Stopping terrorism?

[livendive 8]

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If I shoot your gun at someone and kill them, it's me that killed them, regardless of whose gun it was. If we detonate those RPGs and kill people with them, it's us who killed those people, not the owners of those RPGs.

But on the other hand, if you choose to store a large and flammable cache of explosives right next to your people in a warzone, aren't you the one subjected them to extra risk when they already have enough? Is there any defense for storing them in a mosque?

I don't know about you, but if I'm in battle, I want my ammo to be accessible. Storing it in a depot 5 miles away from the conflict wouldn't be all that prudent. As for the mosque thing, it should be irrelevent...unless we're intentionally dropping bombs on mosques.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[billvon 3,107]

>What I'm wondering is why some fucking journalist and his source
>aren't in prison right now for treason!

The CIA did the report, Congress leaked it. Which senators do you want in jail?

[ViperPilot 0]

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We may never know if Iraq was truly worth the sacrifice because we will never know the consequences if we didn't invade

Diver makes a good point here. What if we hadn't invaded, would the number of innocent civlians murdered under Saddam risen past 1 million, would it have risen to 6 million perhaps? Maybe, maybe not. However, had much of the thinking related to Iraq been used back in 1939, how many Jews would have died? Afterall, Germany wasn't our business, shouldn't we have just stayed out? Some would still argue isolationism for that period, however is our own isolationism really worth 6 million people, 8 million people, 20 million people? When do we all draw the line on a tyrant who needs to be stopped. That line was drawn on Germany, and now that line has been drawn on Saddam. Before we got him out of power, he had already exterminated almost a million of his own people. While 1 million does not compare to the Holocaust or the Gulag, it's still well on its way. Don't you think it's prudent that we stop such a tyrant from achieving such devastation as the aformentioned? By stopping a terrible person like this, we are fighting terrorism. He terrorized his own people and he gave support to terrorist networks. So, who thinks that we should have just left the Iraqi people to continue to be slaughtered and do nothing? Who thinks we should have kept letting Saddam funnel money to terrorists?

[billvon 3,107]

>What if we hadn't invaded . . .

We didn't invade Cuba. Turned out to be a good decision, despite all the hawks clamoring for it.

We went to war in North Korea and Vietnam. Those both turned out to be mistakes.

We did invade Iraq. It's too soon to know if it will be another Vietnam, and we will never know what would have happened if we didn't. What we do know is:

-we failed at the primary mission, which was to find and confiscate Saddam's WMD's (not the soldier's fault; that was a failure at a much higher level)
-terrorism has increased worldwide
-almost 2000 american soldiers are dead, and there will be a lot more
-upwards of 10,000 Iraqis are dead
-the insurgency is as strong as ever
-we're training terrorists there, giving them real world experience
-we've spent around 200 billion so far on the war, and we will spend a lot more

The question is - could we have used those billions of dollars, and thousands of US lives, for better purposes? I think the answer is yes. Saddam, time and time again, has shown that he is an expert at staying in power. Heck, he didn't invade Kuwait until we gave him the go-ahead, because he was afraid of what we might do. And when we threatened to invade him because he was giving the weapons inspectors grief, he gave them full access. He's a tinpot tyrant that would bitch and moan and then do what he was told to do, while firing his rifle in the air and saying he is defying the US. He was no credible threat to us.

Would he have kept killing his citizens? I think the answer is yes. But then again, we're doing the same thing. And honestly, I'd rather have Saddam killing Iraqis than US soldiers killing Iraqis, because they fight back. And we don't need any more dead US soldiers.

[ViperPilot 0]

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We went to war in North Korea and Vietnam. Those both turned out to be mistakes

Well at the time, communism was as scary as terrorism is today. So, as we look back, we may think communism wasn't such a big deal, but during that time period, it was a very big deal. I don't think Korea was a mistake because we helped millions of people. What I mean is that through our military action, we allowed the people of South Korea to be a free society. I don't consider that a mistake. The mission of Vietnam was the same, but the way it was done was horribly wrong (IMO). Vietnam was a total failure, but not because of what the mission was, but because of how it was attempted. So, I can somewhat see your point on Vietnam, but I do think we did well to the people of S Korea during the Korean War.

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we failed at the primary mission, which was to find and confiscate Saddam's WMD's

The primary mission was to oust Saddam, thus making the country and the world safer. The secondary mission was to recover his weapons. So, we failed at the secondary in my opinion.

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we're training terrorists there, giving them real world experience

Don't worry, they won't ever use that real world experience because they'll be dead far before they're given another chance in history to use it. So in that regards, us being there is not helping worldwide terrorism.

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we've spent around 200 billion so far on the war, and we will spend a lot more

This is where I agree more. We need to change how things are done. What's really frustrating is that we spend a million bucks to build an electric plant, but then those damn insurgents just blow it up right as we finish. Then we do it all over again, and the same thing happens. We are wasting money in that regards. I think things need to be done differently so we're not wasting so much money. We have wisely spent money that is helping Iraq, just that we should at least do something to prevent sabotage on sites before we pump millions into them.

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he didn't invade Kuwait until we gave him the go-ahead

How exactly did the US give Saddam a "go-ahead" for Kuwait?

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Would he have kept killing his citizens? I think the answer is yes. But then again, we're doing the same thing.

