Terrorists have caused the deaths of thousands of Americans and more are being killed every day. Our country is fixated on it and afraid enough that its controlling the platforms our politicians are running on, and it is the single biggest issue concerning voters in this election. We very well may vote in a president almost entirely on his perceived ability to fight terrorism. By invading Iraq we have likely increased the terrorist movement and hatred towards us. We are less respected in the world today because of actions we have taken post 9/11.
Sure we have killed a good number of Al Qaeda and we haven’t had another attack on our soil yet, however, many say it is a matter of when, not if.
Honestly, are we really “winning” the war on terror?
– The only way to truly fight terrorism is to spread freedom and democracy around the world.
How are we really doing this though? We may be trying to do that for the Iraqi people but they weren’t the ones intent on attacking us. The fact that we are in Iraq is only serving to reinforce what the terrorists think of us and give them more incentive to hit us again.
If you step back and look at it we are voting out of fear, and that I think is failure. We are letting them win by profoundly changing the way we run our country.
FWIW, I think Bush and Kerry were both right when they slipped up and answered this question honestly. No such thing as “winning” in the conventional sense. Only mitigating.
**many say it is a matter of when, not if. **I say that is true. Winning? I guess that depends on how you define winning. In one sense we are because we have thwarted attacks and kept people safe but that is a tough standard to hold, I think.
I don’t think I would say we are winning, but I do think we are making progress. I am actually very suprised we have not taken another hit and it is a bit of good hard work by people on the front lines and good luck. We are making strides in some areas while leaving other areas behind like borders, ports, airline safety etc.
I do think that this is very early in our fight and still trying to catch up to years of not paying attention and building systems we didn’t even think of pre 9/11.
– FWIW, I think Bush and Kerry were both right when they slipped up and answered this question honestly. No such thing as “winning” in the conventional sense. Only mitigating.
I agree but are we doing our best to mitigate the threat by occupying the middle east. This is one of the reasons OBL gave for attacking us in the first place.
If we want to avoid future attacks, why would we stick our big military in Iraq and do more to fuel the movement?
one would speculate that it is worse because there is now more anti-american sentiment globally than there was prior to 9/11.
Thats not an opinion its just one reason why it could possibly be worse.
As to not being attacked being an indication that it is not worse, I’d simply state that on 9/10 then there was no problem. Lack of attacks does not necessarily mean that you are safer. It could mean a number of things:
You are safer
You are not safer but they have not tried to attack again
You are not safer but they have tried to attack and been foiled
Either way I dont think the lack of an attack indicated a greater level of security. I think other things might indicated that but not the lack of an attack.
– Winning? I guess that depends on how you define winning. In one sense we are because we have thwarted attacks and kept people safe but that is a tough standard to hold, I think.
Winning is tough to define so let me ask it this way.
As a result of our actions post 9/11, do you think there are less people in the world who have enough hate and desire towards America to carry out that kind of an attack?
Have we increased the level of hatred towards us or have we decreased it?
If we really want to be safe shouldn’t we be trying to decrease the level of hatred towards us?
The bottom line is that we can keep killing terrorists but that doesn’t do anything to stop the movement against us. Regardless of who is president, we need to take a good look at our country’s actions if we really want to stop the terrorist acts against us. So much of America has no humility and will not entertain the idea that we make mistakes in the way we deal with other countries.
“…It really depends upon how our nation conducts itself in foreign policy. If we’re an arrogant nation, they’ll resent us…but if we’re a humble nation they’ll respect us.”
George W. Bush, October 11, 2000
A great quote, but unfortunately we have not conducted ourselves with this in mind.
– What is the alternative? Another 9/11? Another World Trade center bombing? Do we allow and accept the risk of another attack happening or do we continue to go on the offense?
The alternative would be to attempt to figure out why we were attacked and attack the root of this. It may take some humility but it may get at the root cause instead of using violence which will in turn bring more violence upon us. It will never happen, but it should.
“I just don’t think it’s the role of the United States to walk into a country and say, we do it this way, so should you …but I think one way for us to end up being viewed as the ugly American is for us to go around the world saying, we do it this way, so should you……I think the United States must be humble and must be proud and confident of our values, but humble in how we treat nations that are figuring out how to chart their own course.”
George W. Bush
Second Gore-Bush Presidential Debate
October 11, 2000
– There’s only so much control we have over how other people feel about us. You can’t stop people from hating you, sometimes.
