Nice thread. nice respnses as well. Miraculous, actually. What would I do against the war on terrorism? I am not against the war on terror. I am fully supportive of it. So I rephrase. What would I do for the war on terrorism? Escalate it. I am of the belief that Al Qaeda is not an isolated, rogue group. i think there are many like it with at a minumum tens of thousands of ardent backers and members. I believe there are hundreds of thousands, if not more, people sympathetic to their plight and rooting for them. In all I believe there are millions of people that were glad to see those planes fly into the WTC. They understood the deperation that the Al Qaedas felt and either silently or vocally cheered the knife into Americas flesh. We have said over and over that attacking Al Qaeda was a must, for retribution and for justice. I have no argument. But It is my opinion that the defeat of Al Qaeda does not mean a victory in the war. It is a battle victory, not a war victory. I believe that the majority of Iraqis are like Americans. They go to work, raise their kids, watch the ballgame or whatever, and go about their business. However the other and very large portion of that country were among the cheerers on 9-11. They were this way because of terrible religious and political leadership. Their country was an incubator for terroristic behaviour and like all diseases they thrived in a habitable environment. This environment had to be changed. It takes a long time to change a culture but it can be done. Germany and Japan come to mind. I would take over the country, set up ridiculously stringent curfew and citizenship laws, and very gradually, and I mean glacially slowly back off on the Marshall Law. I am talking 5 to 10 years of checkpoints, rationing, and zero tolerance. I would not allow american or Allied civilians in the country for any reason. I would then do the same in Saudi Arabia. then Iran. Then syria. Then every other country that incubates evil. I would market the successes in Iraq and try to gain authentic international support. Not superficial support. Real support. When my soldiers commit crimes, like Abu Gharib, I would be far more harsh on them than I would be on the natives. I would have zero tolerance on my soldiers. The mosques would be manned by armed Muslim US soldiers that would pray with their fellow believers which I would recruit heavily in the states. The Christian churches and Jewish synagogues would be protected. There would be concertina wire everywhere for a decade. the borders would be inpenetratable. I would establish coalitions with moderate muslims and the transfer of power would go to them. gloomy? You bet. Drastic. Um Hmm. Cruel? in the short term, yes. but that is what I would do.
There can be no peace without victory and I think the Israelis, by building that blessed wall, finally have their victory. They had to isolate themselves from the "Palestinians" and they've done so. No longer does a group of savage, cowardly murderers known as the "Palestinians" have the ability to range into Israel at will to butcher women and children. The UN is so biased against Israel that they can not even possibly be considered an honest broker by any rational person. A non-starter in my eyes. Reward a so-called people for years of brutal, cowardly terror by giving them what they claim to want? You're contradicting yourself. They won't rest until Israel is another tinhorn, Arab dictatorship and the Jews are dead. But fortunately, the wall built on the border will take care of their attempts to revive the holocaust, one car bomb at a time. What do you think we're doing? Whistling dixie while Kabul burns? Gawd..... Of course. Now here we have some agreement, because I'm not pleased with how the Bush administration has gone the negotiation route too many times with punks like Al Sadr. Find the sonuvabitch, crucify him in the town square, leave his ass for the buzzards to feast upon him, preferably while he still breathes as a reminder to the Iraqis who'd take up arms against us: do it and this might happen to YOU. Sounds brutal? Well, these savages understand one thing: force. Wonder how Saddam kept all of these kooks in line? You must have the rule of law to get a population capable of democracy and we don't have that quite yet. We're going to have to buckle down until we get some order there. Again, what the hell do you think we're doing? Not funding intel at all? Give me a break! The CIA's problems started back in the 1970's thanks to that ignorant, naive, liberal b*stard w**** named Frank Church, whom I pray burns in the deepest cesspool of hell right now for the blood on his hands. His hearings gutted "Christians in Action" and made them a pathetically impotent organization tied down by ridiculous rules. All because they offended his moral sensibilities. When you llet the left control national security, this sort of thing happens...... Consensus is the absence of leadership. Most nations look to us and if they don't, they need to look for a boot in the ass. I'm tired of this "we've got to work with our allies" manure. France opposed us because they wanted to get the money back from the Saddam regime that they owed them for illegal weapons. The oil for food scandal shows that our "allies" are nothing more than actors behaving with their own interests in mind, ours be damned. What do you think we're doing? Again..... Ever heard of JFTC Fort Polk? We trained there before heading out to the Balkans when I was in the Corps. We trained in exactly that. For a third damned time, we are already doing this...... Bush is already doing all of this. Guess you're voting GWB come November, right?
