Israel

[Nuclear Raunch]

Heh...If I had the answer I'd be in charge now right?

Haha, yeah right

From a strategic perspective:

Honestly I have always thought Afghanistan was an excellent idea, and we should have stayed the course. It wouldn't have been cheap, nor would it have been easy, but I think we could have really done something with that. If we would have taken some of the resources we ended up using on Iraq and used a fraction of that on rebuilding Afghanistan I think we would have been much better off. OK, perhaps "build" would be more accurate then "rebuild" but you get the point.

Terrorists recruit by telling everyone that the US is a big meanie and they need to help fight against us. Instead of giving them a bunch of ammo to fight against us (read: Iraq ) I think we should be taking away their ammo. We give them so much to use against us in the propaganda war, and we don't do nearly enough to help ourselves. Think about this, instead of dropping 315 bil on Iraq we could have dropped 65 bil on Afghanistan and 250 bil to pay off some of our national debt. With that 65 bil we could have sent the Army Engineers over there to teach Afghani's en masse on how to build infrastructure. Then put em to work doing it. (Think Hoover Dam but on a much larger scale)

I realize they will make a lot of mistakes, and it won't be the most efficient infrastructure building expedition ever but the point is the people are working, they're earning a paycheck, and they're building their own country up. With one stroke we get their time too occupied to make it a fertile breeding ground for terrorists, we are improving their infrastructure which will lead to further investment, we are pumping money into their economy, and we are instilling national pride. Trust me, to have them rebuild it themselves is going to give them a huge sense of pride.

Then we take this information and make sure everybody and their dog hears about it. Propaganda is extremely effective, and we just gave ourselves a huge arsenal of things we can point out in our rhetoric. At the same time instead of having Guantanamo, Abu Gharib, Haditha, etc our enemies have nothing to use against us. Really the only thing that they could say is that we intend to use Afghanistan for their oil pipeline (which we do) but we can simply counter by pointing out that we're building the entire country up, not just a pipeline.

I really don't think you can fight terrorism with guns and bombs. I think you can fight some of the effects with it, but the essence (FLOBW) of terrorism will exist no matter how many bombs you drop, people you kill, etc... It is a tool that is available and does have it's uses in psychological warfare, but it alone will never stop it. This is a large part of our poblem IMO. We've always been able to use that against other enemies, and our weapons of war are a source of pride for many American's. Consequently it will be hard to shift the focus away from using that as our solution to everything.

At times past I've thought we should bury every terrorist we kill in a pig farm, but now I'm undecided on that issue. It's psychological warfare material that we can use against them, but they can also use it against us. Were I in charge it would certainly be discussed, weighing the cost to benefit ratio, but it may or may not be implemented. Really there is a lot of things that I would try. Basically what it comes down to is this, the war on terror is purely psychological warfare (whether we know it or not) and it needs to be treated as such. Get your people brainstorming on different ways to get into their heads, and take each proposal and weigh the cost to benefit. If the cost to benefit isn't there don't do it, if it is embrce it whole heartedly.

[Kraken]

blah blah blah, put a megaphone to yer arse and get as much.

[Kraken]

But attacking civilians doesn't really weaken Hezbollah - instead, it creates more potential terrorists and suicide bombers. I mean, if the IDF killed members of your family, would you be a big fan of Israel? Most people would want revenge, and in their rage would likely make no distinction between soldiers, politicians, and innocent civilians.

oh dear me, not the creating more terrorists bullcrap agian.......
really; WAKE THE HELL UP EVERYONE

these guys dont care if you bomb thier mama, they hate EVERYONE WHO ISNT MUSLIM, we are not creating more terrorists: THEY ARE ALREADY THERE AND CONTINUE TO RECRUIT REGARDLESS, we do not have to engage them first or step on thier toes THEY WILL COME TO KILL YOU ANYWAY.
I dont care what freakin oped you have read in any publication! they ALREADY EXIST and they DONT GIVE A FLYING #$% WHAT ANYONE HERE OR THERE OR ON THE MOON THINKS!

BLACK WHITE BLACK WHITE BLACK WHITE

you know, a liberal would ask a terrorist, whilst he was getting his head cut off, why cant we just get along???
the terrorist, who happens to be A FREAKING MUSLIM, would then say: because you are not muslim.

so! you read that Israel bombs civilians right? well, im sure that the Mickey Mouse Missles that Hezbollah sent and killed Israeli civilians is just A-O FREAKIN K eh?
if a military target is standing in a crowd of civilians, guess what.......B O O M. go eat some manna and pray to allah cause yer arse is dead.

good grief, no matter how horrible war is, is still is freakin W A R. who gives a crap about anyones opinion! unless your the one who has went to a market and watched your brother or sister get killed by some idiot with a vest full of death or some helpless woman who is grabbed by some radical (Profanity is a sign of Maturity) of neighbor so that he hopes that his arse wont get shot up when the bullets fly, THEN HOW CAN YOU KNOW??????

pah. lets all just pass around flowers and ale and cornhole our buttholes.

