Is the "war on terror" out of touch with reality ?

[kentuck]

Yes, we lost almost 3000 lives. Yes, the brain of our military industrial complex, the Pentagon, was attacked with a plane. The planes were captured with box cutters. They were not captured with an atomic bomb. Neither were they captured with an army.

So are we not responding in the proper way proportionate to the attack? I think not. I think we have gone insane. We have gone insane because we are following the insane orders of an insane leader. And I say "we" to mean our country generally speaking.

And where does the insanity end? If not at the end of our fears? The insanity must be stopped if we are to save our country and much of humanity. Because we will will see just what we envision in our maddest dreams.

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. Everything the BFEE does is

http://timeforachange.bluelemur.com/

[Forkboy]

2. The madness will never end until people realize we will never be secure

[Dr Ron]

3. It's not that we will never be secure

The problem is that Bush's policies are making us less secure. We will never be secure if we (as a country) continue to make the wrong choices.

[Forkboy]

4. We can be MORE secure

We can never be totally secure,which seems to be what the Repubs are thinking is possible.

[kentuck]

5. Should we be fighting the "war on terror" at all ?

Have we been been brainwashed into the "crowd think" of the folks at the Pentagon and the White House ? Or is this a legitimate struggle?

[XemaSab]

7. I for one

Haven't been brainwashed.

Ireland, Israel, and countless other countries have fought "wars on terror" with no success, and I think the lesson from those countries is that it doesn't matter how much you crack down on civil liberties, if the terrorists want to, they'll get us.

We should certainly wage a war of ideas with militant Islam (while recognizing that moderate and liberal Muslims are potential strong allies). This war of ideas must consist of a vision of freedom and opportunity, but we can't attack their hateful agenda now because we have a hateful agenda of our own. But attacking them with weapons is like cutting a head off and having 8 more spring back.

[RafterMan]

9. I wonder

Why should we fight a war of ideas with the jihadis? What is the objective?

[tx_dem41]

11. Why? To sway the recruiting base. n/t

[RafterMan]

12. But...

Our middle east policies are hated, not misunderstood. I know of no "ideas" we have that would make them less hated.

And as I support both energy independence and cutting aid to Israel, I don't see that they're asking for anything I wouldn't gladly give up.

[tx_dem41]

13. Ummmm....I meant to sway them by....

....changing our middle east policies. Energy independence to the level that we don't have ties to the Middle East is very very far down the road, in the best of cases (which doesn't mean we shouldn't be striving for it).

[RafterMan]

14. Okay

I guess my interpretation was that actually changing policies was not a part of any "war of ideas", which usually seems to include different schoolbooks and a satellite channel.

But two points on energy independence -- first, it's not that far away if we're willing to pay for it, second, meaningfully changing our policies in the gulf would put those supplies gravely at risk no matter how long it took.

[tx_dem41]

15. Expand on the energy independence comments, please.

And to me "changing policies" IS waging a "war of ideas".

[RafterMan]

16. Expansion on energy independence

First, suppose it was very, very far away. If we changed policy by withdrawing support for the Saudis, that would open them to trouble from Iraq (I'm assuming both of our plans did not include the invasion) and to revolution (how many 9/11s could they withstand, without any US backing? The royals would run quick, I think). So the policy is there to support the cheap oil -- change the policy and the cheap oil may well change, ready or not.

As for a quicker transition, remember that Kerry wanted to spend $4 billion to transition help the auto industry to hybrids. Now say the price of the Iraq war -- direct and, via higher gas prices, indirect -- comes to about $300 billion. Spend not $4 billion but $100 billion transitioning (and even some converting) to 50 mpg diesel hybrids. This is entirely possible using today's technology. Spend the other $200 billion (plus another $100-$200 billion) implementing an aggressive biological program, like this one: http://www.unh.edu/p2/biodiesel/article_alge.html and mix it into the fuel stocks as production comes on line.

That site predicts a 50%+ savings in the cost of fuel under such a program, but does not take into account the increased prices that have resulted from the current strategy. So even if they're off by a factor of four or so, we're still breaking even less a couple hundred billion in capital costs. 10 years/$1 trillion seems like a wildly worst case, with our exposure to the risk of Saudi collapse decreasing every year.

And back on the war of ideas, I wish that's what other people who use that phrase meant. But as you say below, it requires too much introspection.

[XemaSab]

18. By "war of ideas"

I mean a legitimate, not-hypocritical support for freedom and democracy in that area.

So far, we've had an illegitimate, hypocritical support for dictators. Also, the people there think we're using them for oil, which is perfectly true.

But militant Islam is inherently anti-democratic and intolerant.

Now that I'm expanding on my idea, maybe we should stay the hell out and let Sweden fight the "war of ideas" instead. :-)

[RafterMan]

19. Heh

I hear ya, and it's not an ignoble thought. I agree that militant Islam is inherently anti-democratic and intolerant. It's also true that if any one of these Arab despotisms switched to democracy, muslim fundamentalist parties would likely win in a landslide. So "freedom and democracy" might be incompatible in the near term.

I say let them slide. Theocracy in Iran has proven to be a far more compelling argument for secular democracy amongst Iranians than anything the US has done, and I suspect it would be the same story in Egypt and possibly even Saudi Arabia. If people come to hate Islamic rule it works to our advantage and if they love it, well, good on them. In the end, it comes down to the muslims fighting the war of ideas amongst themselves.

[tx_dem41]

10. It depends on what you mean by the "war on terror"

Should we be "attacking" the root cause of terrorism? Of course, but that will require much introspection, which the country sees as weak.

Now, do we also need to be countering (militarily) Al Qaeda in parallel? I believe so. Of course, we don't seem to be doing that.

[BlueManDude]

6. I don't support the "war on terror"

it is a meaningless phrase designed to mask our lack of a rational, effective middle east policy.

[kentuck]

8. Why does everyone just go along.....?

Wellll...OK....I guess we need to fight and die for Bush's war on terror.....after all, they did attack us.....(whiny voice)

[AG78]

17. In a way

But then it depends on who's reality.

"So are we not responding in the proper way proportionate to the attack? I think not."

Hey, America is special. We're God's chosen country. That's why it took almost 1800 years after Jesus showed up to find it and call it by it's rightful name. It doesn't matter how many people we kill.

"I think we have gone insane. We have gone insane because we are following the insane orders of an insane leader. And I say "we" to mean our country generally speaking."

I feel insane. But it's not insanity. It was a geopolitical/geostrategic plan that was already thought of and just needed a key to open the door. That's what empire's do. That's what centers of power do. That's all human history is. One center of power starts to gain strength, and eventually it wants to expand it's power. They'll hit another center of power trying to do the same thing, then we get war. One wins, and continues to expand, until it hits another center of power. And it goes on and on.

I guess you could call it insanity, because it never ends. Sadly, it just seems to be what we do as a species.

[Leilani]

20. Terrorism is a tactic, not a country, not an army,

& it's pretty hard to wage war against a tactic.

This administration will NOT say it, but they are at war against Militant Islam.

And the way they are dealing with the situation is turning more & more moderate Muslims into militants, therefore, compounding the problem.