Let me tell you something. There are people in this world who want to kill you, your parents, your children for no other reason than the fact that you are an American. In a few years down the road these fanatical lunatics will acquire the means, technology and material to develop a nuclear weapon. There is no stopping it, there is nothing you can do.
What do you propose we do?
I propose we force freedom on these maniacs so that the people they live with and break bread with are too busy making money and inventing things and trading with US to have the time to bother with killing you.
I don't see any other way. Unless, of course, you simply want to nuke them into glass artifacts.
So let's hear it. What in the hell do YOU propose?
"I propose we force freedom on these maniacs so that the people they live with and break bread with are too busy making money and inventing things and trading with US to have the time to bother with killing you."
You can't FORCE freedom on someone.
It will come to that.
That, or Shari'a law in the USA.
Sooner or later, one or the other.
My proposal is to defeat our enemies and leave them to wallow in their own backwardness. At that point, we can only serve as an example to them of how a real culture/society lives in the modern age. And if they even think of attacking us or our allies we pound the crap out of them. And if they sneak out of their hellish fundamentalist existance to cause us any more problems, we pound them again.
Further, we aggressively employ collective punishment. We do not shy away from punishing entire cities or nations for failure to control their radicals. Additionally, we need to immediately stop trying to separate people from their government. People in Afghanistan were responsible for their own rotten government. People in Iraq were responsible for their own rotten government.
How is that for a start?
No more attempting to build pie-in-the-sky, fantasy "Islamic democracies". These Muslims do not share that noble goal, and unless we are prepared to sit their forever attempting to impose it, the entire plan is doomed ot failure.
There are nearly a billion Muslims, and there isn't any democracy in any country in which they dominate. These people are getting the governments they deserve. Things are no different today than what Mark Twain described in describing Jerusalem in 1866:
Rags, wretchedness, poverty and dirt, those signs and symbols that indicate the presence of Moslem rule more surely than the crescent-flag itself, abound.
Our splendid military is meant for better than trying to uplift these people to what they don't want, don't deserve, and will never have.
All Muslim countries including Iraq will continue to be tyrannies regardless of what we do. We will need our military free to deal with rigorously with their dictators.
Okay, you had me taking you seriously until that line! Good one!