Doubleplusgood

Sorry.. I'm not really sure what posts you're talking about. Are you just suggesting that there have been successful terrorist movements in the past, and so now it's ok to regard them as legitimate negotiation tactics?

I'm honestly not sure what you're point is here... That this is ok, and we should just accept it? It seems that puts civilians in danger, as they become the prime target of everyone.

Wouldn't it be better to refuse to deal with such terrorists, and only deal with those who are able to negotiate in a civilizzed manner?

Uh.. I think you're mistaken.

While you could argue that Al Qaeda was not in Iraq prior to the current insurgency, it's pretty much accepted by everyone that they are certianly there now.

They've taken credit for multiple attacks in Iraq, as well as for the bombings in Jordan this week.

I'm not sure who you are suggesting we negotiate with... Although I think it's good that we agree to not negotiate with terrorists.

In terms of negotiating with insurgents who attack actual military assets, I'm all for negotiating with them.. They're simply fighting. They're not intentionally murdering civilians.

im glad you think its fucking funny that our #1 source of "information" makes us stupid

cheers to your mocking our ignorance. glad you mastered the art of the remote control

funny, they weren't there until we got there

fuck them, kill them all

we are white thus we are right

fuck the other guys opinion (hapiness, ability to have a fair deal)

they want to take away our "way of life"

for that they should be killed

nevermind that our way of life depends on thier blood

you win, kill everyone who disagrees

fuck, kill and torture US citizens too, as long as your "way of life" is preserved

God help you and the end of your nose

i just want to apologize to you innerwebs

im drunk, and i have little tolorance for ignorance when im drunk, go on about your business, ignore the man behind the curtian

enjoy your delusions of "security"

enjoy the belief that you are "right"

ignore the fact that your comfy little chair in your warm comfy little house requires someone suffering

you deserve it!

Our government is treating them much the same.



We responded by reducing our freedoms which make us great.
We responded by acknowledging the terrorists as a world power (which is where my example comes from) and declared WAR on them. Never before have we given such CREDIT and POWER to mere terrorists.
We responded by propping them up as a great enemy rather than the nuisance they are.
We responded by hyping the 3,000 deaths and a couple buildings as being a huge tragedy. Many other singular causes of death did not and do not get the face time on tv or politically that 9/11 got.
We became terrorized. We lost at that point. Whether by the actual act or the subsequent manipulation of our own government, or the initial terrorists(who are now dead(they were in the planes ffs)), we are terrorized.

Now we are at the point where our government, and honest (hopefully) citizens have actually fallen to the level of advocating torture. This is a huge win for someone who wants to take our great country, what is supposed to be a shining example of the last world power, and just turn it into any other 3rd world country that will do anything to get it's way.

Even Nazis were afforded due process at the Geneva military tribunal. We don't afford suspected terrorists this much. How far we have fallen.

Here is a plan to stop losing. Step 1: Get out NOW. Step 2: Apologize, face to the floor, not just for this war, but for our general involvement and manipulation of their region extending back into the cold war (which was none of their business in the first place). Step 3: Repeal the patriot act. Step 4: Join the world court and submit any requested personel for trial, should such be required.

Next time someone wants to blow you up, ask yourself, "Why do they want to blow me up?" and truly work toward that answer. Revenge does not help anyone.

And lastly, What Would Ghandi Do?

bows

thank you

where i have failed to make my point, you have over achieved

bows

How exactly is it a huge win for them?

To some extent, this seems to be based on the mistaken impression that our country has never used torture before.

Do you honestly think that use of what you call torture is something new to the Bush administration?



The regular Nazi army was a conventional military force. They obeyed standard rules of war.

Rights always come with responsibilities. That's why the geneva conventions specify different sets of rights for different groups of people.

If you are unwilling to accept the responsibilities of the geneva conventions, then you don't get the associated rights.

In fairness, the geneva conventions should probably be looked at again, as they were written for conflicts 50 years ago. We may need something new, especially when dealing with certain aspects of military technology.



