The War on Terrorism?
 

I can see from President Putin's demeanour that he will be taking the Ghengis Khan approach, but what does our war involve?

I keep hearing the rally of "war on terrorism" but I can't think of seeing what the objectives and campaigns are or will be.

Does anyone know? I'd feel more comfortable supporting it if I knew what we were doing.

Don't know if any of you heard, but there was a bombing attack on the Australian embassy in Indonesia.

I heard.

Understated and reflecting that kind and gentle manner we've come to love ... :)

I agree. ;)

Yes i agree Sharni, show the bastards no mercy, they dont care if they kill anyone, children included. It never achieves anything either except create suffering and misery to the victims who are mostly totally divorced the issue that the terrorists are trying to force.

The loudest opening shots of this war happened during the fundamentalist Islamic

revolution in Iran, when the Shah Razi Pahlevi was ousted by the allies of the Ayatolla

Khomeni.

Islam, which we have been told is not evangelical, seems to have developed interests

which are at the very least geographical.

Our golden age of peace is over, and we'll have to fight tooth and claw to hold our

piece of the planet.

Where did I read recently about a group who wanted to form a black islamic state

in the deep south of the USA?

why In the hell hasnt bush found Binladen? Why didn't he order troops to begin a widespread manhunt to find him? There isn't a clear cut reason why the US is in iraq. Am i wrong or am i crazy.

Too soon, but getting close now. Anytime within six weeks before November 2nd. ;)

Or is Bin Laden dead and the USA does not want to make a martyr of him???? So he "lives on".

Or is he prisonerX?

or who stops making all the money if we put an end to it all by capturing him?

and will time tell? ..................................the truth?:confused:

I wouldn't advise holding your breath! :rolleyes:

Gentlefolk,

As this conflict is not a conventional conflict, the weapons and techniques employed are also unlikely to be the customary ones.

Why would this not surprise me in the least?? :rolleyes:

yutz in charge
 

The whole problem with the war on terror is that a yutz is in charge! Granted I am no Alexander the Great, Julius Ceasar, or Napolean when it comes to strategy--but Bush and his advisors are militarily incompetant.--first hand view of that simple fact.

In Afganistan it would have been better to employ hammer & anvil tactics to effect a battle of annihalation. What Bush did was assign special forces with the Northern Alliance to drive from East to West allowing the terrorest to escape into Pakistan/Iran. Better to have used airborne and special forces to cut off the terrorest retreat and have the regular army work with the Northern Alliance and drive the terrorest into a killing zone. A lot fewer of these vermin would be alive today.

And who knows about Irqac--it was a mess before--during--and after the first shots where fired. We have no real European allies on board--bleeding our budget white paying for it and loosing the flower of our youth in a protracted conflict.
--Bush and his little Napoleans disbanded the Irqac army upon the collapse of Saddam. And just now are reconstituting their army. Brilliant move--not! There where 100,000 troops--now what are they at perhaps 25,000?

I hate to say it but to win this war on terror--we the USA has to be more ruthless and creative then the terrorest. But with politics and war is like oil and water--they never could mix--and never will. It will be a long long conflict till someone realizes that this has to be a total war.

What is the difference between a christian fundamentalist and a muslim one??? A beard and turbin? A illfitting blue suite and elvis style haircut? They all seem to be two sides of the same coin. The war on terror is like the war on poverty and the war on drugs,in the end nothing much will improve but we'll all realize we are a lot less free'r then we were a few years ago. November is time for a regime change.Vote 'em all out and try 'em for war crimes and make the punishment fit the crime.

Gentlefolk,

Afghanistan was ruled by a regime which hosted al-Qaeda. Now it is scheduled for the first democracy in more than a decade – and some consider that a failure?

I was under the impression that the intent of regime change is to effect a change in official policy in the target state, not the extermination of vermin. If that is how we should consider American adversaries, is anyone suggesting we should be celebrating the Abu Ghraib prison activities rather than condemning them?

This transition was performed by Afghan fighters - and there are those who propose that US troops should have been used. The transition in Iraq was performed by US troops – and yet some criticize the demobilization of Saddam Hussein’s army. Fascinating contrast.

The Poles, Italians and Danes serving in Iraq – among others - will be disappointed to learn that they are not “real” Europeans. I trust the title “European” will be extended as a courtesy to the English soldiers.

