The war on "terror" is cowardice

[extra]

You cannot declare a war on "terror". Terror is an abstract word that can mean many things. What is terror? Who is a terrorist?

Is a terrorist someone who wants to be a mass-murderer? Why don't we then declare war on mass murderers? We (as a society) would likely picture a muslim extremist as a terrorist (not saying you all do, I am just saying in general this would likely be a picture many would think of). So why don't we declare war on religious extremists? Because it obviously would be un-P.C. and would piss people off? So we declare war not against people but against some word in the dictionary? Do any of you honestly believe this "war" will ever end?

Terror is a very, very broad term. It can be defined many ways. It is a war that will NEVER end. We will still have the "war on terror" 20 years from now. It will never end. We all know how well the war on drugs has turned out. But it has not been a war on drugs. Instead it has been a war on people. Many very very guilty people have went to prison and many completely innocent people who just smoked some stupid plant and acted like 2yr old morons in their own homes have been arrested as well.

I'm sure no one, when the "war on drugs" started, thought we would have so many non-violent people who harmed no one but themselves in prison. How will the "war on terror" be in 20 years? Who will go to prison for it? We think that no one but the guilty-as-hell would be prosecuted now. How about later? How about 20 years from now? What will it be then?

I think to declare war on something abstract is cowardly. If you are afraid to even admit who your enemy is, you have no right to declare any war.

This is the same as the "war on drugs" and the "war on poverty". You cannot have a war on some abstract thing.

Terror cannot fight back. Drugs cannot fight back against you. Poverty cannot fight back against you. To believe you can declare war on some ideal or some word that you do not like is foolish. We can declare war on people. If a war is to be battled, it must be battled by *PEOPLE* not by some obscurely defined idea.

Are we at war with extremists or what? Are the leaders afraid to say who we are really at war with?

 

[alien42]

the war on drugs and the war on terror are both manufactured and set to fail from the beginning. the far right think that the US should be based on FEAR.

 

[Witling]

Slow Thinkers Keep Right

 

[Moonbeam]

The Pharmaceutical companies need to invent a pill that makes people indifferent to the deaths of millions of their neighbors or we need so much terrorism that it ceases to have any effect. A numb world is a world where folk won't be manipulated by emotion.

 

[catnap1972]

Originally posted by: alien42
the war on drugs and the war on terror are both manufactured and set to fail from the beginning. the far right think that the US should be based on FEAR.

Well, DUH!

What else do they today have to run on that would benefit anyone else than the uber-rich?

 

[Lemon law]

Originally posted by: Moonbeam
The Pharmaceutical companies need to invent a pill that makes people indifferent to the deaths of millions of their neighbors or we need so much terrorism that it ceases to have any effect. A numb world is a world where folk won't be manipulated by emotion.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

No Moonbeam---its going to have to be even more of a wonder drug that you propose.

We need a drug where people will be numb to the death of millions of their neighbors but still be driven by the slogans that drive these wars. Just any old narcotic will leave the people numb to the death of millions without getting them excited and motivated about joining the crucade to butcher their neighbors.

What if they had a war and no one came?

 

[Starbuck1975]

Terror cannot fight back. Drugs cannot fight back against you. Poverty cannot fight back against you.

Your entire argument is a matter of semantics. Terror as an abstract word, or even an ideology, does not align itself to a sovereign nation...and hence the traditional mindset for warfare does not apply...yet ideology does manifest itself as violent acts...Hezbollah, Al Quaida, Hammas...I don't have an answer for how to contain these groups...I don't think anyone does...but how exactly to you engage these organizations through diplomacy when their stated goals and objectives border on madness.

As for the war on drugs, I say legalize them all and let Darwinism take care of the rest...but given that drugs are illegal in America, the war on drugs does manifest itself in violent acts, through gang activity and drug cartels.

You worry about innocent people getting caught in the crossfire...there is no such thing as a victimless society.

