America Under Attack thread, part deux.

[Marak]

Don't forget that a lot of the "smart" bombs and missiles (like the ones we've been using on Iraq lately) have been, shall we say, less than accurate. I've read several reports in the newspaper about "smart" and guided weapons going astray and missing targets.
So, I don't believe air warfare is the answer, although my initial gut reaction on Tuesday was "let's go nuke 'em!".
After thinking about it more, and seeing the devolpments on CNN, et al., it just seems that going in with troops is prolly the only way to go. YES, it means Americans dead, but guess what? You sign up for military, you understand and accept the fact that you could be called into active combat and killed. There's a reason the Armed Forces throw so much money at you when they try to get you to sign up.
And did anyone hear the latest? The legit Pakistani (I believe it was Pakistani, anyway, although it may have been one of it's neighbors) government pledged the support of 15,000 ground troops if America decides to go in. I like them odds!

[Asorie]

Incidentally, Marak, revenge will not prevent this from happening again. I've got news for you. They don't have to get through our borders. They're already here. And revenge from us is only going to cause more American deaths within American borders when the hidden cells strike back.

This is going to be ugly, no matter how we do it. It's going to be a battleground not far removed from the guerilla warfare of Vietnam, only not all of the battlegrounds will be across the world from us. Some of them will be in our backyards. And we are going to war now...it's definite.

The problem with "taking out Bin Laden" is that it's not going to send the message that people maintain it will. Sure, a few terrorist groups will be on their toes for a while. But we cannot eradicate terrorism anymore than the War on Drugs eradicated drugs in the USA. It just doesn't work. So thousands more people are going to die, and in the end, we'll get our revenge on Bin Laden...but at too high a cost.

[Jewels]

Since the war is definite now, who are the Americans gonna go against? I'm still not sure. And since the war is about starting, will the Americans be going over.....to wherever they are planning to fight?

[SubmoDuck]

It's not as though this will be a "normal" war. This will be a war againstmany groups, not just Bin Ladin's.
I don't if many of you realize just how much influence Bin Ladin has on the terrorist community. Bin Ladin has not only attacked the United States, but also Great Britian, Russia, Germany, several mid-eastern countries (including Iraq for some odd reason). The man truly does not care who, just as long as someone dies. If he was so self-righteous, it would have been him in one of those planes.

-Submo Duck

[Asorie]

He's rather the Charles Manson of the terrorist world- charismatic, intelligent, and resourceful enough to be dangerous. It's men like him that start dangerous cults, kill people for fun, and completely disregard the value of life. I mean, obviously. The problem is that we could kill him- but within a couple months, another would take his place. There's no shortage of insane jihad-waging militant fundamentalist Muslims in the world.

[Marak]

It's all fine and dandy to sit and say
"This won't work"
and
"That won't work"
but
all of the people on this thread who oppose war never seem to give a viable solution to back up the "support justice" viewpoint. Do you REALLY think that Bin Laden is just going to sit there and allow the US or the Pakistani government to capture him alive so we can put him on trial and achieve justice?

[Morticia]

Uh; whoever said that Pakistan is pledging troops is on crack. Pakistan will let us in their airspace and will maybe let us go in through their border; but they aren't going to give us aid in the form of troops.

And; bin Lauden won't wait on justice. His Jyhad buddies would break him out of prision.

I hate to say it; but we are going to have to do something to break the spirit of the entire fundamentalist Muslim community; innocent or not. We are going to have to make them think that Allah has forsaken them. My idea includes taking control of the Dome of the Rock in Mecca; but I've been told it's not a good one.

Asorie is right; this war will take place against terrorist cells here in the US as well as the groups in Afghanistan. That's why everyone here needs to get a handgun and learn to shoot. (That also means learning WHEN to shoot and when to NOT shoot.)

Phoenix

[Julia]

Ehh, all i know is that what i saw on the darn tube was Israelians were throwing banquets and tossing party favors. I bet they had spent what ever money to celebrate the weakening of one of the most supreme countries.

