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Originally posted by SimonWho:
Well, say that there is a nuclear strike, some sort of dirty bomb maybe. It kills tens of thousands. Now what does the President do? If he does nothing, he is held to be weak and terrorists are encouraged. If he destroys the two most sacred places for Muslims, he makes America the enemy of all Islam in perpetuity. Not just for twenty, thirty, forty years. Forever.

Don't forget, you're dealing with terrorists who are prepared to blow themselves to pieces. They'll give their lives to demonstrate their commitment to the cause. There's no threat that will stop them.

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Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:
All you can do is hunt them down and kill them all before they get you first.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:

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Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:
All you can do is hunt them down and kill them all before they get you first.

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Simply not possible.

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Originally posted by spikeandjezebel:
We all get mad thinking of people like Paris Hilton....

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Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:

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Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:
All you can do is hunt them down and kill them all before they get you first.

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Simply not possible.

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True, but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't give the old college try. "I prefer a straight fight to all this sitting around."

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Originally posted by SimonWho:
It doesn't necessarily follow that their nuclear strike should be followed by us matching them in that particular manner. Why not, say, take over Iran, Saudi Arabia, UAE and Kuwait?

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I wonder if a British nuclear bomb is really more cultured then an American bomb or if it just has a snooty accent and attitude.

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Originally posted by Hero:
Also, destruction of Mecca given the right conditions and precedants could deliver a great psychological blow to Islam.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
IB, IB, no, that's exactly what it does mean. Your "old college try" only exasorbates the problem you're trying to fix. Killing terrorist will never stop terrorism. Ever. Terrorism feeds on what you advocate. Much as you may prefer a straight fight, a straight fight is not possible. You gotta wrap your head around this, we all do. There's an old Chinese saying: if we do not change direction, we will end up where we're headed.

HKCavalier

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Originally posted by citizen:

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I wonder if a British nuclear bomb is really more cultured then an American bomb or if it just has a snooty accent and attitude.

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Just like all British citizens our nuclear weapons are terribly reserved and would appologise profusely before wiping out the city/population that they are targeted against. They stop for tea and scones at 11:00 on the lawn followed by crochet, and they are all launched from castles. They also shout tally-ho or chocks away before being launched.

Not like the American oversized ineffectual foolish bombs that simply lull around foriegn cities saying "isn't this quaint?".

:p {sorry couldn't resist...}

A woman drove me to drink and I didn't even have the decency to thank her.
--W.C. Fields

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
Ach, the blithe inhumanity of your posts never fails to make me shudder, Hero.

...Sorry, Hero, IRL I'm sure you're a pretty decent man with excellent taste in television)

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My argument is simply this: 1) They will attack if we do nothing, 2) They will attack if we do something. 3) Doing something is better than doing nothing.

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Originally posted by perfessergee:
Killing all the terrorists (even though they may richly deserve it, and I confess that I personally find that it's a very tempting idea) just makes us as bad as they are.

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Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
IB, IB, no, that's exactly what it does mean. Your "old college try" only exasorbates the problem you're trying to fix. Killing terrorist will never stop terrorism. Ever. Terrorism feeds on what you advocate. Much as you may prefer a straight fight, a straight fight is not possible. You gotta wrap your head around this, we all do. There's an old Chinese saying: if we do not change direction, we will end up where we're headed.

HKCavalier

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I'm going to ride right on past the part where I get pissed off at your condescension and just get on with the thing...

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My argument is simply this: 1) They will attack if we do nothing, 2) They will attack if we do something. 3) Doing something is better than doing nothing.

Your counter argument (for brevity's sake) is that the point isn't doing /nothing/ it's doing nothing that will provoke them, i.e. military action. So let's review the strategies that have been employed thus far.

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...What we have not yet tried is talking the threat away. This is sort of in the left-wing vein that "this war represents a failure to communicate" or some such, or "if we could only talk with them we'd find we have more in common than not". That's ridiculous. The terrorists have no interest in getting to know us better. They simply want to exterminate us. Again, there's no reasoning with that.