War by its very nature is an abstract concept...what exactly was the threat that caused the nations of Europe to embrace WW1 with an almost sadistic glee...with nationalism trumping any sense of rationale.

 

[Cerb]

The War on Terror is a PR campaign to arouse fear and guilt to control those who allow themselves to be. In this agitated state, those in fear will vote for those who promise to secure them against fears. It also allows those who are controlled as such in power to choose security over liberty and even sanity, in the name of an enemy that is a figment.

 

[IrateLeaf]

So how does a nation win a war if you must stop and worry about civilian casualties?

ohh...I get now...no more wars...heheheeeee

Let me guess if the entire survival of the US counted on usa defending ourselves or becoming pro-active in a war as soon as civilians were killed we should lay down our weaponso that no more civilians will be killed?
Thats an interesting concept.

many words can be interpreted differently like..
Terrorist
War Crimes
Occupation
deliberately targeting

It seems to me that whoever is getting the snot beat out of them those people always interpret those words differently than those winning!

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: IrateLeaf
So how does a nation win a war if you must stop and worry about civilian casualties?

ohh...I get now...no more wars...heheheeeee

Let me guess if the entire survival of the US counted on usa defending ourselves or becoming pro-active in a war as soon as civilians were killed we should lay down our weaponso that no more civilians will be killed?
Thats an interesting concept.

many words can be interpreted differently like..
Terrorist
War Crimes
Occupation
deliberately targeting

It seems to me that whoever is getting the snot beat out of them those people always interpret those words differently than those winning!

That sounds a lot like the ends justifying the means...so where do you draw the line...how do you prevent yourself from becoming the thing you are fighting against?

 

[IrateLeaf]

Originally posted by: Rainsford

Originally posted by: IrateLeaf
So how does a nation win a war if you must stop and worry about civilian casualties?

ohh...I get now...no more wars...heheheeeee

Let me guess if the entire survival of the US counted on usa defending ourselves or becoming pro-active in a war as soon as civilians were killed we should lay down our weaponso that no more civilians will be killed?
Thats an interesting concept.

many words can be interpreted differently like..
Terrorist
War Crimes
Occupation
deliberately targeting

It seems to me that whoever is getting the snot beat out of them those people always interpret those words differently than those winning!

That sounds a lot like the ends justifying the means...so where do you draw the line...how do you prevent yourself from becoming the thing you are fighting against?

In this case to win the ends do justify the means.
Sorry about the civilian casualties. thast what happens when a country harbors a militia who has no feelings for the people of the country in exists in.

So bottom line is you are telling me is better to let hezbollah do as it pleases rather than deal with them? Just becuase you may need to think or even have innocent casualits because in order to get at them civilians who they use as shields get in the way?

daniel49 - states--
It appears to me the problem is trying to fight a politicaly correct war with unanimous world approval is a big share of the problem.
You send the soldier in and then don't let him do his job.

If his purpose for going in is not to totaly engage, kill, and destroy the enemy he cannot and will not achieve the objective.

He is not a policeman, he is not a diplomat, he is not a humanities professor, he/she is a soldier.

This is whats happening in Iraq and Lebanon.

Send the soldiers in.
Wait thats too much blood. stop the soldiers.

take out enemy sites.
Wait we are hurting thier infastructure.

Demand compliance or else.
Oh nevermind we'll give you another chance.

Launch an offensive.
Ok, hold up the offensive lets check the polls and see if there are to many casulties for public opinion.

If your going to send an army in. then go in and kick thier butt and don't stop till they are begging you for mercy.
Otherwise don't send them in at all.

I know it sounds terrible, but war should sound terrible.
War is terrible.
Thats what should make it undesirable to all.

Of course diplomacy would be a much better course in 99% of these types of actions, but the UN has never shown the guts and wisdom to get the job done. Because its membership and leadership is largely corrupt, self serving, and united on nothing.

Why do you think the United States has never ben on the winning side of war since WW2?

