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Bush Policy Increases Terror Threat To America

 
Desperado
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BUSH POLICY INCREASES TERROR THREAT TO AMERICA

"...the prestigious International Institute for Strategic Studies released its annual survey that found, among other things, that far from dealing a blow to al-Qaeda and making the U.S. and its allies safer, the Iraq invasion has in fact substantially strengthened bin Laden's network and increased the danger of attacks in the West. And the London-based IISS is not some Bush-bashing antiwar think tank..."

http://www.time.com/time/world/printout/0,8816,642825,00.html

[All caps removed from topic subject line -- mfe]
[ May 27, 2004: Message edited by: Michael Ernest ]
 
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Do you have something to say, or are you just going to continue posting links without comment just for the sake of it?
[ May 27, 2004: Message edited by: Jason Menard ]
 
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[personal comments removed -JM]

Of course the ISS is an ultra-leftist group who also regularly wrote about the pride mission of the Soviet armed forces in Afghanistan and how they protected the democratic government of that country against imperialist incursion...
[ May 27, 2004: Message edited by: Jason Menard ]
 
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I have to agree, and at least some of the anti-war or anti-Bush protesters around the globe had the exact same fear, which lead them to join the protests in the first place.

Terrorism born out of desperation and poverty is something where as terrorism born from ideologies are different. Latter is more dangerous because unlike the first type, you cannot upgrade the societies that breeds terrorists, but you need to win their trust. Especially so when the West (America, in this case) supports armed forces fighting ordinary people living under desperate poverty (of course terrorists live among them). I am afraid the heavy handed tactics of US administration would only aid the terrorist organisations by scaring a group of people witless, especially since there�s huge mistrust from both sides.
 
Jeroen Wenting
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There's no reasoning with religious zealots (I know Al Qaeda leadership aren't religious zealots but powerhungry maniacs who use religious zealots as their puppets).
The only possible defense against them is annihillating them and converting their breeding grounds into places inhospitable to religious fanaticism.

In that the US led operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are going a long way towards the latter goal (already having achieved a good part of the first).
I think the US administration may have underestimated the effort required to achieve those goals, but that can hardly be blamed on them, they've never had to deal with such a situation before (the only previous time they had to restore a country during occupation after a war was Japan and Germany after WW2 and in those cases there was more of the civilian infrastructure left in place by the deposed governments).
There was also no press and political opposition inside the USA doing whatever they could to thwart any effort to improve the situation for the troops and civilians in the occupied territories.

This might indeed become another Vietnam as the military is unable to fullfill it's mission due to political trouble at home brought upon by the "democratic" leftwingers bend on harming their own government to the detriment of people depending on that government half a world away.
 
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Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
There's no reasoning with religious zealots (I know Al Qaeda leadership aren't religious zealots but powerhungry maniacs who use religious zealots as their puppets).
The only possible defense against them is annihillating them and converting their breeding grounds into places inhospitable to religious fanaticism.



If the world were, in fact, a bipolar place, the genocide approach MIGHT work. But reality is that there are hard-core-members, supporters, sympathizers, indifferent people, critics, opponents and enemies. The lines are fuzzy and people constantly cross back and forth, even from one end to the other. So first you have to figure out when and where to stop killing.

Merely suggesting that there might be other solutions than sheer brute force means that I'll instantly get painted as some sort of touchy-feely, pink left-wind mush-for-brains liberal. I prefer to think that just MAYBE this universe is a little bigger than "either/or" myself however. Besides, the one thing I detest more than right-wing extremists is left-wing extremists. At least right-wingers can hate honestly instead of despising you "for your own good".

Nonetheless, I've eyes to see, and one thing I've seen over a long and evil life is that in countries where an eye-for-an-eye rules, the war never ends and more each side tries to punish the other, the more the other side punishes back. Maybe "turning the other cheek" seems anti-survival, but a lot of animal studies lately have been indicating that survival is more than just a personal thing, and that sometimes it takes individual sacrifices to gain benefits for the community. Hmmm. Sounds a lot like our Founding Fathers.

We're NOT going make everyone our friends and sing around the campfire, no matter WHAT we do, no more than we can make ourselves safe by duct-taping ourselves inside our houses. But we CAN at least have the wisdom to listen to our friends before we rush off blindly after our enemies.

It's what friends are for.
 
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[ A violation of the Be Nice rule, as I see it.]
[ May 27, 2004: Message edited by: Michael Ernest ]
 
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[ Same thing, here. Please offer your own view and avoid "assuming out loud" what other people think]
[ May 27, 2004: Message edited by: Michael Ernest ]
 
author
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Bravo Tim!


Merely suggesting that there might be other solutions than sheer brute force means that I'll instantly get painted as some sort of touchy-feely, pink left-wind mush-for-brains liberal.



