The War on terror, (Fearless Blue)

Since the 'war on terror' began how do you see it going?
I feel the 'terrorists' have become more powerful.
'Liberated' afghanistan I expect will go back into fundamental islam in a few years.
Pakistan is on a slippery slop.
Somalia is as bad as ever.
Basically the whole area is looking over the abyss.
On the home front (UK) I see freedoms being eroded, politicians bending over backwards to promote Islam, whilst eroding britishness. A paranoid (or incompetent) police force raiding every tom dick and harry thinking they have a bomb.
In short I dont think it is going well. We may well be winning the physical war, but the psycological war is not so good.

I think that the word war is really rather foolish. Terrorism is a criminal act and should be treated as such.

I dont think politicians are promoting Islam (except for Galloway perhaps) rather then failing to expound the virtues of secularism. It sounds like you feel that multiculturalism (as initiated in the mid 90's by (new) Labour) has failed. I tend to think that secularism, which is superior to blind nationalism, will win out given time and equal opportunity.

war on terror, the way we handle, it is in a way like war on drugs = epic fail

Terrorism is a criminal act and should be treated as such. - Maxwell 'Danger' Powers

thats what Chomsky would say. criminal acts require police action not military.

Osama declared war in 1996.


The link can be found here

No one really noticed.

So its not a criminal act. It is indeed an act of war.

If it is an act of war, is it also terrorism?

Zdenek: I think I did get it from Chomsky actually.

Pope: War is an act of nations. A person does not count as a nation. Calling the response to terrorism war, imo, plays into the hands of people like Bin Laden who want to escalate conflict.

I guess you are right Maxwell, if you ignore the fact it is a holy war.

Yes ignoring him and treating him as a criminal for 5 years worked so well.

/me looks at hole in New York City skyline.


As for the rest I doubt I could find a sufficient reason for war to please the liberal secular apologists.

However it is an act of war. Chomsky is wrong.

War is not an act of nations. Nations that train terrorist and call them allies but do not like it when other people train terrorist make up nonsensical definitions. The United States trains more terrorists than any other nation. The most effective way to fight terrorism is to adjust the budget. That battle has not been very successful. Invading other nations will, of course, inspire insurgency. Insurgency may or may not be terrorism depending on which definition(s) you choose.

Some authors about war I have read would categorize some of the Al Queda's attacks as strategic warfare. You can claim attacks like the bombing of Heroshima in 1945 was not terrorism because the goal was to kill all the targets and destroy the economy. Compare to the doolittle raid in 1942 which was clearly intended as terrorism.

I don't care what we call them. As long as we're stopping their terrorism, crusade, holy war, &.c. you can kill them and call them what ever you like.

BC

One man's terrorism is another man's fight against oppression.

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Yes ignoring him and treating him as a criminal for 5 years worked so well.

/me looks at hole in New York City skyline.<!-/Quote-!>

/me looks at hole in various forms of London public transport.

We all get over it, eventually.

We all forget, eventually.

Giving them room to remind us.

Fortunately, some don't forget as easily as others.

Dubhthaigh: I dont see how prefixing with holy changes anything. War is defined as armed struggles between nations, think the wars of Rome, the Napoleonic wars, the Vietnam war. Bin Laden used the term erroneously. There is no reason for us to do the same and give him legitimacy.

Pope: I dont really understand why treating someone as a criminal is the same as ignoring them, as you seem to imply.

Acts of war are committed by nations, not individuals. 9/11 was an act of terrorism, not war. Terrorism is a criminal act because it is committed by individuals against other individuals or people. We do not call rape, murder or theft and act of war between two people (because to use the term 'war' in this context would be non-sensical), we call it a criminal act. In the same way a mass murder is not an act of war, it is a criminal act of terrorism. We do, however, call rape, murder or theft acts of war if they occur by one nation on another.

This entire debate is one of semantics, as we both may or may not agree that a warlike response is appropriate for terrorism. My arguement of the semantics does not imply I feel in any way about the best approach to combating the subject.

RC: I see a claim with no supporting reasoning. Can you find a war, not the WoT or WoD, which has occured between individuals?

