Unregistered

What personal experience do you have with terrorism? How many times have you seen a car blow up? How many times have you been afraid to go to certain cities? You need to wake up and come into the "real" world. Your telling someone that has dealt with these issues first hand to come to the real world. Thats laughable. You have NO clue whatso ever what terrorism is about and how it affects the people that deal with it day to day. You really have some outrages ideas on how to handle a issue that is not black and white. But I'll humor you.

Like i stated before, ETA has been going on for years in Northern Spain and Southeren France. (Im from northern spain.) The police has arrested/killed tons of ETA members etc. Guess what NOTHING has changed. Wake up dude force will not change a thing. Second, I found this statement very amusing. "All we can do to win the minds is.....go into those countries and tell them you harbor terrorists, get them out or we'll get them out for you." So now the US has the power to enter random countries at will if they think terrorist are in their mists. Great logic man that will really make us less of a target, and cause less people to hate us. Yep, just AWESOME idea. I also found this little bit intresting, "It's people who think like the way you s who give terrorism a chance to happen, if all these countries stood up to these terrorists and faught them themselves the there would be less terrorism." Yeah so Spain, France and countless other countries just let the terrorist walk all over them and have their way. Your so nieve its not even funny. They have FAUGHT these terrorist. Guess what NOTHING has changed. Let me make it pretty clear for you, everytime you take one out another will rise because you killed a friend, a brother, a father etc... And please do tell how do you tell a random individual is a terrorist? Because you do know anyone can be one.

You need to win the minds and heart of the people to win over terrorism. And terrorism is not a "war" or something that can be won. It is something that can be lessened. But sadly thats about it. See if you win the minds and hearts around them. They will no longer resent you. The terrorist might try to act but the people will not stand for it. They will no longer harbor them. Maybe I can make a better case for you this way. Your enemy knows someone else that scratched your car up. He won't tell you anything will he? Of course not he hates you. Now say that enemy was a friend. Your friend would rat him out and help you find him. You must gain the support of the people, for terrorism to go down. Their is NO other way, unless you concider taking out full nations.

BlingBlingBlue

What is the solution, then, Unregistered? I don't disagree that waging "war" against regions, countries or governments is the most effective way to deal with the problem in some circumstances, Spain, Ireland, and Iraq being examples. However, one cannot be complacent when dealing with those who inflict violence on civilians.
Certainly, some foreign policy changes would decrease the problem, but you're always going to have extremists who disagree with anything you do, particularly if you're the strongest, richest kid on the block, liket the USA. I tend to think of the situation in the same way as I think of gangs, organized crime and murders. These "terrorists" are nothing more than an organized syndicate of criminals. They get together, and plan crime. My inclination is law enforcement, both civilian and military, needs to study how civilization has dealt with organized crime in the past, to best determine how to do so now. I firmly believe that the Islamic terrorists, which hijacked the planes on September 11, 2001, had a strong desire to provoke the USA into the exactly the types of actions we have taken - specifically to wage war against Islamic nations and to incite anti-Islamic rhetoric. We should not have given them the pleasure. I believe our efforts would have been better spent hunting the cells which plan these acts.

Unregistered

You can not win. Its impossible, Terrorism is not a army. Its a form of attack. You have to win over the people of the country. And have them rebel vs the terrorist. Even then this will not cancel out terrorism, since anyone can hold a grudge and plant a bomb. Get my point? This war on terror is bull****. Its not something you can win. I don't disagree, in that taking down terrorist organizations is a bad thing. But the way he suggested in doing it is way wrong. You can't just go in at will and bully the rest of the world. We already have tons of people hating us because of how we handled Iraq. My solution, is terrorist get their support from the people around them. The ones that hate you but don't do anything about it. Yet, they don't tell on them. If we win them over through acts that show that they are being mislead, then we have a shot at lessing terrorist acts against us. That to me is a viable solution that will lessen terrorist acts on our turf. Show me another and I'll gladly concider it, since i do believe you can handle a situation more than one way.

Terrorist, to me are not "are nothing more than an organized syndicate of criminals, " because one person can just as easily be a terrorist on his own. And doesn't need a organization behind him. Timmthy McBae (how ever you spell that.) Is a prime example of this. I think you guys are only looking at one aspect of terrorism. And thats the extreem Islamic side of it. There are other groups and individuals that one can concider terrorist. So its not as simple as taking out a group. While I do agree that force is needed at times. Killing them is not the solution. Its a "quick" fix, that will not change things in the long run.

BlingBlingBlue

I see your point, and agree that you cannot stop all terrorism. But can't you say the same thing about crime? You cannot stop crime, there will always be criminals, but you have to fight against it. The real debate is about how one fights it. England, India, Pakistan and the USA all have very different ways of enforcing laws and doling out punishment, for example. There is no "correct" answer, as there will always be differing points of view and we will always be learning new technologies and ways to fight crime. The issue of international terrorism is made much more difficult because of these differing ideas. Therefore, the first step is to foster cooperation with the governments of people. If it is painfully obvious that they will not cooperate, you have no choice but to take them out, as in Afghanistan. The same argument was used for Iraq, but I disagree, as does most the world.

BTW, I spent a several days in Donostio (San Sebastion) in 1996. Those were some great days!