[Gen. Volkov]

Both sides have a point. Yes killing civilians will create more terrorists. But Kraken is right as well, because there is a segment of the population that just hates and wishes to kill anyone who is not Muslim, and in the modern world, that hate has been focused on the United States and Israel. When Israel was first formed, before it had ever even harmed an Arab Muslim, it was invaded by no less than 5 other countries. Do you know what the US was called even before Iraq and Afghanistan? The Great Satan. I'm not saying most of the population feels this way about us, though attacking Iraq probably didn't help, and most of them have gotten used to Israel's existence. However, there is still a part of the Middle Eastern culture and population that hates both Israel and the US and wishes them harm, and will act on that desire. It will never go away, it can only be suppressed. And some countries over there not only have this segment of there population, but actively support and fund terrorist activities. Syria, Lebanon, Iraq(before we invaded), and Iran among those that do.

I do like your idea for Aghanistan though, Nuke. And thing is, there is still nothing preventing us from doing so. People will view it as belated, and there will still be Iraq, but it will show that the US is not just there to attack Middle Eastern countries. That would probably decrease the number of people who hate us. Even if only by a little bit, it would help.

[Nuclear Raunch]

This is a large part of our poblem IMO. We've always been able to use that against other enemies, and our weapons of war are a source of pride for many American's. Consequently it will be hard to shift the focus away from using that as our solution to everything.

I'm exhibit A

Just messin with ya

Seriously though, can you please tell me just how successful militarys have been in stamping out ideologies?

[Gen. Volkov]

Well communism stamped out democracy farily efficiently in several countries. Democracy managed to stamp out Communism altogether in 1989. Well except for China, but China is a special case. I haven't seen many National Socialists around lately for that matter. It's very hard to truely eradicate something, except with time, but there are several cases were military actions or military build-ups were successful in defeating another ideology.

[The Beatles]

You know, I just get this feeling the world was in less chaos when the British Empire was still around. They should have just kept subjugating the damn Middle East.

OK, I think I offended every single member to post in the thread, but hey...

[Gen. Volkov]

ROFL. I think the Americans should have taken over where the Brits left off after WW2. Just used our nuclear superiority to cow the world into submission, and then made every single country a territory of the United States, starting with the Soviet Union.

THAT offended everyone in this thread Beatles.

[The Beatles]

Even me.

Ugh, I think Europe's social fabric would disintegrate if it had to have hot-dogs stuffed down its throat every day. People would commit suicide en masse.

[Gen. Volkov]

*laughs*. Good, less frigging Europeans to whine at our imperialistic tactics. Frigging hypocrits.

[Nuclear Raunch]

Well communism stamped out democracy farily efficiently in several countries. Democracy managed to stamp out Communism altogether in 1989. Well except for China, but China is a special case. I haven't seen many National Socialists around lately for that matter. It's very hard to truely eradicate something, except with time, but there are several cases were military actions or military build-ups were successful in defeating another ideology.

Political ideologies are a bit different. In the case of a political ideology they are only noticed if it exists within the current government, it's existance in ordinary people goes unnoticed. For instance the Nazi ideology is alive and well in people today, but we think of it as being defeated because it's not in a government. There's plenty of people in democracies that feel that Communism is the better way, but we consider communism to only exist in countries with communist regimes.

If you look at non-governmental ideologies such as religion we find that despite massive efforts by military fanatics for thousands of years they're still alive and well. I simply hold the belief that if we do the same thing that has been done hundreds of times, we will probably get the exact same result as everyone else.

Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

Even me.

Ugh, I think Europe's social fabric would disintegrate if it had to have hot-dogs stuffed down its throat every day. People would commit suicide en masse.

So you're agreeing that the world would be better off if America had done so?

[The Beatles]

I am most certainly not!

I am saying something in a more limited scope with seriousness though: there would be no conflict in the Middle East (or Kashmir) if the two were still administered externally by a responsible government with a history of strict peacekeeping (never mind repression here).

[Gen. Volkov]

Well if you want to look at religion, how about Zoroastrians? Moloch worshippers? Temples to Zeus? Don't see many of those around much anymore either. Guess why? The people who practiced those religions were all conquered by people with different beliefs. The zoroastrian Persians got wiped out by Alex the Great, Moloch worship got wiped out with the Sumerian culture was annihilated by the Sea Peoples, and the Greeks got wiped out by the Romans and then the Northern barbarians. So military action can wipe out religions.

Are too, what continent conquered most of the world? Europe. What empire owned large tracts of land in Africa? The Austro-Hungarian Empire. Or are you saying you are a hypocrit, but disagree with the America rules the world idea?

And I do agree to an extent. If an outside source still ruled them all, the conflicts would be suppressed, but not eliminated completely.

[The Beatles]

What empire owned large tracts of land in Africa? The Austro-Hungarian Empire.

Heh, never knew about 'em. Thanks.

& Greeks are a special case: Rome more integrated then than wiped them out. So their religion was just renamed to the Roman religion, so what truly wiped it out was Jesus and the arrival of Christianity (its being made the state religion by Constantine, e.g.)

[Gen. Volkov]

But Christianity coexisted with Jupiter worship in the Roman Empire even after Constantine, what really wiped it out was the Christian barbarians from the north.

And your welcome. Always looking to provide info to those who lack it. *laughs*.