The War on Terrorism

[Guest]

This whole War on Terrorism thing has me a bit concerned. Which is a bit surprizing because I have had a lot of faith in President Bush way before 9/11. This cannot be another "War on Drugs" or "War on Poverty." When they say it will be a different kind of war, meaning that we will not be fighting countries and armies, I worry that it will be all to much like the kind of "Wars On...".
Consider the enemy. I think for the most part they have acheived an objective and can be satisfied to not do anything for quite a while. The enemy gains no benefit from a direct confrontation or sustained assalt. I was not one of those wondering "what would come next" because I didn't think "they" would be capable of a next. Plus a next is not in there best intrest unless it was within the same day. I don't think they will ever try the planebomb again because if they are smart they know that they'll never get away with it ever again. Yet as a country we are hystarically putting in place all kinds of meaningless measures to make ourselves feel safe.
Terrorists truly are cowards, hit then hide. Of coarse the good news in that is that the suicide bombers cannot hide anymore. They will find their enemy was not only us but the Maker of the Universe who's name they professed and profained. Personally, I believe Saddam Hussain was probably the person most responsible for this atrocity. Which gets to my "War on..." point. I truly believe that had we deposed of Saddam in the Gulf war than those towers would be standing today and more importantly so many people would not be without those who are now gone forever. The objective of war must be complete surrender or complete annhilation. We didn't do that in the Gulf war. We stopped short because we gave our word that we wouldn't invade Iraq. Sometimes the right thing is the wrong thing. In this War on Terrorism, complete surrender or complete annihilation maybe impossible objectives. They are not going to surrender and the annihilation part is very tricky. However Old Saddam is a juicy target. This is someone to make an example of and I believe this is justified because the terrorists in my estimation are Iraq's Special Operations Forces. If we do not engage Saddam, I fear that it's only a matter of time before we our someone else gets hit again although it may be worse next time.

[Dave]

I agree with ya Basspastor. The "problem' has to be eliminated. What's starting to worry me is the slight panic people are getting in. Buying all the gas masks, or the Sept. 11th gas station episodes. If gas was going to go up to $5 a gallon, heck, I'd get an extra two days by filling my tank. Big deal. The experts said on TV that if a chemical was used, you probably wouldn't get to your gas mask in time. I wish the media would put a little lid on some of the information going out. I hope the President and his staff continue to keep their plans hush hush.

[huskminn]

I agree with some of what you said, Basspastor, but not with all. I think there are some links with Iraq and Saddam, but I don't think we (the public) will know about them for quite some time. The evidence that continues to come out indicates that, at least regarding the 9/11 attacks, most roads lead to Afghanistan.

The "enemy" has not yet "achieved its objectives". The objectives are to remove western influences from all Muslim states and to establish theocratic states. Our response to the attacks has been to establish more western influence with Muslim states. The "enemy" will hate us even more and will attack again.

The fact that more attacks on western/US interests in Europe were already planned indicates that the "enemy" had no plans to lay low for a while. The foot soldiers in the terrorist organizations will go on about their business of planning further attacks. There are so many possible ways to hurt us or our allies that eventually, no matter how careful we are, they will again succeed.

I'm not sure what "hysterical" safety measures you are referring to, but obviously, there need to be some changes and additions to the way we currently defend ourselves from terrorist attacks. As I think has been evidenced, intelligence is absolutely vital to the "war". Congress had better take this opportunity to increase intelligence funding and get over the fact that our enemies need to be much closer than our friends. Congress should also think long and hard about in what form the next major attack will come. Is it really a waste of money to develop a missile defense system? Terrorists have exhibited tremendous patience in planning and executing their attacks. I'm sure they'd have no problem waiting 5 or 6 years to finally get their hands on a nuke and maybe another couple of years figuring out how to propel it into our country. Shouldn't we start planning now for that day just as they are?

We will never be able to stop them completely, but we can certainly slow them down and limit their abilities to inflict further pain and loss of life. You're right, though, Basspastor complete surrender or complete annihilation are not really options in this war. It's like a cancer. You try to remove it without killing the rest of the tissue surrounding it.

We're on shaky ground with Muslims around the world right now. Unless we want to dramatically (and I do mean dramatically) change the face of the world right now, we do need to be very careful about how we handle this issue. I think the Bush administration, and especially Powell, is very aware of that fact.

Obviously, it would have been nice to take care of Saddam when we had the chance. Everyone agrees to that. I think his time will come under the current administration. I think plans were underway to start putting the screws to him before 9/11.

Even so, we do need to be careful about how we go about doing this. We do not want to alienate Muslims world-wide. That would de-stabilize too many regions of the world and could potentially turn this new kind of "war" into a traditional World War. No one on our side wants that. The other side, however, would like nothing better.

Regarding your comment about terrorists not using an airplane again.......I think you may be wrong about that. It will be some time before our airport security is worth a darn. I fly a lot for my job. It would be so easy, even now, to get any number of things on an airplane. Now, chances are they will use another method next time and will one of these "hysterical" security measures make a difference when that happens?

I hope so.

Keep the faith, never forget what they did to us on 9/11, never forget all those who were lost and God bless America.