Celebrate? ha! what good ever came out of USA's terrible loss? would those stupid israelians celebrate if all their homes and possessions were taking deleberately through force once again?

Darn Israelians are forgeting who it is that will soon eventually OWN THEM! The situation is kinda like a few games i play(Counter-Strike and Diablo 2) In Counter-Strike there's a terrorist team and Counter-terrorist team. The object is to either complete the mission objectives or wipe out the whole team.

Now, in every team there's usually an extroadinary player. But what happens if the opposing team takes out your extroadinary player? Well, i 'll tell ya, Your team is now practically crippled and the round goes to the other team.

In Diablo 2, if you mess with a higher lvl character, then your practically doomed.(sorry, i just realized how this doesn't connect)

But never the less someone just doesn't know their limitations and thats not the USA.

However, fricking Bush is just a procrasinator. He says stuff, but lately he hasn't done anything extroadinary to boost the situation up to a more pleasant and comforable to work with level.

Exaggerated Quote:" The something of the United States is being tested, but something something, We will show the world that we can pass this test."

Thats the only good thing he's done so far, say something inspirational. He should have been made as moral officer, one who watches and tries to up the level of moral in the US a few levels.

Loud mouth Bush is gonna cause more probs.

But just remember, verything i say is of MY opinion, if you got something to say about it, please phrase it in a respectable manor. I'm only denouncing Bush in my little post.

later all(please don't go around slandering me, I haven't been on lately and i personally don't appreciate Bush's actions)

[zell666]

this nis the line right here and the x is how far they have crossed it...
l
l
l








x
I am so damn pissed right now its not funny.I wish i were old enough to go over there and kick some afghan ass.Those stupid sonofabitch's otta rot in hell. :shoot:
(sorry for the extensive cusin')

[Endless]

Israelians ? Are you on crack ?
They would prolly be the last to make a party if the USA were taken down.

This has nothing in common with video games. Sorry to sound harsh, but you should really start to be aware that this is way more important than a counter-strike game.


Besides, whatever my personal opinions on Bush during normal times,
1) I'll let him do what he decides to do, because he is the President, and I am not; plus I wouldn't like to be at his place.
2) I know he won't decide alone, so, I'll wait to make comments.

[Asorie]

First of all, they're called Israelis. Secondly, it was the Palestinians who were celebrating. If you're going to criticize someone, at least get your facts straight. Also, that's treading dangerously close to racism.

I hate to say it; but we are going to have to do something to break the spirit of the entire fundamentalist Muslim community; innocent or not. We are going to have to make them think that Allah has forsaken them. My idea includes taking control of the Dome of the Rock in Mecca; but I've been told it's not a good one.

Phoenix, normally I respect everything you say, but this just about made me throw up. Especially considering that you're a fairly devout Christian. You ought to be ashamed of yourself. What if I went to burn down your church because I didn't like the attitude many Christians take against people like me? Would that be right? Even if they had hurt me, would that make me any better than them? No. So when you're ready for someone to attack your faith in your god, then you have the right to make someone else think that "Allah has forsaken them."

[Jojee]

I didn't read through this whole thread, or the one before, but just judging from this page, I feel sad that some people want to destroy the innocent people of Afghanistan… They didn't do anything, and what good will hurting them do? The Afghan people are suffering already. Did anyone see the parade of their army on TV? Their economy is down, they're poor… they didn't want this to happen. That's like saying Timothy McVeigh committed the Oklahoma City Bombing, and now all Americans encourage violence and terrorism. OK, so maybe that wasn't the best example, but Asorie is right, revenge will not help. This is an article my AP World History teacher gave me… please read it over and think about it.

---
Dear Friends,
Yesterday I heard a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage," and he asked, What else can we do? What is your suggestion?" Minutes later I heard a TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done." And I thought about these issues especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's been going on over there. So I want to share a few thoughts with anyone who will listen.

