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Originally Posted by Willravel
Declaring war on us does not automatically make one a threat.
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I don't have the words to express how much I disagree with your statement.
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I could declare war on the US right now and the FBI wouldn't be breaking down my door. The fact is that the Taliban were simply a regional source of instability back in 2001. They really weren't a threat to anyone but the people of Afghanistan. If you need evidence of this, go back and look at what our government did right after 9/11: we asked the Taliban nicely to hand over Bin Laden. We were happy to leave them be if they'd simply hand over someone virtually the entire world was pissed at. We had no intent to bomb or invade or "liberate", that came later, after they flatly denied our request. Our beef was with the small number of people at the time in what was later called al Qaeda.
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I think we fundamentally disagree on the concept of "threat". My tendency is to want to act on a potential "threat" before the "threat" is able and willing to inflict harm. It seems you would not act on a potential "threat" until after it is able and has communicated its intent to harm. And for the record when I say "act", I don't necessarily mean using violence.
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We, Ace, are fighting "the terrorists". That's about as mythical as it can get.
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Again, I don't have the words to express how much I disagree with your statement.
---------- Post added at 06:08 PM ---------- Previous post was at 06:02 PM ----------
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Originally Posted by Derwood
In some ways, yes, that's exactly what we're doing. The rules of war can't apply when you're (supposedly) fighting an ideology or a movement vs. fighting a country or government. The "war on terror" is completely unwinnable.
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I do agree that the phrase "war on terror" is a simplistic slogan, but what is happening and what has happened is not a simplistic slogan. I also agree that terrorism is a tactic, and that you can not wage war on a tactic, but there are people who are singularly focused on using that tactic to have innocent people in the world bow down to their will, and that in my view is very real. I will not bow down to anyone, I will fight to protect freedom.