Oh please; “loosing the flower of our youth”? If the reference was to the English casualties in, say, 1916 – 1917, then there would be some facts to support the claim. In the period during which you refer to the loss of 1,000+ Americans, the population of my home state of Maryland increased by more than 1,000 souls.

The War on Terrorism will NEVER end until people understand that it is not the same as conventional wars fought between national armies in the past. Al-Qaeda is an international organization without territorial boundaries, and is not bound by the Geneva Conventions, as are civilized nations.

I will agree that there is a danger in laying too much emphasis on al-Qaeda and Osama Bin Laden alone. There is no doubt that the core of al-Qaeda has been disrupted. It has lost its sanctuary and training camps in Afghanistan and is finding it harder to organize and fund its operations. As has been repeated too often, al-Qaeda veterans have been hit hard over the past three years.

But body counts are not necessarily the most useful way of judging progress because al-Qaeda is not a "normal" military entity and this war IS NOT a "normal" military struggle. For example, the group who carried out the Madrid bombing in March 2004 were not people who had been selected, trained or carrying out direct orders from Osama Bin Laden in the way the 9/11 hijackers had. None of them had been, I believe, to Afghanistan.

The more dispersed the foe is - the more it relies on local cells rather than people traveling into a country as happened in the US in 2001 - the harder it becomes to counter the threat because these independent actors may be harder to identify by national police forces. Scarecrow’s & Lilith’s posts pose real policy questions, as getting rid of one cell does not end the problem, nor kathy1, would capturing Bin Laden end the conflict, IMHO.

It seems to me that the conflict in Chechnya was a “war of liberation” (not unlike one waged in North America some 230-odd years ago) until President Putin found it convenient to cast the violence as being fostered by al-Qaeda.

PantyFanatic, in re truth in times of war: in 1918 Senator Hiram Johnson is supposed to have said: The first casualty when war comes is truth. I have, however, been unable to find where this is recorded. In 1928 Arthur Ponsonby wrote: "When war is declared, truth is the first casualty". (Falsehood in Wartime) Samuel Johnson seems to have again had the first word: “Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.”

As for “war crimes” and “make the punishment fit the crime”, well that is more appropriate for Gilbert and Sullivan ditties than the real world.

Gentleman/jseal,

Your ginormous words have not yet settled our debate as to how you have been permitted to override the Geneva Convention with this debate.

Your gentle nation somehow managed to override international concern and has continued to fight a "war on terror" based on weak evidence.

Your gentle nation continues to tell other countries why they are wrong, why the Geneva Convention is wrong . . .

The Purple Hearts were deserved.

Osama is not captured.

The economy is in the shitter.


Gentlefolk all.

Steph,

My words seldom settle any debate, ask anyone in my family.

What parts of the Geneva Convention are you referring to? If you are referring to The Fourth Geneva Convention, dated August 12, 1949, which addresses the protection of civilians in time of war, in what ways has it been overridden? It is a lengthy document, in excess of 22,000 words. I’m unsure of the particulars of your concern.

Evidence – facts – can be difficult to agree upon. That being said, when you assert the evidence is weak, and by implication, insufficient to substantiate the War on Terrorism, I feel that the following list, incomplete though it may be, and even containing errors (although I think it is accurate) does provide a plausible basis for the War on Terrorism. It goes back a bit, so I ask you to be patient with me.

In April of 1983 a large vehicle packed with high explosives was driven into the US Embassy compound in Beirut. When it explodes, it killed 63 people. Six months later a truck carrying about 2,500 pounds of TNT smashed through the main gate of the US Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut and 241 US servicemen are killed. Two months later in December 1983, another truck loaded with explosives is driven into the US Embassy in Kuwait. The following year, in September, another van was driven into the gate of the US Embassy in Beirut.

Soon the terrorism spreads to Europe. In April 1985 a bomb explodes in a restaurant frequented by US soldiers in Madrid. In August of that year a Volkswagen loaded with explosives is driven into the main gate of the US Air Force Base at Rhein-Main, and 22 are killed. Fifty-nine days later a cruise ship, the Achille Lauro is hijacked and we watched as an American in a wheelchair is singled out of the passenger list and executed.

Terrorists bombed TWA Flight 840 in April of 1986 that killed 4 and the more well known bombing, Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 259.

In January 1993, two CIA agents are shot and killed as they enter CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

In February 1993, a group of terrorists are arrested after a rented van packed with explosives is driven into the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City. Six people are killed and over 1,000 are injured.

In November 1995 a car bomb explodes at a US military complex in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killing seven service men and women. In June of 1996, another truck bomb explodes only 35 yards from the US military compound in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killing 19 and injuring over 500.

