How to win war on terror

Personally I don't feel any safer after the war in Iraq. Afghanistan was necessary, Iraq was not. I don't care, all of you go ahead and flame the hell out of me but I believe we are on the wrong course and the sooner we kick people like Perle and Wolfowitz to the corner the better. If those guys have their way we'll be out invading every country that disagrees with us. Those guys are not Conservatives. There is nothing conservative about their agenda. They are warmongering thugs and disguised as conservative intellectuals.

I expect to be insulted and to have my patriotism questioned and to be called an "appeaser" by some of the extremists on this board. Go for it. I don't care.

I love how you get straight to the vein. FRegards.

If those guys have their way we'll be out invading every country that disagrees with us.

My biggest issue with the Perle-Frum recipe for fighting the terror war is its fundamentally "talk hard, carry a small stick" approach. The authors don't advocate actually invading Syria, Iran, let alone North Korea. Instead they're proposing that we simply have to bomb the s*** out of them, or at least threaten to do so, and the world would be a much safer place. So my question is: Why on earth did we have to invade Iraq? If kicking butt in Iraq didn't scare the other rogues into adjusting their behavior, how can we expect them to do so if we're not fully prepared to give them the exact same treatment?

Perle is a big-mouthed hypocrite (read: Global Crossing), Wolfowitz is a super-liberal hawk (no, not an oxymoron). I'm glad those guys aren't setting foreign policy agenda anymore - assuming they ever did so at all.

Suppose Iraq wasn't "necessary", whatever that means. How has it made the world worse, or damaged our security rather than helped it?

You say if they had their way we'd invade every country that disagrees with us. This is clearly hyperbole. None of them has every advocated invading Russia, China, France, etc. So what you really mean is simply that you don't want to invade Syria, or Iran, or North Korea. Which is a reasonable position but not one that requires pretending those who disagree with you about any given one of those, is actually suggesting we invade France.

Moreover, so far they have suggested other courses of action for each of those, just courses that involve more pressure than we are applying at present. Is all pressure in diplomacy ultimately related to possible consequences of uses of force? Sure. Even the most defensive diplomacy.

What you haven't done is give any argument for any of their proposed actions being unwise. You've called them names and said you wish they didn't have as much influence. But besides name calling, you haven't explained why e.g. giving North Korea assurances they can develop all the nukes they like and sell them to whoever they please and we will just try to ignore them and look the other way - is supposed to help us.

But, you may object, you haven't proposed giving NK such assurances. I claim you have. When others say we will have to threaten consequences to prevent NK from doing such things, you denounce them as warmongers and want them to lose all influence. You are against any possibility of such consequences. Which simply means NK can do whatever it likes.

That is the upshot of the position you are claiming is "conservative". In times past, a policy of letting other countries do whatever they like - even tyrannical countries - may have been workable. Not necessarily noble, but perhaps prudent at avoiding getting into scrapes. When it involves unstable supporters of international terrorism pursuing nuclear weapons, however, maybe it isn't quite so obviously workable anymore. Or if you prefer, perhaps it has exceptions, if it is to stay workable in other respects.

Fifty years from now atom bombs will not have been disinvented. Islam will still exist. The US will have international enemies, because it has international power which gets in other people's way as a matter of course. Neither your policy nor theirs can change those things. The question is whether one of them is more likely than the other, to prevent nuclear terrorism from hitting the US anytime in that period.

If you think yours is more likely to do so, don't call other people names, instead just tell us why. Tell us how marvelously your alternative will work. Explain what, if anything, you would do about NK nukes, Iranian nukes, Pakistani scientists engaged in private proliferation attempts, etc.

We are all ears and nobody is calling you names. But if you don't have any workable answers, you might consider the remote unimaginable possibility that others might have thought this all through a bit more deeply than you have.

We are fully prepared to give them the same treatment. Libya knows that, which is why they blinked. Do we want to give them the same treatment? No, we'd rather avoid it. But we'd rather give them the same treatment Iraq got, than sit still and watch them develop nukes and sell them to terrorists and blow up Manhattan.

Iraq is partially a lesson in that negative sense - that no, relying on leftist induced paralysis will not protect virulent anti-American regimes from the consequences of crossing us. It can also be a lesson in a positive sense - an example to peoples of the region that pro-western democracy is possible, that only their hardline rulers prevent it.