Let's look at this.
1) Get out now. Are you honestly suggesting a full withdraw of all miltiary forces from Iraq and Afghanistan? We should just bail on the fledgling governments there, and leave them to the wolves? What benefit would this give us? Why would you honestly want to give control of Iraq to terrorist groups?
2) Appologize to who? Terrorists? I mean, in the case of Afghanistan, should we appologize for not just letting the Soviets roll over them and dominate their country?
3) As I've said before, I have no real opinion regarding the patriot act. I don't really think the government ever needed it. I suspect that things they are "allowed" to do under the act, were probably getting done before the act... You just didn't really think about it... And because the government wasn't supposed to be doing it, they would never act upon such information unless it was to save a massive number of people. They wouldn't put one guy in jail for some trivial thing because of it. So, fine.. repeal it.
4) The world court is a joke on so many levels. Why should I subject myself to laws and a court made up of people who I have no power regarding their election? I live in a democratic country. I like to actually be able to vote for those who make my laws, and judge my crimes. A world court removes this, for for that reason, it is bad. If an American citizen needs to be punished, they can be punished according to our laws.



Well, in cases like Al-Zarquai, he wants to blow us up because he wants the world to be ruled under an Islamic theocracy.

I'd prefer not to work towards that end.



Ghandi fought against a major world power, and won, without resorting to terrorist tactics and murder of civilians.

If terrorist groups embraced such tactics instead of violence, they would get far more sympathy and support from myself. But I cannot ever support a group who intentionally murders civilians. Their tactics are so horrible, that I will never consider their point of view until they change their tactics.. because I do not want to encourage such tactics.


I commend you though, on a very eloquent post.

Yes, we have used torture before, however ww2 changed this. It changed this a lot. If torture is not new to the Bush administration, it SHOULD be!




If they obeyed the standard rules of war, the world would not have looked aghast upon their actions, labeled it 'atrocity', had an entire group of people cry out 'NEVER AGAIN' and try the lot of them as criminals despite war being a sactioned and legal thing to do at the time.



Manipulating who qualifies for which rights is a gross misrepresentation of the spirit under which these rules were founded. They were created as a clear response to an affront on humanity.



I agree, it should be looked at again. The geneva convention does not address the following; terrorism, gorrila warfare, and a vast confusion between what applies to these two groups. Just because we have not completely defined them, does not mean we can treat them like germans treated 'undesireables' or russians treated germans.



In order they are asked, Yes, yes (they didn't ask us to bail them out), none (we didn't go there for 'benefit'), who are you to say they're terrorists? Even assuming 100% of those shooting at us ARE terrorists, there are much better qualified (they know the languages and politics) standing armies in the region that would assist afghanistan and iraq if they asked. We just happen to be there.



Apologize first to the region, next to each country, next to each area, next to each family whom we have killed relatives. Most of these are not terrorists. Further, we have brought great shame and embarrasment to many individuals by repeatedly search the homes of people who are NOT terrorists. As it turned out, the Soviet empire collapsed under it's own economic weight anyway. Our funding terrorism in that region didn't help or hinder that. The stupid part is we are turning some of these people into terrorists when we kill their fathers and they have nothing left but their hatred of us. The worst part is that because we don't bring in enough of our own arabic translators, we will often wind up placing communists in power because they seem the most competent at a given job. This is because under soviet rule they were the most cooperative and trained at their job. So we pick the same people. Then problems occur when the people in general hate this authority figure, and by association, us. It'd be like if canada took us over, trained some guy up, he was sheriff of your town for decades, and raped and murdered your wife and children. Then a military coup occuried when canada left and you finally got rid of that guy, but then mexico swept in and put him back and told you that you had to listen to him.



The insidious thing about the patriot act is it takes away rights you don't care about until you REALLY REALLY NEED THEM. If we had an act to take away cars, or wristwatches, or cellphones, people would complain alot more even though in the grand scheme of things they are much less vital.



