Tomorrow will be one year. Did we do enough??

[PlatinumGold]

we've had a year to reflect. In your opinion, were the actions taken by the US government sufficient given the Horrendous nature of the Act of Terrorism commited on US Soil??

At the time, I was of the opinion that a Nuclear strike was appropriate. Now mb that was a bit too much BUT i am still of the belief that our actions in afghanistan were not sufficient to put FEAR in the hearts of all would be terrorist. Fear, not for THEIR lives but the lives of their family, their friends, their neighbors and even the strangers.

What is a PROPORTIONATE response to an act as HEINOUS as the committed on 9-11??

I don't think what we've done so far is anywhere NEAR sufficient.

 

[Pepsi90919]

i think it could have been more direct perhaps...

 

[Insomnium]

I wish we could just pull the hell out of the middle east and strangle that region economically, not provide any kind of humanitarian aid etc. Basically leave them alone to struggle though that wouldn't work. I dont think we've done enough on the homefront, certainly NYC doesn't feel all that secure to me. I think we've gotta be stricter and more deliberate here at home but yea I agree that we should have sent some kind of stronger message against terrorism.

 

[yobarman]

i agree that we havent done enough either. i wanted to see every terrorist organization blown apart within days. i wanted the US to lash and prove to the world that it's not a good idea to f-ck with us. i wanted to see footage of the burning buildings of terrorist organizations in the middle east on the news... not peace talks. i wanted the us to breathe fire.

yeah thats the way i felt on sept 11...sorry if its not politically correct, but thats the only way things would get done. terrorism is still rampant in israel and theres no telling when the us will be hit again

 

[dude8604]

No.

 

[tweakmm]

Originally posted by: yobarman
terrorism is still rampant in israel

you sure got that right

 

[PlatinumGold]

i guess i'm pissed off for many reasons. What's the point of being the most powerful nation in the world if your just going to act like a patsy?

 

[N8Magic]

So you're saying that we should have raped and pillaged our way through Afghanistan to strike fear in the hearts of the enemy?

Problem is, the al Qaeda/Taliban represented a small minority of Afghanis. Nuking Afghanistan or savagely attacking the entire country would have villified the coalition forces, and made no sense as you would have been killing 25,000 innocent civilians for every terrorist you managed to get.

IMHO, we took the appropriate measures in Afghanistan.

 

[PlatinumGold]

So you're saying that we should have raped and pillaged our way through Afghanistan to strike fear in the hearts of the enemy?

[sarcasm]ok. let's do it. u and me, we can go and rape and pillage. [/sarcasm]

 

[Ameesh]

i thin k the bush adminstration has taken complete advantage of a terrible tradgedy to push a ridicolous nazi-esque agenda into american government. I am thourghly and completely disgusted with him and his staff.

 

[Scarpozzi]

I think it's interesting the way we handled the situation. We liberated Afghanistan from the taliban who wasn't at fault for what happened. Most terrorist organizations stand for a cause...just like the 'terrorists' that fought the British and founded this country. Of course, this is a different situation, but there is too much stereotyping going on these days. As for what happened last year....SOMEBODY did it, but we won't really know who... There's too much propaganda and no solid evidence of anything. We'll never know what happened because the US Govt, as well as other Govts will continue to put out information on a need to know basis to protect their interests and promote who they want as a bad guy. It's sort of a lose/lose situation though they'll never see it that way. I just look at the U.S. Armed forces as being insurance that I pay for with my tax dollar and, unfortunately, lives of my friends and family. Their job is to protect me and keep me alive....if they succeed, I will have gotten my money's worth and my friends and family will have served their country successfully for a nobel cause. The poor souls who died last year were a victim of a senseless crime, but it was bound to happen sooner or later since Uncle Sam has been asleep at the wheel for a while now. World Peace only applies to major nations that are recognized by the U.N. and not radical assholes in the desert, on an island, or in our own country even.

 

[GTaudiophile]

Originally posted by: PlatinumGold
i guess i'm pissed off for many reasons. What's the point of being the most powerful nation in the world if your just going to act like a patsy?

That's a good one!

 

[Angrymarshmello]

Nuclear strike on what? We'd kill more innocents than terrorists. We've proven as a country as a whole that you can strike us down but we'll get right back up stronger than ever. We've gone into Afghan and blown away their $hit. What else could be done?

 

[BD2003]

Originally posted by: Ameesh
i thin k the bush adminstration has taken complete advantage of a terrible tradgedy to push a ridicolous nazi-esque agenda into american government. I am thourghly and completely disgusted with him and his staff.

Dont you work for microsoft?

