War on Terror

What are your thoughts on it?

Personally, I feel that the leaders who took us into Iraq and Afghanistan are war criminals, and had no right to. I feel it is simply a modern form of Imperialism - they are colonies in all but name. Yes, they may have been given 'democracy'; but it is Western businesses who will be present there re-building, and Western companies are supplying the armies there. In essence, we are gaining the material benefits of colonies while giving the impression of bringing freedom.

I could wax lyrical about the whole thing, but I'm going to let someone else say something first

I fully agree with that comment, this inquiry that is under way has so far given no actual reason as to why there are troops out there in both Iraq & Afghanistan, it has just reinforced that Tony Blair went into the "war on terror" to keep relations with George Bush & America intact. It has become evident that the"war on terrorism" isn't to benefit the citizens who suffer from "terrorism" but to benefit the nations who are involved in this "war on terrorism". The "Dutch Inquiry" has found that the war in Iraq was illegal.

I agree, there was no need to invade Iraq imo and America went about the "war on terror" the wrong way. Lying about the WMD's in Iraq was a huge disgrace.

I am also not pleased with how the Bush admin used the events on Sept 11 as a reason to lauch such actions.

IMO it was Americas poor foreign policy over the last +30 years that made them a hate figure and America did not learn from this during the Bush years and he's action in Iraq & Afghanistan have made them a hate figure for decades to come.

i feel the need to add that Afghanistan perhaps was a war on terror but that excuse is not enough or even a form of justification for the Iraq war.

I find that I agree with chez on this. Going into Afghanistan was a war on terror because intelligence showed that was bin Laden's base of operations. Going into Iraq seemed connected, though, now, some have suggested that the intelligence that Al Qaeda was getting funded and trained through there was sketchy, at best. And many, including then Sen. Clinton believed that Iraq had WMDs for dispersal to various terror groups. We won't be able to fix the Middle East. The best thing we can do is drill and process our own oil and quit buying from OPEC. This will reduce drastically the funding to terrorism.

Also, I have pointed out before that the war on terrorism should be a special forces war. War by assassination of key figures. On the other hand, if we do nothing, they could complete nuclear weapons programs and it will lead to a thermonuclear holocaust. Osama bin Laden said, in his own words, that we in the West value life and he and his followers value death, pure and simple. They won't stop until they have killed everyone not like them.

If there really is a conspiracy like the Club of Rome that desires a one world government, it won't be muslim and they will decimate the jihadists. I have also held the opinion that if we were to pull completely out of Afghanistan and Iraq, they will go back to the way that they were and we would truly enter a pre-9-11-01 situation again. Why? Because we keep buying oil from OPEC and the money makes its way to them. Osama bin Laden is from Saudi Arabia. His family is still there and we are still buying oil from them. I know it's a novel idea but if you quit giving money to terrorists, then they quit having money to finance terrorism.

If we do engage in selective assassination to establish a peaceful world, is that not going to require some global agreement?

Also, we have not provided in Afghanistan the mechanics of democracy like we have in Iraq. Now, there are new power structures in Iraq, including a new democratic government that desires us to stay until at least 2012. But we are still occupying Afghanistan and they do not have the freedoms that Iraq does and that has much to do with the Taliban.

The US initially helped establish the Taliban and supported bin Laden with money, weapons, and training, mostly through the CIA as long as he kept communists out of Afghanistan. In our war on drugs, we convinced Pakistan to run all the opium farmers and trade out of there and it moved to Afghanistan with trade routes protected by the CIA, to further fund the war against communism. Every time we try to "fix" something, we end up getting bit in the ass. Manuel Noriega was a similar ally and that went sour, too.

But trying to fight the whole world is silly and it didn't work out for Hitler. So, we must have allies and they need protection, as well. Which leads us to get involved in these other conflicts.

As for oil, are we fighting wars for oil? Possibly so. Is that any different than fighting for religion? Either one is for the survival of something. Most every war is over resources. Even the Holy Crusades were reasons for King Richard the Lion-hearted to loot the temples of the near East and middle East. At the beginning of the Little Ice Age, "vikings" started raiding upper Saxony and the UK to gather resources they could no longer get in Greenland since it was no longer green there.