...BTW, HK, you keep saying I don't get it. Please enlighten me on your 5-point plan for eliminating terrorism. It's easy to say, "That's broke" but it's another matter to fix it.

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Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:
My argument is simply this: 1) They will attack if we do nothing, 2) They will attack if we do something. 3) Doing something is better than doing nothing.

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:

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Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
IB, IB, no, that's exactly what it does mean. Your "old college try" only exasorbates the problem you're trying to fix. Killing terrorist will never stop terrorism. Ever. Terrorism feeds on what you advocate. Much as you may prefer a straight fight, a straight fight is not possible. You gotta wrap your head around this, we all do. There's an old Chinese saying: if we do not change direction, we will end up where we're headed.

HKCavalier

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I'm going to ride right on past the part where I get pissed off at your condescension and just get on with the thing...

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InevitableB, I sincerely apologize. I was talking to you the way I talk to people who I think are getting a little carried away. It is really tough not to sound a little condescending when you're trying to calm a body down, you know? Again, I apologize, lets just say it was the internet talking.

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My argument is simply this: 1) They will attack if we do nothing, 2) They will attack if we do something. 3) Doing something is better than doing nothing.

Your counter argument (for brevity's sake) is that the point isn't doing /nothing/ it's doing nothing that will provoke them, i.e. military action. So let's review the strategies that have been employed thus far.

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I'm going to ride right on past the part where I get pissed off at your--sorry, I couldn't resist. Just kidding

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...What we have not yet tried is talking the threat away. This is sort of in the left-wing vein that "this war represents a failure to communicate" or some such, or "if we could only talk with them we'd find we have more in common than not". That's ridiculous. The terrorists have no interest in getting to know us better. They simply want to exterminate us. Again, there's no reasoning with that.

...BTW, HK, you keep saying I don't get it. Please enlighten me on your 5-point plan for eliminating terrorism. It's easy to say, "That's broke" but it's another matter to fix it.

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I think you're right on the money except the "they" is not the terrorists, it's the much maligned Islamic world. As Signy said, many Islamic nations turn a blind eye to the terrorists in their midst, because they certainly have a profoundly serious beef with us, and to get back to my original post, so did the USSR. Couldn't we learn from the first cold war and start negotiating with opposing nations before they have the power to destroy us?

We need to seriously rethink our Middle East policies because the people who live and govern over there seriously want us to leave them alone. Iran has no dream of taking over the United States as the USSR surely did (I'm talking about the people and the real government, not fifty crazy guys hiding in a cave). Lets do everything we can so that the Islamic people reject whole-heartedly the purposes and methods of the terrorist extremists.

We go to Iran (for instance), we say, "Look, what will it take for you to sit down and talk seriously with us about ending terrorism on this planet. The world is getting too small for us to continue business as usual." They say, what? I don't know, "Get your bases out of Saudi Arabia" or something and so we say, "Okay, let's talk about that." And then we do something. We reduce our presence in the Middle East in a meaningful way. I'm not saying a unilateral withdrawl of all military force in the area, this isn't some pie in the sky liberal "let's give the terrorists therapy" canard, just a real and meaningful reduction that Iran (or whoever) can appreciate. Then we say, "Well, now, we've started a process in good faith, now here's what we ask of you, etc."

We need to change our image in the world. C'mon all you capitalists, we need to start selling something the market actually wants!


HKCavalier

Hey, hey, hey, don't be mean. We don't have to be mean, because, remember, no matter where you go, there you are.

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Originally posted by SergeantX:

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Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:
My argument is simply this: 1) They will attack if we do nothing, 2) They will attack if we do something. 3) Doing something is better than doing nothing.

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Your argument is broken. (Doesn't make sense)

Niether 1 nor 2 is acceptable as a factual premise, and 3 depends entirely on what something means.

The something we're doing now is making the problem much worse, so in relation to that, doing nothing is preferable. If we'd done nothing in the first place,(for example, let's that say we didn't build permanent military bases the middle east, and we didn't invade countries at the drop of a hat there and we didn't attempt to force our values and ideals on their culture) I doubt we'd be in this situation.