Very well said!
 
Jeffrey Hunter
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Since my previous post has been edited, I will make an attempt to rephrase in a more polite manner:

What interests me is not the article which spawned this thread, but rather, the originator's comments on that article, as we are all here to enjoy each others discussion and engage in pleasant debate (well, somewhat pleasant). It just seems to me that providing a link to a controversial article, and then lurking to watch the ensuing battle emerge, does not lend itself to very responsible posting.

I get enough spam in my email, I'd rather not get it here.
 
High Plains Drifter
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Thank you.
 
arch rival
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According to Jeroen

"the ISS is an ultra-leftist group who also regularly wrote about the pride mission of the Soviet armed forces in Afghanistan and how they protected the democratic government of that country against imperialist incursion.."

But the quote was a reference to the IISS (note that additional I), which according to the UK Independent newspaper

"has strong establishment links, with former US and British government officials among its members. The Foreign Office contributed �100,000 towards the setting up of its headquarters in central London, and Baroness Thatcher and Lord Robertson of Port Ellen, then secretary general of Nato, attended the opening."

(http://news.independent.co.uk/world/middle_east/story.jsp?story=524939)

In the UK lady Thatcher has her detractors but they rarely call her an ultra leftist, though I appreciate that political perceptions may be different in other parts of the world.
 
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[All caps removed from topic subject line -- mfe]

I would have just moved it to Blatant Advertising.
 
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Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:
There's no reasoning with religious zealots (I know Al Qaeda leadership aren't religious zealots but powerhungry maniacs who use religious zealots as their puppets).
The only possible defense against them is annihillating them and converting their breeding grounds into places inhospitable to religious fanaticism.



Unfortunatly thats pretty much what they are saying about us.

I do agree that that there's probably no dealing with them (even if there was, may be we shouldn't), but anihilating them may not solve the problem. The trouble is that there's no easy answer to this kind of problem (just look at Israel, where there are two sides which will probably never be friendly and totally at peace), but maybe locking them up would be better than killing them. Terrorists are a bit like phoenixes - you burn them and they spring back again. Better to lock them up and to deny them the opportunity of becoming martyrs used for recruitment purporses.


In that the US led operations in Iraq and Afghanistan are going a long way towards the latter goal (already having achieved a good part of the first).


Well thats the plan at least. I wouldn't say that we've come a long way yet (both countries are fairly chaotic still), but we have laid a good foundation for democracy. Lets just hope it works....


I think the US administration may have underestimated the effort required to achieve those goals, but that can hardly be blamed on them, they've never had to deal with such a situation before (the only previous time they had to restore a country during occupation after a war was Japan and Germany after WW2 and in those cases there was more of the civilian infrastructure left in place by the deposed governments).


This is true - the reconstruction of Germany and particularly Japan were tremendous successes. I wonder if the adminstration just didnt have a clue quite how hard it would be in this case.


This might indeed become another Vietnam as the military is unable to fullfill it's mission due to political trouble at home brought upon by the "democratic" leftwingers bend on harming their own government to the detriment of people depending on that government half a world away.



You know, its may just be possible that someone can critise the US government's policy without being part of a communist-loving left-wing eco-friendly anarchist liberal conspiracy bent on stealing people's hard earned cash and giving it to lazy tree hugging traitors and illegal immegrants.
[ May 28, 2004: Message edited by: Joe King ]
 
Marcus Green
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"You know, its may just be possible that someone can critise the US government's policy without being part of a communist-loving left-wing eco-friendly anarchist liberal conspiracy bent on stealing people's hard earned cash and giving it to lazy tree hugging traitors and illegal immegrants."

Seems to me that the IISS could fit the bill. By nature it is an organisation that would be sympathetic to the US government policy and yet appears to be critical.
 
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Originally posted by Joe King:

Unfortunatly thats pretty much what they are saying about us.



Beautifully said.


Also, at all the risks previously mentioned, I'd like to say that annihillating a whole group of human beings is kind of a nasty thing to do.
 
Jeroen Wenting
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I think the US administration knew full well that the task would be massive.
What they may have underestimated is the amount of malcontent the few terrorists and survivors of the ousted regimes are able to brew among the native population causing disruption of the restauration effort.
The massive media presence whose only interest seems to be to make the allied forces look bad (while blatantly ignoring the enormous effort at for example building schools, clinics and training local law enforcement personel and others needed to run the country after the allied forces leave) and constant political infighting at home with a major US election coming up don't help the smooth process of restoring Iraq and Afghanistan to their rightful place as free and independent nations either (whether through foul play on the part of the political opposition of the Bush administration or through idiocy on the part of those opponents doesn't matter, they're only making things worse for all involved for the shortterm gain of winning the elections).
 