There were simultaneous attacks on two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. They kill 224.

In October 2000, a small craft pulled along side the USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, exploded and killed 17 sailors. Attacking a US Navy vessel is an act of war.

And of course you know the events of 11 September 2001.

These are terrorist acts against American interests. If necessary, other lists could be compiled to include similar acts against other nations.

In re differences of government policy as to the most appropriate way of addressing this threat, while the US failed to persuade France and Germany to participate in the overthrow of the Hussein dictatorship, it is inaccurate to suggest that “other countries” are not participating in the War on Terrorism.

I suspect that most of the Purple Hearts awarded are deserved.

As I suggested in my previous post, the capture of Osama bin Laden should not be the primary focus of the War on Terrorism. The nature of this conflict is not one which will be resolved by the incarceration of a figurehead.

“The economy” is an expansive reference. Are you referring to that of your nation? Mine? That of England, France, or Germany? The world’s? “In the shitter”? As the world economy is larger now than it was when the War on Terrorism was pronounced, perhaps some details are in order.

With only a little punctuation adjustment, I believe you may have hit on something, oh garrulous one.

….. “ The world’s in the shitter!” ….

Ok, Steph. Back to you!!! LMAO

I'll just sit here jiggling these to keep people entertained until your back :boobs:

Politicians are so full of shit.

Jseal, just one little add on to what you have stated above. France, Germany and Russia are helping with the war on terror in Afganistan, they just refused to fight against Iraq because of the econmical lost to them because of deals to trade guns for oil with Hussien.

Just my two cents

Those "LLFBTs" have kicked our ass significantly (9/11). I believe you all underestimate their resolve and wit. What is scary to me is that our population can be so manipulated by newsbites that it can a) elect Bush and 2) and much worse probably reelect Bush.

He is a powermonger. Ask yourself if we are at war, why has he visited Pennsylvania, Ohio and Florida over 100 times in the last year? Sounds like he is really working hard at hording his power and not leading a war.

My perspective on that really - it gives him less time to fuck more things up.

Have no doubt, BinLaden wants Bush as president. He plays Bush like a concert pianist.

Interestingly enough I was in the company of the 4th ID and their General Thurman (the gents responsible for capturing Sadam) last evening. The General eluded to the same things I have seen here - this is like no war we have ever been in before, and it won't be won anytime soon. It's a war the US Army is determined to win, but won't win overnight. It's about plotting and patience. Afterall those are the tactics used by the enemy. He reminded us all that their job is defend our Constitution and the freedoms it represents. Our freedoms were threatened three years ago and continue to be each day.

I'm saying the US is being rather heavy handed and should concentrate on the economy.

When people say things like, "And of course you know the events of 11 September 2001" it makes me not want to even enter a debate with them. Rather condescending or patronizing by the looks of it.

OK, you read those 22,000 words and let me know why America gets special consideration.

Let's not forget the CIA trained Osama to fight the Russians. Should actions like this not be considered? The foreign policy of America is rather paternal and I think this should be addressed before anyone goes near the Geneva Convention.

Canada is there too...

BIBI & Scarecrow,

You are quite correct. The internationalization (ugly word that) of the War on Terrorism in Afghanistan moved forward when NATO took command of the International Security Assistance Force in August of last year. ISAF operates in Afghanistan under a UN mandate. Interestingly, this is NATO's first mission outside the Euro-Atlantic area.

ISAF currently numbers around 6,500 troops from 26 allies, nine partner nations and two non-NATO nations. Canada has contributed the second largest contingent, just behind that of Germany.

Personaly, I feel that this is insufficient for a country of Afghanistan's size, but it can be difficult to generate the needed political will among those who fail to see the benefits of a peaceful Afghanistan.

PantyFanatic,

As I have tried, and failed, to do before, let me again suggest that there are issues that cannot be usefully reduced to a one-liner or newsbite. International terrorism is one of those issues. If treating it so tries your patience, so be it.

And no, the world is not in the shitter. It is better now than it has been in many ways. Reduction in illiteracy, availability of clean potable water, the improvement in status of both women and children throughout the world are only some of those many ways.

I'm not likely to forget 9/11 anytime soon....Nor do i underestimate the scum sucking bastards..

I'm not American but i support Bush in his decision to get the mongrels....as i would support any country in stamping out terrorism.....Australia too is in the fight....

