Where Is Your 'war On Terror' Now President Bush?

[andy-hughes]

After this country slavishly followed the war-monger Bush in his laughably termed 'war on terror' (How can you fight a war against a concept?) and after all the loss of lives as soldiers 'protect' us - it has come to this.

It's as easy as two maniacs with weapons to kill people on British streets.

All that military power, time, money, casualties and deaths on both sides to 'protect' us, and how protected are we really?

Surely the time has come to accept that we can never 'win' this war, but we must try and find a solution to the hatred that drives Moslem extremists to hate the West so much.

If the numpties in the EDL start their 'revenge', then let's not imagine that Afghanistan will start happening right here, right now.

Enough is enough - time to try and sort this out with dialogue, because guns and bombs are not working for anyone.

[missnemesis]

Hear hear Andy.

[emmie]

please note, most right minded people of this country were against that war, most right minded people didn't get heard, or their way, so a government makes up it's mind for us, and takes us into an illegal war, and many many die, and we now see the chickens coming home to roost, we are being blamed for interfering in places we had no business to be, because our governments of the time decided on our behalf something we didn't ask for or want. so don't keep blaming the British people, blame the *** who caused this.

[AB Editor]

"Time to try and sort this out with dialogue"

You've made the grave mistake of assuming rationality on both sides - you can't have a discussion with someone who doesn't want a discussion with you.

[tonyav]

Andy, I don't thing dialogue is going to work.

[ludwig]

I was going to say what Ab Editor said.

[AB Editor]

em10 - while that might mostly be true, Saddam was a genocidal monster. It's hard to stand by when that stuff is going on.

I'm not saying it was done well, or in the right way, but something had to be done at some time - or we'd be in the position one day of having the blood of innocents on our hands from standing by while a madman slaughtered his people.

[emmie]

no you can't, and you are fighting a ghost. Dialogue is a good start, but where do you. The Taliban perhaps, but what is it that they want.

[AB Editor]

"Andy, I don't thing dialogue is going to work."

That's not to say guns will either...

... The best model is to make the local populace rich somehow. If that's what is mean by dialogue, then we could find something that works...

[Kromovaracun]

"It's as easy as two maniacs with weapons to kill people on British streets"

Erm, it always has been.

"we must try and find a solution to the hatred that drives Moslem extremists to hate the West so much."

What kind of solution do you have in mind, Andy? Do you think it's a little naive to assume that

Personally, while I have a similar distaste for term, I'm not sure the 'War on Terror' was quite as much a dramatic failure as it's become fashionable to say. Insofar as it had concrete objectives (other than the rather ridiculous 'ending terrorism' objective that the stupid name implies), they've mostly been achieved.

[Kromovaracun]

Oh, and I agree with the Ed.

[andy-hughes]

Ab Editor - I think that assuming a lack of willingness to talk on the part of Al Qaeda is just that - an assumption.

I firmly believe that invading a country in order to prop up a corrupt puppet democracy is not the best way to engage the indiginous population's resistance - and the length of time and singular failure of anything approaching what could be called a result ('Getting the job done' as Bush used to say before he moseyed off into the sunset and left armageddon behind him) has proven that point.

It is an easy position to take - they won't talk so we'll bomb them into our way of thinking.

But it hasn't happened has it? So dialogue remains the only feasible alternative, difficult though it may be, it has to be better than the present situation, which is resulting in a soldier dying outslde his barracks on a sunny day in May.

[vulcan42]

we seem to caught in the absurd situation where if we continue to fight we cannot win but if we stop fighting we have lost.

[Sqad]

andy...remember those unsettling times........

Iraq had a ten year war against Iran and used biological warfare...hundreds of thousands of Iranians killed.

He also used chemical warfare against his own people (Kurds) and there was that standoff against the UN resolution which requested Iraq to open it's borders to UN inspection...which it finally did in a rather "filtered" manner.

Iraq had invaded Kuwait and set the oil wells alight.

Saddam and us family had perpetrated atrocities on his own people.

There was also a notion (later to be proved wrong) that he had nuclear warheads and a method of propulsion which could destabilise the middle east.

Who would be the next country to suffer..Egypt?Lebanon?Southern Europe?

Many, including me, we very nervous at that time.

George Bush had to make a decision based on the facts at that time...and he made it..........

I supported it then and i still think it was the right thing to do...and the support of the British Government lead by Tony Blair.

[jim360]

They've been trying dialogue in Afghanistan at times and it seems to me that this gives legitimacy to a group of people whose views will drag their society backward.

[Goodsoulette]

I agree with the ed here, nutters will always be nutters. I'm not into all that nationalist poppycock, but a lot of the recent success of groups like the EDL is reactionary, although they clearly contain their own brand of nutters too.

[Kromovaracun]

"I think that assuming a lack of willingness to talk on the part of Al Qaeda is just that"

With respect, Andy, these people are fanatics. They're also profoundly deluded.

Personally, despite the deranged rhetoric that lunatic was spouting yesterday, I'm not convinced that this atrocity would never have happened without the war on terror. These people had declared war on the West long before that.

[andy-hughes]

Kromovaracun - it is easy to dismiss the notion of dialogue as naiive, but remember, one of the definitions of insanity is repeating the same circumstances and expecting a different result.

If Russia with its army and financecs cannot subdue Afghanistan, what chance do we have?

All the Taliban has to do is wait until we withdraw our troops - as we must.

One side of the war goes home, nothing of value or lasting impact achieved.

The other side of the war had only to wait, they aren't going anywhere, they are already home.

[ludwig]

The world trade centre was destroyed BEFORE any war on terror started andy.

Do you blame 'the war monger Bush' for those murders as well?

[andy-hughes]

ludwig - depends which war monger Bush you mean - Dubbyah, or his Daddy - both had delusions of being cowboys on the frontier.