The Iraq War: Pretty much the opposite of a war on terror

I'm perfectly fine with a war on terror. But this war can't be fought the way we're fighting it. We have neglected terrorists in dozens of other countries over the last four years because we've been bogged down and unable to even think about anything other than Iraq.

We're losing Afghanistan. We're losing Iraq. And we've done nothing to monitor or eliminate cells elsewhere.

Does this really make sense to you?

The only way to fight terrorism is exactly the way we did it in Afghanistan. Pick out the targets, bomb the hell out of them and get rid of the atrocious government bodies that create a haven for the terrorists.

We've wasted thousands of lives and billions of dollars to create another terrorist haven. It was stupid and misguided from the start. And I'll tell you, I truly believe I would feel the same way no matter who was running this country.

We've got to get people in charge who understand that the scorched earth approach here isn't going to work. I'll say it again, the only way to win this war is through intelligence. Imagine what the billions we've spent on Iraq could've done had it gone to our intelligence agencies instead. We uncover the cells and training camps and destroy them when we can and we stop attacks before they happen. We do everything we can to secure our borders and monitor the people entering and leaving this country. That's the only way.

 

Yeah, you'd think after the success of its predecessor, "The War on Drugs", they might have rebranded this sucker.

I always thought "Fredo's Big Adventure" had a nice ring to it.

 

If myself or any other Tom, Dick or Mohammad decided to strap a bomb to ourselves, walk into Grand Central Station and kill 500 people . . . there is nothing this administration could do to stop me.

Not today. Not tomorrow. Not ever. No matter how long you "fight the war on terror as it needs to be fought."

 

So your plan is to give up and doing nothing until after we're attacked. Thanks for sharing.

 

Not a bad suggestion Fenian. Book got a good review from Publishers Weekly:

From Publishers Weekly
Richardson, executive dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, set out to write a single-volume, nonpartisan explanation of "terrorism in all its complexity." Her reach, however, exceeds her grasp in an evaluation that leans more on theory than practice and is unrelenting in its attack on current policy. In fact, she's certain that the war on terrorism cannot be won and advises that we limit ourselves to "containing the threat." Richardson (When Allies Differ) follows two converging threads: Part I seeks to demystify terrorism; Part II outlines a proper response to the terrorist threat. There is much valuable information, but Richardson is too quick to dismiss or oversimplify issues: "there is no single cause of terrorism"; "efforts to produce a terrorist profile have invariably failed"; and trying to isolate economic causes is "complicated." The author insists that "terrorists are human beings who think like we do," but then dismisses Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh as "a deranged extremist." In Part II, Richardson dissects U.S. policy since 9/11 and judges it a disaster. The litany of failures is familiar if one-sided: the terrorist threat has been exaggerated, allies alienated, "liberal democratic values" abandoned. Still, Richardson's policy prescriptions, which mirror her criticisms of current policy, deserve a hearing.

 

No. As usual, you add 2+2 and get 456.4348

Just because we believe the war on terror should be (and should have been) fought differently, that doesn't mean "doing nothing."

It means . . .

protecting own borders > iraq

intelligence > military might

cooperation between allies > beligerent unilateralism

talking to our enemies > ignoring our enemies --- or worse, lumping them all into an "Axis of Evil" soundbite

Geneva Conventions > torture

admitting mistakes and adjusting > "staying the course"

And that's just for starters.

You might want to consider something else . . . the "Allies of Evil."

The greatest terror threat to America will come from terrorists who are funded by Saudi Arabia, trained in Pakistan and basically living in Great Britain.

You tell me how Iraq fits into this.

 

Well, seeing as the left tells me that Iraq is now teeming with terrorists, I'd say it fits in quite nicely. Unless you want to do another leftie bait and switch and say there are no terrorists in Iraq now.

 

Heard her on a local NPR talker today. Irishwoman, so I'm predisposed to like her, but very, very sharp, and encylopedic on every terrorist group in the last 100 years. She talked about the Shining Path guys in Peru. First of all, I had no idea that 60,000 people died in the war to put down that group. It was only until after the Peruvian government gave up sending the army into the boonies that they broke the thing. They set up a 70-person unit within the police to learn everything they could about the SP. Turns out that the group was vulnerable in that it was too dependent upon its charismatic leader, an academic named Guzman, who also happened to have a rare skin disease. So this unit pulled every prescription for the medicine for this condition and ran the guy and his whole braintrust to ground. The group dissolved.
She tells it a lot better than I do.

 

Idiot! There is just no other word for you.

 

Good one babe, insult him but do not try to prove what he said was wrong. Instead of personal attacks, why don't you try to bring some facts to the table. Oh, thats right you don't have anything to prove your side of the story.

 

I wouldn't even know where to start. And it's not my "side" of the story I need to prove. It's plain and simple facts that you, nor him seem to want to believe.

 

Since I have no idea what "simple facts" you are talking about maybe you can enlighten me. I am pretty sure that if we are fighting terrorists in Iraq then it is part of the war on terror. How can you not be fighting terrorism if you are capturing, killing and removing terrorist from Iraq.