The problem with American laws at the moment is we have laws like the patriot act. If you don't like the world court idea, maybe the U.S. could suggest a more U.N.ish (read more democratically decided) court with judges pooled from participating countries. In the geneva convention each relevant country (those that participated in the war) submitted judges and prosecuting attorneys. And the nazis were allowed the best possible lawyers (even nazi ones or others who would defend them). This seemed about as equitable as possible given the circumstances and could be done on a somewhat equivalent basis for an alternative world court.



And the problem with cases like Bush is he wants to blow up the middle east because he wants the world to be ruled under a Christian theocracy. Honestly I don't get where you think psychopathic leaders actually believe any of the theocratic nonsense they spew. They don't. They really don't. That's how they sleep at night. Anyway, last I checked, Al-Zarquai, despite the claim of Islamic theocracy, keeps blowing up people of islamic faith in far more numerous amounts than any other.




Ghandi took all the abuse thrown at him, starved himself, and took more abuse and continued asking for his and his people's rights. Until he died of it. If I could equate any one person to being as close to being like Jesus, it would be Ghandi.

That said, if you threw a couple of airplanes at Ghandi (or his people), what would Ghandi do?



Who are you talking about? Us or them? This is the problem now. We use their tactics now. Why can't we be better than that?

Now I'll also give you that my particular example of a way to stop losing is just one example. I am sure there are many, but I do hope you get the general idea that something has to change, in a big way, for it to get better.

I'll ask you to listen to Come Back to Afghanistan and Teenage Embed part 2 .

I appreciate the complements on eloquence. I can only hope my thoughts sink deep and take root somewhere where they might matter.

WW2 changed what? We used what you describe as torture before and after WWII. What exactly changed?

The only thing that's really changed has been the coverage in the media.




Just so we can be clear here.. I'm not one of those loony holocaust deniers, or defend the nazi's.... But, in this case, I beleive we need to make the distinction between the Nazi's crimes against humanity, and the actions that their average soldiers took in battle.

In terms of combat behavior, the Nazi soldiers were generally exactly the same as all the other military forces.

The war crimes for which the Nazi leadership were tried were not "waging war"... The war crimes were things like... gee.. I dunno... the mass extermination of a people?




Manipulation of who qualifies for rights is necessary.

Responsibility is something that always has to come with rights.. It's one of the things that makes the system work.

If I murder and pillage, why exactly should those who I'm murdering respect my rights?




We already went over this... The guys shooting at US aren't necessarilly terrorists. But those who are committing acts of terrorism, are quite obviously terrorists.

For instance, the guys who capture civilians, and cut off their heads on TV? Those guys are terrorists. The guys who blow up civlian buildings, and kill Iraqis? Those guys are terrorists.

I like how you gloss over the notion of essentially just handing control of these regions to the armed insurgent groups.

I mean, these groups OBVIOUSLY consist of a very tiny minority of the populations of these regions... In Iraq, it's obviously less than 1% of the population that's fighting.

But you want to withdraw, and give control of the region to those people?

By what right do they rule the region? The fact that they have weapons and the people in the region don't? The fact that you think the US should leave (because no one asked us to go there), but simultaneously want us to turn control of the region over to another even SMALLER group (who no one asked to go there) is kind of funny.




Ok.. you don't really know much about the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, do you?
The fact that you're linking it to something as tangential as the soviet union collapsing well afterwards leads me to believe you don't.

Plus, as someone who had familly who lived behind the iron curtain, I can tell you that "only" having to live behind the iron curtain for a decade or two wasn't exactly peaches and cream.

I honestly find it hard to believe that people could have forgotten history so quickly, and now think that the Soviet Union was some trivial group that wasn't really so bad.



Hrm... I'm really not sure what you're talking about here... Our armed forces have a LOT of translators. Hell, they have automated computer speech to text translators too...





It's more that I simply understand that gravity of the situation... I realize that a lot of those rights you're complaining about now, have been "taken away" in the past, and you just didn't notice.

