[ivwshane]

I was just thinking about something and wondered what you guys thought.

How do you have a war on terrorism?
It's not like there are a set group of terrorists and once you kill them all terrorism dies. It's similar to the war on drugs, it's not something you can win and it's not something you can fight against and know it wont come back. You can round up all the drug dealers in the world and drug abuse still wont be gone.

So why are we fighting terrorism like we would fight a "real" war? It's not like you can give terrorists a major battle blow and then all of the sudden all the terrorists come out and say I give up, you won.


Wouldn't the smarter and more prudent thing to do be to increase security better educate people to be more aware of possible terrorist plots or related doings?

And you can argue that that's in fact what we are doing but the reality of it is that it's being done very poorly.

How do stop a terrorist from committing terrorism? You stop them from becoming a terrorist! And how do you do that? Figure that one out and we have our first major victory on the war against terrorism

Either way, I don't see how attacking a country whose majority of people are not terrorists helps the fight at all, especially when it means the standard of living is brought down to such low levels that it breeds terrorists.

Show me the flaws in my logic (I'm not saying I have none, I just want to know where I'm looking at the issue wrong).

[Ranger]

israel attacked lebanon because it was harboring terroists, and they had infiltrated the gov.

the lebaneese gov will NEVER admit it, but it wants israel to whoop the hell outta hezbalah (sp?) so that it can go on being a nice democracy without terrorists controlling almost a third of the gov.

edit: wow israel is whooping the shit outta lebanon though, really ruining their shit with artillery, i feel so left out (i'm an artilleryman, the same type israel is using to ruin lebanon, but the US doesnt use our arty much anymore)

[ivwshane]

Did you reply to the wrong thread?

[Ranger]

nope, what you describe could also be the israeli conflict. i was just taking that branch of the conversation :P

[bbsmitz]

Originally Posted by Ranger

israel attacked lebanon because it was harboring terroists, and they had infiltrated the gov.

the lebaneese gov will NEVER admit it, but it wants israel to whoop the hell outta hezbalah (sp?) so that it can go on being a nice democracy without terrorists controlling almost a third of the gov.

edit: wow israel is whooping the shit outta lebanon though, really ruining their shit with artillery, i feel so left out (i'm an artilleryman, the same type israel is using to ruin lebanon, but the US doesnt use our arty much anymore)

Right now Isreal is holding the people of Lebanon accountable for the crimes of terrorist organization that they cannot control.

Does this strike anyone else as retarded?

Edit: To respond to shane, I'm havn't the faintest idea how to go about combating terror. Our current policy doesn't seem to be any good, but the method you described also assumes that the people we're fighting against are rational which they're not.

However, I believe that if we could strip away their support then we could severely weaken them, and that is not an end achieved through force.

[super_Chris]

Originally Posted by bbsmitz

Right now Isreal is holding the people of Lebanon accountable for the crimes of terrorist organization that they cannot control.


Does this strike anyone else as retarded?

I do.

I also love how the BBC America is stating the obvious that no one else will, earlier tonight I noticed the reporter stated "Israel has been leveling targets of no military importance".

I like how Israel thinks that destroying apartments and commercial airports will stop their problem with Hezbolah.

[HEAVY-D]

After some thought can't really come up with an answer. I do have one question, why must we have a war on everything? We have a war on terror, war on drugs, war on poverty and a war on hunger just to name a few. Why must we have a war mentality 24/7?

[SoulAssassin]

Originally Posted by bbsmitz

Right now Isreal is holding the people of Lebanon accountable for the crimes of terrorist organization that they cannot control.

Does this strike anyone else as retarded?

Edit: To respond to shane, I'm havn't the faintest idea how to go about combating terror. Our current policy doesn't seem to be any good, but the method you described also assumes that the people we're fighting against are rational which they're not.

However, I believe that if we could strip away their support then we could severely weaken them, and that is not an end achieved through force.

No, it's not retarded. If Lebanon's government can't control their own country and the attacks that originate from that country it's not Israel's fault. As for the targets - I've heard they are Hezbollah targets so I'm not going to pass judgement yet.

How do you eliminate terrorists? You eliminate their supporters or financial means to support themselves...in this case Syria and Iran. You also don't negotiate and produce action when acted upon, otherwise you look just like the US does - weak to terrorists.

[bbsmitz]

Originally Posted by SoulAssassin

No, it's not retarded. If Lebanon's government can't control their own country and the attacks that originate from that country it's not Israel's fault. As for the targets - I've heard they are Hezbollah targets so I'm not going to pass judgement yet.

Oh heard from whom may I ask. 300 dead in Lebanon, the vast majority civilians, many women and children. Those are legitimate targets? Versus how many in Israel? 15 civilians.

Isreal is indiscriminately bombing the shit out of Lebanon; roads, bridges, power stations, and even residential areas all in the name of going after Hezbollah. If the Israeli military action was a set of limited surgical strikes I'd have no problem with it, but this is plain and simple murder.

