Our ongoing violence against Afghanistan and Pakistan is not the solution to terror

Now that we have officially achieved the stated goal of killing bin Laden, it is time to take a hard look at our policy against terrorism in general.

This policy, initiated by Bush and continued by Obama is to respond to terrorism with violence and terror of our own. Thousands of innocents have been killed, tens of thousands more have been injured, displaced, lost everything that they have. Afghanistan, a country that was just beginning to recover from their war with the Soviet Union, has now been thrust back into the depths of poverty.

Meeting terrorism with violence of our own simply doesn't work. Examples such as England and Ireland, Israel and Palestine, along with countless others across the years is ample proof of this.

So why are we continuing to follow a failed policy, worse yet, a policy that is counterproductive, a policy that creates more terrorists rather than less?

It is time for us to recognize that this War on Terrorism is really a War of Ideas, and rather than being fought on the battlefield, it needs to be fought for by diplomats, charity, and the generous spirit of the US people. The only way to change the world-wide perception that the US is the Great Evil of the world is to prove we aren't.

This means that we need to bring the troops home, now. We need to send aid, even reparations, to the people who we have bombed and shot, mined and strafed. We need to start devoting our budget meant for bombs and bullets into food and shelter. We need to rehabilitate our image, both at home and abroad.

If we continue down this path we're on, responding to violence with even more violence, continuing to kill innocents and laying waste to countries, we will never defeat terrorism. Nor will we ever know peace again ourselves. Instead, we will continue to suffer from terror attacks, and worse yet, we will spend our vast fortune, our resources and our population on making war, letting our country slide into oblivion and destruction.

The choice is ours, and the choice needs to be made very soon. War or peace, poverty or prosperity, terrorist attacks, or the accolades of the world. The choice is ours, let us choose wisely.

As we did with Japan and Germany(they had been sinking our civilian merchant ships in the N. Sea for years)a few decades ago. Sometime the best defense is much more aggressive offense.

I might even say it's human nature, an inbred survival mechanism.

You continue to perpetrate violence against terrorists, it simply begets more terrorists and more violence, an ongoing, ever increasing cycle of violence. Again, I point you to the conflict between Ireland and England, Israel and Palestine.

And no, killing is not an inbred survival mechanism. In fact several studies have shown that humans actually have an innate reluctance to kill their fellow humans.

:shrug:

You are really mixing in two arguments. One is the reasonable argument that perhaps the war in Afghanistan (and certainly the war in Iraq) are not the solution.

The other is the entirely unreasonable (and fortunately always-ignored) argument that targeted killings of terrorists somehow increases terrorism (relative to not doing so) rather than reduces it.

And given the parties involved, I doubt it will end in our lifetime. :(

in a desert of blood lust and warmongering sycophancy

It's tough to get through some threads lately, have to keep looking at the URL to make sure it hasn't been redirected.

Thanks for being there. You're proof that all is not lost. Yet. But we're as close as we have ever been.

"We" are not going to "bring the troops home, now". It is simply a fact. (See: Clinton, Hillary). "We" did not borrow this money to pack our bags and leave. I have pointed out Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo as an example of our "staying power" in the countries that "we" have bombed and occupied over and over, and seemingly few can grasp the history and the whole picture. "Our" foreign policy is not "Ours" to decide until this pack of PNACers have been driven far away from power. And when does that seem likely? Seriously. Does that seem likely anytime soon?

>>"...If we continue down this path we're on..."

Who, besides those labeled "kooks", "isolationists" and "fools" are suggesting anything else? The Insane Rule This Asylum. It's as clear as the Sun in July in San Diego. Isn't it? Am I a "Conspiracy Theorist"?

We are the New Rome. And we don't even get every other day off.

At least until the economy collapses, and that may be sooner rather than later.
And there won't be many holidays if that happens.



Inhumanitas omni aetate molesta est

We started this war and only we can end it. We also do most of the killing, but so many people seem to lack self-awareness. It's the other that are the problem - no?

In many cases terrorism is a response to a much greater evil. Many in power here in the US have no problem destroying the lives of people all over the world, particularly if they are brown. But of course they are the bad guys - it's the brown people who are the evil ones.