And, basically, if it really comes down to it, if I have to choose between losing some rights, and losing ALL of them, I'll chose to lose some of them.





A world court would not prevent such laws.. A world court would just make MORE laws.



Oh, so that we'd have dictators like Kim Jong Il getting an equal vote in who the judges are? How about we put Hussein back in power, and give him a vote too!

In all honesty, you've just pointed out one of the major flaws of the UN. While the UN itself is a democratic organization, the participants are NOT. While the US's representative in the UN is essentially an extension of our democratic rule, the reprsentatives from countries like north Korea don't represent the PEOPLE of North Korea at all.. they merely represent the leadership, who is not elected.

Why exactly should unelected tyrants be allowed to have such control over the lives of American citizens?

As an American citizen, if you believe that laws are unjust, or people should be punished, then you can vote for people who will make it happen. But this idea of just handing power over to other folks in other countries, who you have no vote in electing, is simply absurd... You're basically assuming that some people in other countries automatically know more than you do, or are more fair, simply by virtue of being in other countries. That's insanity.




*laughs* do you honestly believe this?

And, more importantly, do you honestly believe that he has the power to do such things? He's the president, he's not freaking GOD.



This is totally hillarious.
So.. the guys who go out and personally sever the heads of civilians, while actually SAYING that they're doing it for their religion, are not in fact doing it for their religion... But Bush is trying to take over the world for HIS religion.

You're totally right about Al-Zarquai killing TONS of Muslims though.. You know why he does that? Because:
1) He doesn't really mind killing anyone.
2) He doesn't really think anything bad happens to them when they die... or if it does, they deserve it. (praise allah!)






He'd resist peacefully.

What, do you think he'd suddenly take up arms, and start shooting rocket launchers, and murdering civilians?

Peaceful resistance is MORE effective than terrorism, especially with the advent of the modern media.



I'm sorry, but this is also absurd...

In Iraq, the US has executed the "cleanest" war in the history of humanity. People still die, and war is never going to really be "clean".. but it's still WAY cleaner than any other war, with FAR less collateral damage.

People seem to forget this... You see, with the exception of the US, no one else in the world really CARES about this stuff. Look at the past military conflicts for proof... When you go back to WWII, it becomes obvious to the point of absurdity... both sides of the war just carpet bombed whole cities into the ground.

But, in more recent times, look at Vietnam.. When we "got out" of that mess, what happened? Oh ya..... a few MILLION civilians were murdered when we weren't there to protect them. But, the guys killing them didn't really seem to care.

Or look at China recently invading Tibet... They didn't really seem to give a crap about murdering anyone who got in their way.

I'm not saying that it's a waste of time for the US to try and reduce such damage.. but I do get a bit upset when everyone seems to freak out at ANY collateral damage, and gives the US zero credit for going to such lengths to prevent it... While essentially just ignoring thngs like China in Tibet, or the Sudanese government essentially condoning genocide of its own people.

In the very beginning, years ago we were killing terrorist. Who are we killing now? Iraqis that have turned out not to be connected with Al-Qaeda as claimed, and Pushtus in Afghanistan who were only hired by Al-Qaeda because we are still occupying Afghanistan. Before we got there, they had nothing to do with Al-Qaeda. On top of that Osama Bin Laden and other leaders that are responsible for terrorist acts are currently in Pakistan, yet for some reason it is okay to fight them in Afghanistan and not Pakistan. To make matters worse, most of the Al-Qaeda was never in Afghanistan to begin with. Look at the countries that the people were from that bombed the trade center. Alot of them seem to be in Saudi Arabia, yet we send no troops there to help our ally find them. We aren't killing the original terrorist. We're killing people in two countries we don't understand, and probably have created more terrorist in the process. This terrorist group does not reside in one country. You don't destroy them by singling out two countries, bombing the hell out of them, imprisoning their citizens without trial, and taking years to re-build simple things like power, roads, and communication lines. This is not a country we are fighting. It is a unimaginable amount of splinter cells with a common cause spread all over the world.

