You can't win a "war" on Terror

Everytime I hear "We are going to win the war on terror" I want to choke someone.

Terrorism is an act, not a person or state. If you waved a magic wand and killed every single terrorist on Earth instantly, tomorrow there would be a terrorist attack. Why? Because terrorism is an ACT. Anyone, at any time, can decide to commit this act simply by choosing to do so.

A bullet cannot kill an idea.
A missle cannot blow up an idea.

Its completely moronic to say the words "War on terror". You can't stop terror with a military force. You have to change peoples perceptions. You have to make people want to stop. You have to make people not choose to commit acts of terrorism. You have to change their minds. You can't do that by force.

This isn't a job for the military.
Its a job for the CIA.

:applause: :applause: :applause:

like the war on Drugs. Are we winning that war yet?

Why not work on positive wars in where we don't spend money on guns or weapons but on people, on education, on books, on libraries, that we wage war against poverty?

There would be no gang problems in the US right now. Same idea.

They beat this 'war on terrer' drum continuously. Since it is a war against a tactic, it is a war against no one. But for the same reason, it is a war against everyone. That's the point.

Since it's not a 'war against al Qaeda', for example, they wave the same banner when invading Iraq, where al Qaeda did not exist. They desperately want to do the same in an invasion of Iran, then on to the rest of the world. They think we're too stupid to know any better. And for 34% of us, they are right.

It's like 1984 is a neocon bible of sorts, isn't it?

The only way governments prevent terrorists is to terrorize the terrorist. Make the general public to afraid to commit the act. This works to a degree, but only for short periods of time.

The CIA is not the answer. A change in culture that breeds terrorist must be addressed. Terrorist could not exist if the people they are hiding with were not grieved against. Excellent example Palestine vs Israel. Whose the terrorist?

There is no massed military. Picking a country arbitrarily and bombing it is not the answer.

When you run out of wars, declare war on something that doesn't end. So propagateth the military industrial complex. Amen.

That just emboldens the drugs.

Now that's funny.

You are behaving in a very UnAmerican way and if you aren't careful America will send you without trial or attorney or even indicted straight to some secret prison just as our Constitution dictates..

saying that the WWII analogue would have been to declare war on the blitzkrieg while ignoring Nazi Germany. If even a Neo-con fellow traveler like ZB can figure this out, why can't a large share of the public? You cannot declare war on a tactic, and terrorism is a tactic. Any disgruntled nut anywhere can decide to become a "terraist," so what are you going to do, Unka DicKKK, turn the whole world into a prison camp? Oh, wait, never mind.....

some C4 up with their cell phone on their kitchen table, or blow up a car full of fertilizer, or swing the jawbone of an ass to kill their brother, their will be "terror" and "murder".

Amazing how infrequently we see this discussed. Pat Buchanan of all people has mentioned it frequently in essays. A few others. But most media mindless goes with the "war on terror" mantra without ever explaining what would constitute victory, and how we could know that "victory" had ever been achieved.

There is no Terror Hirohito to hand over a sword on the deck of our ships.

I mean, we don't form, deploy, and then disband our Police forces in America, do we? No, they are PERMANENT. This is no different.

of course you can win a war on terror, i remember when italy was full of terrorists in the 70s, they told americans not to go there for fear of being kidnapped (americans went anyway), there were kidnappings & hijackings galore

aggressive enforcement, arrests, prosecutions of the evildoers put an end to the nonsense, and who thinks for a minute before booking a trip to rome today?

our trouble is that our war on terror wasn't properly targeted, people committing crimes and people funding crimes such as osama bin ladin and mullah omar should have been immediately arrested and put on trial, not given several weeks headstart to flee the consequences, nor should our efforts in aggressively tracking down terrorists such as the anthrax killer been put on back burner so we could harass iraq

a war on terrorists can be won or it can be lost, *co is doing the best job they can to lose -- WHY? -- because a war that is won is over and done but a war that is lost and goes on endlessly is a continuing source of profit for halliburton

just follow the money

these guys aren't playing the game to win

but we don't have to believe in defeatist hype

the game could have been won

even john kerry said it, the proper thing to do was to hunt down bin laden and kill him

the proper way to fight crime is to prove to criminals that crime has consequences

you will NEVER change everybody's "perceptions" to the perceptions of your preference, i agree, if that is yr standard for winning, you are indeed fated to lose

my standard for winning a war on terror is that the terror gang creating acts of terror is busted up, divested of their funds and freedom, put in position where they find it impossible to act

you can certainly do that, it has been done in the past, it just takes will

and so it goes...