The notion that Islam is driving the hatred of the United States is nonsense. The leaders of Fundamentalist Islam (which is a very small minority in the whole of the religion) use religion in the same way our leaders do. They use it as an excuse for people to act irrationally on existing frustration and anger. But the root of it all is the frustration and anger that comes from more mundane sources - namely unwelcome western interference.



SergeantX

"Dream a little dream or you can live a little dream. I'd rather live it, cause dreamers always chase but never get it." Aesop Rock

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Originally posted by piratejenny:
orginally posted by inevitablebetrayal

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My argument is simply this: 1) They will attack if we do nothing, 2) They will attack if we do something. 3) Doing something is better than doing nothing.

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I have to disagree with this for the sake of sanity. If someone nukes us..in your opinion we should nuke them back ..thats just madness, because then everyone will be bombing eachother.

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...sometimes I think we Americans really need a bomb dropped on us so that we can experience the true horror of such actions I think if we did we wouldn't hear opinions like these.

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Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:
Disagree.

Also, I know I've got a formal falacy in my argument. But I'm not going for logical validity, but just attempting to describe my thought process. I've neither the time nor interest to frame that in a logically air-tight syllogism. So sorry. I'm not picking apart anyone else's logic. Don't start in on mine.

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But the only point at which that might be ineffective is the life-style issue. Bases in Saudi isn't the only problem they have with us. It's the much broader issue of our culture that concerns me. The Islamic fundamentalists will not be placated by mere military withdrawal, because their horror comes from what they perceive to be our morally bankrupt lifestyle. We're infidels and in their logic we've got to die. It's hard to reason with that. Not to mention that they aren't solely state funded which means that if one nation (e.g. Saudi Arabia) cracks down, they'll simply pack up and move elsewhere (e.g. as from Sudan to Afghanistan).

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Originally posted by HKCavalier:
So I started a a thread with the hope that folks might talk about whether they believed a nuclear attack was inevitable or not. 'Cause I really don't think it is. Ah well, best laid plans...

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Originally posted by SergeantX:
Seriously, my point was just that doing nothing can sometimes be as productive, if not moreso, than doing something. Dong ma?

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I read over in another thread, and you've been kind enough to restate here, your belief that a nuclear strike against this country is inevitable. I thought, oh no, not Jenny too! So I started a a thread with the hope that folks might talk about whether they believed a nuclear attack was inevitable or not. 'Cause I really don't think it is. Ah well, best laid plans...

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Mr. Speaker, more than half of the American people now believe that the Iraqi war has made the U.S. less safe. This is a dramatic shift in sentiment from 2 years ago. Early support for the war reflected a hope for a safer America, and it was thought to be an appropriate response to the 9/11 attacks. The argument was that the enemy attacked us because of our freedom, our prosperity, and our way of life. It was further argued that it was important to engage the potential terrorists over there rather than here. Many bought this argument and supported the war. That is now changing.

It is virtually impossible to stop determined suicide bombers. Understanding why they sacrifice themselves is crucial to ending what appears to be senseless and irrational. But there is an explanation.

I, like many, have assumed that the driving force behind the suicide attacks was Islamic fundamentalism. Promise of instant entry into paradise as a reward for killing infidels seemed to explain the suicides, a concept that is foreign to our way of thinking. The world's expert on suicide terrorism has convinced me to rethink this simplistic explanation, that terrorism is merely an expression of religious extremism and resentment of a foreign culture.

Robert Pape, author of "Dying to Win," explains the strategic logic of suicide terrorism. Pape has collected a database of every suicide terrorist attack between 1980 and 2004, all 462 of them. His conclusions are enlightening and crucial to our understanding the true motivation behind the attacks against Western nations by Islamic terrorists. After his exhaustive study, Pape comes to some very important conclusions.