Attacking these countries is about as stupid as attacking Germany would be in the modern day to try to deal with the Nazi terrorist within our borders. Think about it.

What?
The Taliban was supporting Al Qaeda as a base of operations... Do you actually think that Al Qaeda had no connection to the Taliban either?

Sorry, but this seems to be demonstrating a pretty heavy disregard for any kind of facts. You can argue that Iraq was not the best move, but the removal of the Taliban from power was pretty much universally accepted. The US didn't go all lonewolf on that one.. the UN supported that action.



Actually, Pakistani forces have engaged Al Qaeda forces in Pakistan.

You see, the two countries share a border through some very mountainous terrain. Forces have been going back and forth across the border quite a bit.



No crap?

Al Qaeda is primarilly funded by, and consists of Saudi nationals (such as Bin Laden himself). However, the idea that they weren't in Afghanistan is silly. They had a massive pressence in Afghanistan back when the soviets tried to invade the region.

I'm not saying that they weren't in Afghanistan, I don't think the original Al-Qaeda are in Afghanistan now. I don't see the point of fighting local marauders who are not Taliban. If the point is that the Taliban might come back into power, then we will never be done with Afghanistan, because the Taliban will never be completely destroyed in all neighboring countries. We have skirted along the border of Pakistan. I realize that there are diplomatic issues with invading a country with nuclear weapons, but the point is that the terrorist left long ago. If we become stupid enough to attack Pakistan, then they would flee somewhere else. The point is invading any country at all is not going to fix the problem. Most of the Taliban was in support of Al-Qaeda, yes. The problem is that half of the countries in the Middle East have groups of people within their borders in support of Al-Qaeda to various degrees. We aren't getting rid of terrorist by staying in Afghanistan and Iraq. We are creating terrorist by showing the Middle East that we are a war hungry people that will never understand their concerns or care about their welfare.

You seem to be missing the difference here.

You see, in Afghanistan, the actual GOVERNMENT was supporting Al Qaeda. It wasn't just some people who lived there.

That's why pretty much everyone in the UN agreed that they needed to be removed.

This is the part you seem to have understood. Let me help you appreciate the irony. We, the United States of America, could not live up to his simple example. Rather than setting up an environment where understanding can be reached, we set out to kill people, for revenge.

But the only time it actually works, is when your enemy is civilized.

To explain.. the ONLY reason that peaceful resistence worked for Ghandi, was because the British actually had compassion for him.

Peaceful resistence doesn't work against people like Al Zarquai, because he has zero compassion for you... He WANTS you to die.

You can't simply apply Ghandi's actions to every situation and expect them to work... But his tactics would work against the US, because the population of the US tends to care about such things.. This is demonstrated by the fact that the US has fought the cleanest war in the history of the human race, and our people are STILL complaining that it's too messy.

But Al Qaeda doesn't care about being messy... They don't care if you don't like them. They just want you to do what they want. They have no respect for human life at all.

are you making up statements like that out of your head, or do you just have Bill O'Reilly's "What I Chose to Interpret from History" as a reference?

It's actually something that is logically obvious.

You see, peaceful resistence where you basically get the crap kicked out of you only works if the opposition actually CARES that they're kicking the crap out of you.

This is why it worked for Ghandi against the British, and did NOT work for the Tibetans against China.

True, but the question is was it intelligent to think that setting up a new government in Afghanistan would fix the problem. We have not banned the Taliban from Afghanistan forever. We have temporarily caused them to relocate to places where they will wait until we leave. Afghanistan is a wasteland. Peace in Afghanistan is impossible, because there will always be people that can not survive without killing others and taking what they own. The chance for revolution in Afghanistan is staggering. The problem will only be permanently fixed if we never leave Afghanistan, or we make the new government as strong as we made Israel. Do you think either of those options should be carried out? If we stay there, we continue the thinning of our forces across the globe. If we make the government as strong as Israel, we risk them turning on us like so many other governments we helped create in the Middle East. The situation exists in Iraq. Either we stay there forever or we make them strong as Israel, and then wonder why Iran and Iraq combined suddenly equal us in military strength.

