Washington Post: war on terror a total failure?

reply to post by bekod


It's funny you put it that way for how it's turned out. If the terrorists whole goal, in the big picture, is to terrorize (says so, right in the book..lol) then they've won and won spectacularly already. They just need to survive now until we grow tired of losing.

Sadly, a population also can't be terrorized without some part of it being willing to accept it. I remember always looking at Israel and thinking 'at least we haven't given fully into the terror and become that...'. Now? We have. We don't have guys regularly patrolling with military rifles to see in society...but when you think about it, response and daily life wise? It's all we are missing from the "armed camp" feel of Israel.

spooky24

My argument is not that stoping the Subway attack was a failure. It is that over the last 12 years we have spent trillions of dollars and over a million people have died and we have suspended the US Constitution for all practical purposes. Has the cost been worth the occasional success story? I would argue that indeed it has been a failure simply because of the Cost alone. It certainly doesn't help that a Global War on Terror has no defined enemy or way to judge if indeed anything has actually been successful. For those that say there has been no attacks since 9-11... I will say. Boston Bombings. Anthrax attacks.

I'm not going to debate with children however since you ask this I'll respond. First what 'million people have died' are you talking about.

We haven't suspended the US Constitution. The Congress voted to allow exceptions for clandestine operation to be expanded. Yes, some of them are quite intrusive however in a democracy sometimes you must put up with things you disagree with.

The 2009 stimulus program borrowed 890 billion from the Chinese government at 22% interest. Compounded now to over 1.1 trillion.

That is more than twice what the war on terror has cost. The stimulus program accomplished nothing, even the president said it didn't work.

Why aren't you up in arms about that.

Besides, what would you do-nothing?

Spooky I am not sure you actually read my original post. I posted figures on cost of the GWOT and amount of people killed. I think you can safely forget any information you may have gotten from US media. Most all sources outside of the US have the figures of 750,000-1.3 Million dead Iraqi civilians alone. That does not include... Afganistan, Pakistan, Yeman, Libya or Syria ( as a direct result on GWOT) and does not include service members on either side. US media will tell you what thier masters what them to tell you. CNN would have you believe 150,000 people have died. I have heard as well that it has cost the US alone over 1.3 Trillion (Sometimes I have heard double that figure) dollars to wage the longest wars we have ever been involved in. Maybe you do not count Iraqi Civilians as people but I do.. As well as most agency's that are keeping tabs on the carnage.

Suspended the Constitution was a figure of speech. There is little doubt with the Patriot act and the expanded role of the NSA, CIA , Homeland Security etc that many of the very things promised us in the Bill of Rights have been eroded to a massive disturbing degree.


Directly from the 4th admendment

"The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.[1]"

en.m.wikipedia.org...

There is not one aspect of that wording that has not been trampled by the NSA and FISA courts. I am not sure how it could be interpreted in any other way.




.

That statement comes from a total misunderstanding of the Iraq war and it's aftermath. President Obama remove the 'war on terror' pledge because the war HAD been won.

The Iraq war was fought in the American media just as much as it was in the Middle East. Different media outlets-inline with the political standing of the owners of the media-reported the War differently. It was a true liberal vs conservative fight fought in newspapers and the never ending 24 hour media. Different politicians, while American solders, along with 30 other nations were dying used the conflict to enhance their own political ambitions and that of their party. What seems today as shameless was the never ending amount of lies told by both sides, for political reasons, while our solders died.

Wars can be odd things. The Iraq war a case study about how things can go wrong and how they can be made beneficial. As Napoleon said 'sometimes you must lose the war before you can win it'. That is exactly what happened. No one had anticipated that the insurgency, after the fall of Hussein, would balloon to the level it did and draw fighters from many different parts of the world.Again , no one could predict what happened next. At the height of the insurgency Al Qaeda saw an opportunity to further their mission by becoming involved and eventually taking over the fight with the coalition. The sheer brutality and disregard for human life that was a pattern of the fighters eventually doomed Al qedia and won the war for the coalition and America. The killings of anyone who disagreed with them-other Muslims-change the balance of the conflict. The last straw came in Al Anbar as Al qedia fighters beheaded an entire family of 4 for not observing sharia law. They then prohibited the family from burying the dead before nightfall as is custom. They made them wait a week and rigged the rotting bodies with explosives that killed the final 8 members of the family.

Everything changed with that one incident. The insurgency that had fought against America and the coalition suddenly changed sides and fought along side America to rid the country of the mindless brutally of Al Qaeda. The war was won and the country was recovering, still with problems, but recovering none the same.

That was the success of the War on Terror.

You cannot defeat an idea. Ever.

You can cover it up, throw bullets or bombs at it, you can even destroy the body taking out action - but you cannot defeat the IDEA behind it.

Sadly, terrorism today is based on the idea that some (not all) hate the west or what the west does specifically. It's an idea that leads to acts of tragedy - but it is still an idea.

You can kill a person, but not an idea.

I don't know the answer other than saying people should stop warring and start understanding but I feel there is little chance of that this day an age with so many things that serve to divide humans instead of uniting them.

