Here's a look at why the "War on Terror" is stupid....

Asherman wrote:

So does that mean you favor a return to the sort of national security levels that predated 9/11? Surely you don't believe that the U.S. should disavow any leadership role and almost totally withdraw to within our borders.

The WTC attack succeeded only through a combination of extreme clumsiness on the behalf of our law enforcement and extreme luck on the attackers side.

We are safer today not because of the assinine behavior of the TSA, but because the everyday civilian passengers would not tolerate having their plane hijacked.

Asherman wrote:

Ah, Peace at any price. By negotiating with the Iranian Mullahs will you really purchase "Peace in our Time". Talk about slow learners.

Sure would be nice for you if I had said something even remotely approaching that... Rolling Eyes

The War on Terror, while making a good catch-phrase, is simply a way to waste resources. Can we also have a War on Anger or a War on Stage Fright?

A War on Stupidity would be nice, but we'd have to eliminate a startling number of people....

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Sorry, working.

Presumably, the answer is yes. There certainly do seem to be leaders of Muslims which we don't consider 'terrorists' or fundamentalists, but who show great influence upon Muslim society, such as Allawi, the Saud family, the UAE, and Karzai; I'm sure someone with a greater knowledge of the region could come up with many others.

The key is to infect them with the same sort of 'mind-virus,' or meme, as the terrorists have; but instead of one of destruction, it must be a message of freedom. The crux of the issue is figuring out what the most effective way to do this is. Our arguments must be persuasive, and importantly, our actions must match the moral standards that we claim to uphold if we wish to truly change people's opinions.

More later, gotta go

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Sorry, working.

Presumably, the answer is yes. There certainly do seem to be leaders of Muslims which we don't consider 'terrorists' or fundamentalists, but who show great influence upon Muslim society, such as Allawi, the Saud family, the UAE, and Karzai; I'm sure someone with a greater knowledge of the region could come up with many others.

The key is to infect them with the same sort of 'mind-virus,' or meme, as the terrorists have; but instead of one of destruction, it must be a message of freedom. The crux of the issue is figuring out what the most effective way to do this is. Our arguments must be persuasive, and importantly, our actions must match the moral standards that we claim to uphold if we wish to truly change people's opinions.

More later, gotta go

Cycloptichorn

Well that's a nice presumption and I have another(although not nice)...those 'leaders' start interfering with jihad and get blown to smithereens until they go along to get along....thst's how they operate whether you are Muslim or not evidently.

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Really? It seems to me that you are asserting that it is impossible to try to negotiate with anyone who is Islaamic. Upon what evidence do you base this assertion?

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Really? It seems to me that you are asserting that it is impossible to try to negotiate with anyone who is Islaamic. Upon what evidence do you base this assertion?

Cycloptichorn

No...I'm saying it's unlikely effective negotiation can occur with the root problem, extremist. Just because an influential Muslim leader is Muslim don't mean your theory would work, Muslims have been killing each other for centuries, some clearly have a different agenda to others.

The extremist believe they are the true Muslims, why would they listen to a friendlier-to-the-west view per se?

They have more incentive to leave the extremist be to save their own skin IMO.

Who is going to convince these leaders to take that risk and how?

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Sure, but in essence what we are going to attempt to do is to shift the battle from Muslims v. The West, to Muslims v. Extremist Muslims.

Right now, we are by our offensive military actions driving the moderate Muslims further towards the extreme Muslims; we need to be doing the opposite, and through negotiation bring them closer to us and farther from the extremists. We do this by convincing the leaders, and their populations, that freedom (even a Muslim version of freedom) is better than Terror.

Who is going to do this? Not the Bush team, that's for damn sure. They couldn't negotiate their way out of a paper sack.

The solution sure isn't to turn to extremism ourselves, as some on this board continually advocate.

Cycloptichorn

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Quote:

Sure, but in essence what we are going to attempt to do is to shift the battle from Muslims v. The West, to Muslims v. Extremist Muslims.

Wouldn't that require changing the core belief in their religion?

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Which one would that be?

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Which one would that be?

Cycloptichorn

The one the extremist most cling to...the infidel one.

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You need to be more specific. Which 'infidel' one?

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Sure, but in essence what we are going to attempt to do is to shift the battle from Muslims v. The West, to Muslims v. Extremist Muslims.

Right now, we are by our offensive military actions driving the moderate Muslims further towards the extreme Muslims; we need to be doing the opposite, and through negotiation bring them closer to us and farther from the extremists. We do this by convincing the leaders, and their populations, that freedom (even a Muslim version of freedom) is better than Terror.

Who is going to do this? Not the Bush team, that's for damn sure. They couldn't negotiate their way out of a paper sack.

The solution sure isn't to turn to extremism ourselves, as some on this board continually advocate.

Cycloptichorn

So this is what they mean by moderate voices

Quote:

When you examine closely Bari's latest outburst, it is nothing short of monstrous. What he is saying is that every Muslim in this country is a potential terrorist.

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Here's a look at why the "War on Terror" is stupid....

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