So, basically you're saying the whole place is screwed, forever. That the people in that region are so inhuman, that they could never POSSIBLY exist in a civilized manner, without resorting to widespread mahem and murder.




Yes. I think we should help them create a stable and democratic government, much as we did in Japan after WWII.




Nations we supported in the middle east were not democratic. That was the key mistake we made.

Democratic governments tend to be as "moral" as a government can be, because the people who vote in the leaders tend to not want to run around killing everyone.



First of all.. It's going to be a REAL long time before the combined forces of Iran and Iraq would come anywhere close to equaling that of the US... and, most like,y it's never going to happen.

But, the thing is, if you make a democratic government in Iraq, they wouldn't really WANT to be part of Iran, who has a sham democracy, and essentially runs an Islamic Theocracy. People tend to like having rights.

While I think the people in Afghanistan are capable of being civilized, I think a majority of Afghanistan is going to remain uncivilized. The main reason for this is the amount of devastation caused by wars in Afghanistan over centuries. The land has been destroyed. The people are cursed with a landscape that can not support the population that wishes to call Afghanistan their home. If an American was put in a situation where the only chance of survival for him and his family was to kill his neighbor and take their food and supplies, I have no doubt the American would do just that. Poverty forces people into this situation, and Afghanistan is doomed to poverty after what it has gone through, unless our focus becomes helping them come to a state where they can support themselves. America seems more focused on majority of the small rich areas "ruling" within the borders instead.

Iraq's majority actually does have a common mentality as the people of Iran have. Many in Iraq supports concepts that American will never be able to swallow as being correct concepts. The problem with Iraq is that it is three cultures that will in the end fight for control. The only way to keep a civil war from breaking out is to arm them and train them to defend themselves. Being a democracy doesn't make them forever our friends. That is the mistake Britain made when they first tried to bring democracy to Iraq half a century ago. Iraq and Iran are now on the road toward becoming very close friends after we have allowed their supported culture to take power through democracy. We have to realize any military assistance we give to Iraq could be later given to Iran. This is why we will never attempt to help them defend themselves nearly as much as we helped Israel. Britain made the mistake in thinking that changing their government would turn them into an ally, and now we are making the same mistake.

There are things that could be improved in the middle east, but most of them can be improved in more effective ways than the military can accomplish.

This is exactly what we are trying to do in the region.. But that kind of infrastructure doesn't just pop into existence. It takes a long time to develop, especially in such a region. You need to establish a stable government before you start just handing out presents... You need to try and establish some sort of secure environment for trade to take place in.

You seem to be saying that the place is a pit, and it's really not possible for us to help them. I simply don't buy that.



Ok.. this kind of illustrates two major misconceptions here.

First of all, all shiite muslims are not the same. That would be like saying all catholics are the same, or all protestants are the same. People in the west seem to have this mistaken impression that religion is the one dominant force in these peoples' lives... That's really not the case. It's more important than in most western culture, but it's not the single driving force behind every middle-easterner's life.

Believe it or not, these people do have opinions that stem out of ideas other than religion. Shiites in Iraq fought against Shiites in Iran in prior wars.

Secondly, most reporting indicates that the average person in Iran who's under the age of 30 doesn't really LIKE living under a theocracy. Mainly for the same reason YOU wouldn't want to live under a theocracy. Eventually, if we can make it through the currently "elected" leader of Iran's regime, I suspect that Iran's gonna come around on it's own. We've seen some evidence of this progress, but the newly elected leader threatens to really screw it up by forcing a conflict with the west.




There seems to be this very odd perception amongst many people in the west regarding people who live in a region like the middle east. It's almost like racism, but I don't think it's quite so intentional.