Finally, most of you will dismiss this article for the website it's on (antiwar.com), not read it fully and then make some ignorant and dismissive comments concerning it. But I am posting it because I felt that it made some good points and was very well written. http://www.antiwar.com/orig/cook.php?articleid=9320

[ATIzed]

Rounding up the 7th century mullahs who preach kill the Jew, Christian, Infadel would be helpful. That's probably more for other Muslims to do though, or at least aid in their arrest when possible. I'm not just talking about the Mid East countries but the UK and other European countries, and US where it seems they like to get a bit fanatical in their teachings.

[SoulAssassin]

Originally Posted by bbsmitz

Oh heard from whom may I ask.

foxnews and bbc. Regardless, to pass judgement on a war that is in the present without all of the information (fox and bbc aren't exactly unbiased) isn't the best way to judge a war. History will always show the right and wrong decisions.

Israel has never indiscriminately struck targets. There has always been a purpose behind their actions.

[Eps]

Hmm, so attacking miltary targets is not murder, but civilian targets is murder? Yay for hipocracy.

[bbsmitz]

Originally Posted by SoulAssassin

foxnews and bbc. Regardless, to pass judgement on a war that is in the present without all of the information (fox and bbc aren't exactly unbiased) isn't the best way to judge a war. History will always show the right and wrong decisions.

Read the article. And are you seriously telling me that we shouldn't judge our actions and instead let history do it? How much information do you want? 200+ dead civilians speaks volumes.

Israel has never indiscriminately struck targets. There has always been a purpose behind their actions.

The two aren't mutually exclusive.

[ThatHideousStrength]

I support Israels move. I'm sick of hearing terrorists strikes with nothing from the side that gets attacked. Maybe this will show terrorists that people don't take shit sometimes.

[ivanolo]

The term ''war on terror'' never made sense to me. You can capture and/or kill Osama Bin Laden, but that won't erradicate terrorism. I mean, I suppose that doing something such as what SoulAssasin proposed could work for organized terrorism--it would probably make it harder or nearly impossible for people like Bin Laden to train people or orchestrate big attacks, but it wouldn't stop isolated incidents, say, like those by the Unibomber (or Unabomber) and the Beltway snipers.
Please don't think I'm one of those people that hate America. 9/11 is one of the most horrendous things to have ever happened to this country, but ever since then, Bush has used terrorism as the boogeyman, to exert his will over the population. It's really easy to manipulate people when they're scared, you know?

[ivwshane]

How do you eliminate terrorists? You eliminate their supporters or financial means to support themselves...in this case Syria and Iran. You also don't negotiate and produce action when acted upon, otherwise you look just like the US does - weak to terrorists.

I agree, I think measures like these are far more effective than what we are doing now.

The term ''war on terror'' never made sense to me. You can capture and/or kill Osama Bin Laden, but that won't erradicate terrorism. I mean, I suppose that doing something such as what SoulAssasin proposed could work for organized terrorism--it would probably make it harder or nearly impossible for people like Bin Laden to train people or orchestrate big attacks, but it wouldn't stop isolated incidents, say, like those by the Unibomber (or Unabomber) and the Beltway snipers.
Please don't think I'm one of those people that hate America. 9/11 is one of the most horrendous things to have ever happened to this country, but ever since then, Bush has used terrorism as the boogeyman, to exert his will over the population. It's really easy to manipulate people when they're scared, you know?

Exactly which is what got me thinking.

[mistawiskas]

When It comes to civilian casualties, I got to look at it this way:
Who voted Hezbalah into the government? I feel no pity. When the population feels the pain of war, maybe they'll think twice about declaring jihad on everyone and everything that doesn't agree or follow their way of looking at things. There has to be an end to this jihad this, jihad that. What a fucked up way to live.

[MSP]

Civilian targets are attacked because the terrorists have brought them into the conflict. When you mingle your "troops" with Uncle Mohamed and little Ackmed, your enemies are going to bomb the fuck out of all of them. They hide behind civilians because they are not strong enough to fight the West on an open battlefield. Basically terrorists are sore losers. The Israelis and others are starting to figure out that if you flatten enough apartment buildings the people harboring them will think twice about it.

[mistawiskas]

Exactly. It's like we need to do this in Iraq. The problem persists because the general population is enabling the insurgents and putting up with the violence within their own indiginous population. If the general population didn't put up with that shit, the bad guys would have to go somewhere else. The Iraqis have to want a better way of life or all is hopeless....they don't seem to want it, so fuckem.

[SoulAssassin]

Originally Posted by bbsmitz

Read the article. And are you seriously telling me that we shouldn't judge our actions and instead let history do it? How much information do you want? 200+ dead civilians speaks volumes.

Two points:

a) Propaganda - Remember the start of Iraq in 2003? You'd hear an orphanage got hit but the US would state they didn't...just let it be verified before calling the IDF murderers of civilians (intentionally).

b) Israel has already dropped leaflets and been heard over bullhorns telling civilians to leave areas that would be struck. Didn't leave after being told to do so? Whoops