 

[Future Shock]

Originally posted by: IrateLeaf

Why do you think the United States has never ben on the winning side of war since WW2?

Too bad you must be too young to remember Gulf War I, which had nearly unanimous international approval because we played good diplomacy before and during, which minimized civilian casualties because we didn't let a civil war develop after it (by leaving Saddam much weakened but still in control), and which we won totally, and absolutely.

I would also have to add that we "won" the Cold War, the most dangerous and complex war that has never been fought. Interesting lesson there, too - we didn't even have to fire a single missle to win a strategic conflict where everyone was armed with thousands of them. We didn't win it through cowardice - we won it by being smarter and patient enough to let non-military forces win conflicts for us. We won it through insight into the failings of Communism in the long-term. Things that apparently are in short supply in leaders nowadays...

Future Shock

 

[miketheidiot]

Originally posted by: Rainsford
...how do you prevent yourself from becoming the thing you are fighting against?

 

[Starbuck1975]

I would also have to add that we "won" the Cold War, the most dangerous and complex war that has never been fought. Interesting lesson there, too - we didn't even have to fire a single missle to win a strategic conflict where everyone was armed with thousands of them. We didn't win it through cowardice - we won it by being smarter and patient enough to let non-military forces win conflicts for us. We won it through insight into the failings of Communism in the long-term. Things that apparently are in short supply in leaders nowadays...

To be fair Future Shock, there were a lot of quite hot proxy wars fought as a result of the Cold War...Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iran-Iraq, Bay of Pigs...these were all very much armed conflicts between America and the Soviets, even if in some instances, other nations and cultures did the fighting for us...all of these conflicts had the potential to escalate, with only the looming threat of nuclear obliteration keeping the super powers at bay.

 

[Craig234]

You can have a 'war on terror', it just requires additional definition. You can have a war on drugs, poverty, drunk driving and other things too.

LBJ was darned successful in his war on poverty - the % of Americans living in poverty was chopped to a third of what it had been and that has held ever since.

The war on drugs has been unsuccessful (by most people's definitions) for a variety of reasons. Drugs remain quite available - but it has paid for billions people profit from.

The war on terror *could* be defined to mean things like more effectively opposing groups like Al Queda.

The fact that Bush administration is so utterly corrupt, dishonest and lacking in skill doesn't mean it could not be done.

Of course, liberals would - ok, could - fight the war on terrorism more sensibly, taking into account things like trying to reduce the poverty and oppression of people.

 

[chowderhead]

terrorism is a mechanism, a tool used by terrorist to achieve a political, social or economic goal. It is a mechanism to an end. How do you declare a war against a mechanism/tool? Who are we fighting against, what are our goals, what constitutes victories? Who knows. We might as well declare a war against bombs or IEDs. All we have now are nebular ideas and entities about terrorism which morphs from one group to another as the administratioin sees fit. If the definitions are ill-defined ... the war on terrorism will be unending.

We need a new strategy of declaring war against defined organizations so that victory can be measured and assessed by the American people. The President should have declared a War against Al Qaeda and vow to completely destroy Al Qaeda in 2001. Instead, 5 months after 9-11, he didn't care about Osama Bin Laden saying Al Qaeda has been marginalized all the while turning his attention to Iraq. Now, Al Qaeda has morphed and decentralized making it harder and more ill-defined to fight. Still, lumping everything from Hezbollah, Iraq, Iran, Al Qaeda, Hamas, etc into a catch-all phrase war on terrorism in my opinion too simplistic. Each of these groups have different goals. We should have wiped out Al Qaeda, declared victory against them by killing all their leaders and then moved on to the next threat. Instead we are bogged down everywhere.

 

[wazzledoozle]

Its more like "The war on radical Islam". The government just doesnt want to offend anyone

 

[Craig234]

Terrorism also has measurable events. While the Bush administration gamed the numbers, and the numbers keep getting worse, the war can be done with a goal of reducing the number of events and/or reducing the terrorist organization structures. Terrorism has been battled before - the UK could have called its conflict with the IRA a 'war on terror' if it wanted.
The people are still there; the terrorism has pretty much been ended.

