country, leave the innocent in a better position than when you arrived.)

The innocent Iraqi's (you know... the guy who just wants to feed his family and for his kids to have a better life than he had) have nothing to do with Osama or Sadam. But, too many of them are being punished. It's not right.

[maepaulino]

Originally Posted by Zap

Very sticky business... separating terrorists from everyday folks. An almost impossible task.
But, there are innocent people getting killed, and not just a few.
Some of the family members of these innocent victims are future terrorists, created by collateral damage.
These actions seed new future acts of terror. We're not safer, we're in more danger than before.

Find the guilty and punish the guilty. Leave the innocent out of the whole mess.
(Or, better yet, if you're going to invade their country, leave the innocent in a better position than when you arrived.)

I couldn't agree with you more! Especially the last statements... If you're going to "liberate" the people you should show them that they should be thankful to YOU and not be angry BECAUSE of you...

[G10]

Originally Posted by sitetutor

If there was a way to locate specific areas where only terrorist supporters are hiding, it would be a lot easier to target those. But we're talking about countries where everyone seems to have an uncle or some cousins who are more than ready and willing to commit acts of violence in the name of Islam.

It is hardly in the name of Islam when you see your friends and family blown to pieces or shot.

It is then just revenge as one has nothing else to live for.

As I said earlier, check out the statistics on the amount of suicide bombers in the last year compared to the past years.

Believe what you want but the US and UK are part of the UN and even they claim it was illeagle.

The UN would not comment against one of it's biggest funders if it really didn't have to.

[jemagee]

This 'war' is as effective, and well thought out, as the 'war on drugs', and will accomplish almost as much.

All religions have extremists, the next time one of the right wing (US) people advocates the killing of an MD who performs a legal medical procedure, I hope the US invades their office and shuts them down.

The war on terror is a smoke screen, presidents love smoke screens that will allow people to ignore the domestic issues. This country is a fracking mess, period, education, infrastructure, poverty, homelessness, but no one ever got elected (or anything done) pointing out how bad this country is. Find an external enemy, blame them, and you've got your distraction.

Does terrorism suck? Hell yeah. Is the US the major target of muslim terrorism? Nope, there's this little country called Israel that's been dealing with this for decades, and they 'handle it' as a nation much better than the US does. Seriously, I was shocked how many people were shocked 5 years ago. Guess what, most of the world HATES the United States, for various reasons.

By the way, what about Saudi Arabia, our partners in peace, what's the US doing about the large amounts of MONEY leaders of that country funnel into terrorist cels. Or the fact that some arab nations TEACH in their schools that jews and the united states are evil.

I'm not saying I know what the answer is, but the eye for an eye thing never works, it just escalates constantly.

Ok - off my soap box now.

Oh yeah, one more thing, most of this nation doesn't even understand WHY Muslim extremists hate us, that there are 'degrees' of islam just as there are with christianity and judaism, and national ego makes them not care in my opinion. There's a huge 'chip' on the shoulder of this country as a whole, and it saddens me some times.

[Aureliano]

Alright. What is the other option, then?
How do we destroy terrorism if not by force?
If we do diplomacy with them, we'll simply lose our country (as far as I know, Hamas still doesn't recognize Israel in any way, for example).
For example Hizballah claimed that it will require thousands of prisoners to return the two kidnapped soldiers. Thousands - for two. So what's it gonna be? How will it work?

The only possible option I see is to instill western democracy in all arabic countries. Maybe if children in the kindergardens wouldn't be taught that jews are "pigs and rats" and that all humans are alike, no matter wether they are from nablus, paris, jerusalem or pekin - the terrorism will slow down.
The thing is that the Islamic imams controll education entirelly. I saw all kinds of stuff on the net. Movies about soldiers who poke eyes out of a little palestinian girl in order to plant them in some jewish boyo, cartoons about Israely soldiers who shoot shoot shoot etc.
As long as a whole population will grow up while watching only such crap - no wonder they'll rather kill as many people they can rather then to become doctors or scientists.