It also was done for more immediate, practical, military strategy reasons. It got our troops out of Saudi, where they are a threat to the regime's legitimacy, a recruiting poster for Bin Laden, and a regular terrorism target without really being able to fight back. It did so without losing control of the region, or cutting and running after the next Khobar Towers.

Strategically, along with Afghanistan it has divided a geographic bloc of terror supporting states that 2 years ago stretched from the borders of China clear to the Mediterrean coast. Syria is now isolated, entirely surrounded by pro-western states. Iran has pro-western forces stationed in several adjacent countries, where before it faced none.

These are not separate news stories. They are aspects of one overall strategy, to undermine the power of anti-western extremism and terrorism throughout the Islamic world. We are taking away billions in their funding, their accessible territories, their bases of recruitment, they ongoing political causes, their leaders.

Anyone might argue that we might have gotten away with doing less. But to not see what it is for or what good it does is willful blindness. Destroying entire hostile regimes transparently weakens our enemies.

I wasn't talking about North Korea. What I am most worried about are the talk I hear about regime change in so many other countries in the Middle East. I do not want us to start invading other countries because we want regime change. That's what worries me. I believe war is something that should be reserved for last resorts, only as a means of defending against an imminent, real threat. It's something we need to be very careful with because it could have dire unintended consequences. I understand the argument for being proactive and jumping in there and "getting them before they get us," but I think there are big problems with that sort of policy that we need to watch out for, and I'm just really leery of us getting into the habit of invading other countries.

I think the pre-war claims of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction were false. I'm not saying anyone was lying but I do think it's important that we acknowledge that our government can make mistakes. These mistakes can be really costly. For instance, Iraq in five years may be a thriving democracy that sets an example for all other nations in the Middle East. Or, Iraq could fall into the hands of Muslim extremists more dangerous to us than Saddam ever was.

I suppose what I am saying is that I do not trust my government to make decisions about who we should invade or not invade in order to make the world more friendly to U.S. interests. I want my government to show restraint and if there is going to be an error in judgment I would rather they err on the side of restraint rather than war.

It appears to me that people like Perle and Wolfowitz have carefully thought about what America needs to do to protect itself now and in the future. It appears that they feel they know the solutions, and it appears that what they want us to do is use military pressure to take out certain governments and replace them with ones friendly to us. I'm just not as convinced as they are that all of their plans are going to turn out how they want them to and I am worried that this policy of military aggressiveness could blow up in our faces. That, and I am just fundamentally opposed to war except in circumstances where we are facing a clear and present danger. I favor a more conservative approach. For now what I would like to see us do is redouble our efforts rebuilding Iraq and Afghanistan. If we can't help those two countries turn around and prosper, either or both could end up becoming more hostile toward us than they ever were. We will have eliminated to hostile, evil regimes and displaced Al Queda, but these are only temporary solutions. In my estimation our best bet is not to go around knocking off other regimes in the Middle East leaving us with more countries to try to sort out with new governments, we first need to get Iraq and Afghanistan on their feet,prospering and standing on their own.

Of course it is also about NK. NK is working with these guys. And their hawkishness of NK is part of what their opponents are against. But if you want to talk about the middle east cases fine, I'll talk about them.

You "worry" about a "habit" of invading other countries. I'm sorry, that is just ridiculous, it is not even a thought. War is not "habit forming". We aren't going to invade Canada because we "need our fix". We either see real interests furthered by war with a country, or we do not.

Then you worry about "dire unintended consequences". Anything you do or don't do can have "dire unintended consequences", starting with "doing nothing while nutjobs get nukes". Care to explain what any such consequences are, and why they might be likely, or why they might be worse than doing nothing? It is nothing more than an allegation, "something might go wrong". Duh. Something might go wrong no matter what you do or don't do. It is not an argument for or against any policy.

Then you no more than repeat yourself, saying "these mistakes can be really costly". Prove it. You can't. All you've got is an allegation about a hypothetical. "Maybe" five years from now Iraq will be worse than Saddam. And maybe the moon will turn into green cheese. Could Islamic radicals take over Iraq? Possibly, though they will find it hard to do with US troops all over the place. Could they take over the Iraq a year ago, by assassinating Saddam and having a rebellion? Sure. They didn't, but they might have. It was "possible". Is it supposed to be more possible now, with us there, than it was then, with him there? We are a hundred times stronger and infinitely more just, offering a much better life than he did. Are we still "deposable"? Sure, under president Dean or what have you. Was Saddam deposable? Definitely.