In America, we fought against Mexico and native americans for land and resources. There is not one place in the world that was not fought over for its resources, so to blame America, one must first blame one's own country. The British Empire was just that and it was once said that the sun never set on the British Empire. That was part of the history of Viet Nam, a struggle we took over from the french, who had been trying to colonize Viet Nam for 100 years and they were doing it, in part, so that Great Britain wouldn't get it, either.

If it is a war of ideals, I would just as soon have the common man have a right to vote than to be the subject of a dictatorship.

ronws wrote: The best thing we can do is drill and process our own oil and quit buying from OPEC. This will reduce drastically the funding to terrorism.

That's not possible though. The US relies on foreign oil because it's own reserves aren't big enough.
And groups like the Taliban get most of their funding from Opium.

Jordan123 wrote:

ronws wrote: The best thing we can do is drill and process our own oil and quit buying from OPEC. This will reduce drastically the funding to terrorism.

That's not possible though. The US relies on foreign oil because it's own reserves aren't big enough.
And groups like the Taliban get most of their funding from Opium.

I beg to differ. We have many oil fields, including ones in Texas, we are not currently drilling, plus ANWAR and the Gulf Mexico. My father-in-law lives in south Texas and knows of many full and functioning wells that have been shut down. Full tanks all over the place, including Texas City, a major repository. We have plenty and could get plenty more, save for some sense, I guess of, if we buy OPEC oil until they run out, then we will have the last stash. But the reserves we have actually go deeper than originally thought. And we get better at finding oil all the time. The first oil people found was so near the surface, just about anyone with limited technology could get it. As time went by, the science and techniques improved. We were supposed to initially run out in 1910. Such statements were actually published in newspapers back then.

And we do some of our own drilling in the middle East, such as Kuwait. Some suggest that is why we went to the first Gulf War. To protect american oil interests in Kuwait.

Either way, I don't think it's possible for us to be truly isolationist. If Yemen doesn't want our help, fine. Let's pull the money out and take it to Iraq and Afghanistan and help them and hopefully make allies out of them. Iraq was an ally before. We gave Hussein equipment, training, and money as long as he was our ally against Iran, especially after the fall of the Shah of Iran, who was our ally, then.

ronws wrote:

Jordan123 wrote:

ronws wrote: The best thing we can do is drill and process our own oil and quit buying from OPEC. This will reduce drastically the funding to terrorism.

That's not possible though. The US relies on foreign oil because it's own reserves aren't big enough.
And groups like the Taliban get most of their funding from Opium.

I beg to differ. We have many oil fields, including ones in Texas, we are not currently drilling, plus ANWAR and the Gulf Mexico. My father-in-law lives in south Texas and knows of many full and functioning wells that have been shut down. Full tanks all over the place, including Texas City, a major repository. We have plenty and could get plenty more, save for some sense, I guess of, if we buy OPEC oil until they run out, then we will have the last stash. But the reserves we have actually go deeper than originally thought. And we get better at finding oil all the time. The first oil people found was so near the surface, just about anyone with limited technology could get it. As time went by, the science and techniques improved. We were supposed to initially run out in 1910. Such statements were actually published in newspapers back then.

The ANWAR drilling would barely make a difference on dependancy of foreign oil. I used to know the exact figure but i've forgotten it, i'll try and find it somewhen. If the USAs reserves were big enough then it wouldn't be buying oil from OPECs ontop of the oil they produce.

Regardless of whether we should have gone along with this "War on Terror" ploy, the fact of the matter is we're in too deep to pull troops out of the middle east. I know that the forces are there to enforce peace, by which they mean trying to rebuild their society while killing people at the same time. But pulling out of the middle east seems unlikely. First thing is, the state of Afghanistan is so deteriorated that if the troops leave, the taliban will be likely to take over, plus the unstable condition it is in at the moment, it will only get worse. The troops are there to try to prevent things from going any worse.

I believe Iraq is an entirely different matter. the US has already completed what they set out to do in the first place, they should have gone home after mission accomplished. Yet they stayed around and basically tried to govern iraq, which i feel is unneeded and wrong.

In addition to what Sunny D wrote, the Iraqi government in 2008 officially asked the US to stay there until 2012.