Israel / Palestine is an enlightening and depressing example.
Much of the current “War on terrorism”, f. e. the use of preemptive strikes, is blueprinted off the pattern established by many Israeli administrations. In recent years, starting with Netanyahu’s confrontational attitude towards the palestinians and continuing under Sharon similar politics polarisation of the Israeli society has increased.
The suicide bombings, that many observers say in no small part related to this polarisation, has in retrospect justified the policies of said administrations in the eyes of the Israli public and made it politically viable to continue down that road.
So i’d say another terrorist attack on the US would mean support for another preemptive / retaliation strike, which in turn would recruit more arab “martyrs” and so on…
Well of course extremists will protest and demonstrate and make noise to put their point across. Altho they may be a minority, they are the only ones that act upon their hatred (which makes them dangerous) and their sentiment is shared by a lot of moderates in principle. which is why I posted this thread:
there is a great need to present our case to the Muslim peoples of this world. There is a strong anti-war sentiment but as WoMD are found, as more and more Iraqi regime atrocities are verified and documented, as more cities are freed from the regimes grip of terror, the moderates will gain a louder voice and they will be pro-american and anti-Saddam. When that happens, that region stands a good chance of quieting down.
I agree with your qualification of my statement. My point is, none of the parties involved required weapons of mass destruction to achieve the end result. So WMD is not a good enough reason to go to war now.
Some oppose the war because they oppose all war. Not me. I was in favor of the Afghan War because the goverment there enabled the efforts of the terrorists, and leaving them in power would continue to endanger our country. The fact that they were oppressing the Afghani people, whom we had shamefully neglected after the Soviet withdrawal simply lent further creedence to combat there, but was not the main reason.
My question about this war has always been “Can we afford to divert the resources now, especially when there is no direct current threat?” The current unraveling of the situation in Afghanistan makes it clear the answer is no.
Smart anti-war people will vocalize this fact in the face of another terrorist attack.
That is perhaps a slightly misleading conclusion. Just because a relatively small number of people were able to turn airplanes into WMDs doesn’t make traditional WMDs any less dangerous. In fact the case could be made that those attacks have highlighted our vulnerability to the point where ignoring rogue nations with WMDs can only be done at our extreme peril.
From those facts, which statement is an appropriate conclusion:
In fact the case could be made that those attacks have highlighted our vulnerability to the point where ignoring rogue nations with WMDs can only be done at our extreme peril.
In fact the case could be made that those attacks have highlighted our vulnerability to the point where ignoring rogue nations with or without WMDs can only be done at our extreme peril.
AZCowboy, are you attempting to make the case that there is no reason to believe Iraq may have WMDs?
Look I’m not trying to build a case that a war on Iraq was necessarily the most useful thing that Bush could have done. Rather I am taking exception to the reasoning that holds that due to September 11th WMDs are not a major source of potential danger to Americans.
I thought scotandrsn stated it sufficiently when he said, “none of the parties involved required weapons of mass destruction to achieve the end result. So WMD is not a good enough reason to go to war now.”
You suggested the conclusion was misleading. I thought his conclusion was logical. I thought your conclusion was misleading.
I will close with the note that more people have died from terrorism with conventional means than from terrorism with WoMD. Focusing on WoMD will be at our own peril.