We need to stop taking the "War on Terror" seriously

[FoieGrasIsEvil]

@BrainGlutton

That characterization applies only to pre-invasion Afghanistan and Iran, and maybe Syria WRT Lebanon.

And that applies only to underground terrorist organizations. The Iranians want friends and are finding them.

Are there any other? I’m sorry, I thought terrorist organizations were these brave martyrs that didn’t cover their faces in their beheading videos that were really the everymans “freedom fighter” in the face of USA meddling and foreign policy.
I seem to keep forgetting about those brazen terrorist organizations that are unilaterally calling out the US military to meet them on the playground at 3:00pm sharp.

[BrainGlutton]

@FoieGrasIsEvil

Are there any other?

I was distinguishing them from governments.

[gonzomax]

18 out of the 20 911 attackers were Saudi Arabians and we attacked Iraq. The Saudis are helping fund the insurgency and are providing the bulk of the enemies. Yet we do not say anything. Yep ,good strategy for making the world safer.

[XT]

What would you suggest? What do you suppose we could do about it?

-XT

[Squink]

When I see headlines like this:
GOP kicks off fall campaign with heightened terror alert,
which refers to this:
U.S. Headed for ‘Heightened Alert’ Stage
I think the maybe the partisan posturing, and scrambling for advantage, since 9/11 has been everything bin Laden could hope for.
-Heckuva job, America!

[Kyrie_Eleison]

@BrainGlutton

@smiling bandit

Well, the “The War and Other Actions Against Islamic Conquest and Terrorism” is long and contains the one thing no official wants to admit: It’s about Islam whether we like it or not.

Only in the sense that abortion-clinic bombings are about Christianity.

Every channel cuts deep in places. And channeling Der Trihs in a manner with which he might disagree, I am as happy to lay Islamic terrorism at the feet of Islam as I am to lay abortion clinic bombings at the feet of Christianity. In both cases, the large majority of subscribers might disagree with the extremists, but it’s difficult to argue that the extremists could exist independent of the mainstream.

[Bookkeeper]

@xtisme

Well, aside from the fact that we don’t carpet-bomb anymore, I suppose it’s true enough that we wouldn’t be sending in a Marine division to Hamburg. …-XT

Actually, you still do. It’s still very effective in the proper circumstances.

[The_Flying_Dutchman]

@Ataraxy

Another thing is it’s overuse of the War metaphor. We already have ongoing Wars on Poverty and Drugs. Yes, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are very real, but as applied to Terror, it’s a metaphor. This implies there is only a military solution, when in fact I believe the solution lies not with soldiers, but in diplomacy, intelligence gathering and law and order police work.

This is exactly the kind of thinking that lulled our western intelligence agencies to not take the growing Islamist threat seriously enough in the 90s. I’m not here to defend Bush’s foreign policy, but I will say that I don’t believe that the terrorists are not interested in hitting Americans at home if they had the chance.

Also, I think it overstates the threat posed by terrorism. It should not necessarily be the primary, or seemingly only, basis for our foreign policy.

Well blame the media for that.

[gonzomax]

@xtisme

What would you suggest? What do you suppose we could do about it?

-XT

Air it. if we believe in the truth ,we should make it clear who supports the “bad guys”. We never hear Bush talking about the real problem. What will change if we do nothing about it.?

[ElvisL1ves]

@Mr. Moto

planning for 9/11 did begin in the Clinton administration, and indeed in those years al-Qaeda steadily gained power and was able to establish safe havens in both Somalia and Afghanistan.

But was contained, by an administration that was generally criticized (expecially by your side) for being too focused on Al Qaeda, remember? And then Bush decided that, essentially, anything Clinton had done, he would do the opposite.

All of this led directly to 9/11.

Just the latter part. Note, btw, the contrast between Clinton catching the 1993 WTC bombers, and Bush blowing off catching the 9/11 attackers.

Indeed, every single independent and congressional inquiry of intelligence and military policy surrounding these events has found something to fault in both administrations, given the history involved.

Yes, things “just happen” sometimes, mistakes were made, nobody’s fault in particular really, no way to know who’s right, it’s in the past, let’s just move on. Right.

9/11 happened on Bush’s watch, either because of or enabled by Bush’s dereliction of duty. Shifting blame to Clinton for it, as you have tried to do here, is as sad as it is transparent. Bush has been able to evade responsibility due to not enough people forcing him to accept it, or for that matter accepting their own for enabling him - including yourself, obviously and sadly. But why?

[XT]

@gonzomax

Air it. if we believe in the truth ,we should make it clear who supports the “bad guys”. We never hear Bush talking about the real problem. What will change if we do nothing about it.?

Air it? I seriously have no idea what you are talking about. It was known a few weeks after the attack that most of the terrorists were Saudi nationals. Did you think it was a big secret? I mean…you know it. I know it. Pretty much everyone knows it.

As for Bush talking about the problem, I’ve heard him mention Saudi and it’s connection with the attacks at least a few times. And I’ve seen a lot of other people talking about it to. However, the Kingdom IS an ally…so, there are very limited things we can do about the fact that they straddle the fence wrt their own militant religious fanatics.

So…since we have already done the ‘air it’ thingy…what else would you suggest? Should we punish SA in some way? Do you think this would help or hurt the situation? Myself, I really have no idea what we can do. If we push the Saudi’s we are likely to either alienate them completely or even topple them from power…which will almost certainly mean at a minimum a civil war, and one in which the most likely outcome is that a less friendly government to the US will probably emerge.

Doesn’t sound like a win/win to me anyway…

-XT