I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York.

I fervently wish to see those monsters punished. But the Taliban and Bin Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who captured Afghanistan in 1997 and have been holding the country in bondage ever since. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a master plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in concentration camps."

It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. There were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would love for someone to eliminate the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. I guarentee it.

Some say, if that's the case, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban themselves? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, damaged, and incapacitated. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan-- a country with no economy, no food.

Millions of Afghans are widows of the approximately two million men killed during the war with the Soviets. And the Taliban has been executing these women for being women and have buried some of their opponents alive in mass graves. The soil of Afghanistan is littered with land mines and almost all farms have been destroyed. The Afghan people have tried to overthrow the Taliban. They haven't been able to.

We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble with that scheme is, it's already been done. The Soviets took care of it. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? There is no infrastructure. Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.

New bombs would only land in the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. (They have already, I hear.) Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals would did this horrific thing. Actually it would be making common cause with the Taliban- by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time.

So what else can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling.

The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in therewith ground troops. I think that when people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" many of them are thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed.

They are not thinking about overcoming moral qualms about killing innocent people. But it's the belly to die not kill that's actually on the table. Americans will die in a land war to get Bin Laden. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that, folks.

To get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first.

Will other Muslim Mations just stand by? You see where I'm going. The invasion approach is a flirtation with global war between Islam and the West.

And that is Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants and why he did this thing. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there.

AT the moment, of course, "Islam" as such does not exist. There are Muslims and there are Muslim countries, but no such political entity as Islam. Bin Laden believes that if he can get a war started, he can constitute this entity and he'd be running it. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the West wreaks a holocaust in Muslim lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong about winning, in the end of the west would probably overcome- whatever that would mean in such a war; but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden, yes, but anyone else?

I don't have a solution. But I do believe that suffering and poverty are the soil in which terrorism grows. Bin Laden and his cohorts want to bait us into creating more such soil, so they and their kind can flourish. We can't let him do that.

That is my humble opinion.
Tamim Ansary
------

[-N-]

*lsol at zell666*

I have nothing new to say, because this conversation has not changed one bit. I just ledol at zell, providing much-needed smiles at this hour for me.

Yeah, and killing innocents isn't quite the way to go. And how would a covert op be worse than a missile barrage? Actually, both aren't that great, we can instead support internal revolution rather than external by supporting the anti-Taliban resistance. That's all it will take. Give them weapons and helicopters and training and let them go at it.

[Dr. Disco]

Originally posted by Jojo
I didn't read through this whole thread, or the one before, but just judging from this page, I feel sad that some people want to destroy the innocent people of Afghanistan… They didn't do anything, and what good will hurting them do? The Afghan people are suffering already. Did anyone see the parade of their army on TV? Their economy is down, they're poor… they didn't want this to happen. That's like saying Timothy McVeigh committed the Oklahoma City Bombing, and now all Americans encourage violence and terrorism. OK, so maybe that wasn't the best example, but Asorie is right, revenge will not help. This is an article my AP World History teacher gave me… please read it over and think about it.

---
Dear Friends,
Yesterday I heard a lot of talk about "bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age." Ronn Owens, on KGO Talk Radio allowed that this would mean killing innocent people, people who had nothing to do with this atrocity, but "we're at war, we have to accept collateral damage," and he asked, What else can we do? What is your suggestion?" Minutes later I heard a TV pundit discussing whether we "have the belly to do what must be done." And I thought about these issues especially hard because I am from Afghanistan, and even though I've lived here for 35 years I've never lost track of what's been going on over there. So I want to share a few thoughts with anyone who will listen.

I speak as one who hates the Taliban and Osama Bin Laden. There is no doubt in my mind that these people were responsible for the atrocity in New York.