Alleging remote possible unintended consequences is not an argument. Anybody can do it, for or against any policy. It simply amounts to saying "boo". The question is whether risks increase, are made more or less likely, are risks of worse or of lesser things. You haven't even attempted to explain why e.g. pressuring Iran involves greater risk than letting them turn on their reactor this year.

You are saying you don't trust your government to decide who to invade and who not to invade. Uh huh. Who do you trust, the baby Jesus? Who else is going to make such decisions, here and now, in the real world? It is what the government is for. Such decisions have to be faced and made. That they are weighty does not mean they can be avoided. That one might get them wrong does not mean that it is safer not to make them. You don't get to not make them. If you decide not to pressure Iran, then you decide that Iran chooses whether it has nukes, not us.

You say show restraint - fine. If there is an error make it on the side of peace - not so fine. Peace is not decided by one side. It takes only one to choose war. Our enemies have chosen war, said so, acted so. We can decide where we draw the line at support for, or aid can comfort to, those enemies, yes. But we can't "err on the side of peace" if our enemies just don't want any peace. You don't get peace because you want it. You only get it if the other guy wants it. Which is mostly a matter of scaring the beejesus out of the nasty ones.

Are all of anybody's plans going to turn out how they want them to? No. Not theirs, not yours, not active, not inactive. The world isn't like that. It is an argument against a straw man. You worry that it might "blow up in our faces". So it might, so might your course of action of doing nothing, or as little as possible, or stopping now and announcing it to everyone (dumb just as strategy, even if in the end you do). There isn't any course of action that might not blow up in our faces. The question is, which is more likely to? And you've given no argument at all why e.g. leaving Iran alone is less likely to blow up in our faces than pressuring them is.

Of course we are doing reconstruction stuff in Afghanistan and Iraq. There is no distraction from any of that involved, no reduction in ability to do it. Nobody expects to do anything further until after the election regardless, and after that everyone hopes that pressure alone can achieve what is needed with Iran and NK, as it already has with Libya.

Incidentally, no, we could not "end up with" those places "more hostile than ever". It is not possible. They already were willing to shoot at us. The only restraints they ever recognized were those created by fear. Our enemies are not restrained by any good will toward us. They are only restrained by fear of consequences - including those in their own internal politics due to people there preferring what we can offer to what they can offer, certainly.

As for "my estimation" and "best bet", it is all argument free. You haven't given the slightest actual reason for thinking a lick of it. Why do you think Iraq is easier to handle without also dealing with Iran, instead of Iraq being easier to handle when a neighboring subversive country with all kinds of agents within Iraq striving for an anti-US, fundamentalist Shia regime is replaced by a popular pro US democracy? Why would it be easier to stop Baath terrorists in the Sunni triangle while they still have sanctuary in Baathist Syria, than if they didn't? Isn't it a bit like saying, "I'm not for this impractical idea of going after Hanoi, we need to worry about just Saigon and Hue"?

At several points you say you are worried about regime change as a goal of policies. Um, supporting regime change in Iran is already US policy and has been for years. It is not like we've all thought the Ayatollahs are the greatest thing since sliced bread, until that whacko Perle came along. The question is what we are willing to do to further that goal, not whether we are for it. We don't want regime "unchange" in half the middle east, because the regimes are godawful. We'd never support these characters and we'd jump for joy if they were gone. The only question is whether we sit around hoping something just happens (domestically etc), or whether we actually do anything in favor of such changes.

I totally disagree we're "fully prepared" for new conquests. The campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq have exposed our military limitations as much as our strengths. The former isn't a complete victory in any sense - the Taliban are still strong in many parts of Afghanistan. The latter has tied down our troops in a resource-draining peacekeeping mission. Our enemies see this, even if optimists like yourself deny it. Would Iran be harboring al-Qaeda right now if it were really fearful of US invasion? Would North Korea still be pointing its butt at our faces?

Do we want to give them the same treatment? No, we'd rather avoid it.

That's the kind of "we're ready to dispose of you, but" kind of attitude that I was referring to. Back in WWII we didn't give Germany or Japan any hint we'd accept anything less than an unconditional surrender and the complete destruction of their armed forces - no hint whatsoever we'd negotiate peace beforehand. It amazes me how Libya's cave-in is being hailed as a great victory in the war on terror, when the other side of the story is we've decided to buy off a better-behaving rogue regime with rather limited WMD capability (compared to North Korea & Iran). Sure, Bush can talk all he wants about how the sanctions on Libya won't be lifted anytime soon, but it's crystal-clear a general thaw in relations was part of the deal. Not to mention Libya wasn't even included in the "axis of evil" to begin with.

