According to Lieutenant General Wallace C. Gregson: Excerpt here. Do we even understand what we're up against? And why does the mere attempt to understand bring accusations of cowardice and weakness?
Feel better? It's a war that can only be won when being innocent of doing harm isn't enough. It will be won when people around the world know that in order to be truely innocent, they have to be cooperating to help each other. Bush took a lot of flak for that statement "You're either with us or against us." Yet that's very close to the truth. The truth being, "Either you're working to help end terrorism or you are helping to perpetuate it."
It's a War on Muslim Extremist Fanatics who are bent on killing anyone who is not Muslim or who doesn't buy into their twisted, controlling, fvcked up, hypocritcal view on how people should live their lives. It's simple, really. The quicker people realize this the better.
"Providing doctors, engineers, dentists, veterinarians and other aid" doesn't mean a thing if the receiver of this aid isn't willing to pick up his phone to rat out the guy next door building a bomb. Being innocent and liking Westerners isn't enough.
So let me see. It's either you or them. Hmmmm...... Well I guess I'm fvcked worse than your old lady.
We can understand all we want as long as we act as well, meaning the only language these fukcs understand is force. So TO UNDERSTAND THOSE WHO ONLY UNDERSTAND FORCE IS TO FORCE THEM. Or better, blow them to pieces, may be they will understand us then
ummm yeah, i've got news for you: that calculated statement was every bit as much an ideological message to the american people as it was a threat to terrorists... oh who am i kidding, even more so
A set of invisible braces and a visit to the vet for Fluffy the cat will not stop terrorism of the type we are seeing now
But who are these people and how do you find them? The answer is that they are everywhere. They are in the US and each of the G8 countries. They are in Muslim and non-Muslim countries all over the world. You cannot identify them and round them all up. You might be able to do that for some of them, but you'll never come close to doing it for the majority. There are literally millions of these people. It seems pretty clear that the war in Iraq does not help reduce global terrorism and may actually increase it by enflaming extremists even more. The war in Iraq is perhaps about helping Iraqi people, however it is a complicated, convoluted situation there. There are 3 major factions with historical hostilities, and there are several subfactions with their own interests. While we may hold no love for the "insurgent" population, we must also be mindful that 1000s of innocent Iraqis have lost their lives in this conflict, many children, who had absolutely nothing to do with the insurgency, but simply "got in the way" of bombs and mortars. "Y'all play nice now" simply isn't going to work. The proliferation of deadly weapons all over Iraq means years of guerilla style Civil War. I have serious doubts that Iraq can ever become stable. Of course this was all known well before the US invaded. Perhaps our money was better spent focusing on Al Qaeda and strengthening our homeland security.
Actually, I thought this was the most pertinent part of his speech: As ever, the true answer is in the centre of the issue, not on the "let's kill 'em all!" extreme and not in the other end, either, where more doctors, nurses and teachers are all that stand between us and final global peace. We have to do both - and only by doing both will either be achieved. This is a real chicken/egg situation, which you cannot solve by either just making an omelette or just having roast chuck for dinner (terrible analogy, I know, but you can't have everything). We have to strip the ideology out of this so that we can attack the issue in the balanced manner required, with neither "side's" course of action being given undue (and ineffectual) preference: treat the terrorist network as a criminal entity, to be hunted, spied on and confronted when possible, to be eradicated by the forces of law throughout all the nations who face a threat from terror. By all means be forceful, violent, explosive and unremitting in that pursuit. Then treat the nations in which this criminal entity currently enjoys some form of support ("willing or coerced", as the General wisely and precisely puts it) not as black and white enemies and not as pretexts or causes for the sort of gormless crusading that the Bush administration thinks will prove sufficient in Iraq. Make the hard choices required to foster change in societies - choices like reviewing our current list of "allies" in certain parts of the world, choices like honing our disposition to Islam and Islamic societies, choices like developing greater discipline in the way in which we discuss, portray and comment upon the societies we hope to influence for the better. "With us or agin' us!" hyberbole isn't going to cut it - not now, not ever. Nor are hammy, condescending lectures about democracy and the rule of law. Ameliorating the repressed or depressed conditions within which much of the world lives (not just the Muslim bits) has to play a part in the overall strategy for safeguarding ourselves against the sort of hatred currently focused upon us. People who throw their arms up in mock frustration at such notions and decry them as wishy-washy liberalism or equivocal appeasement are as much part of the problem as the people in Muslim societies who give tacit support (or tacit lack of opposition) to the forces of extremism.
