"Stop the war now" - I'd rather die tommorow

[ecoli]

http://www.stopthewarnow.net/

 

It seems to me that groups like these ^, suffer from a serious lack of foresight. They would, understandably, stop conflict, but that would just mean we'd start back from the beggining. If a cease fire is drawn up, Hezbollah would be allowed to endure. Iran and Syria would see that they can get away with backing this group, and the whole mess will start all over again.

 

I understand the desire to preserve civilian life, but calling for a cease fire today, is just condeming more people to death tommorow. Why don't they see that?

[Bettina]

I will listen to what they have to say if they can tell me how to live safely with these....

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terrorist_organization

 

Their are a lot of them and don't anyone tell me that leaving evil alone will stop the killings or the inhuman oppression of women in the name of Allah as witnessed in Afghanistan.

 

Its worse than a lack of forsight. Its burying your head in the sand like a coward would do. I don't like killing of any kind, but what do you do if they want to kill you

 

Bettina

[Sisyphus]

What should we do, then?

[bascule]

What should we do, then?

 

Surgical strike by black ops to take out their nuclear facilities

[Sisyphus]

Lebanon has nuclear facilities?

[Bettina]

What should we do, then?

 

Lets say you lived in a house that your neighbor was constantly bombarding with rocks. He breaks your windows, hurts your children, and frightens your wife. He won't communicate with you but you find out from other neighbors that he hates you and wants you to leave.

 

You can do several things... leave, live with it, put up a fence, call the police, or handle it yourself. Obviously you can't live with it because he's hurting you and you can't build a fence because he throws stuff over the top. That leaves calling the police, leaving, or handling it yourself.

 

Leaving is out of the question because its your home and you have nowhere else to go. Now were down to the big problem. Calling the police... who quickly inform you that they have no policeman but will send an observer to monitor the situation. You are also told this could take months, and even then, all they will be able to do is send the neighbor a letter from all the townspeople telling him to stop.

 

One of your children was killed.... Your out of options so what do you have left.

 

Bettina

[FreeThinker]

So where is the end to this? How long will Israel continue to bomb Lebanon? There is no way can they destroy Hezbollah. How do they expect to kill everyone in their organisation? Meanwhile, the eyes have been taken off Iran. Who are , no doubt, getting closer to building a nuclear bomb.

 

Depending on how far this conflict reachers, that might no even be neccessary. I can think of a muslim country in close vasinity with nuclear capabilities. *Cough* *Cough* Pakistan *Cough* *Cough*

[Sisyphus]

Lets say you lived in a house that your neighbor was constantly bombarding with rocks. He breaks your windows' date=' hurts your children, and frightens your wife. He won't communicate with you but you find out from other neighbors that he hates you and wants you to leave.

 

You can do several things... leave, live with it, put up a fence, call the police, or handle it yourself. Obviously you can't live with it because he's hurting you and you can't build a fence because he throws stuff over the top. That leaves calling the police, leaving, or handling it yourself.

 

Leaving is out of the question because its your home and you have nowhere else to go. Now were down to the big problem. Calling the police... who quickly inform you that they have no policeman but will send an observer to monitor the situation. You are also told this could take months, and even then, all they will be able to do is send the neighbor a letter from all the townspeople telling him to stop.

 

One of your children was killed.... Your out of options so what do you have left.

 

Bettina[/quote']

 

Well first of all, I asked what WE should do. I should have clarified that I'm an American, not an Israeli.

 

Second, the option you didn't list was the one we were talking about, that is, a temporary ceasefire. Ecoli thinks its not a permanent solution, and I agree completely. There are deeper problems. However, I do think stopping them from lobbing ineffectual but anger-producing missles at each other is probably a prerequisite for any kind of lasting progress.

 

So, back to the question. What should America do? We've already made lots of unambiguous threats about nations that aid terrorists. Apparently, the threats haven't solved the problem. So, what now? Do we invade Lebanon, Syria, and Iran?

 

And beyond terrorism, you mention evil towards women. Are you suggesting a full-scale occupation of the entire Islamic world?

[Bettina]

Well first of all' date=' I asked what WE should do. I should have clarified that I'm an American, not an Israeli.

 

Second, the option you didn't list was the one we were talking about, that is, a temporary ceasefire. Ecoli thinks its not a permanent solution, and I agree completely. There are deeper problems. However, I do think stopping them from lobbing ineffectual but anger-producing missles at each other is probably a prerequisite for any kind of lasting progress.

 

So, back to the question. What should America do? We've already made lots of unambiguous threats about nations that aid terrorists. Apparently, the threats haven't solved the problem. So, what now? Do we invade Lebanon, Syria, and Iran?

 

And beyond terrorism, you mention evil towards women. Are you suggesting a full-scale occupation of the entire Islamic world?[/quote']

 

I purposely left cease fire out of the scenario because its not an option and wouldn't work. What is needed is a buffer zone, half on the Israeli border and half on the Lebanon border patroled by a multinational peace keeping force that has real power. The buffer zone needs to be the distance of a rocket so it cannot be launched and land in Israel. Israel is creating that buffer zone and the conflict can't end until thats completed. I couldn't use it in my example because I can't increase the distance between the two houses.

