I knew where the comment came from and have always found it to be backwards thinking. Also, I don't know anyone in their right mind that does not think we have fueled recruitment numbers of jihadists with our efforts to remove Saddam and establish a new govt..

Bottom line, Islamic extremists will bomb the US whether we attack them or not. With that said, we have two choices: (1)Play defense or (2)engage only when we know it will work for the better. This last one can be tricky.

__________________
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
Dr. Samuel Johnson

NOYN- IMO I think the military attack on rebels and Al Quaeda was certainly justified in Afghanistan. I do see it has gone to shame because we tore the country up, did not complete our mission and send a strong message to our attackers. We took our focus off the mission and did not show those who attacked us our intellect, strength and the peaceful Afghan people Americas abilty to lend support in building a free society . We forgot our purpose and chased a dream of greed and have now placed ourselves in a increasingly vulnerable place.

Yes but in our efforts to squelch terror we do not want to recruit and train faster then we can kill. That is not what America stands for- how to pick up the pieces and regain strength and return to having the the moral high ground is the million dollar question.

What was your mission? What the hell were you trying to accomplish with B-52 strikes against the goverments forces? You simply uprooted a goverment in nation that has had coup and rebellion for decades. How is it you think you can implant a goverment after its failed so many times in the past? And in nations that will despice you even when you drop food on them?

As far as message to your supposed atackers:

A your not all that sure who they are The CIA can name names and chase these individuals with Figher Bombers but the reality of the situaion shows that these is a very losse federation of every small gang of loonies that has a beef with the US and over there...that can be pretty much anybody and everybody. Look at it like this. Your a cop in South Central LA so your at war with every gang in the "hood" they hate each other they get new recruits they kill each other and they only time they stop is to turn and shoot at you and your badge. Arresting one Lieutenant in one gang and chasing the nezt wont stop doodly. even the non gangers hate you even if they hate the gangers. And simply cause you have that badge when you screw up they blame you when the gangers get them they balme you too. You arent going to win. You cant ever change it.

B they are not intimidated by anything. You wont scare them off with a billion tons of High explosives. Theres really nothinig you can do to earn even your suposed allies respect in most cases. These message to attackers thing is way to Bush to be a stance I can take seriously. They dont want the American idea of society. Trying to tell them your helping them wont change there minds. The whole thing is a total waste of life.

Sam Sam Sam.....I am shocked. Somebody gave you one of those pills from that stupid sci fi movie...the red one?...blue one?...whatever. that movie sucked anyway. Keanu reeves is only convincing on a Surf Board with the pinky out and the thumb up. KNARLY DUDE!!....oh yeah...... the point, sorry

Moral High Ground?!?!?!

Here again Sam, perhaps things can be done to convince you that you have retaken the moral high ground but theres nothing you could ever do to convience people who have grown up dislike if not flat out hating you, that you are moral people. You sure as hell wont do it with Gun Barrels. Hell you cant do it with dropping food.

The only way to achieve all of these goals is to never engage the enemy outside of our country. And when we achieve that feat, we will still have Islamic Extremists blowing up our nation. There really is not much of a question at all.

__________________
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
Dr. Samuel Johnson

If your incapable of policing your own nation then perhaps its time you go to the UN for help with that. Seeing you dont give a shit about freedom a UN force can augment your pathetic NAtional Guard and lock down this country and make it look nice and safe like...the USSR.

This whole concept of blame the Bush family for Muslim terrorism instead of the ones who are really responsible (the jihadists) is about as asinine as anything can get. Those of you arguing this stupid point don’t have a clue when this all started, why it started, or the real reasons why it has increased. And you refuse to pull your heads out and stop pushing political garbage long enough to find out. But the fact is, it will continue and get worse until it is finally ended once and for all. Of course we won't be the ones to do it because there aren't enough people left in the U.S. with their eyes open who have the backbone to see it done.

__________________

EF-my point in exposing the fallacy of this Bush oneliner I chose for my title is this- If we have a number of terrorists in the world post 9/11 . Pick whatever number makes you happy (various military analysts put that pre Iraq invasion estimated range from 6,000- 26,000). We have an attack by Al Quaeda whose base for this training and planning is in Afghanistan. They have chosen that country because of the geography, location, lack of infrastructure, poverty, lack of freedom etc. We wage an attack -not on Afghanistan , but on the group we believe attacked us. Our efforts are supposed to include sqelching al Quaeda, hunting OBL, improving infrastructure and toppling the Taliban in order to change conditions so terrorists cells cannot flourish and give the Afghanistan people a chance.

In the midst of this military endeavor we suddenly attack a nation led by a dictator who is not a threat. It is a secular nation and regardless of the dictators misdeeds they are not allies with terrorists networks. The aging greedy dicatator wants the control. We invade this country and the ordinary citizens (millions) have casulties/economic woes/ lack of basic necessities, violence and death. In addition we open borders and create the conditions that terrorists groups can infiltrate the country. We expose secular working people to a devastating humanitarian crisis, put them in contact with gangs and terror networks and mix it all up for 4 years. We fuel many who would never have considered becoming a terrorist by this seige and exposure. An entire generation who has watched bloodshed of their children, fathers and brothers is exposed to this. So now we have created a scenario that fuels recruitment and increases the terrorists by 4 by 6 by 9 who knows? Is this really just fighting them over there?

Do the math- increasing their numbers is not making us safer or as SIMPLE as GWB would like it to appear. We are not just taking the same number of enemies and using Iraqs geographical location for the battle. Besides the Iraqis not being real happy with our "liberation" we could influence some of them in the most negative of ways. This is an issue- not just about our national security. Despite the valiant efforts of most of our troops and our citizens and billions of dollars this misleading of our nation into this distraction from terror just as we began to make progress in Afghanistan is not so simple minded as we are simply changing the geographical location of a battle of a set number of enemies.

Yes Islamic extremists will always want to kill us. so why set up a foreign policy and invasion that radicalizies secular and ordinary people ?

GWB assuming Americans would be so dim witted to swallow this simplistic line that we have simply moved our set number of enemies to a far away geographical location is an insult to Americans and a costly one -both in terms of our military defense/our money/our safety and our future.It is a catastrophic foreign policy that no one has a solution on how to undo this humanitarian crisis and security threat we have created .

I agree with most of what you've said, but squelching terrorism means killing terrorists. The same terrorists hide amongst civilians in churches and schools. You can go on and on about the tragedy of war and the negative influence our occupation has on could be recruits, but the dilemma remains. You kill 30 terrorists and 3 civilians and the extensive familiy of the 3 dead civilians will now become +100 could be recruits.

__________________
He who makes a beast of himself gets rid of the pain of being a man.
Dr. Samuel Johnson