We need an independence day scenario or something like that IMO to have a chance (I'm serious!).

Floydshayvious
You cannot defeat an idea. Ever.

Tell that to the #Occupy movement.

-Peace-

reply to post by Eryiedes


The idea is still there. It's a household term - everyone knows about it and has opinions about it. It never stopped. People still actively protest that identify with it.

It hasn't gone anywhere.

If it, the idea, was defeated you wouldn't even be using the term.


I still maintain that terrorism is an idea - you cannot kill an idea. Occupy (whatever) is based on idea that hasn't gone anywhere.

reply to post by spooky24

i do not know how you can say the war was won , it has not!!! For we have with drawn our troops the war goes on
news.yahoo.com... Afghanistan is no better www.kswo.com... for the war is on going it will never end , it is an idea, us vs them, a belief and teaching... no one is willing to admit to this!!

If it is not Al Quciad er AlQaeda www.aljazeera.com... then it will be some other group or thought that is a threat, deemed by NSA, to be watched by DHS TSA and are here to stay.

NDAA the "P act "will only get more added in as time goes by, more wars and conflicts to bring about more terrorist acts in every county nation in the world, thus being the true WW3, an unknown enemy to bring about death by unforeseen acts. The war on terror has failed.

Floydshayvious
reply to post by Eryiedes

 

The idea is still there. It's a household term - everyone knows about it and has opinions about it. It never stopped. People still actively protest that identify with it.

It hasn't gone anywhere.

If it, the idea, was defeated you wouldn't even be using the term.

edit on 17-9-2013 by Floydshayvious because: Clarity to support topic

I still maintain that terrorism is an idea - you cannot kill an idea. Occupy (whatever) is based on idea that hasn't gone anywhere.

edit on 17-9-2013 by Floydshayvious because: on-topic

It was defeated from within.
It was defeated by the establishment co-copting it (with Caribou Barbie) and turned into a joke.
It didn't have to be beaten...it was ridiculed into limbo.
(Which IMHO is worse)
It became a joke.
The concept of what it represented (the household name you refer to) became a punchline for people taking pot shots at the Tea Party.
It didn't have to be fought against...it killed itself.

That to me is the absolute epitome of the "death of an idea".
I agree with the spirit of what you say but the reality of the matter is something quite different and I defy you to prove otherwise.

-Peace-

reply to post by Eryiedes

Occupy er Ocu cry was doomed from day one why it had no one mind set money.cnn.com... from the link

Why Occupy Wall Street fizzled
By Julianne Pepitone @julpepitone September 17, 2013: 11:58 AM ET


Email Print
Why Occupy Wall Street fizzled out
Why Occupy Wall Street fizzled out
NEW YORK (CNNMoney)
It's been two years since the launch of Occupy Wall Street, the New York-based social movement that quickly spread to encompass headline-grabbing protests around the globe.
Occupy Wall Street stayed in the news for several months, drawing both fascination and criticism for its approach to tackling major systemic issues like corporate greed and inequality. But two years later, the uprising is long over.

5 years after the crisis: Main St. vs. Wall St.
A CNNMoney panel discusses income inequality in America and the role of the financial system.
To commemorate the second Occupy anniversary, as well as the five-year mark for the bankruptcy of Lehman Brothers, CNNMoney brought together three people with wildly different views on the movement and the problems it sought to solve: a political economist, an Occupy protester and a former Lehman banker.

it was as if it was a CIA op from the start just to take names of future trouble makers, if that be the case it worked if not then a failure.
One can not compare this to Terrorism or to Terrorist. for it they do have a one mind set, not a bunch of off the cuff ideas that do not know one form the other, the real cause of Occupy's down fall.

That is the jist of it.

-Peace-

NDAA the "P act "will only get more added in as time goes by, more wars and conflicts to bring about more terrorist acts in every county nation in the world, thus being the true WW3, an unknown enemy to bring about death by unforeseen acts.

That is a good point and I agree. I firmly believe that America is going to have a moment sometime in the near future when people get fed up with the media running the country rather than the elected government.As far as the world and WW3 most people I know agree with you that one is coming. As far as the 'P' act is concerned the CIA and NSA has been doing much worse for 50 years. It was a mistake to try to make it legit and they should have just punted and said nothing.

If it has helped it's been a trade off. Loss of privacy traded for whatever extra security we have. With regard to flying: When going through the detector in San Francisco they had to brush my hand for a good 2 -3 minutes, with some substance that will indicate gun powder. Not to profile but - I'm a caucation female who had a young child with me. Still, I was so suspicious to them they dusted my hands - convinced something was there as he kept doing it over and over. They also insisted I was hiding something in the back pocket of my tight fitting genes. Even after patting themselves they had to stuff their hands back there to convince themselves I was clean. When I had to take my shirt off I was thoroughly humiliated though. Had just a tank top underneith. I could tell people felt for me. Your all safer because people like me are completely searched. Doesn't feel very safe to me.

I must also ask - can't a terrorist grab a fork or knife out of any restaurant after the security check? Little of it makes sense to me.