do you want to win the war on terror?
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iCode_v2 — 12 years ago(July 10, 2013 03:17 PM)
You can't "win" a war on terror by bombing countries because terror isn't confined to countries.
Standing up to the terrorists was a fine way to start.
When did "we" stand up exactly?
"We" gave them exactly what they wanted. Fear, paranoia, loss of freedom in the name of security.
We didn't stand up to anything.
We gave them exactly what they wanted; fear. -
mgm0106 — 17 years ago(October 15, 2008 07:47 AM)
I like everyone else wanted to win this "war" whatever that means anymore. Going after Osama Bin Laden was what I wanted, and if we killed the same Al-Queda cowards that attacked us on our own soil along the way, then so be it. But then the whole thing turned into a circus when we went into Iraq and even sent troops to Africa. We should have focused our resources on accomplishing the goal we had originally set. I think that at some point we are just playing into the hands of the terrorists when we send our troops over there and more of them have been killed than died in the towers and pentagon on 9/11. They (the terrorists) are getting what they wanted, the death of more Americans. And yes, they hide behind innocents like the Vietnamese and Somalis did because they don't care about those people and see it as a joke when we kill civilians accidentally instead the intended target. There comes a point when you have to be adult about this and realize that putting another tally in the win column for the U.S. isn't simply about just keeping troops over there to win a war. Our U.N. sanctioned time runs up at the end of this year, and we'll have to give the country back over to the Iraqis. So a simple yes/no scenario to the original question just isn't possible.
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badmother — 17 years ago(October 22, 2008 07:56 PM)
one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. i think that the american government and indeed my own british government love terrorism cause it gives them an excuse to invade middle eastern countries and steal oil. after 9/11 there were more police in manhattan than there were troops in afghanistan. bush himself said that they didn't look too hard for bin laden. how many of our troops and how many iraqi civillians have died in this war, all those lives just to hang some beardy dictator who could have easily been assasinated by a us sniper at any time. we already know that north korea have nuclear weapons and kim jong-il has had far more people murdered than saddam hussein ever did. but as far as i know there is no oil under korea so it would be a waste of money to "fight for freedom" over there. if i were a more decent person i'd probably join amnesty or the peace corps. but i love my dvd player and and my ps3 too much, so i'll drink myself to blissful ignorance and hope that hell isn't too hard on me. after all, i've never even met an iraqi let alone shot one without wondering why.
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kennellygerard — 12 years ago(November 18, 2013 02:08 AM)
@ badmother
one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter
america loves terrorism cause it gives them an excuse to invade countries
i love my multi region dvd player
obama is no better than bush imo
look what he did to the zimmerman trial
''if i had a son he'd look like trayvon''
and if any white person had said trayvon looked like obama
there would be uproar wouldn't there
oh they all look the same !!!
is that right ?
obama can stir hatred but the rest of us can't -
Golden_Gardenia — 17 years ago(January 02, 2009 07:38 AM)
I don't think this is a simple "yes or no" question. Before answering to it you would have to define "terror" in the first place and then ask yourself who is terrorizing who. It's all about perspective. It's important to be able to put ourselves in different places so we can feel how complex all these questions are. For the Senator in the movie "terror" seems to have a very simple limited maniqueist meaning.
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ecko_47 — 17 years ago(January 15, 2009 10:53 AM)
Fighting a War on Terror is like fighting a War on Germs. A valiant effort, but ultimately futile in it's design. Our foes are too numerous, too adaptive, and too clever to be brought down by such conventional and blunt means as military action.
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marlinssuperfan — 17 years ago(February 02, 2009 07:05 PM)
I understand what you guys are saying, but all of you (minus the first few posters) are evading the question. Do you want to win or not? Its not a question of what you are willing to sacrifice, but do you want to win. After you decide yes, or no, then you decide what you are willing to sacrifice for that answer.
All in all, the question is purely black and white. What comes after the question maybe all shades of gray, but this question is yes or no. -
richardmair1 — 17 years ago(February 17, 2009 06:55 AM)
Like the person said a few posts ago - it
s about perspective. People are being far too simplistic when talking about terrorism. Even the slogan,war on terror ` is simplistic. To say that the terrorists do not have a political agenda is to show your complete lack of understanding about Foreign policy. The US Government has endorsed a policy of America First since the end of WW2. This policy has funded to the tune of billions of tax payers dollars corrupt, sadistic and despotic regimes across the globe. I urge everyone to study history in order to formulate your opinions about US Foreign Policy. Read up on the US involment in Latin America, Vietnam, Cambodia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt to name but a few. The US Government is the number one sponsor of terrorism on the planet. I urge the right wing ultanationalists to put away your Bibles and your flag and pick up a history book and read about the truth about how US Governments endorse freedom and democracy around the world.