ChanSan Mehbubani
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I will go even further and say that Bush is a champion of democracy and he doesn't have any interest at all other than setting up good government in Iraq.Those who are trying to disrupt Bush policy plan are ultrLeft and don't know anything about world politics.
 
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Originally posted by Tanga Palti:
Those who are trying to disrupt Bush policy plan are ultrLeft and don't know anything about world politics.




This sort of ridiculous categorization undermines intelligent discussion, and does nothing to further problem solving efforts. Let's do better.

M
[ June 01, 2004: Message edited by: Max Habibi ]
 
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Originally posted by Joseph George:
Also, at all the risks previously mentioned, I'd like to say that annihillating a whole group of human beings is kind of a nasty thing to do.



So, for example, if we annihillated a group of murderers that would be a nasty thing to do?
 
Jeroen Wenting
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Originally posted by Thomas Paul:


So, for example, if we annihillated a group of murderers that would be a nasty thing to do?



Isn't is nice to be nasty sometimes
 
John Smith
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TP: So, for example, if we annihillated a group of murderers that would be a nasty thing to do?

Yes, it would be, becasue by default that annihillation would qualify as an act of mass murder.
 
Thomas Paul
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Originally posted by Eugene Kononov:
Yes, it would be, becasue by default that annihillation would qualify as an act of mass murder.



So killing people that try to kill you is murder?
 
Ashok Mash
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Originally posted by Thomas Paul:
So killing people that try to kill you is murder?



Depends on whom you ask, IMHO. If a third party is observing the situation and can't see how the other person is trying to kill you, probably the third party would assume you are committing a murder.
 
Jeffrey Hunter
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The legal protections we enjoy on our domestic homefront often do not apply to the battlefield, hence, the idea of murder becomes less clear. Does it happen? Sure. Outright execution of noncombatants would certainly classify. But what could arguably be classified as murder in peacetime, is often given the benign label of collateral damage during war.

For instance, I would not consider the pilots of the Enola Gay mass murderers after they dropped the Big One on Hiroshima. Our intent was not to erradicate the Japanese, but rather, to disable their ability to continue the fight. Unfortunately, collateral damage on a massive scale was the result.

I believe this is our intent with Al-Qaeda and other such terrorist organizations. We should not focus on erradicating any group of people, as in their own right, they are fighting and dieing for their cause, and as has been stated earlier in this thread, there will always be more warriors to pick up the spear and fight. What we should do is destroy their ability to organize and carry out acts of terror against the U.S. and our allies. Certainly this may mean wiping out the command structures, looting the financial caches that fund the terror, and in some cases, dropping bombs on suspected hideouts.

And as far as Bush's policy increasing the terror threat?

Please. Political rhetoric is free-flowing from the tap these days, so do yourself a favor and seriously consider what you're drinking before you swallow. I happen to believe just the opposite of the above assertion. I believe harbingers of terrorist organizations may reconsider providing sanctuary when they realize the force they will be up against should such terrorist organizations strike against the U.S. or our allies.
[ June 01, 2004: Message edited by: Jeffrey Hunter ]
 
Jeroen Wenting
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There's also the difference between short-term and long-term consequences.
On the short term (say a few years at most) there may be an increased chance of terrorism as the terrorists are still out there and getting desperate to do something, anything, to show they're not defeated.

In the long term, the eridication of the terrorist network will have the effect of reducing the threat of terrorism.

Of course if the opponents of the current administration's stance win out and unilaterally terminate operations against terrorism that destruction of terrorist infrastructure and support networks won't happen yet the terrorists will remain in place and capable of carrying out their attacks with impunity leading to a long-term increase in terrorism.
Of course it's not in the best interest of the political opponents of the current US administration to present their ideas in quite that light as it makes the negative consequences of their intentions clear (if they even understand those consequences that is which I somewhat doubt).
 
Joe King
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Originally posted by Jeroen Wenting:

Of course if the opponents of the current administration's stance win out and unilaterally terminate operations against terrorism that destruction of terrorist infrastructure and support networks won't happen yet the terrorists will remain in place and capable of carrying out their attacks with impunity leading to a long-term increase in terrorism.


There's a big difference between having a different strategy for Iraq and wanting to "unilaterally terminate operations against terrorism". I don't think I've heard any of the opponents of the current administration say that they'd like to stop fighting terrorism.


Of course it's not in the best interest of the political opponents of the current US administration to present their ideas in quite that light as it makes the negative consequences of their intentions clear (if they even understand those consequences that is which I somewhat doubt).


Its also not in the best interests of the current administration to say that their invasion of Iraq has caused more terrorism and damaged American interests else where. Now like the statement "the opposition would cause more terrorism", this also is just conjecture and cannot be proved - its simply not as clear cut as "this strategy causes/would cause more terrorism", despite what either side say.
[ June 02, 2004: Message edited by: Joe King ]
 
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