BorderC: Do you think that the best way to prevent terrorism is to kill as many terrorists as possible?

Bin Laden was ignored by most people ignorant of what the man wants to achieve. Sure Clinton slapped up a reward poster and the FBI was on the lookout for him but it did absolutely no good.

His protection by the Taliban gave him a state to operate from. Once that was removed he still remains a military target as law enforcement has zero chance of apprehending him and "bringing him to justice".

You told someone in an other thread..."You are not a molecular biologist, I am."


Well.....You are not a soldier Maxwell, I am.

War is not based on semantics.

Pope: I wish to make it clear I am not commenting on what is the best course of action to combat terrorism. I would argue that a soldier is not the best qualified to comment what is essentially a political and criminal question.

I am not saying war is based on semantics. I am claiming that the term 'war' is innappropriate when used in 'WoT'. That is all.

I see no reason why law enforcement has zero chance of apprehending Bin Laden. I believe police action has prevented much more terrorism than massive military action.

Police action against who Maxwell.

Which jurisdiction?

Which department?

Perhaps a warrant for the Pakistani police to arrest Bin Laden?


This is the real world Maxwell.

Effete liberal sentiments have no place in it.

And the name of this conflict is irrelevant.

It involves military forces and equipment on both sides.

It is a war. People are dying.


If a man shoots at you do you ask "Why is he shooting at me?" or do you kill him.

That is the difference between realist and idealist.


Where do you fall in that spectrum?

As a combat veteran I am offended by your comments max!

I'm not going to say I think we should forgive and forget, because I honestly don't.

All I'm going to say is that its clear brute force isn't working. If anything, I think we need to look at historical examples of dealing with terrorism and quelling it. I don't think the American strategists fully understand the nature of terrorism, nor how to combat it effectively.

I know that "liberal" is a term you pin to anytbody who doesn't agree that simply killing these people is the right course of action Sam, though I don't mean any offence to you in saying so because you know that you have my utmost respect as my friend.

Historical precedence shows that trying simply to destroy this sort of person/organisation in open military conflict doesn't work. Sledgehammer tactics are not, will never be and have never been effective against such an enemy. The only way to win this "war" is in the hearts and minds of local populations who would otherwise be inclined to side with the terrorists.

All in all, it is a far more subtle mode of warfare. And it is the only one which will ultimately prove effective.

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RC: I see a claim with no supporting reasoning. Can you find a war, not the WoT or WoD, which has occured between individuals? <!-/Quote-!>

One could say that D-day 1944 was fought entirely by individuals. Individual pilots flew planes. Individual rangers climbed cliff. Individual machine gunners strafed the beach. Perhaps someone loaded but it was an individual pulling the trigger.

One could also say that the attack on September 11 2001 was a highly coordinated group activity that could not possibly have worked if one person attempted it. Taking of one aircraft required beating multiple flight personnel to death or to submission. The first hit on the towers would not have caused a collapsed if the second plane had not hit a another tower. In addition to the hijackers, there was a network that paid for combat and flight training and there was a chain of command that enabled the coordinated timing.

The research done by Jane Goodall would be a good example of a gray area. It is unlikely that the chimpanzees planned an extermination of neighboring band. It is more likely that individuals were killed one by one in isolated acts of aggression. It is difficult to label the type of warfare because we can not ask them about the motives. Some claim that control of territory near the banana supply was primary motivator. That would suggest tactical warfare rather than strategic or terrorism.

The chimps behavior suggests instincts that go back a long way. The human branch of the evolutionary tree is a hacked up mangled branch with one leaf. Governments and civilization are relatively new. All of our close relatives disappeared due to decisions made by individuals or small groups. Humans are weak and prone to disease. The only advantages we have is aim, the ability to talk strategy, and a second generation gap so that grandma can tell us how/what to aim.

In the Illiad, homer describes combat as a series of individual combats.

David and Goliath comes to mind. So does Cain vs Able.

Most important the butter battle almost fought entirely by van itch and grandpa.

Pope, Jason: I honestly do not mean to offend. I do not, however, understand how arguing about definitions can possibly offend. I am not denegrating combat veterans by arguing that something should be named more appropriately.