The problem about opinions is that everyone has one. But does everyone really have a true understanding of what they are talking about?
Politicians rely on your ignorance to persue their criminal activities. Before replying - ask yourself this: Do you really know enough about this subject matter to offer a meaningful opinion? -
marlinssuperfan — 16 years ago(April 30, 2009 06:28 PM)
God forbid we should ever surrender our military.
Correct me if I am wrong, but it seems like you are saying that because we can't win the war on terror, we should just give up. And on top of that, completely get rid of our defenses?
I can't help but wonder, how many of you have actually been to Iraq, Afghanistan, or in some military confrontation. Have you actually witnessed the horrors of war, or are you speaking from a naive, inexperienced opinion?
Coming from one who has that experience, we can never give up. It's one thing to apply western culture to situations here, its a completely different story to apply it to the eastern nations. -
acbryan — 16 years ago(May 06, 2009 12:23 AM)
Your original question is framed illogically, and cannot be answered in its current form.
The correct question may be: "Do you want to end violence?"
I think, or at least I hope, that the moral majority desires peace, or desires the end of violence. But I could be wrong about that. Perhaps out of a global population of approx. 6.5 billion, 3.25 billion or so prefer violence.
Let's assume for a moment that the majority of the population desires the end of violence. If that's true, then the question must be, "How do we achieve the end of violence?" (If most people want it, we should probably try to achieve it.)
To answer this question, I think we must first analyze the origin of the violence.
Why do people commit violent acts? There are a number of reasons. Vengeance, rage, dogmatic principals, pathology, self-defense, and many others.
The United States, since WW2, has taken it upon themselves to police the entire planet, and to impose their idea of morality on the world, whether the world likes it or not.
(This is the US's ostensible strategy. It couldn't possibly hurt that Americans who are in positions of power themselves, or in collusion with lawmakers stand to make vast sums of money from this "policing" by being stakeholders in defense corporations. But this is tangential to my main point.)
Could it be that there are those in the world who are motivated to commit violent acts, particularly against Americans, for the simple reason that they do not wish to be policed, and that they object to having someone else's moral code imposed upon them and their fellow citizens, typically by violent means, in their own independent sovereign nation?
I think it's possible.
When those people, who feel oppressed, become motivated to commit violent acts against Americans, people in the world seem to like to brand those acts, "terrorist acts." When Americans commit violent acts against anyone outside of America, it is somehow seen as noble and justified.
Any act of violence, provoked or not, regardless of who commits it, is wrong and abhorrent. (Except for ultra-rare exceptions, such as self-defense against imminent threat of immediate death, though the Christian and Buddhist philosophies would argue even against this as a justification.)
The next question is, "How does one respond when an act of violence occurs?"
The answer is in the law. One investigates thoroughly, locates and arrests the person(s) directly responsible, tries them, and sentences them. (If we were a humane society, we would recognize that it is important to isolate violent criminals, but always try to rehabilitate them if possible.)
The answer is not retaliation with further violence.
It occurs to me that Americans, nor most citizens of the western world, do not consider that acts of violence are triggered by some specific motive, or provoked by some specific act. To avoid this analysis is ridiculous and a logic failure.
Let us awaken from this dream where western cultures are pure and noble and beyond reproach and simply the innocent victims of "terrorist acts". Let us recognize what is more likely the truth: that western cultures are targets of retaliatory acts from people who have been oppressed by our pathological need to impose our military might, and our supposedly higher moral standard, upon them.
We are wrong for policing. They are for retaliating. We are doubly wrong for retaliating back.
In order to end violence, one can begin with this kind of analysis, or something like it.
This kind of process may obviate further retaliation, which by its very nature, does absolutely nothing to end violence, but in fact, achieves the exact opposite. The cycle is perpetuated indefinitely until the species is finally extinct. -
marlinssuperfan — 16 years ago(May 11, 2009 06:10 PM)
Acbryan First I want to thank you for maintaining a civilized discussion.
