both sides are correct in some ways. you can't really educate (or re-educate) the present generation of al qaeda members, especially with our controversial history in the middle-eastern region. when you have suicide bombers willing to die for a cause driving straight at you day after day, i think you have to kill those people before they kill more lives. however, educating the next generation of al qaeda members before al qaeda does is important.

ghandi doesn't match up well in this situation though. he protested a legalistic caste-like system, whereas the war on terror is about much more salient idealism. sure, the white europeans had philosophies about white superiority and such, but the main goal was to retain colonial power. extremist muslim terrorist cells are idealist by nature and uncompromising in most cases.

and for the record, hitler constructed the nazi party around himself with no consideration for continuation beyond him for the most part (i can't recall him ever thinking of an heir) whereas terrorist cells are often designed to operate indepently with interchangeable leadership.

the only point i was really trying to make about hitler and the nazis is that we cant just leave al queda alone just becasue another one might lead them.
if we just left hitler alone becasue we thought someone else might take his place, who knows what would of happned to the world....and you cant leave these people alone, you have to keep at them even if u dont get rid of them to keep them from doing any more damage then they have already caused.

also about re educating...what if some other country came over here and wanted to educate us or our kids about how we need to live our lives? i dont think that would work.

Doesn't anyone think that the whole reason we got into this mess is because we initially did nothing about it? World Trade Center bombing of '93, the string of forgien bombings on US embassies, the attack on the USS Cole in 2000? All we did was investigate and put a couple bad guys on trial. We tried the non violent approach for years, and it obviously didn't work. There comes a point when you have to say enough is enough, and show these people that you're going to stand up for yourself. I think it's more likely that if we didn't go after them that there would've been more attacks on the US had we not. I'm not saying that we're never going to be attacked again, but it's obvious we've now made it harder for them to carry out their plans. Trust me, I don't like it anymore than the next guy. But what we're dealing with is an enemy with a medieval way of thinking that are not inclined to listen to reason.

i think you guys have a misconcieved notion that its only the muslim radicals stirring hatred. thats wrong. muslims in general (disclaimer: not all, but quite a few in muslim countries) in the middle east are predjudice against jews, Christians, americans, etc.... thats part of the reason why i am here ya know. religious persecution.

that being said, education among the muslim countries to show them that everyone is equal and yada yada yada would possibly help with the hatred. i have no idea how to go about this, but it seems like if it were possible, it would work.

it also pains me to say this, but sometimes i think they cant be stopped, by us at least :(

fighting terrorism is like fighting the "war on drugs." there is no one nation that can accept all the blame, so for us to declare war on an entire country because 1/10,000 of the population had a part in what happened to our country is not exactly the best way to go about it. In fact, all it really does is waste insane amounts of money and the lives of our soldiers.

If you want an effective way to handle it, do what spain does. they use intelligence (well, I guess we can't use this because our intelligence agency is completely inept) and once they find out enough info and positions of terrorists, they use police to aprehend them.

that is never going to happen in this country though because it would be as profitable for the bureaucrats :roll:

i think educating children does work. i don't think educating the older generation will be quite as effective, hence the reason i said education and violence are both necessary.

:werd: back at the evil empire state old people still think that US is evil and nothing is better then Stalin :lol:

Well, if I recall, Pres.Clinton was lambasted for thinking of putting troops in a war against an enemy with no face, no home country, no real foundation outside of its fanatical religious belives. The non-violent approach? We have been dropping bombs on Iraq since the end of the first Gulf War, enforcing the no-fly zone. We launched cruse missles at targets with precision to take out key targets.
These people wont back down. Doesnt matter if you send 10 Tomahawks for 200k Troops, they still hate us. They will continue to hate us, and having 200k troops police the country between warring factions in Iraq doesnt help things at all. These guys are serious, and there will be no end to this. It will keep going and going.
I still have a huge problem with the US invading a country that never attacked us. We went in on an idea, that Ill admit, I took hook line and sinker, and supported what we were doing, but it became obvious that we had zero exit plan, and that we were gunan become a police force.
I dont blame the troops, and dont take this as I dont support them as I do 11000%. I blame the people that put them there.
This whole thread is gunna get out of hand, and I knew it when I posted it, but in the end, our troops are still there, and hearing every day another 1 or 2 were shot, blown up, or whatever does not help boost the morale at home. Its a mess, but its time to get out.
And if you want my honest opinion, that most of those people are animals, and that it took an animal to keep them contained.

all i'm saying is the non-violent approach is much more effective.

freezing their funds would stop them. that is an effective and realistic solution IMO. only problem is it will never happen because the wealthy rich snobby americans make money off them.

oil? who said something about oil bitch, you cookin? [/black bush]

Yes, we have gone into Iraq many times between the first Gulf War and now. But, to my knowledge (and I could be wrong), we've never bombed anyone in response to a terrorist attack prior to 9/11. In regards to what's going in Iraq now, I think it was necessary for us to go in and take out Saddam; the numerous mass graves they've found speak for themselves. The whole WMDs debate, while they never found any actual weapons, they did find materials for producing them. Whether or not they were actually going to make them, I don't know. I do feel now that we should be getting out of there, but you can't necessarily bomb the hell out of a country, and just leave and say clean up the mess. Unfortuantely, we've gotten ourselves in pretty deep in Iraq. But in regards to terrorism, to me it's something you just can't fight while sitting on your hands.

yes you are wrong, you've bombed afganistan before 9/11

yeah we bombed some stupid factories that did absoutly nothing so really, we havent done much
clinton was too much of a pussy to fight back which is why we got attacked on 9.11

see you say its effictive and realistic, but then you say it would never happen, which makes it unrealistic. which is why we have to use force

you did not bomb factories, you bombed "camp sites" where you think Bin Laden was after the bombing of USS Cole. And even if its a useless factory who the hell gives u a right to bomb it?