 

I don't know what America should do but I would not allow Iran to have a bomb at any cost. Syria is not as crazy.

 

I don't like my president but something he said stays with me and that is The U.S. will make no distinction between terrorists and those who harbor them.

 

Thanks for admitting that Islam has a problem with women. I love you for that. As far as oppressed women being held prisoners because of their countries strict religious code.... I'm biased so I can't give a good answer so I would invade....

 

Bee

[walrusman]

I held a woman prisoner once. When I went to visit my old girlfriend in oklahoma state penitentiary I held her tight the whole time.

 

Ok that was stupid, but I couldn't help it.

[Jim]

The world wants is a ceasefire so it can go back to ignoring the problem.

[CPL.Luke]

I don't like my president but something he said stays with me and that is The U.S. will make no distinction between terrorists and those who harbor them.

 

 

but thats the thing, we have to.

 

Consider the example of three countries, A B and C (insert your own names)

 

B is located directly between countries A and C.

 

C launches a missle barage at A.

 

A feels that the threat posed by C can't be stopped without a full scale invasion to find and destroy all of C's missles.

 

B refuses to allow troops from A through their borders.

 

Now A say's that B is supporting C by its refusal to do anything to help A eliminate the obivious threat of C, so B is really in cahoots with C and they should be dealt with accordingly.

 

 

^we all know why the above scenario is idiotic, but if you think about it, a terrorist group is really just a group of people inside a country. that country is like B in the scenario, because while the country that was attacked would have to go through them in order to get at the terrorist group. The country itself cannot allow troops from anouther country to into them to conduct what amounts to a police action inside of their borders, doing so would be tantamount to surrenduring their sovernty (sp).

 

Now some countries are more apt than others at removing terrorist groups than others. Countries like lebanon and syria would'nt be able to remove the terrorist groups within them even if they wanted to, so they don't really bother trying.

 

Now the down side of treating the country as if they were equal to the terrorists that operate within their borders is that an invasion of such a country creates more resentment and thus more terrorist groups against the country launching the invasion. This creates a ceaseless cycle of violence that continues until the invading country loses its will and money and goes home. Case and point the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and The US invasion of Iraq.

 

The one thing that President Bush is spot on about in the war on terror is that it is a new kind of war that is being waged against an enemy that knows no borders. So Why are we fighting a war with borders.

[Pangloss]

The peace plan that Secretary Rice is taking back to the Middle East is workable. I wouldn't be surprised if Israel agrees to it, especially since it doesn't call for them to stop shooting unless/until Hezbollah does.

 

The real question is not when Israel will stop attacking Lebanon, but when Hezbollah/Lebanon will stop attacking Israel.

[Glider]

There are many people here who know more about the situation than I, so I am talking from a position of relative ignorance so please feel free to hurl abuse at this post. It is more of an hypothetical 'I wonder what would happen' kind of post, than a 'this is the solution' post, but what if everybody withdrew and just let them get on with it?

 

It occurs to me that this conflict has been going on for so long now, and the reason may be that there has never been a clear winner or loser. Could it be that to let them fight it out and establish both clearly might finally bring an end to it? It seems to me to be something of a festering abscess and whilst other people rubbing cream onto it might soothe it temporarily, it doesn't resolve the underlying problem. Clearly, nothing anybody has done so far has brought about a solution. Might it be that this thing needs to burst on its own to drain the poison?

 

Yes, there would be many deaths, and many innocent would die, but over the decades, how many innocent have died already? In balance, would there be fewer deaths in an acute, overt war than in further decades of sniping and bombing?

 

It seems to me, that underneath all the politicking and moral maneuvering, these peoples simply hate each other and simply holding them apart evidently isn't changing that. I can't help wondering what would be the result of a 'To hell with it, do what you think is best. We want no further part of it' approach?

 

As I say, feel free to hurl abuse, but I woud be interested in some thoughts too.

[Skye]

I think the problem with that is that neither side is going to give up if they lose a single war. Indeed the Arab militants, and their Persian backers, are pretty much resolved to losing the fights as they are being fought now. They know they can't truly be defeated though, as long as they stay motivated. Their motivation is that, with over 200 million Arabs and 14 million Jews, the momentum will one day swing their way.

[walrusman]

I think the problem with that is that neither side is going to give up if they lose a single war. Indeed the Arab militants, and their Persian backers, are pretty much resolved to losing the fights as they are being fought now. They know they can't truly be defeated though, as long as they stay motivated. Their motivation is that, with over 200 million Arabs and 14 million Jews, the momentum will one day swing their way.

 

And that's the impossible delimma.

 

I can't stand Bush. He's bought and paid for. But all of this middle east fighting is not his fault as people like to say. When I saw these Arabs completely lose their mind and literally kill people over a freaking cartoon, I realized that none of this is his fault, clinton's fault, carter's fault.

 

You can point to this and that and say so-and-so didn't do this or that right, but in the end there just is not a diplomatic bone in the bodies of these Arabs. And that is the crux of the problem. There is no way they are going to relax and enjoy life with a little tolerance for each other.