I think we as a nation could do a lot more to change the way other people feel about us. We will never be able to stop everyone but we have a long way to go and we are only getting worse.
We were the ones attacked after all. Why wasn’t it someone else?
I think we as a nation could do a lot more to change the way other people feel about us.
I agree, but I don’t think we can or should set out to adopt a course of behavior specifically in order to change how people feel about us, or to try to get other people to like us. It’s a fool’s errand.
Act fairly, and I have no doubt that much of the ill will directed at us now will melt. And we’ll be in a better position to address that which doesn’t.
– Those words were spoken prior to 9/11. A pivotal time for our country on this war against terrorism.
It doesn’t matter when they were spoken, you still have to act humbly and appropriately if you want to be respected as a nation. We acted out of anger and revenge after 9/11 and because of that we appear to have less respect in the world. Losing respect only helps our enemies.
– It doesn’t take too long to figure out why they hate us…we represent the very thing that they hate…freedom.
There are other free nations that have not seen the kind of attacks that have been leveled against us. We are the primary target. As much as you’d like to believe it, it is not just freedom. A big part of it is conducting ourselves arrogantly in other parts of the world, in the middle east particularly.
– That same viewpoint might very well be the most dangerous way to fight this war.
Is it more dangerous than sending a bunch of your troops to die and then you end up with even more people that hate your guts and will die to kill you?
“How can you say that we haven’t been a humble nation? How are we ‘arrogant?’” “Bring 'em on” “Mission Accomplished” Any aspect of our current policies towards North Korea
In an earlier post, you noted "The only way to truly fight terrorism is to spread freedom and democracy around the world. "
I completely agree with the idea of spreading freedom (not 100% convinced on democracy for all) and the impact it will have on terrorism. I think this administration ought to talk up Afganastan a lot more. I think there’s a ton that could have been done better/differently there, and there are tons of problems yet to be dealt with, but I think some of the changes there have been significant. This is one area where I believe they deserve their Kudos, you can add Libya to that list as well.
But getting back to your comment, I don’t know of any way this administration is trying to spread freedom or democracy that doesn’t involve force. Force is needed at times, but there are other ways to affect change.
Winning the “war on terrorism” can be defined many ways, but killing all the terrorists isn’t the main one. Take a read of our published National Strategy for Combating Terrorism and you’ll see that the goal isn’t to eliminate hate or terrorism from the world, but to force terrorism back down to a level at which it will be manageable by the law enforcement agencies of individual countries. We’re not trying to eliminate Islamic terrorism, we’re trying to make it too difficult for them to reach us at home, and to make it hard enough for them to operate that Muslim countries can attack terrorism the way it should be attacked, as criminal activity. By that definition, I think we’re making some progress, although whether or not Iraq is helping or not is a little bit up for debate. However, we’ve got a lot of other stuff going on around the world in law enforcement, commerce, financing, intelligence, etc… that are all making strides toward our goals.
As a result of our actions post 9/11, do you think there are less people in the world who have enough hate and desire towards America to carry out that kind of an attack? To be honest there are probably more although I think it is probably more accurate to say that they already hated us but now have a “reason” to hate us. I would narrow the statement to Iraq because I think other actions like Afghanistan had to happen even if some Arabs or Muslims didn’t like it. Sometimes you need to do what is right and not make the decision if you will anger people.
If we really want to be safe shouldn’t we be trying to decrease the level of hatred towards us? In some respect yes, but it is more improtant that we are correct in our actions and not popular. Frankly, some people who hate us will always hate us and we probably can’t live in peace with them. “Islamic Militants” want us to live under Islamic law and I, for one, am not willing to make any concession on that so they will have to hate my infidel butt:)
I agree we come across as arrogant at times, but that fact doesn’t mean that all the actions are wrong either. I would prefer that everyone see America as a “shining city on a hill” but I just don’t think it is realistic, especially today.
– Sometimes you need to do what is right and not make the decision if you will anger people.
– In some respect yes, but it is more improtant that we are correct in our actions and not popular.
The question is whether or not we are best serving ourselves by attacking and fundamentally changing countries in the middle east.
Why can’t we put all of our efforts into protecting ourselves at home and not take the fight to the middle east (i won’t even get into if we took the fight to the wrong country)?
If our borders are secure and we have rid the country of terrorist cells then aren’t we as safe as we can be?
We’re never going to be able to prevent plotting around the world. We can attack it in one place but it will just move somewhere else.