We already have the Saudi's oil and we are not going to destroy their govt b/c those are already OUR ppl in there. Aside from the ~7000 princes there, the majority of the Saudi population lives in straight up totalitarian oppression. This is why you get so many terrorists springing up from there. This is also why Al-Queda repeatedly denounces the Saudi govt and even refers to the country only as the Arabian peninsula, as they consider the Saudi Royal Kingdom to be an illegitimate proxy of the US. As far as invading Iran, i suspect that Israel will soon enough raid their nuclear facillities on their own anyways.
Assuming that we, for the sake of discussion, had the power of both houses of Congress and the Executive Branch... Announce a new energy doctrine revolving around alternative sources of energy stressing the development of renewable energy sources. This would include mass injections of capital into a wide variety of privately run but publicly funded projects across the spectrum of feasible technologies including wind, geothermal, hydrogen, solar etc. Mandate an increase in the mpg our automobiles must achieve with a stringent timetable and a sliding scale upward for the foreseeable future. Secretly let Israel know that either they give up all the settlements or they can expect a public announcement and subsequent legislation removing them from the dole. Secretly let the PLO know that either they funnel all their efforts into non-violent action or the can expect a public announcement and subsequent legislation removing them from any support in the future. Funding to groups for non-violence throughout the middle east including Israel and Palestine. Secretly let Saudi Arabia and other middle eastern countries countries know that they need to stop purposely using anti-americanism as a release valve for domestic dissent or they can expect an annoucement and subsequent legislation supporting reform groups within their respective states. Publicly ask the Iraqis to cooperate for the next six months. To come through their local leaders to the table to bring stability to Iraq, and in return we pledge to leave Iraq as that stability is brought into effect. Agree to UN oversight and agree to sign sponsor some sort of UN resolution that creates a definitive timetable to withdraw. Remove US troops from Saudi Arabia. Rejoin Kyoto and announce a new initiative to bring the world's major powers in on ballistic missle defense including but not limited to Russia, France, England, Germany, Japan, South Korea, and the PRC. Announce we'll freeze the assets of any nation found to be harboring elements of Al Queda. Mandatory life sentences domestically for US citizens acting in conjunction with Al Queda or their ilk. Announce a major new initiative within the UN to bring the organization into line with its implied doctrine against state sponsored genocide, with definitive steps to address such cases through military action. Hmmm, I'm sure there's more but that's off the top of my head.
Dude, you are such a Democrat it's not even funny. Send this post to Kerry. He needs it. I'd be for everything on your list.
First, I would get some of the best computer security poeple in the world to track where the money for terrorist organizations is coming from, and then I would send someone to kill every person that donated 1 penny to any terrorist organization, be it for weapons, training, hospitals, or anything else. After that, I would pretty much agree with what Chance said. If that failed, then I would move on to what DaDa said.
Hayes, I can agree with virtually all of your points. I posted many of them right after 9/11. Too bad your war on Iraq was such a spur to terrorism in the mideast and created such intense hatred of the United States. We also need to start supporting democracy in Venezuela and other countries instead of seeking to overthrow it. It is better to have some literacy and health care for the poor rather than give them only the choice of the brutal status quo or armed revolution which often degenerates into terrorism by both sides. We should stop threatening the rest of the world with our nuclear weapons and oversized military. People will turn to terrorism or armed revolution if the only alternative is capitualtion to a foreign power. As Patrick Henry said: "Give me liberty or death". And the British were so much better rulers than many of the regimes we support around the world. In short if you want peace or reduced terrorism, work for justice.
