Can we rationally discuss the 'War on Terror'? & other related issues?

It's a new day. The crisis of yesterday is already waning....can we sit and have a calm discussion of just what is not working on Bush & Blair's War on Terror? Can we discuss what just may work?

Let's assume for a minute that the threat presented to us at Heathrow yesterday was in fact genuine (I know many doubt that thought, even the esteemed BBC is prefacing many of their reports with...."if this threat proves to be true"...but for the sake of argument let's just take it as a fact that the threat was indeed real shall we?). Assuming that, exactly what could Bush and Blair have done differently over the last 5 years in order to make this world a better place?

Some thoughts that spring to my mind are:

1. After 9/11, meet with our allies and even our non-allies at the time who still had some sympathy for innocent civilians being attacked. Form new alliances, work with each other to identify problem areas around the world and formulate a strategy for dealing with Terrorist Cells. Surely if we truly shared intelligence we may have a chance at preventing future attacks.
2. Security at home and abroad. What have we done wrong? Is giving up civil liberties and rights really the answer? Maybe we can give up some in exchange for a more peaceful & safe world, but not all......what exactly are we willing to give up? By giving up certain rights are we giving in and could we cause potential for abuse by our governments? How can we avoid that? Can we treat everyone fairly and equitably?
3. Iraq - not exactly a terrorist hot spot 5 years ago, but let's review our policy there. Were sanctions keeping them contained? Well....yes. Were they cooperating with UN Inspection Teams? Probably not.....Instead of barging in willy nilly and blowing the country to pieces, destroying the infrastructure....we might just could have taken a different approach to get rid of Saddam if indeed we even needed to get rid of him. What can we do today to make steps toward solving the quagmire? Some would argue the withdrawal of our troops. Are we doing any good there now? How can we withdraw our troops and not have the country sink any further? Is it even possible at this point?
4. Identify the root causes of terrorism. We know that most terrorist cells target young, impressionable men who are dissatisfied in some way with the way things are going in their world. All many have known is war, poverty, discrimination and perceived threats on their cultures way of life. Many are recruited thru institutions affiliated with their religious life. Can we change that? I think we can if we apply ourselves to the problem....but how to go about it?
5. Funding of terrorist activities? Surely if we work together across the world we could identify how and where these activities are being funded and cut off the money supply.
6. Foreign Policy - let's review that. Rather than blindly supporting one side in an argument between warring factions could we at least attempt to be a peacemaker? And while we are at it, could we not review how monetary expenditures are meted out? Do we really need to give some areas of the world so much in defense spending? Is that really the way for peace? Could we put conditions on our aid? In other words, if our money is spent to keep some areas of the native population in subjugation do we want to keep our funding flowing?
7. Globalism - it's an increasingly smaller world out there. We need to address the issues that affect us all.....and by all I mean the entire planet.What can we do to bring third world countries out of poverty and raise up their standards of living? Water, a highway system to bring in the outside world, education, medicine, food?.... The environment....drought, flood, global warming, pollution, industrialization......all need to be addressed and addressed with input from all sides.

'terror'.

It cannot exist. You can defeat an abstract concept. Attempting to do so is pure folly, and will only cause the deaths of innocents.

In the last 20 years, the US has killed more innocent civillians than ALL THE 'TERROR' ORGANIZATIONS COMBINED, making the US the largest state sponsor of terrorism in the world.

Just my two cents.

I never cared for the term myself. In fact I haven't cared for much of anything that has come out in the last 5 years. Do we really need such pithy terms? Does our society require a lable to focus?

Acts of terrorism have always been handled as criminal acts, as opposed to military-political. Turning terrorism into a quasi-military act (see Enemy Combatant :eyes:), has allowed this cabal to make their (bogus) justifications for committing war crimes and invading sovereign nations.

Some war.

War sucks. It is one of the most despicable human creations. It is not something to be glorified. Every time an innocent human dies, we should hang our heads in shame, because that death punctuates the failure of our civilization, and bodes ill for our species.

And another thing: This business of progressives supporting terrorists...

Allow me to state this in no uncertain terms: People who kill innocent people, for WHATEVER REASON, are the lowest of the species. They are human only in form, not in spirit. And that goes for everyone from Al Qaida to Israel, everyone from the US to Hizbollah, to Russia and China. Any entity (nation/state/organization) anywhere that kills people who are otherwise just trying to live their lives is despicable and loathsome, IMO.

But, hey, I'm a pacifist, so what the hell do I know.

whole effort is both misguided and less than satisfactorily clueful. Instead, I think a phrase like The War on Militant Radical Islam gets more to the real heart of it but is a bit of a mouthful and probably not politically correct.

...for an account of Clinton's quiet "war on terror". It was working pretty well, until the drunken frat-boy turned up and decided to fire a shotgun at the hornet's nest.

a tactic. This war is about rich vs poor; and for as long as the war continues the world will lose.

So it is like trying to have a rational discussion about whether Bible miracles are true or not. There are some people who believe it as part of their faith, and then there are people who don't believe it. And it is the same thing with the war on terror and all the terror alerts and the reasons for attacking Iraq and even Afghanistan, and even 911.

For a Faith Based Government! When you mix church and state, democracy is crushed.

Is that what you are saying? Have we no hope left? Is there nothing we can do or could have done? Is it past the point of no return? Because if it is we are all wasting our time here right?

I am saying that once you are talking about beliefs, no, people who don't have the belief cannot have a rational discussion about some topics with people who have the belief, because belief and rational are two different things.

So people who do not have a faith based belief in Bible miracles can discuss Bible times rationally with other people who don't have that belief in the miracles, but if they try to have that rational discussion with people who do have that belief, it will very quickly stop being rational.

And people who share the belief can have rational discussions with each other about how much they enjoy the belief and how much they feel like it helps them in their lives.

tasked 15-20 US Attorneys to actually investigate what happened, put those officials whose malfeasance was criminal on trial for negligent homicide and related crimes, and made all of this process of discovery public.

That's what we should have done. Without that, the rest is a band-aid on cancer.

The odds of a person being struck by lightning are far greater than that of being a victim of a terror attack and lightning is an actual thing not just an abstact idea...

...you must deal with the root causes.

This has never been attempted by any administration, as it would reveal the great lie of the carefully crafted Good Guy/Bad Guy meme.

Citizens would rather live in fantasy land then confront their own destructive actions. Witness the recent war of words over Global Warming, possibly the greatest threat ever faced by civilization. It is far easier to argue based on one's worldview, than to actually change your behavior, even if said change comes at very little cost. People are willing to accept catastophic consequences to avoid confrontation with their own belief sturctures.

In the end, all you can really change is yourself.

the war to gain control of the world's economies and keep removing constitutional rights and remain outside the world's laws and co-operative structures or we can return to the kind of country we used to be. That's it really. I don't like the "war on terror" because there is no such thing and I refuse to discuss issues using propaganda terminology.