Reply #3: The trouble is, the War on Terror is a war of ideas, [View All]

[MadHound]

A war that's not going to be won with bombs and bullets, but with the better ideas of one side or another.

Continuing to kill innocents and lay waste to a country is not going to end this war, is not going to give us victory. All we're doing is creating more terrorists, as the people we violate decide to fight back.

Furthermore, who are we fighting in this war on terror? Afghanistan didn't attack us, Iraq didn't attack us, Yemen and Sudan didn't attack us. Yet we march in, violating the rules of war, violating these countries sovereignty, and blow the hell out of them. Terrorists aren't countries, so do we continue to bounce around the world blowing the hell out of countries?

Our best bet is to bring the truth home and start showing the noble, generous side of the US. That includes rebuilding the countries we've just blown to hell, not to mention starting to spread the wealth to countries that are so desperately poor, Somolia, Rwanda, etc. Start repairing our image, changing it from that of a bloodthirsty warmongering super power to that of a benevolent giant, a big brother who nobody wants to attack.

Islamic fundamentalists don't attack us because they don't like our freedoms, they attack us because we have raped the world of wealth and resources and have given nothing back in return. For instance, we helped the Afghan citizens repel the Soviet Union in the eighties. But after the Soviets pulled out, we forgot about them. A few million dollars in rebuilding money would have gone a long way to helping out our image in the area. But instead, we snapped the purse shut, and that, not our freedoms, is what truly pissed off bin Laden and his cohorts. If we had helped in the rebuilding of Afghanistan, they would have become a grateful friend, not an angry enemy.

The War on Terror is a War of Ideas, and you don't win a war of ideas by bringing a gun to the fight.