How can we fight terrorism?

[ck4829]

We can battle Al Qaeda and other groups in ways that the GOP can not. Obviously, the American People aren't afraid that a Democratic victory would get us hit again, the spin did not work.

Here's what I think we could do:

We could take the fight back to Osama

We, as activists not Democrats, could voice our opinions against those RW'ers who try to rile up the Muslim world with their outrageous statements

Propose that Democrats help the US introduce social and economic equality to troubled regions around the world

Any other suggestions?

[lcordero2]

1. I don't have an answer, but I have THE ANSWER

creating a world economy that benefits everyone rather than benefitting a very scant few

[Xenotime]

5. World economy where everyone gets an equal share.

[shance]

2. Quit robbing people and countries of their natural resources, stop killing

their residents, stop dropping bombs, explosives, depleted uranium.

You know, little things like that.

You seem to not understand that it is those in power who benefit from terrorism. They manufacture the ingredients which create terrorism.

The "terrorists" are bought and paid for by the ultra rich who make profits off of death and destruction of innocent people.

[porphyrian]

3. A good start would be to stop creating it. - n/t

[bryant69]

4. Those seem smart

Move towards rebuilding a real coalition to fight terrorism - rather than fearing and belittling diplomacy, use it, as a valuable tool in our foreign policy box.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[ACK]

6. Build a real coalition of countries to fight state-less terrorism and their organizations

Listen they are a threat to everyone.

The Saudis and the Egyptians and Pakistan and I think Indonesia too have all been hit by terrorist attacks.

Along with our Western allies we put together an international taskforce focused on rooting out terrorist groups.

At the same time the west has to reach out to the islamic world with real economic programs designed to directly impact the lives of the common people in those same countries. Yes, kind of like an Islamic Marshall plan building bridges with the Islamic world by reaching out to the Islamic communities in our very midst.

Instead of reaching out with suspicion bring embrace the majority of muslims in our own country and throughout the western world and use that contact in order to fashion aid programs that cannot be stolen or re-directed but go directly to the people.

Last but certainly not least we have to bring in Syria and Iran and us and the Palestanians and the Israelis all at the table at the same time at come up with some plan for statehood for the Palestanians.

Until the people of Palestine have their own state the root of the issues will never go away. We have to engage.

[gorfle]

7. Quit pouring money into a bottomless pit

There is only one way to win a military conflict. You must break the enemy's will to wage war.

There are two ways this could be done. The first is through military force. Unfortunately, this is no longer possible, for two reasons. First, not many military forces in the world can go toe-to-toe with the United States - certainly not the muslim insurgents. Consequently, they have learned that the safest thing for them to do is melt into the civilian population. Our fear of inflicting civilian casualties showing up on CNN guarantees there will never be large indiscriminate bombings like Dresden or Hiroshima ever again - no politician could withstand the aftermath being shown on CNN.

So military options are out. Consequently, our "war" has turned into a giant police action. This is bad for two reasons. Not only is it doomed to fail militarily (see above), but rather than reducing the enemy's will to fight, their presence incites the enemy's will to fight. Further, it is incredibly costly, both in terms of dollars and lives.

This is why I voted Democratic this time around - the military will not be brought to bear to militarily break the enemy's will to fight, consequently it is quite obvious that this will simply drag out into an endless money and life pit. If government is going to spend trillions of dollars, I'd rather spend it on Americans. I've never been a welfare proponent, but I'd rather spend $340 Billion on dependant crack-whores before dumping it into a third-world shithole like Iraq.

The second way to end this conflict is, as has been mentioned, to build up their civilization. The idea is that by making them "civilized like us" they might become more interested in 9-5 jobs, mortgages, car payments, college tuitions, and dinners out at McDonalds rather than bombs. Frankly, I am not interested in spending money on this, either, and further, I'm becomming fairly convinced that it is a waste of time to try and "give" civilized government to uncivilized, religiously-driven societies. I'm not interested in trying to spread "equality" to the rest of the world. If the rest of the world wants equality, it is theirs to achieve on their nickle.

I want to pull out of Iraq, and quit spending money on them _at_all_. If they become a military threat to us then we should _bomb_them_, not spend money building a society for them. I voted against the Republicans because they are blowing billions (and scheduled trillions) of Americans' money on another nation as part of a blank-check power grab, and I figure the Democrats will spend just as heartily but at least we will get social programs that will benefit Americans here in America.

If the Democrats plan for Iraq is to continue to spend billions on them, I'm not interested, and I suspect most Americans aren't. We want OUT of Iraq, and that means our wallets, too.

[radwriter0555]

8. Name the terrorists that you fear, and tell us where you think they are...

then, you can think about solutions.

[mmonk]

9. By giving up on current foreign policy and concentrating on it

rather than trying to redefine current foreign policy as fighting terrorism.