How is Bush losing the War on Terror™?

Another request for talking points for my MoveOn.org volunteer friend

(you'll need a day pass if you're not a subscriber)
Link:
http://archive.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/09/16/ideology/print.html

I've been using these as talking points myself when I do phone banking for voters. Very valuable stuff.

Say hi to your MoveOn friend for us.


:kick:

:thumbsup:

And thank you very much!

nice superscript BTW!

1. When the entire world hates us, we're less safe.

2. When the entire world hates us, they're not going to willingly pass on to us intelligence info; would YOU warn someone you hated and despised that they're about to fall over a log?

3. When you kill people's children, those people have nothing left to lose; what would YOU do if a nation killed YOUR child? Would YOU strike back however you could?

4. Terror is an emotion. You can't fight a war against an emotion.

5. Terrorism is a method. Like the Japanese Kami Kazi pilots in WW2, you can't go to war against Jap planes, and you can't go to war against terrorism.

6. You can't win anything until and unless you understand what it is you're trying to beat.

7. Iraqmiring our entire military means we're now sitting ducks.

8. Our ports, our borders, our airplanes are unsecure and underfunded.

9. Our first responders (cops, firefighters, dr's, ambulance staff) are underfunded and understaffed; many are Iraqmired.

10. Terrorism has been a fact of life since life began. If you want to be 100% safe from terrorism, go live in in North Korea; it's the #1 nation safest from terrorist attacks.

11. Our civil liberties are being taken from us; that's exactly what terrorists try to achieve. A win for the terrorists.

12. World co-operation is needed to fight a worldwide problem; the world hates us.

13. Torturing and raping and ignoring the Geneva Conventions and violating international (and US) laws tells the world WE are the biggest terrorists and it also puts our troops and our civilians in mortal danger. If WE can do it, so can the rest of the world.

14. We say we're the "city on the hill" and a "beacon of democracy"; we're showing the world our "city" is a slum and our democracy a sham.

15. Americans are increasingly becoming poverty-stricken; what methods to defend ourselves against the rich & powerful elite will WE have when one day all we have are the very rich & powerful and the very poverty-stricken in America? What were the minutemen called by King George?

16. Terrorism is a crime. It's always been deemed a crime. We've always had laws against terrorism. How many terrorists has asscroft jailed? ZERO.

and is creating more terrorists. How many family members and friends of the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis that we have killed, let alone combatants are now sworn enemies of the US and either have become or will become "terrorists"? Throughout the world, Muslims are siding with the innocent in Iraq, and the US has become the most despised country in the world.

You are lose the fight against an ideology when you enrage those people whom you need to bring to your side. Those people were on our side on 9/12/01. They have now moved to the side that wishes us harm, and they will continue to fund and encourage Jihadist to strike against the evil in their lives, which under Bush has become the United States.

Bush thinks we can kill our way to a military solution to terrorism. He is dead wrong, and many, many more people will be killed as a result of this administration's blunders. We killed 2 million Southeast Asians in Vietnam before we finally gave up the fight, and those people were just nationalists. We are now engaged against a people that will defend their culture, not just their national territory. They will be supported by people world wide that will engage in the fight or offer support to defeat us. Will it take 4 million lives this time around? For the sake of the world, let's hope that reason invades Washington and that mature minds are given the reigns of power to avert more bloodbath.

Form Democratic Undergound
Dated March 20, 2004

Ending the Endless War
By Jack Rabbit

Mr. Bush declared war on terrorism. He told the frightened and grieving nation that those who perpetrated the attacks hated America “for our freedoms.”

In the two and a half years since that dark September day, the United States has gone to war in two nations, Afghanistan and Iraq, and Congress has passed new legislation in the name of fighting terrorism.

During the autumn and winter of 2001/02, the United States invaded Afghanistan, where al Qaida had what might pass for its headquarters were it a more conventional organization, along with a number of training camps. Afghanistan’s government, lead by a group of oppressive religious fanatics called the Taliban, was weak and unable or unwilling to prevent al Qaida from operating inside Afghanistan. While the invasion failed to capture Osama, the Taliban regime was deposed and replaced by a government headed by Hamid Karzai, a former employee of Unocal; this new government promised to be more compliant with American interests. Since that time, the Taliban and al Qaida are reported to have regrouped in Afghanistan and little else has been done for by western powers for the country. President Karzai’s authority barely reaches beyond the capital; he has been derisively referred to as “the mayor of Kabul.”

Meanwhile, international terrorism continued. On October 12, 2002, a group called Jemaah Isamiah staged a bombing in a tourist nightclub in Bali, killing 200 people, mostly Australians. Connections between Jemaah Isamiah and al Qaida are suspected, but not clearly established. On November 28, 2002, in Mombasa, Kenya, three suicide bombers killed themselves and 13 Israeli nationals at the Paradise Hotel and, on the same day, a missile was fired on an Israeli plane leaving Mombasa airport. Al Qaida has claimed responsibility for the Mombasa attacks.

Since the invasion of Iraq, al Qaida has again made its presence in the world known. On May 12, 2003, a bomb went off in Riyadh, the capital of Saudi Arabia, killing 34 people. Another bomb in Riyadh on November 8 killed 18 people and injured over 100. On November 15, bombs exploded outside two synagogues in Istanbul, killing 23 and injuring over 300. Last week, bombs blew up in three train stations in Madrid, killing 200. Al Qaida either has claimed responsibility or is suspected in each of these attacks.

The war on terrorism is being lost. Al Qaida is no less able to inflict harm with a dramatic attack where and when it desires today than it was on September 11, 2001.

Read more.

were not terrorists before the invasion. This was to be expected.