mnmoderatedem wrote:
"one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter"

Perhaps you are right, if the "freedom fighter" is motivated by the desire to kill civilians and if the "freedom fighter" acts on that motivation. On the other hand -- if a terrorist is fighting to establish a regime that would not respect freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom to organize a new politial party, freedom to organize and peacefully protest against government abuses, etc. -- then is the term "freedom fighter" appropriate? Does "freedom fighter" mean "someone who fights against freedom"?

Regarding the premise of this thread ...

ScooterKen wrote:
"Its completely moronic to say the words 'War on terror'.
A bullet cannot kill an idea.
A missle cannot blow up an idea."

Okay, how about "wars on terror"?

Consider the military conflict that involved NATO and Yugoslavia. Was that conflict a completely isolated incident with no significance? Or was it part of a larger war against an idea that Slobodan Milosevic symbolizes, an idea that you presumably are not fond of?

'war on terror' fits in with the bombing of Yugoslavia. The 'war on terror' began after 9/11.

Don't quite get the point of your final paragraph?

"A bullet cannot kill an idea."
"A missile cannot blow up an idea."

Those are two examples of a general claim: Ordinary weapons (which are tangible entities) can't be used to fight an idea (an intangible entity).

However, terror is an idea.
So we conclude that ordinary weapons cannot be used to fight terror.

I didn't restrict my attention to ScooterKen's final conclusion. I raised a question concerning the general claim that seems to be the basis for ScooterKen's final conclusion.

Again, that general claim is that (tangible) weapons can't be used to fight an idea.

Perhaps I misunderstood ScooterKen?

You cannot defeat an idea with force. Its just not possible.

No amount of policing can totally stop terrorism - Timmothy McVeigh proved that.

do you agree with the claim that conventional war cannot defeat terror?

My understanding of Milosovic and the Serbia situation was that Serbia was persecuting the Kosovan Albanians (Muslims) and that the Kosovans wanted independence from Serbia. NATO got involved for humanitarian reasons and it was essentially an ethnic conflict.

Terrorism didn't really enter the equation.

NOT using war to attack terrorists (note: Dems first choice has always been to use intelligence and international police efforts combined with diplomacy) is wussy and looks like appeasement. Right, let's just nuke them. That will be effective.

What jingoistic idiots. They don't notice that lumbering after these underground groups with bombs and tanks only plays into their hands by being A)obvious (they had months to escape or entrench!) B)killing civilians, and C)costing a ton.

It's far more imnportant to have the biggest, er, arsenal, tho, than it is to learn how to deal with terror with brains instead of explosives.

Sanity is but a memory in this country.

:sarcasm:

So they will have profits as far as the eye can see.

Edited on Sat Nov-19-05 01:01 PM by Clarkie1
"I don’t think you can win . But I think you can create conditions so that the — those who use terror as a tool are — less acceptable in parts of the world."

-- George W. Bush, Aug. 29th, 2004

:D

When BushCo or the Neocons wanted to sell the war to US the IO (information operations) they choose to use was the big bad terrorist. They figured it would be impossible to sell the War To Realign the MiddleEast to Support US Energy Policy and Simultaneously Create an Area to Base US Troops for Future Incursions into The Horn of Africa and Central Asia, Whilst Protecting NAtural Gas and Oil Resources Discovered in the Caspian Sea to the American People. So, it became, War on Terror, throw in an occasional FUCHSIA ALERT for the folks and you are golden. Unfortunately, blog, blog, blog has allowed information to be exchanged at unheard of rates and unlike some I think the American reaction against Bush and OIF n+1 has been excellent. Congress of course is still mired in 1800s thought mode and is an impediment to getting us out of Iraq, (after all you wouldn't want to look soft on Terror when votes (read: huge gobs of sweaty bills) are on the line...