This doesn't really address much of my propsals at all. Your prejudiced rants don't deserve a reply. This is bigotry in it's most blatant form. I think the troops in Afghanistan are working hard. But they don't control the country. People in the administration have admitted that troops and funds were diverted from Afghanistan to fight in Iraq. I would have put enough troops in Iraq, had a plan for the rebuilding of the country, and seen it through to the end. Since we had so many allies helping us in the effort, for them to see that we really mean what we say, and won't be distracted by wild goose chases. The CIA is not being funded or directed with the precision towards anti-terrorism it needs. It has recently switched more in the direction of anti-terrorism but started late in the game. Now we need to play catch up. We should have done that as soon as the cold war ended. There has been some training for urban fighting, but much of the new weapons systems being designed are still designed for missle defense, and other obsolete means of war. Bush actually isn't doing much of this at all. He may be paying lip service to some of these, but he isn't focussing on any of the proposals that I mentioned. On some of them he's been downright neglectful.
Another idea would be to ban people who post things like (insert nationality/race here) are a bunch of savages. Those kind of bigotted generalizations don't serve any of us or the boards well.
I disagree. Better to have people honestly express what they're thinking and then be forced to defend it. Driving bigotry (if that's what this is) underground is not the solution. In this particular case I'm not sure that calling Palestinians savages is racist.
Yeah, I realized the mistake in my wording after I posted I meant, "What would you do for the war on terrorism." If a mod would like to change the title, I'm all for it, but I hope everyone gets the picture after they read the posts.
I also liked Hayes's post. I would add: Let Iraqi companies and workers actually have a role in the rebuilding of Iraq, instead of all of the jobs and money being farmed out to foreign companies. Same for Afghanistan. Increase aid as progress is made. I wouldn't just increase money for alternative power, I would put in deadlines. There have been "initiatives" for alternative fuel since the 70's and they have all been scams to make it seem as if we are moving towards alternatives without ever actually changing because "We are still researching the best way." Or, "Our technology is not there yet."
Yep. Absolutely. Again assuming this is a bi-partisan and inter-branch effort, increasing regulation is a must. The optimal is probably a mix of carrot and stick, with tax incentives etc. and regulation working hand in hand. One reason we haven't seen breakthroughs come to market is because of the resistance of large industries like oil and auto.
You're right on the first point. but calling Palestinians savages,muderers etc.etc. is just plain ignorant. the tone of the response was about as racist and hateful as anyone a can get. punishing hate and racism is also a good start in fighting terrorism. we have our share of terrorist's here in the states who were born and raised here and who probably seem like normal people.
In the broader sense of the world outside our BBS I agree with this sentiment. But in the bbs, I don't see how it could help but become personal, since bigotry stems from ignorance, and people don't like being thought of as ignorant. It's bound to turn into personal poo slinging galore. If it were the web in general, books, television, movies, etc. I do agree with what you are saying. I hate the idea of driving it underground though much of it is already there. But I will try and approach this with as much civility as possible.
Bamma Palestinians as a whole are not savage, cowardly murderers. There are terrorists among the Palestinians who need to be weeded out. To accuse all Palestinians of this is prejudiced and bigotted. These kinds of stereo-types and generalizations are grossly ignorant, and spread unjustified ill will towards innocents. A Palestinian farmer who struggles to grow enough olives, works his farm, doesn't support terrorism, doesn't commit terrorism, but suffers under Israeli oppression is not a savage, cowardly murderer. He is a victim of a bigotted system that denies him a fair chance at making an honest living.