It's a pretty semantic meaningless point to quibble IMO, thought the demand for some specifics, and the danger of a 'premanent war' without them, are good points.

A larger concern I have is that terrorism is the weapon of the poor, and a lot of our policies are screwing poor people - I'd rather see us do more right, and fewer killings in the 'war'.

 

[Starbuck1975]

Combatants using innocent civilians essentially as human shields is cowardice.

Intentionally blowing up street markets...kidnapping foreign contractors, journalists and humanitarian aid workers, and beheading them, is cowardice...spouting rhetoric from a hidden location, urging your followers to essentially commit suicide in the name of religion, is cowardice.

The problem with terrorism is that there are no repercussions for those who are preaching this corrupted version of Islam.

If it were up to me, the WOT would consist of hunter killer teams deployed to take out the Hezbollah leader, Hammas leaders and Al Quaida leaders...none of whom have truly endured or suffered the pain and destruction they incite.

Many compare terrorism to a hydra...cut off one head, and two more appear...maybe we should be targeting the heart.

 

[zephyrprime]

Originally posted by: wazzledoozle
Its more like "The war on radical Islam". The government just doesnt want to offend anyone

There's the answer. It's funny how we're not trying to offend anyone while waging a war.

 

[extra]

"Its more like "The war on radical Islam". The government just doesnt want to offend anyone "

So my question is. If we are fighting a WAR. . .How can we expect to have any success if we are afraid to even identify our enemy?

And on the war on poverty--whether or not you consider it successful depends on who you ask. The facts point to it being very helpful In reducing the number of old americans living in poverty, but not very successful in helping those of working ages.

Of course, the definition of poverty has changed over time as well.

If you phrase it as "a war on radical islamists throughout the world", it suddenly becomes obvious that it is just like the war on drugs which should be called "a war on drug users".

Just as wiping out drugs can never be successful as long as there is a demand for drugs, wiping out religious extremists with violence would never work. (perhaps it would if we went to a total-war on those countries like ww2, but that is, thank God, just not something we would do).

As long as there are people where the ideas can take hold, as long as there is a *demand* for radical islam in the minds of people accross the world, you can't get rid of it.

I'm honestly trying to figure out how this problem could be solved from any angle. And I have no idea.

 

[Jamie571]

Originally posted by: zephyrprime

Originally posted by: wazzledoozle
Its more like "The war on radical Islam". The government just doesnt want to offend anyone

There's the answer. It's funny how we're not trying to offend anyone while waging a war.

PC just confuses everyone. I mean just be honest with everyone and tell it like it is. Most of the time the Media throws in its PC desriptions and the stupid politicians just feed on it instead of standing up and telling it like it is.

 

[XMan]

Originally posted by: extra
You cannot declare a war on "terror". Terror is an abstract word that can mean many things. What is terror? Who is a terrorist?

Is a terrorist someone who wants to be a mass-murderer? Why don't we then declare war on mass murderers? We (as a society) would likely picture a muslim extremist as a terrorist (not saying you all do, I am just saying in general this would likely be a picture many would think of). So why don't we declare war on religious extremists? Because it obviously would be un-P.C. and would piss people off? So we declare war not against people but against some word in the dictionary? Do any of you honestly believe this "war" will ever end?

Terror is a very, very broad term. It can be defined many ways. It is a war that will NEVER end. We will still have the "war on terror" 20 years from now. It will never end. We all know how well the war on drugs has turned out. But it has not been a war on drugs. Instead it has been a war on people. Many very very guilty people have went to prison and many completely innocent people who just smoked some stupid plant and acted like 2yr old morons in their own homes have been arrested as well.

