Your Mother was Right!!!!!

all of this (the cries to "bring the troops home") is they (Taliban/AlQueda) won't stop. They have been bringing it to the other countries. Case in point are the ones that Canada stopped and arrested a couple of months ago, the attempt to bomb the planes from Britan last month, the WTC here, all the other bombings and killings that have been done in our countries (underline ies). And, this bull hockey about it's payback for us being there in the first place is nothing but bull hockey. They finally spelled it out this week in wanting to conquer the world and kill all the Christians.

It is truly a shame and disgusting that those Canadians were killed while trying to make things better, specifically for children. But, at this point I don't think it has anything to do with us fighting them in Iraq. It has everything to do with them (the taliban and al-queda) wanting to kill us just because we're not one of them. They have been killing each other for thousands of years just because they are a different sect of muslim/arab/iranian, etc. They look the same, they have the same blood for crying out loud.

Edited to add: No, this is not a racial slur towards Muslims. They don't all look the same. However, most Arabs have similar features the same as most other countries have similar features.

We would not bomb our own children just to kill some enemy soldiers.

You give animals like that too much credit.

It is times like this I hope the Christians have it right about it being a straight ticket to hell if you commit suicide. Killing the children at the same time should just let you cut in line.

And then people wonder why the wrong person could at some time be shot like the car that ran the road block about a year ago. Yeah, that was a surprise.

The West will lose the "clash of civilizations" because of people like you Jaqui.

You have become so reasonable and so tolerant that you can see the world from the point of view of the people who are trying to kill you, your countrymen and your way of life.

From your comments one can infer that you see a moral equivalence between their world-view and that of western civilization. Is that true? If so then it follows that they have every right to kill us and we are just as evil as they if we resist.

I suspect that the Jihadis do not share your refined sensibilities when it comes to having empathy for those in the West. After all, they have openly declared that they wish to obliterate Western civilization and replace it with Islam and Sharia.

Due to people like you Jaqui, it seems likely that the West will not take effective action to resist until it is too late.

We may be living in the last years of Western hegemony. Enjoy it while it lasts. I suspect Sharia law will not be nearly so pleasant.

Regards,
Bill

"Very few established institutions, governments and constitutions ... are ever destroyed by their enemies until they have been corrupted and weakened by their friends." -Walter Lippman, journalist (1889-1974)

the only person that saw the humour in the headline besides me so far.

:D

then I misread your post.

but I stand by what I posted myself :D
I can see people from either of our countries doing exactly the same thing if we had been invaded.

and as I pointed out to jd, people like Timothy Mcveigh would be doing it even if the majority wouldn't.
with 300 million people [ roughly ] in the US, even 1% of them is 1 million suicide bombers / terrorists / geurilla freedom fighters.
[ which depends on how you want to define them, so viewpoint of the person making the commentary for the news services ]

bringing the incident up front, not judging our involvement.

like I posted to OG,
I can see lots of historical precedents for the bomber's actions, in every geurilla war ever fought.

since a terrorist war on home ground is a geurilla war there is plenty of historical evidence to show what types of attacks to look out for.

the best known geurilla war, vietnam, has lots of such evidence, that was well broadcast during the war.

are we going to remember the lessons taught there?
to beat the geurilla / terrorist you have to use the same brutality against them as they use against you.

is the world ready to commit atrocities to stop terrorism?

saw himself as a patriot, fighting to protect his country against the opressor.
he may have been wrong in that, but he would have been out there fighting an invading military force faster than he was able to get the bombing organised, he was in the US military once, he would have hit the field, gun in hand, and started shooting. which he was trained to do in defence of the country. it was left alone, with no clear enemy that sent him over the deep end.

dead dog but it was brought to us first. You are absolutely correct that we should have targeted the specific terrorist groups but what's happened has happened. And I also agree that the terrorist have to be killed as fast as possible.

I lived through the dread and fear of nuclear war back in the 50's and 60's with Russia. This new war may be the end of humanity. Well, what can I say?

I make you wrong there, Jaqui. I don't at all see a buy in to the War on Terror as it is being founght by GWB. He had some limited approval for Afghanistan but even those countries who followed him into Iraq did so against the wishes of the majority of their population.

I agree with you totally that to declare "war" on al Qaeda after 911 was understandable but to extend and enlarge the scope to include Hezbollah and Hamas as "the enemy" demonstrated the double standards of the Bush Administration in that any and all Muslim groups only are targeted.

I see no mention of the Tamil Tigers - who have had more suicide bombers than all ME terrorist groups added together. I see no action agsinst rogue states such as Zimbabwe or North Koreas. The focus is purely against Islam and seems to be entirely for the benefit of Israel.

"Righto lads, one more big push will send the huns running" as went many similar quotes in WWI. the simple fact that kept that war going for 4 years is that no-one innovated no-one changed tactics.

Vietnam - Tried to fight a european campaign in the jungles of indo-china. I'm sure I'm not the only one who can spot the problem with that strategy.

And so we have similar problems in the Mid-East, leaders are still fighting Vietnam, and thats a stretch I'd say most generals were still fighting WWII in the Mid-East. The problem we have with this war is that (first we were dumb enough to call it a war) there is no innovation.

This is why I completely disagree with OG and Jaqui. Yes terrorists are brutal and indiscriminate, this is not the point we are debating. What we are debating is what will we do about (aboot for jaqui) this. We cant defeat them by being them. To fight an enemy with their own tactics would be to become the enemy. That is a bitter pill I cant swallow.

So I hear you ask, how do we fight them. well don't think fight in the classical sense. Every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Their actions are very powerful whist using few resources. Our actions need to be similar but opposite. So a fight as we would consider it is a poor reaction. We need to develop new tactics and weapons (once again don't think of "weapon" in the classical or shoot and kill sense).

To strike at them without the need for armies would be the the holy grail and ultimately needs to be our response to an enemy that has no regard for its own life. for now I can think of a few things.

UCAV's (Unmanned Combat Arial Vehicles), no pilots to shoot down, is reusable, remotely operated, cheap.

Non Lethal, Like the "Microwave Tank" the US is developing. What better way to stop an enemy that wished to die that to keep him alive. BTW the "microwave tank" uses low power microwave radiation to cause pain without physical injury around a radius to the emitter.

Infiltration and assassination, Leaders only quietly and covertly. Make the safest al-quedia members sh!t their pants at morning prayer.

These are still "classical" strategies but if some of the brightest would put their heads together then we can come up with something brilliant. BTW I don't consider anyone in the US or AU govt to be "Intelligent" let alone "Brilliant", in fact most would fail to meet the minimum qualifications for "Mildly Retarded".

Yes, they are exactly what we need. But I don?t agree with this one its too uncontrollable even for war.

Terrorise the terrorists? For every attack we destroy 1 city block in downtown Tehran, Damascus or other non terrorist aligned city with a cruse missile or stealth bomber.

I have considered that one myself, an impersonal approach, cheap and very effective. The caveat is that we can?t say with any degree of even close to certainty that it will be a favourable effect. It could just help galvanise them against us. Fear has unpredictable effects on people. Heck ObL (bin-Laden) thought the fall of the WTC would break the US not unite it.

Don?t get me wrong Nick, I applaud you for some independent and outside the box thinking but I don?t think this one will work but by all means keep pitching new ideas, we need them.