As far was what you said, I agree with you on some points but I think you have missed a few others. I will start by saying I am a christian, but I whole-heartedly support the use of violence by the law to punish the evil. This includes using the death penalty.
A humane society is not one that always rehabilitates criminals. Our jails do very little to rehabilitate those that truly need it and very little to punish those that truly need it.
I firmly believe that sticking murderers and rapists in jail is not a just punishment. I believe that nothing short of death is justice. But on the other hand, people who steal minor objects or smoke weed get sent to prisons where they are only turned into real criminals.
On another note, I also agree with you that Americans and western culture are not infallible. We have made some situations worse. We have made some situations better. After all, we are only human too.
But,I do believe that it is our job as capable humans to intervene when there are no others that will. For example, the Jews that were massacred during World War II were helpless to defend themselves. Seeing as our help was needed to fight off the evil, it was necessary defend them. As you put it, a "humane society" must be the defender of the weak. -
acbryan — 16 years ago(May 13, 2009 10:04 AM)
Thank you for your thoughtful rebuttal.
I must stand by my earlier assertions. When I referred to rehabilitation, I was referring to a penal system that does not exist today in America. One reason for this may be because prisons are used as a weapon to conduct class warfare in America. The overwhelming majority of the prison population in America is poor and disproportionately ethnic. America's prisons house 25% of the global prison population. There may be a possibility to develop functional rehabilitative infrastructure in a system like this, but I doubt it. And if there were, the US is certainly not taking advantage of it. In short, there is no rehabilitative infrastructure in prisons. I said that a humane society would rehabilitate its violent criminals. By logical extension therefore, I do not count America as a humane society. I don't know which country is.
I am not surprised that you, as a Christian, justify the use of violence, though it is in direct contravention of Jesus Christ's philosophy and teachings. It is only one of the glaring and baffling hypocrisies of that particular religion. (In my view, every popular religion is deeply flawed in the way it is practiced, with the possible exception of Buddhism.) Christianity is particularly blessed with this oddly post-modernist mania that they can do whatever they want to anyone they want, and it is all magically forgiven because "Jesus died for our sins" If Jesus knew what rubbish was transpiring in his name, he wouldn't have waited for Pontius Pilate to give the order, he would have taken his own life long before.
I don't believe that this is the justification you are referring to, but you do not seem to acknowledge that there are wide-ranging consequences when an act of violence occurs especially when that act is not justified in fact, but only in perception, which I believe the overwhelming proportion of violent acts are. What if someone you never met summarily and wrongly accused you of posing a direct threat to their life, and proceeded to take aggressive and violent action against you. Imagine they in fact tortured and killed you for no good reason. Think of the consequences, beyond the obvious ones to yourself personally. Your family and friends, your job or school, your entire community might feel the trauma: dozens or maybe hundreds of people impacted. Well, that is exactly what happens hundreds or thousands of times per week in any policing action that America involves itself in.
The problem with reacting to violence with violence, particularly in the case of western civilization, is that it is too difficult to demarcate what constitutes a justification for intervention, or what constitutes a threat to "national security." Understanding the wide breadth of this fuzzy area, there is simply too much temptation for abuse abuse by, for example, defense companies, who absolutely require conflict to survive as economic entities, and who are willing to invest millions in political contributions, for the probable reward of billions, when their political proxy makes the decision to intervene. There is no oversight of this kind of abuse. It follows that when intervention occurs that is not actually needed, innocent people suffer. The final result can only be a world described in the works of George Orwell.
How does one avoid this abuse? One can stand on principal. Not some exotic principal that requires a weird contortion of logic or morals. But in fact, the Christian philosophy. "Turn the other cheek" "Thou shalt not kill" "The meek shall inherit the earth" Are these just catch phrases with no meaning? Or do you find it more convenient to only abide by the tenets of the religion that suit you under certain circumstances, and then ignore the rest that are too onerous? Or are those tenets suitable only for other Christians? -
acbryan — 16 years ago(May 15, 2009 09:21 PM)
I prefer not to underestimate my opponents in a debate. Nor do I wish them any ill. In my personal view, violence in all forms, is wrong, and I find it absolutely inexcusable (with the possible exception of imminent threat of immediate death). But I'm happy to get other viewpoints about issues surrounding violence or social justice.