 

[dolph]

Originally posted by: yobarman
i wanted to see footage of the burning buildings of terrorist organizations in the middle east on the news...

i don't think they have office headquarters in downtown kabul...

unfortunately, we don't know what our government did or will do to combat terrorism. i think it's fair to assume that we've hit any terrorist group we know as hard as we could... but it's not like we could just nuke the west bank, or saudi arabia. this is a secret war. there won't be any normandy-style beach stormings, battles of bulges, monitors vs merrimacks. this is a covert, guns with silencers, infiltrate and work our way up kind of war. so it's unreasonable to expect tactical nuclear strikes.

let me here go on record saying that i hope that we eliminate all terrorists in the world someday. as a bleeding heart berkeley loving communist left wing liberal turkey, it saddens me that i might have to admit that we might not be able to convince everyone that killing is wrong, and we might have to kill someone that will not rest until we die, and has the means to do make his wish come true. that sucks. but i still hold to my belief that we have to do our best to stop terrorism at its roots. i've stated several times that there will always be more people willing to die to kill us until we find out exactly why and address it. does al qaeda hate americans because we were simply born? no, they hate us because of our actions. and they're not the only ones that hate us, too. there's a pretty strong anti-us sentiment out there, and we bury our heads in the sand pretending everyone loves us, like the big arrogant jerk that everyone hates who crashes the block party, lighting cigars with hundred dollar bills thinking we're the most popular kid in the neighborhood just because we have the most muscles, the biggest house and the flashiest cars. if we had the ability to kill every terrorist in the world right now, tomorrow there would be twice as many. so let's stop pretending that we can kill a couple hundred arabs and return to our regularly scheduled lives, wake up, and realize that killing a terrorist's brother won't make the brother think you're a swell guy. violence begets violence.

 

[Jzero]

Some comments:

i am still of the belief that our actions in afghanistan were not sufficient to put FEAR in the hearts of all would be terrorist. Fear, not for THEIR lives but the lives of their family, their friends, their neighbors and even the strangers.

These people are terrorists. They do not have conventional fears. When one of their own or their families is killed, they consider them martyrs and having died an honorable death. The terrorists themselves are already willing to be suicidal maniacs, so they clearly aren't afraid of dying. You can't scare a terrorist into no longer being a terrorist.

What is a PROPORTIONATE response to an act as HEINOUS as the committed on 9-11??

How do you define proportionate? The shock value? Tallest buildings? Number of deaths? Number of deaths WRT total population?

yobarman:

wanted to see footage of the burning buildings of terrorist organizations in the middle east on the news

You say that as though terrorists had big pentagon-shaped buildings with signs over them saying things like "Home of Al-Qaeda."
They do not. They hide in caves, and camp in the desert. You did (or should have) see footage of US forces completely over-running Afghanistan in search of Bin Laden.

We did what we could. I try to look at the positive:
We chased OBL out of Afghanistan, if not killed him outright.
We decimated his forces
We ousted the Taliban who were terrorist sympathizers.
We haven't had another "incident" since last year and, God willing, we will not have one again.

I'm not sure what else could be done. It's not like we know who to shoot at right now. OBL is hard to find, so I guess we'll chase Saddam for awhile.

 

[Jeff7]

Originally posted by: Insomnium
I wish we could just pull the hell out of the middle east and strangle that region economically, not provide any kind of humanitarian aid etc. Basically leave them alone to struggle though that wouldn't work.

Be nice if we would have never gotten in there in the first place - if we pull our support of Israel, then what happens: some of their resident insane militants might deem us an enemy.
Other problem with pulling out of the mideast entirely is that they are developing nukes there. If they start using them on each other, it'll affect everyone in the world thanks to air and water currents.

Now, did we do enough? We have this massive military force, yet we send in a handful of commando's to do some spying and maybe sniping, and have bombers do what the commando's tell them.
The way to inspire fear in the enemy is to have them peek out of their cave and see a hundred thousand troops headed right for them to flush them out of their little hiding places. I think they might surrender - willingly or not.

 

[UDT89]

Insomnium................i agree totally............we all have a different attitude since we were only minutes from the actual disaster.

 

[glenn1]

Now mb that was a bit too much BUT i am still of the belief that our actions in afghanistan were not sufficient to put FEAR in the hearts of all would be terrorist. Fear, not for THEIR lives but the lives of their family, their friends, their neighbors and even the strangers.

You might be missing the forest for the trees. What we did in Afghanistan was only partly about the individual personalities involved (Bin Laden and Al Qaeda). It was also about establishing the Bush Doctrine, that a sovereign state which plays the role of enabler (to borrow a psychology/therapy term) to terrorists is subject to military action, even preemptive military action.

The U.S. not only established that principle, but in such a convincing manner as to make any recalcitrant state (read: places like Syria) who thought they might only suffer minimal consequences for defying that new priciple fully aware that they could not. That may be as much a part of the low incidence of terrorist attacks since 9-11 as anything else. The U.S. in a sense redefined the world strategic battlefield, beginning in Afghanistan, and now dictates the terms of engagement.

An additional side benefit to our actions in Afghanistan were to demonstrate the U.S. as perhaps the most unchallengable military force the world has ever seen. Trust me, people like the Chinese have taken notice, and that will pay dividends as well.