This is a war for civilization. The enemy wants to make our cities uninhabitable through fear. He wants to make us so fearful of gathering in groups that society ceases to function. This is not about poverty; it is about worldview. These fundamentalist terrorists want to go back to a world that they believe existed in a prior time. They don't want what you have- they want to take away what you have! They want you to go back 700 years and live as they choose for you to live, by the principles they want you to live. Those of you who call yourself liberals have the most to lose in this war. What respect do you think these people have for free speech, universal sufferage, national health care, etc. They have none. They want to destroy modern society. This is the difference in you and they. It is a war. If you want to say it is mis-named, then I have no dispute with that. There can be only one winner though. We can have modern society with all of its' problems and prospects or we can take the religious extremists view of the world and curl up in a collective fetal position and run away to the imagined past. We have to go after those that would destroy modern society. This is not a western issue nor a "christian vs muslim" issue. It is an issue of the past vs the future. We have to fight. We have to go after the sources of money that finance the extremists. We have to go after the support infrastructure that nurtures them. We have to go after them as individuals as well as groups. We have to end this attempt at pseudo-religious tyranny that the world labors under.
Sort of They want to destroy modern society for themselves They see the west as helping to keep the middle east in the modern world So they attack us to limit our influence and thus cause those states to collapse into the vacuum they will step and bring things back to the dark ages their particular brand of Islam hasn't managed to move past
The "War On Terrr" ranks right up there with the wildly successful "War On Drugs", because it only treats the symptom, not the underlying cause. It's nothing more than a cheap marketing slogan.
I posted this in another thread, but it is perhaps suitable to put it here too. I would type up a more appropriate and to the point response but I'm lazy and I typed up one big one so can't really be bothered with another! "I am very sorry to see people's responses to these attacks! I stayed out of the thread on political discussions knowing such views would be ripe and plenty! You cannot have a war against a ghost enemy! You kill one terrorist and two more are created. They are not bound by international borders nor nationalities. It is an ideology which is provoked further when attacked! Despite the fact that such an attack was expected and stupid Bills such as the Terrorism Bill were passed in order to prevent this exact thing, you are forgetting the fact that it takes millions of pounds to improve security, a number of limitations placed on people's freedoms and still it takes one to slip through the net to cause devastation! That is why the war on terror cannot succeed as it is going at this moment. The root of the issue has to be addressed and until then, there will be no hope for an end to it simply by fighting and killing the people directly involved. Let's at least take lessons from history; how did the situation in Northern Ireland develop?? It is 10 times worse here with an ideology...it is not the bogeyman of Al-Qaeda. There has never been one organised Al-Qaeda as the enemy. This enemy was given that face so that it could be challenged and fought. It is an ideology and different people who would not even agree with each other on various things such as even the purpose of their actions would carry out similar attacks in different continents and it is all called Al-Qaeda. Alternatively, it would mean that Al-Qaeda is present everywhere and even though Afghanistan, their "head quarter" was destroyed they still remain a powerful organisation. This is simply not true! It is all part of the tactic of fear and the number one priority is to have an enemy and that enemy needs to have a face; Al-Qaeda."
Gregson added, “What we’re fighting is an insurgency defined as a popular movement that seeks to change the status quo through violence, subversion, propaganda, terrorism or other military action. But it’s different from other national insurgencies that we’ve known in the past. This one is networked thanks to the wonders of technology. It’s primarily ideologically driven, fundamentalist and extremist.” ==== Well, inside US, it's called anti-terrorism, where outside US, the opposite of it probably be called anti-imperialism. I agree with Gregson. Military force, otherwise would be powerless as a tool, probably can only do so much to stop a political movement. The ultimate solution to terrorism is the reform of status quo. It surely is a new trend of 21 century, imo.