Like the "they have a valid complaint" idea... Is there ANY way that if someone in OUR society committed such things as intentional murder of thousands of innocent civilians, and you'd say, "Well, he probably has some valid complaints!"

Did anyone say, "Hey, Ted Kazinscki has some valid complaints."

Do you honestly believe that the majority of people in the middle east, or afghanistan, thinks that the murder of thousands of innocent civilians is Ok? Do you HONESTLY believe that the AVERAGE person in those regions values human life SO little, that they think such things are ok?

I simply do not believe that.... Because I've met people from the middle east, and they're not freaking crazy monsters! They are normal people, who value human life.

The terrorists are a minority in both regions... in both regions, the majority of the people are normal folks who want to live a peaceful existence.

And they don't think the terrorists have "valid complaints". They want them to freaking stop blowing up their families. The US catches a lot of flack over here, because no one really cares that the insurgent forces blew up a police station... We want to sexy news that can make us all go "oooooh! Lookit at what THEY did! They're so gonna get it!"

But I'll tell you this.. From what I've heard from people in Iraq, the majority of Iraq kind of HATES the insurgency. Because they are intentionally murdering their families. They don't really LIKE the US either, mind you.. but the insurgency is killing a LOT more of them.

I honestly do not believe that a majority of people in Iraq or Afghanistan is a crazy terrorist insurgent who wants to bring back a religious theocracy. I think those are the views of a tiny minority.. just as they are in the US.

If some crazy white supremesist in the US blew up a building, and killed a bunch of civilians, would you say, "Hey.. He just doesn't want any of the black people to have rights! That's a valid complaint! We're screwing with his culture!"

No.. no one would say that. We'd put the guy in jail, or execute him.

The Iraqis would do the same thing to most of the insurgents, especially the foreign ones like Al Zarquai. But they simply lack the power to do it yet.

But simply because they can't fight such criminals themselves, we can't just bail on them. That's how tyrants are MADE. We know this.. we've already made mistakes like that. Hell, I think some folks have cited examples of failed nationbuilding in this thread. One of those mistakes is just bailing on a fledgling democracy... We don't want to do that.

I honestly don't think that we're gonna get out of Iraq in only a few years. I think anyone who thought that going in, was very naive. But once you're in, you're in.... You can't just freaking say, "Screw it! Have fun with the militant islamic terrorists! Welcome to Taliban 2!"

Hey, Ted Kazinscki has some valid complaints.

Again you miss the point, I don't know how, but you do. Al Zarquai is not in charge. He does not rule, he is not a governing body. Referring to him like he is, is foolish. There is no reason for us to involve the army if we are, in fact, dealing with Al Zarquai or even Al Quaida.

I love your example later where you mention Ted Kaczynski as it illustrates this point. He was never in charge of a government and we never used military force to kill him. We merely sent some officers to arrest him. He even got a trial.

Explain how Al Zarquai merits more attention than any other mass murderer? Explain how it is okay to kill and torture unrelated civilians in attempts to capture this person that doesn't even merit military action?

We have no criminal justice group that is capable of widespread peacekeeping action... So, the military's what you get.



He got a trial because he was an American citizen... As for just going to arrest him, that was POSSIBLE because he was just one guy.

If we could just go arrest all the terrorists, I'm sure we would.. but that's not really a feasible answer. They are more than one guy, and they're continuing to murder civilians.

But how come you consider the terrorists to have "valid concerns," when they're really just mass murderers? They don't represent the population of their regions.




Quite frankly, because he's more dangerous than other mass murderers. He's not just some guy building bombs. He's in control of a military force. They have big, military grade weapons systems.

Who are you going to send after him? The NYPD? The FBI?

I think we all realize (or at least I would hope so), that this is not a traditional force on force conflict... But it is still a military conflict. It's beyond the scope of simple law enforcement at this point.

If you left Iraq, for instance, terrorist groups have enough power to topple the government there and take over the country for themselves. That's not what we want. It shouldn't be what YOU want either.