Jason, there is no need to get bogged down in all the minutia. The difference between me and you is simple. I believe war should be something we use only for "self defense" and that it is a remedy we should save for last resorts. You believe that it is okay to use war as a means for shaping the order of the world. We will never agree on this, so it's really pointless to get into this discussion. I've got a busy week ahead of me and no burning desire to get bogged down in an argument with someone when I know what the end result will be.

If you don't want to get bogged down in a rational conversation, all you have to do is shut up and leave.

But you have not understood our disagreement at all. You think that fighting our enemies isn't defending ourselves but "shaping the world". I think lower Manhattan is all the proof any rational person needs that these people are at war with us whether we like it or not. You seem to think not liking it is an answer. You are wrong.

This is a perfect example of the schitzo incoherence that results from mere carping. You don't want to actually invade rogue regimes because it might overstretch us. You don't want to admit Libya is a success because we didn't actually invade a rogue regime. When we do invade, as in Iraq, and totally eliminate the regime, that is a failure because it involves ongoing costs. When we don't, as in Libya, that is a failure because the regime remains. Apparently the only thing that is not a failure is sitting on our backsides letting them actually develop whatever they want.

In reality of course, both of them are successes. The Iraq style result is a bigger, more complete, more lasting success, but comes with a higher price tag. The Libya success is a more limited one because Khadafi gets to die in his bed, but is cheap. Remove even the threat of the former, however, and you won't get either.

What are you talking about? What does 9/11 have to do with Iraq? So when you say "these people," are you talking about people in every country in the Middle East that is not pro-America? What exactly does it take to be called one of our "enemies" and be subject to invasion by our forces? Because when you say "our enemies" and "these people" it sounds an awful lot like you are talking about all America hating Muslim extremists who reside in every country in the Middle East and that the only way we'll be able to carry out your aims is to invade several other countries in the Middle East. Actually it must be broader than that because Iraq wasn't exactly a hotbed of Muslim extremism prior to the war. Saddam Hussein actually suppressed that element because he felt them to be a threat to his power.

I tell you what, don't even answer my questions. I'm through arguing with you. Your idea of a "rationale conversation" is none too rationale to me and it is obvious that we are never going to agree. I'm just glad the majority of Americans aren't so hip on getting us into anymore terribly expensive wars that may or may not prove helpful to us in the long run.

"What are you talking about?"

The actual war that we are actually engaged in right now, against anti-American political extremism and terrorism in the Islamic world.

"What does 9/11 have to do with Iraq?"

Iraq is one front in the war against an entire sick Muslim political culture that has blasted the regime and turned half of its territory into havens for anti-American terrorists intent on the destruction of the US. The same people cheered Saddam as cheered the destruction of the towers.

"When you say 'these people', are you talking about people in every country in the Middle East that is not pro-America?"

Yes. But more specifically, I am talking about everyone who cheered the events of 9/11, rallied to the cause of murdering Americans, supports terrorists, wishes us dead and our power in the world broken. They have elected to be our enemies, and I respect their decision in the matter.

What does it take to be one of our enemies? Bush explained it, one would think in terms clear enough for any child, right after 9/11. We will make no distinction between terrorists and those who harbor them. The regimes of the region either cooperate in our efforts against murderers, help us track our enemies down, or they are our enemies.

Am I talking about all America hating Muslim extremists? Certainly. They hate us, we return the favor. Anyone who wants us as an enemy can have us as an enemy.

Then you say that "the only way we'll be able to carry out (my) aims is to invade several other counties in the Middle East." Unproven, I say. It is possible other countries in the region will choose to cooperate with us, rather than risk invasion and the destruction of their regimes. That is up to them.

If they don't, if they choose to side with, harbor, fund, and support the terrorists, if they defy the US and stick fingers in our eyes on purpose, then yes I am in favor of them paying for it. By internal political resistence where that is feasible, by pressure and sanctions short of war where that helps, and by direct military action whenever it looks expedient.

They are our enemies, openly declared and willing to shoot us. I'm willing to shoot them back. You aren't, because you are still living in a pre 9/11 delusion that you are untouchable by them if you just leave them alone. You aren't. Doing nothing is a recipe for eventually losing a city to one of these nutjobs. Not today, not tomorrow, but sometime in the next 50 years. Cleaning up the entire place, destroying its anti-modern and anti-western extremist regimes, is a recipe for heading that off.