[mburbank]

"Are you hoping that perhaps we will actually find and kill every terrorist and 'win' the 'war'?"
-Me

Most of them, at least.
-Brandon

That's your perogative, but I think it's naive. Ho many innocents are you willing to kill along the way? Not that the death of innocents isn't unavoidable, but it's always good to look at ratios your willing to accept. 2-1? 50 - 1? Thousands - 1? If you don't think about the line, you can cross it unaware.

"You can't reasonably compare U.S. military action to terrorism."
I believe quite strongly that the purpose of war is to terorize your enemy. 'The terrorists' lack the military options we have, which is why this isn't a nice civilized war. It's hard to say what 'the terrorists' might do if they had an army, an air force, a navy. Perhaps they'd drop massive bombs on cities full of non combatants, or start firestorms or deforest jungles. States justify all sorts of barbarity within the confines of war.

Do you want me to say we are better than the Jihadists? We are. Quite a bit right now. But see, we ought to be, us being the good guys and all. I think we could do better. As to schools and hospitals, many of those we build we blew up first. We intend currently to hand back all responsability for Hospitals in June. We chose this war. It had nothing to do with 9/11, and ot prevents us to this day from devoting manpower, money and attention to the criminals perpetrators of 9/11. Let's go build schools and hospitals in central Africa. At least we didn't already pay for their demolition.

"Reasonable people can see that we're not "doing what the terrorists want us to do," and, those that do see it that way, as I said, probably hated us anyway. "

I see it that way. I'm reasonable, and I don't hate us. I think Osama Bin Laden wanted us to attack Iraq. I think it benefits him every day. I think it's the main reason Al Quaeda has been able to regroup to the degree it has. I think it's why Afghanistan is still unstable and an ideal staging ground for Al Quaeda. I don't think any of these things becuase I hate us. I think Bin Laden hoped one of the first thing a Buh administration would do once we were struck was invade Iraq. Imagine for a moment we'd put all the resources we've put into the raq war into tracking Bin Laden down and dissmanteling his organization. Maybe we'd still have failed. But it's a LOT of resources.

"Terrorists want us to retaliate so that we look bad. We don't want to look bad, so I guess we should just take our lumps and prosecute the people who happen to fall into our nets."

See, had we actually sent OUR army to the other side of the Tora Bora caves I wouldn't said whoever we captured fell into our nets. When we prevented the Millenium bombing it wasn't because the terrorists fell into our nets, Britains recent anti terrorist success wasn't a case of folks falling into nets. These are cases of active, cooperative international police work. Since much of it's secret, I don't know for sure, but my guess is the war in Iraq didn't do squat for any of those cases. It demeans you to characterize my argument the way you just did. Is your argument "We need to kill everyone where the terrorists are and that way we'll know we got 'em!"?

Much as I hated it, I supported the overthrow of the Taliban. ecause it was justified and because they wouldn't separate themselves from Al Quaeda. I also thought they were scum, but that's not a reason for war. Iraq is a whole different thing. It's a stupid ass vendetta against a country that while awful was far less dangerous to us than some of our current allies.

I respect your difference of opinion. I would also suggest that you are allowing your passions to make you manipulable. "Something tells me the American people won't really go for that strategy." Really? Where might that cocksureness come from? Stating my argument so incorrectly and then following it up with a certainty that "America" would agree is a shallow sophist tactic typical of penny ante pundits, and it's beneath you. I have no idea if the 'American People' agree with me or not.