Well, you say he would have kept killing citizens, so why is that ok? It's not ok in my book. And once again, civilians are killed in war, it happens. But we DO NOT just kill civilians all the time like the media wants you to believe. Very few are killed by us. And secondly, how does the few that we've killed compare to the almost 1 million that Saddam had killed? While us being there may cause some civilian death, it is certainly worth it vs having Saddam continuously killing his own people, which would amount to thousands of more deaths than anything caused by us.

[kelpdiver 2]

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We went to war in North Korea and Vietnam. Those both turned out to be mistakes.

How was entering Korea a mistake? They started that one. Trying to take all of NK, and then continuing a stalemate near the original border for 2 more years might be debated.

[kelpdiver 2]

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I don't know about you, but if I'm in battle, I want my ammo to be accessible. Storing it in a depot 5 miles away from the conflict wouldn't be all that prudent. As for the mosque thing, it should be irrelevent...unless we're intentionally dropping bombs on mosques.

I would too. But if it gets hit, I bear some of the responsibility for the effects.

Mosques aren't irrelevent - using them as fighting resources further blurs the lines between civilian and military, and causes more innocents to be killed.

[billvon 3,107]

>Well at the time, communism was as scary as terrorism is today.

I agree! But the fear far outweighed the reality. China is communist; today we happily drive to Wal-Mart and fill our cars with Chinese merchandise. Communism hasn't changed but our perception of it has. It's not really a menacing red threat, it's just a system of government that doesn't work so well.

Terrorism is the same thing. Terrorists have always been with us. They will always _be_ with us. Trying to have a "war on terror" is like having a "war on crime" or a "war on drugs" or a "war on cancer." You can't go to the capital of Terroristan and wipe it out, thus wiping out terrorism. The only way you can fight it is with the support of police and military all over the world. Heck, most of the Al Qaeda arrests have come from our allies just arresting people in airports and train stations, rather than US troops blowing up things.

>The primary mission was to oust Saddam, thus making the country
> and the world safer. The secondary mission was to recover his
> weapons. So, we failed at the secondary in my opinion.

If you go back to the time before the war, there was never any question that the primary mission was to end the threat that Saddam's WMD's posed. Check out the SOTU address before the war, or Bush's speeches to the UN, or Colin Powell's explanations of why we needed to do something.

Now there are more reasons - to free the people of Iraq, to oust Saddam, to bring democracy to the Middle East. But those are revisions to the plan, not the original one.

>Don't worry, they won't ever use that real world experience because
>they'll be dead far before they're given another chance in history to
> use it.

I fear you are mistaken there. US troops are dying when IED's are set off, and they don't immediately catch the people who do it. Often they never catch them. Many of those people are still free, and they are getting better at making IED's. The number of fatal attacks is going up, not down.

What's the answer there? I'm not sure. But both the military and CIA think it's a problem, so we should probably come up with an answer. And we've tried the "just shoot em all" strategy for two and a half years, and it's not working.

>Well, you say he would have kept killing citizens, so why is that ok?
> It's not ok in my book. And once again, civilians are killed in war, it
> happens.

It's absolutely not OK! I just don't think it's OK for US troops to kill civilians either. The results are the same even if you have good intentions. And if those people are going to fight back, I'd rather have Saddam's troops, rather than US troops, killed.

[EricTheRed 0]

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Which senators do you want in jail?

Can we just throw 'em all in and get a fresh batch?

illegible usually

[Trent 0]

Whichever congressmen and "intelligence" officials leaked it should be brought up on charges. Why make shit classified if you expect the fucking politicians and journalists to get ahold of it. At least enforce shit...

Secrets are necessary and they should be protected not used for political hay by these fuckwads.

Oh, hello again!

[ViperPilot 0]

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Trying to have a "war on terror" is like having a "war on crime" or a "war on drugs" or a "war on cancer."

I agree. Terror is not a finite thing that we can wipe out. Well it ever be wiped out by us, no. But, that doesn't mean the war isn't worth fighting. Should we stop the war on drugs and just let drugs run rampant through our society and destroy lives? I think the answer is no. Even though both of these are causes that will almost certainly never totally end, they are still just.

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there was never any question that the primary mission was to end the threat that Saddam's WMD's posed

There was never any question that the primary mission was to end Saddam's threat. It's just that part of his threat included his arsenal of WMDs and materials to make WMDs. So I guess you could just say they're both one in the same.

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Now there are more reasons - to free the people of Iraq, to oust Saddam, to bring democracy to the Middle East. But those are revisions to the plan, not the original one.

Well the original reason to go to war also included protecting America. In this situation, this is done by spreading democracy, freeing opressed people, etc. The more democracies in the world, the more free people there are, the safter the world will be. We will still never be completely safe, but definitely safer with more democracies, especially with the presence of one in a country like Iraq. Thus, these are really not revisions since protecting America and its interests was in the original reason/plan.

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Many of those people are still free, and they are getting better at making IED's.

Well this is true, the insurgents are getting more creative with explosives. However, I don't think we can simply just say, lets just leave Iraq a mess with a dictator in charge because if we go in, there's a chance we might help a few scumbags get a little more creative. But something you have to realize is, we're always steps ahead of them. They may get creative with a remote detonator, but we'll get more creative to combat that and kill the guy with the cell phone in his hand.