How dare they think that by killing our own that we are going to give in to them....fucken dickheads dont have a clue....all they are doing is putting more against them

They will not stop until they are all dead....and i have absolutely no qualms about being part of a country that is trying to help them on there way!!

If a country gives in....then it has already started its path to living in fear of terrorism...becoming none other than a 'slave' to them... I support the 'we do NOT negotiate with terrorists'

What has made these people so angry at us that they are willing to give up there lives to make a point. We in the developed countries are afraid to ask that question. Afraid because if the question is asked we might not like the answer.

I think that the act of terrorism is a cowardly method of dealing with a conflict. The act tends to draw attention away from the issue and onto the act. This is a conflict. I'm sure that if we are honest we would find that both sides are not as innocent as they make out.

"Blessed are the cheese makers."

There is no doubt that the immediate threat of those hardliners who have taken their struggle to unacceptable depths of inhumanity must be dealt with by all acceptable means.

But if this process is allowed to polarize the situation to the particular as opposed to the wider cause then a cycle of violence (the world's in the shitter) will no doubt continue.

Perhaps Mr. Bush is proud of his homespun black and white view of the world, and perhaps this persona will ring true enough with the American voters to give him a second term. But I'm not sure it will help the world to deal with some of its entrenched problems.

Palestine, exploitation of the Gulf, Chechnya, Iraq etc. provide those who would exploit opportunities to persuade that the infidel is at war with Islam. But for me the irony that Jew, Christian and Muslim are all supposed to be Sons of Abraham, brothers, is something that we all seem to forget. Perhaps if we started to remember it a bit more, we could start to clear up this mess.

Steph,



You are not alone. Many, many people agree with you.



I disagree with you. On the contrary, it would have been condescending of me to recount to you events of which you are already aware, as if you were unaware of them. It was quite reasonable of me to assume that you and everyone else who read my post knew of the events of 9/11.



I have never suggested that America either does or should get special consideration.



Of course they should be considered and criticized.



One of the primary purposes of American foreign policy is to maintain and advance American national interests. The same can be said of all sovereign nations. They differ in what they perceive those interest to be.

I never ever ever know how to make this point. And the only way I can think to do it now is possibly going to get me in enough hot water to boil the ocean between us. All I can say is this is no way about you, Sharni, I just need to borrow your words. You put it very well. It's just that I can't get past the idea that the bad guys are human.

I take nothing away from the fact that the various terrorist attacks were hideously wrong, and it is a normal human reaction to be both frightened and angry. Anyone who didn't react by thinking exactly what Sharni said:



either is more evolved than I am, or isn't being honest. I thought it. Until the shock and pain faded, and reason came back, I definately thought it.

But the people in Iraq (who didn't attack us....and who have no demonstrable connection to al Quaida...sorry, it demands repetition) are human too. We have chosen to kill to further our interests. And somewhere there's a woman seeing red in Iraq, who will never forget a bombed out marketplace, who may now agree with Sharni....but she's talking about us.

Violence begets violence. The British are STILL in Northern Ireland, and they didn't bomb it into submission first. The first signs of hope that horrific quagmire saw came with the incredibly controversial move to acknowledge and deal with the IRA. At least now they're making progress.

I'm not now, nor have I ever anywhere, suggested that terrorism should be ignored. But as long as we use the war on terror as an excuse to promulgate conventional warfare, we are breeding the next generation of terrorists. I know this, because should another country ever invade my home on some laudible pretext, I know how I'd react and I am NOT a violent person normally. So long as we think tanks and bombs are worth a tinkers damn in this war, we're going to lose. Oh, we'll win the invasion...but we won't win the war on terror. For that, we have to change the paradigm, or we're going to keep losing. More than that, though: until someone finds the damned high road in this conflict, it's going to escalate. And so long as we can justify killing civilians, or occupying countries, in persuit of the war on terror...we have no hope of finding the high road.

G

"They blow themselves up in order to get at us, and we launch 3 million dollar missiles off of giant floating iron islands 2000 miles away -- Who are the real cowards?"

-- Bill Hicks

The people who intentionally kill children and other non-combatants.

A firey airborne death would represent a pretty dangerous and fearful situation, I would think. To hijack an aircraft and fly it into a building so as to cause one's own certain death requires courage.

That said, courage is not always virtuous. I'm not saying these guys weren't nutjobs, I'm saying that the reason they were so dangerous was because they were nutjobs and extremely courageous. If they were not, they would have balked at the very idea of themselves doing what they did.