Even in the news here they are now admitting to the fact that Al-Qaeda is just a face given to this "enemy". This "enemy" was divided into 3 groups; Al-Qaeda which was based in Afghanistan and is largely destroyed or unable to carry such attacks. Groups linked to Al-Qaeda; effectively groups who call themselves similar names such as Al-Qaeda in Europe who claimed responsibility for the recent atrocities. Finally, smaller groups of those who follow similar ideologies and are independent from the rest completely. These can be simply a few people in say England who meet up and after a while decide to carry out an attack. What you fail to understand that these people are no different than you and I. They are mostly of the same background but have been born and raised in these countries and occassionally there are even those who do not share the same background but feel disillunioned by their leaders and hence join these groups. It is a matter of attacking the root of these beliefs and stop such ideologies from having any truth to them, so that when someone says America is an imperialistic force bent on destruction of the planet, the rest can turn around and say no. This is just an example and I personally don't know what drives these people to commit such atrocities, however by simply attacking various countries and limiting liberties (Western countries in themselves), we are simply playing into the hands of these terrorists.
Excellent point. I agree, but I doubt that the ultranationalist, we-can-do-no-wrong crowd will ever go along with that. Self-reflection is considered too faggy for these people. They just can't understand the obvious difference between kowtowing to terrorists and exploring the root causes of such actions. We like to pretend that we have answers, but honestly, folks, we (as BS posters) don't know jack crap.
Ahh...!Bob... I respectfully disagree. You or I may disagree, but that's as far as it goes; we both respect laws and remain civilized. Terrorists, on the other hand, resort to terrorism -- murder -- to meet their twisted ends: quite a bit different than you or I! The extremist Muslim fanaticos - jihadi terrorists - see nothing at all wrong with killing civilians, 50+ London civilians yesterday; that is wrong. Most of the world understands that is wrong. They are far different than you or I. The War on Terror is directly against these jihadi terrorists. Since 09/11/01 the United States has implemented homeland security reforms that seem to have protected this nation from further acts of terror domestically, while Spain, England and other nations lag behind us in ternal reforms, and thus are still open to acts of terror. Based on yesterdays terror attack in London, Prime Minister Blair will have decisions to make on new reforms to tighen up the U.K and prevent future Al Qaeda attacks and defend the nation, along the model set by the United States and its HomeLand Security initiatives... We stand united with our brothers in the War on Terror! http://img2.imageweb.info/viewimage.php?file=/img2/HYl35716.jpg
As a European from a country that has supported America all the way in the war against terror, I strongly belive the reason why it all went fairly well in Afghanistan, was because all the rest of the world (even the Muslims) could understand the reason for the war, even if they did not agree with it... America were hunting Al-Qaeda terrorists and even Arabs that dont like America could understand the reason why you needed to punish the terrorists hiding in Afghanistan.. The attack on Iraq, however, was never seen as having much or anything to do with 9/11 or with terrorism at all, but as an attack on an Arab country in an attempt to get a stronghold and force the "Christian" way of life (democracy) on a muslim country. This ofcause enrage Muslims all over the World, and it is their Muslim duty to figh back according to Islam, even if they belive in some sort of Muslim democracy ... So instead of getting rid of terrorists this war just made an excuse for the terrorist to get even more support for their fight against especially America, and where better to fight the Americans, than on Muslim soil in Iraq... Ofcause it didnt make it better that we were talking about freedom and democratic rights, while killing women and children in the process and then also removing normal democratic rights (Guantanamo) and using the same kind of torture that they are used to see from their own leaders... Many Arabs may have had some wish for democracy without really knowing what it is, but then only to lose faith, when seeing that they were treated more or less in the same way as they used to be...The terrorist on the other hand, use this as proof in the Muslim world that real democracy is only an illusion and in this way gain even more support... The absolute biggest problem the Americans and now also the Europeans face right now, is not the actual war in Iraq, but that millions of Arabs most surely have lost faith in democracy in the process, because of the untrustworthy (anti democratic) actions made by especially the American Goverment during the war... .