I'm sure no one, when the "war on drugs" started, thought we would have so many non-violent people who harmed no one but themselves in prison. How will the "war on terror" be in 20 years? Who will go to prison for it? We think that no one but the guilty-as-hell would be prosecuted now. How about later? How about 20 years from now? What will it be then?

I think to declare war on something abstract is cowardly. If you are afraid to even admit who your enemy is, you have no right to declare any war.

This is the same as the "war on drugs" and the "war on poverty". You cannot have a war on some abstract thing.

Terror cannot fight back. Drugs cannot fight back against you. Poverty cannot fight back against you. To believe you can declare war on some ideal or some word that you do not like is foolish. We can declare war on people. If a war is to be battled, it must be battled by *PEOPLE* not by some obscurely defined idea.

Are we at war with extremists or what? Are the leaders afraid to say who we are really at war with?

Google Dan Simmons category error.

Declaring a war on terror after 9/11 is akin to declaring a war on aviation after Pearl Harbor. It's the means to an end, not the object of the conflict.

 

[Craig234]

"Combatants using innocent civilians essentially as human shields is cowardice. "

It's not cowardice.

You apparently have no idea what it must be like for very poor people fighting moderm militaries who have few ways to get any leverage.

When a bank robber sees the police pull up, they often panic and grab a hostage as their only way to try buy some time, the alternative being to be shot or to surrender.

That doesn't make them cowards, it makes them desperate. While their cause is wrong, the causes of poor people who fight modern militaries vary.

When the radical muslims battled the USSR in Afghanistan, for example, the US supported them.

Can the US ever be in the wrong as the USSR was ini Afghanistan? If you don't know it can, there are many good history books available.

Any person taking on the United States military may be many things from evil to good, foolish to idiotic to desperate to clever, but it's hard to see cowardice.

Suicide bombers, too, it seems crazy to accuse of cowardice - it seems the opposite, however immoral. Some argue that their religious beliefs make it cowardly, but how many Christians would happily blow themselves up in order to kill an enemy military unit? Not many. Perhaps not any.

The tactic makes perfect sense, as they use the modern militaries' weakness; if the militaries are inhibited from using their modern artillery, tanks, jets, missiles and more because of the civilians, that makes sense; and if they can get the publics whose support the militaries need to reduce their support of the war, that's a sensible result too. When modern militaries can commit horrible, corrupt, violent actions against nearly defenseless people while American Idol-watching publics are irresponsible in ignoring the situation, then one of the few things that can get some attention and the public to care, the civilian casualties, is one of the few things they can do other than get shot or surrender.

"The problem with terrorism is that there are no repercussions for those who are preaching this corrupted version of Islam.

If it were up to me, the WOT would consist of hunter killer teams deployed to take out the Hezbollah leader, Hammas leaders and Al Quaida leaders...none of whom have truly endured or suffered the pain and destruction they incite."

These people are frequently killed. Sometimes the leaders of Hamas and other groups are killed within days of gaining office (along with any unfortunate nearby civilians).

The leader of Hazzvollah saw his son killed by Israel previously - he has suffered - how has George Bush or Dick Cheney or Don Rumsfeld suffered for their actions?

Of course the powerful militaries defend their civilian casualties - often far, far higher than the terrorists' - by saying that their intent wasn't aimed at the civilians. At what point does that start to not justify the killing? The US launched *50* bombing attacks to try to kill Saddam, all who missed Saddam, but the attacks did kill innocent civilians. At 0 for 50, how much concern did they show for the 'unintended' civilian victims? How much did the US pay for its terrorism of firebombing cities in WWII?

"Many compare terrorism to a hydra...cut off one head, and two more appear...maybe we should be targeting the heart. "

Maybe we should recognize we ARE the haeart much of the time, when our policies are greedy and selfish and *create* the terrorists. If we'd back off and support more fair, just policies, we'd find all kinds of local support in other nations for their keeping the terrorists who are the few hardcore ideologues under control.

But too many Americans are too irresponsible to get informed about our activities, and lazily only support more and more and more war as the answer.