What would your world on terror consist of if president? I would drop pamphlets in the following countries 3 days in advance. Iran, Syria and Pakistan, tell them to leave the cities and homes and head to the hills or an open area in their country. Civilian casualties will be low this way! I would then bomb all buildings in these countries into the stone age. Now that all their buildings, cities, etc has been destroyed it would take them 20 to 30 years to rebuild their countries before they could ever put up the sword against anyone. Some may not like it but I don't like the fact that these countries support and train various terrorist groups and teach terrorism and hate to their children. It has been well documented that this is a fact.
My plan would be much more cost effective. I would simply stop pissing off terrorist. Notice they don't screw with the mexicans or canadians. I'm guessing it's because those guys spend their money taking care of their own instead of trying to police the world.
Funny I didn't think of that angle. I'll be as honest as I can be and say I'm conflicted on this issue. If we go back to the intelligence issue that we had, the Brits and other countries and we didn't know better I think we would have no choice but to relive the Iraq war over again. In my opinion it is unfortunate but I still think we would've had to do it sooner or later. Imagine us not doing it, Saddam dying and his sons in charge, that is one scary thought to me, you never know what the future could bring either way? The timing could be an issue here also. I think I would've went from Afghanistan to Pakistan first if your talking the way we did this in the first place but I think I like my strategy better. American soldiers aren't at stake or practically sitting targets. PS:Talking intell, I'm not talking WMD's only either. A lot of factors involved on these descisions and timing could be the difference!
This will not eliminate the terrorists and would put us in the same category as Hitler for genocidal actions. That ain't my USA, chief. It's completely insane. It's worse behavior than the few international criminals in Al Qaida. It would turn the whole world against us permanently. The thing to do is to threaten Pakistan with sanctions and war if they don't let our special forces go into their mountains and kill bin ladin and Al Qaida. Syria is no threat to us and has been trying really hard to get on our good side for several years now. We could flip those guys into not cooperating with Iran and Hezbollah if we tried really hard. We flipped Egypt. We flipped Jordan. But Bush's policy is to isolate Syria, which plays into the hands of the Iranians.
Honestly I think your thinking could be flawed? The radical Muslim terrorist wants to convert people to Islam or kill them. They also don't like our way of life from what I understand? I've heard from various sources that they just want to kill us!
You beat me to it. The key to stopping terrorism is not to give them a huge talking point and more rhetoric to scream about. First and foremost the task should be to seek out and destroy terrorist camps and kill or capture terrorist leaders. Bush started to do this but got sidetracked with Iraq. The second step is providing a legal definition of a terrorist, defining the rights a captured terrorist has, and creating a court system that can try them and punish them. Bush has completely failed to do this. The third step is to discredit radical mullahs in the eyes of Muslims. Simple people respond to the anti US rhetoric of these guys because they are too ignorant to know any better. We should covertly support the mainstram Islamic leaders who are pro-west and do not support jihad.
Oh, if only being president were that simple. First, you would need the approval of Congress which you would not get. Secondly, civilian casualties might be low, but so would terrorist casualties. Thirdly, you can destroy all the cities you want, but if you leave enemy forces intact you haven't accomplished much. The idea that the cities should be the primary target of an army went out with the American Civil War. Fourthly, the terrorists don't need cities in order to operate; they do just as well in caves.
If we could go back and start from day one, I would've started in Afghanistan overthrown the Taliban and installed a democratic government; which we did. I would've sent in more troops then we did after the initial air campaign and; while I would've definatelty utilized the relationship with the Northern Alliance and hired gun warloads, I would'nt have tasked them with finding OBL. This should've been the primary responsibility of our guys. Had this been the case, he probably wouldn't have escaped in Tora Bora. I wouldn't have worried about Iraq at all for now, because I wouldn't have deemed them a threat. Just look at Afghanistan now. There's very little insurgency and the locals appear to appreciate what we've done for them I would set up schools in all 'friendly' Muslim nations (Pakistan, Afghanistan, Saudi, Egypt, etc) to rival the madrassas that teach children hate. I would start a HUGE propaganda war; filling the airwaves of Arab satellite TV beaming lectures from respected, influencial Muslim scholars about the true meaning of Islam and what Allah REALLY says about terrorism, the killing of innocents, and suicide. Granted, this is a very simplistic, high level approach and is no way the be all/end all plan to eliminate terrorism, but I think this would've been a great start. We wouldn't have squandered our reputation and good will. We may have convinced moderate Muslims to turn against radicalism. As it is, I believe they (the moderates) view radicalism as the lesser of 2 evils.I'm not sure if you guys realize this or not, but Arabs have a very intense sense of history. That's part of the reason we're viewed as the Great Satan; crusading to eliminate the world of Islam. As ridiculous as we know this to be, most Arabs don't because it's happened before.
The Mexican and Canadian borders are their gateway into America, the recognized symbol of the free world that threatens their power and way of life, so why would they attack them? And as far as Mexico "spending their money to take care of their own", then why are they encouraging their poor to illegally come into this country to send American dollars back to their country?