 

It seems the only way to end all of this, is for one side to exterminate the other. Force. Plain old, natural born force. Sad really.

 

I'm not advocating that. Just seems futile.

[Sisyphus]

Has it occured to anyone that the solution to all that hatred in the Middle East might actually be to more or less just wait it out?

 

Plenty of things haven't worked. Threats of force have had the opposite intended effect, and we can't carry through with them, anyway. Democracy, to the chagrin and denial of neocons everywhere, is clearly not the answer either. Hamas is an elected government, for god's sake, and the brand new American-molded government of Iraq has been friendlier to Iran than the U.S.

 

It seems to me the only thing which has any chance of success whatsoever is secularization, and that takes time. It's not something you can force on a people (or at least only in a very limited way), and it's not something you can even change an individual person's mind about. That kind of religious fanaticism just don't go away, and this particular brand demands not just bigotry and violence, but also that their government be as religiously fanatical as themselves. Separation of church and state, as it were, is impossible, and that is the problem. They simply can't be negotiated with.

 

So how does it happen? Well, I mentioned you can't change an individual person's mind about it, and I think that's true. But NEW people are a different story. What I'm talking about is a youth-driven cultural revolution. If the young ever reject the religion and the hatred of their parents, then it won't matter how much those parents rage at the world, because sooner or later their children will be running things, and they'll want a liberal society.

 

I believe that this will have to happen eventually, but we can probably help it along, if we always keep it in mind as an eventual goal. I'm not talking about anything specific, just a general attitude. We always have to be the "good guys." We can't be the oppressor. We should come across as trying to help them, and that's what we should really be trying to do. Never cause an innocent person grief. We should unite with innocent Muslims as victims of terrorism.

 

You might say that this is, in fact, what we're doing. And to a certain extent we are, but it always seems like just an afterthought. What the Arab world sees is cowboy talk and bullying. The neocons who are in control seem to think that democracy by force is a panacea, and everything is directed towards that end. Secularization, on the other hand, isn't even talked about, because these same neocons rely heavily on desecularization at home, their deal with the Devil (err, conservative evangelicals) haunting them in all their endeavors.

[ecoli]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/27/world/africa/27cnd-somalia.html?_r=1&oref=login

 

^ War is threatening Somalia, Islamofacists are trying to turn the gov't. into another Islamic state. This looks like it can get really ugly, but this is first time I'm really hearing about it. Is the UN/US going to take steps to stop conflict?

[Saryctos]

The liberal tendency of the world is to stop all violence, and conflict resolution means making each party just content enough not to kill each other.

[Jim]

I don't like my president but something he said stays with me and that is The U.S. will make no distinction between terrorists and those who harbor them.

 

This policy, announced within hours of the attacks of 9/11, resulted in Libya forfeiting its advanced nuclear program. It's implementation has been spotty, as implementation always is, but the policy itself was wise and historic. It is exactly what we need to make these nations understand. If Iran does get nukes, it needs to believe that its very survival depends on maintaining control of its arsenal.

 

The alternative is to let terrorism marshal the resources and protection of a nation state even as the dangers of technology ramp upwards along an exponential scale.

[Jim]

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/27/world/africa/27cnd-somalia.html?_r=1&oref=login

 

^ War is threatening Somalia' date=' Islamofacists are trying to turn the gov't. into another Islamic state. This looks like it can get really ugly, but this is first time I'm really hearing about it. Is the UN/US going to take steps to stop conflict?[/quote']

 

What baffles me is how some on the left fear and even hate the "Christian Right" with a passion in this country but give Islamofascism a pass.

[CPL.Luke]

I would highly doubt that the US or the UN would ever set foot in somalia again after what happened in 92.

 

lucky for us these islamic states can't pose a huge threat to us over here, as the technological and economic gap between the west and the countries heading towards islamic fascism is great enough that they could never pose a serious military threat to us. The only thing they can do is cut off our oil, and even that shouldn't effect us 5-10 years from now.

[aguy2]

There seems to be some confusion in this thread on which particular, current 'campaign' in progress, constitutes the current 'war'. Normally a 'war' of any significance is comprised of 'campaigns' that can be concurrent, sequential, or in large scale 'wars', both.

 

The current world situation would seem to indicate that the world is involved in a global conflict of sufficent scale to be called, in truth, ww4; or some similarilly discriptive terminology.

 

Do you think someone should do a poll?

aguy2

[CPL.Luke]

where was ww3?

[Sisyphus]

This policy' date=' announced within hours of the attacks of 9/11, resulted in Libya forfeiting its advanced nuclear program. It's implementation has been spotty, as implementation always is, but the policy itself was wise and historic. It is exactly what we need to make these nations understand. If Iran does get nukes, it needs to believe that its very survival depends on maintaining control of its arsenal.

 

The alternative is to let terrorism marshal the resources and protection of a nation state even as the dangers of technology ramp upwards along an exponential scale.[/quote']

 

The problem with making such threats is that in order to be credible, we need to be able to follow through with them. Right now, it doesn't look like we can.