The 'effete liberal sentiments' I have so far espoused are that criminal acts should be dealt with by police action and that words should be used consistently. I have never implied that the military have no place carrying out police action in certain circumstances (which you seem to take I mean). You seem keen to apply labels to what I am saying without good reason.

You note that people are dying, therefore this is war. The analogy is false. People die all the time for lots of reasons, and applying the label of war there would be equally fallacious (natural causes, firearms, accidents etc).

In you ultimate rhetorical question you seem to imply that there are two causes of action, which you name realism and idealism. In the former, one shoots the man who tries to shoot one. In the latter, one simply asks 'why?' and does not protect oneself. You then ask which camp I identify with as though my response would mean that I would have to support another position regarding a completely different situation. Obviously, if being shot at I would protect myself and others. But we are talking about how to deal with people who want to send others to commit mass murder. Simplistic strawman analogies get nowhere.

RC: Depending on how you look at it, you can claim that wars are mass actions of large collections of individuals. But the crucial difference is that these individuals are aligned to a nation, such that it is the nations that utilise the individuals to conduct the war. A riot fits the former, but not the latter criterion, therefore we do not call a riot a war on shop fronts.

Motivation does not affect whether we call something war. War can be for profit or war can be for presevation of the nation.

The Illiad describes the war of Troy, where the Greek kingdom (of Menelaos?) attacked the kingdom of Troy, thus satisfying the national combat criterion. Also, I would not define battles as necessarily occuring within the context of a war.

He is right about the definitions etc, but you are still missing the point war can be waged between religions.

They have declared holy war on all 'infidels' (or at least that is how they justify their actions). In this religious war, we are responding to their acts of sabotage with force of our own.

Sparta and the other Achaeans were justified in their attacks on Troy, as Paris violated the moral codes of hospitality. Furthermore, there can be few relevant comparisons between that time and ours - they thought/spoke/thought in entirely different ways than we do now.

"I see no reason why law enforcement has zero chance of apprehending Bin Laden. I believe police action has prevented much more terrorism than massive military action."

What?

Whose police force? The U.S.? So you think there should have been an U.S.P.D. to have gone into Afghanistan to arrest Bin Laden? And you don't think the Taliban, who governed the country and protected BL, would have just been okay with that? Do you visit any legitimate news sites? That is the most absurd comment I've read since nix. It borders on delusional.

If we're not at war with terrorists, who do you think we are at war with? Do you think it's not a war at all? I mean, soldiers are over there fighting, killing, and dying. It's not training. It may not be the conventional sort of war that you have stuck in your mind because of movies and books but it is war.

What is the purpose of not calling it war?

I say nuke them all!

Nuke the middle-east, nuke the arabs, nuke the fidels.

No more terrorist ~ problem solved.

Next WE can nuke car drivers who drive to market to buy bottled water for example, because they surely do more damage and kill more than the so-called Islamic terrorists.

BorderC: We declared war on Iraq and Afghanistan. A country cannot sensically declare war on an individual. I wish to reserve the term 'war' for armed struggle between nations. That is all.

You seem to assume I am defining the action which should be taken against people like Bin Laden. I am not. Perhaps it is the case that massive military action would be necessary to arrest Bin Laden. But I think it is more consistent and helpful to call this action police action rather than WoT.

I am claiming that this kind of terrorism has never been dealt with before by declaring war on terror. What is terror? How do you defeat terror? The term is non-sensical.

No one is suggesting that Tuco.

/me gives Tuco some tea and jam.


The people who are actively engaged in terrorist activities or supporters of those activities are valid military targets for collection or termination.




@Maxwell.

You sir are worse than Tuco or Nix with outlandish statements.

There are only two results from the scenario I gave you .

1. You question the motives behind being shot at and you die.

2. You fight back and perhaps you might live.

I find your arguments pedantic and sophomoric.
Your ideology is repulsive. And I find the desire to invade you grows stronger each day.


@Klarina.

You always have my respect although we seldom agree on anything but pie and lulz. Who needs anything more?