Religious beliefs are less important than supposed. For instance, the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist secular group, are the world's leader in suicide terrorism . The largest Islamic fundamentalist countries have not been responsible for any suicide terrorist attack. None have come from Iran or the Sudan. Until the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Iraq never had a suicide terrorist attack in all of its history. Between 1995 and 2004, the al Qaeda years, two-thirds of all attacks came from countries where the U.S. had troops stationed. Iraq's suicide missions today are carried out by Iraqi Sunnis and Saudis. Recall, 15 of the 19 participants in the 9/11 attacks were Saudis.

The clincher is this: the strongest motivation, according to Pape, is not religion but rather a desire "to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory the terrorists view as their homeland."

The best news is that if stopping suicide terrorism is a goal we seek, a solution is available to us. Cease the occupation of foreign lands and the suicide missions will cease. Between 1982 and 1986, there were 41 suicide terrorist attacks in Lebanon. Once the U.S., the French, and Israel withdrew their forces from Lebanon, there were no more attacks. The reason the attacks stop, according to Pape, is that the Osama bin Ladens of the world no longer can inspire potential suicide terrorists despite their continued fanatical religious beliefs.

Pape is convinced after his extensive research that the longer and more extensive the occupation of Muslim territories, the greater the chance of more 9/11-type attacks on the U.S. He is convinced that the terrorists strategically are holding off hitting the U.S. at the present time in an effort to break up the coalition by hitting our European allies. He claims it is just a matter of time if our policies do not change.

It is time for us to consider a strategic reassessment of our policy of foreign interventionism, occupation, and nation-building. It is in our national interest to do so and in the interest of world peace.

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Originally posted by GinoBiffaroni:
" They hate us not for some specific thing we've done (at least, not originally for some specific thing), but because our way of life is an affront to Islam. "

What ? Thats a load of crap.

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The clincher is this: the strongest motivation, according to Pape, is not religion but rather a desire "to compel modern democracies to withdraw military forces from the territory the terrorists view as their homeland."

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Originally posted by InevitableBetrayal:

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Originally posted by perfessergee:
Killing all the terrorists (even though they may richly deserve it, and I confess that I personally find that it's a very tempting idea) just makes us as bad as they are.

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Actually, I have to disagree on this point. The reason that you claim the moral high ground over terrorists is all in who you're visiting violence upon.

Terrorism, by its very nature, inflicts violence on the innocent (e.g. people on the underground, market-goers, people at work in an office building). These people are not a threat to the terrorists or their way of life. In military parlance, they are "non-combatants" and cannot be specifically targeted.

On the other hand, an individual who would visit violence upon your nation, its people or its military forces (e.g. terrorists) is fair game, because they are a threat. We enter into the "kill-or-be-killed" economy of combat.

Regardless of the propaganda that spins around the RWED, the U.S. military does not specifically target non-combatants. As a veteran of Afghanistan and Iraq I can assure you of that fact. And that is why we have the moral high ground on terrorists. Killing terrorists and killing civilians can't be considered as ethically equivalent. One is self-defense, one is murder.

_______________________________________________
I wish I had a magical wish-granting plank.

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Originally posted by perfessergee:

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...the problem remains that it's virtually impossible to kill the real terrorists in such a discriminating manner, and we do need to keep in mind the issue of how we would identify the real terrorists and what might constitute due process. Simply claiming someone is a terrorist and killing him/her doesn't really qualify for the moral high ground.

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But on a point of historical correctness, the US military has in the past deliberately targeted non-combatants (Dresden, Hiroshima, Nagasaki). Perhaps not recently, but it is not without precedent. I would hope that we don't follow that precedent.

perfessergee

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Originally posted by piratejenny:


I have to disagree with this for the sake of sanity. If someone nukes us..in your opinion we should nuke them back ..thats just madness, because then everyone will be bombing eachother.

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Originally posted by rue:
we could focus solving the problems in the first place that might lead to a situation where people would end up wanting to kick *ss.

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...we are at war. War means fighting. Fighting means killing. And victory means killing them until they are all dead or they give up.

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