It's really been going on for years now. What people tend to forget is that the Middle East refused to comply with the US and Britain to let us in and search for WMD after the occurance of 911. Had they complied, we wouldn't have used force. But they didn't, so here we are. So OK, we haven't found any. Yeah, I feel bad when men and women in the armed forces die for this. But they accept that they are in the Army, and that they may indeed have that kind of fate. It sucks. But personally I don't think Kerry could have done much better. As long as we're not getting attacked anymore, I'd say we're staying pretty safe here.

a bombing is still a bombing. it would be like someone bombing our country, but they only bombed "some stupid factories" that a lot of people work in. Yeah, thats not a big deal at all.

And if Clinton was such a pussy, why didnt they attack the WTC during the 8 years he was in office?

Having a US military presense in the middle east really does nothing for our safety here in the states. all it does is keep the middle east in order. I've said it before, terrorism can NOT be fought effectively with military force. Intelligence leading to the arrest and detainment of terrorists is the only thing that will work. But that doesn't pad the pockets of the US administration so we are never going to see the end of terrorism.

yea that was an interesting period of time, however my question is who gave u the right to police the world and tell other countries what they are suppose to do? If a country doesnt want you there, then wtf is the problem? i wonder if Soviets ever let you inspect their 40k of nuclear weapons and god knows how many bio and chemical weapons they had.

how is freezing the money of a nation that gets 80% or more of their funding from drugs going to change anything? you are talking about nations that the largest percentage of the rural population live in mud brick homes with no electricity or running water.

when the people in power are making all the money they want, legally or otehrwise, and the rest of the population is dirt poor it does no good to cut off funds that mostly go through international aid organizations to fund medical and school facilities.

you seem to be under some delusion that the terrorist and extremist groups that are in question here are getting handed large checks by the US. these people are criminals, and use criminal means to their fund raising.

like it or not, the US is the last remaining super power. this menas we must continue, as we have for decades, to go places in the world to take care of problems.
what other nation has the military or resources to defend the whole world from terrorism and extremist organizations? none.
the only other option is to sit back and watch as all the little pissed off groups in teh world gain power/money/weapons and start attacking innocent citizens just because they see us as bad. it is not worth sitting back and waitng for people to die when we already know we are dealing with people who place absolutely 0 value on life.
if you have the ability and power to go on the offensive, you have to do it. that is how war works.

take care of problems? alright why dont you help people in Rwanda or Darfur? those people actually need your help, but hey who needs them, right? however my guess that 80% of people on this board dont even have a slightest clue about it - cuz its not on CNN, and hey dont dont have "WMD" and all that crap...please...

we are sending those, and many other poor nationas, billions in financial, food, and medical aid each year. i am sure CCN/CSpan/MSN would be all over it if there was some military or blood and guts action to get footage of. but it is mostly just people dying of starvation and deisease, which we all know the news doesn't cover.
don't worry tsar, there are some of us that know the US spends 3 times on emergancy aid(food and medical) internationally as we do domestically. most of it lands on the african continent. i am sure it would make the news if more of them were trying to attack us and the rest fo the world

you want some action and guts?
so around one million people isnt enough to get your attention? ohh by the way the aid that you send over there lands in the hands of militia and hardly any of it goes to the people its intended for.

Is that bloody enough for you? Ohh and as far as i remember Iraq wasnt attacking any part of the world during Gulf2 but they did have WMDs :roll:

1) just because we are a superpower doesnt mean we have the right to invade a country for no reason (no WMD found), overthrow their current government and force our way of life upon millions who really dont want it. damn, we're doing such a great job of protecting the world from itself :roll: . And us invading Iraq is not saving the world from terrorism, its just pissing the terrorist factions off more.

2) did you ever stop to think that you would be just as pissed as all those "little pissed of groups in teh world" if the united states was bombed, invaded, overthrown and instilled with a new form of government?

3) we all know how war works, however, this is not something that a war will fix. if it was an entire country that was responsible for what happened, then yes a war would be appropriate. But the fact of the matter is that small cells of terrorists are operating in numerous countries all around the world including the united states. a war focused on one counrty isnt going to bring about any relevant changes in terrorist activity.

do you want amercia to solve thousand year old regional ethnic/tribal/clan wars next?
you take care of the **** that threatens you first, then move on to other issues.
threats to the US will always be top news compared to trouble that is regional on teh otehr side of the world.