I fervently wish to see those monsters punished. But the Taliban and Bin Laden are not Afghanistan. They're not even the government of Afghanistan. The Taliban are a cult of ignorant psychotics who captured Afghanistan in 1997 and have been holding the country in bondage ever since. Bin Laden is a political criminal with a master plan. When you think Taliban, think Nazis. When you think Bin Laden, think Hitler. And when you think "the people of Afghanistan" think "the Jews in concentration camps."

It's not only that the Afghan people had nothing to do with this atrocity. There were the first victims of the perpetrators. They would love for someone to eliminate the Taliban and clear out the rats nest of international thugs holed up in their country. I guarentee it.

Some say, if that's the case, why don't the Afghans rise up and overthrow the Taliban themselves? The answer is, they're starved, exhausted, damaged, and incapacitated. A few years ago, the United Nations estimated that there are 500,000 disabled orphans in Afghanistan-- a country with no economy, no food.

Millions of Afghans are widows of the approximately two million men killed during the war with the Soviets. And the Taliban has been executing these women for being women and have buried some of their opponents alive in mass graves. The soil of Afghanistan is littered with land mines and almost all farms have been destroyed. The Afghan people have tried to overthrow the Taliban. They haven't been able to.

We come now to the question of bombing Afghanistan back to the Stone Age. Trouble with that scheme is, it's already been done. The Soviets took care of it. Make the Afghans suffer? They're already suffering. Level their houses? Done. Turn their schools into piles of rubble? Done. Eradicate their hospitals? Done. Destroy their infrastructure? There is no infrastructure. Cut them off from medicine and health care? Too late. Someone already did all that.

New bombs would only land in the rubble of earlier bombs. Would they at least get the Taliban? Not likely. In today's Afghanistan, only the Taliban eat, only they have the means to move around. They'd slip away and hide. (They have already, I hear.) Maybe the bombs would get some of those disabled orphans, they don't move too fast, they don't even have wheelchairs. But flying over Kabul and dropping bombs wouldn't really be a strike against the criminals would did this horrific thing. Actually it would be making common cause with the Taliban- by raping once again the people they've been raping all this time.

So what else can be done, then? Let me now speak with true fear and trembling.

The only way to get Bin Laden is to go in therewith ground troops. I think that when people speak of "having the belly to do what needs to be done" many of them are thinking in terms of having the belly to kill as many as needed.

They are not thinking about overcoming moral qualms about killing innocent people. But it's the belly to die not kill that's actually on the table. Americans will die in a land war to get Bin Laden. And not just because some Americans would die fighting their way through Afghanistan to Bin Laden's hideout. It's much bigger than that, folks.

To get any troops to Afghanistan, we'd have to go through Pakistan. Would they let us? Not likely. The conquest of Pakistan would have to be first.

Will other Muslim Mations just stand by? You see where I'm going. The invasion approach is a flirtation with global war between Islam and the West.

And that is Bin Laden's program. That's exactly what he wants and why he did this thing. Read his speeches and statements. It's all right there.

AT the moment, of course, "Islam" as such does not exist. There are Muslims and there are Muslim countries, but no such political entity as Islam. Bin Laden believes that if he can get a war started, he can constitute this entity and he'd be running it. He really believes Islam would beat the west. It might seem ridiculous, but he figures if he can polarize the world into Islam and the West, he's got a billion soldiers. If the West wreaks a holocaust in Muslim lands, that's a billion people with nothing left to lose, even better from Bin Laden's point of view. He's probably wrong about winning, in the end of the west would probably overcome- whatever that would mean in such a war; but the war would last for years and millions would die, not just theirs but ours. Who has the belly for that? Bin Laden, yes, but anyone else?

I don't have a solution. But I do believe that suffering and poverty are the soil in which terrorism grows. Bin Laden and his cohorts want to bait us into creating more such soil, so they and their kind can flourish. We can't let him do that.

That is my humble opinion.
Tamim Ansary
------

That's fantastic. This needs to be a circulating e-mail...

[-N-]

So do many things that never do. My essay for example. *gripes at the editor who didn't publish it in the Union-Tribune*