funkyderek
Realist, you're right. Terrorists will always find a reason. Cowering and capitulating to their demands won't remove their reason, it will just teach them - and the rest of the rest of the world - that terrorism works. Refusing to take action because of fear of terrorist reataliation means the terrorists have already won.
It's a tough call. It's easy to say terrorists will ALWAYS find a reason, but I think all of us know deep down why the terrorists have NEVER found a reason to target Norway or Mexico or a hundred other countries. I am not against war, when the reasons are right. And I am registered as a Republican as of Clinton's second term. (He was a traitorous scoundrel, imho.) But, now I'm ashamed of our biggest coward, our President* Bush.
President* Bush has refused to take action against terrorism. When he is shown plain, accepted evidence that almost all terrorists who hit us on 9/11 were Saudis, he goes to Afghanistan. He says he will stop at nothing before getting an "exPat" Saudi terrorist ring-leader and his network. Then in spite of all his empty promises and bravado, he's afraid --scared-- of following through. He warned us that it might be slow going and it won't always look like he's making much progress, but he's too afraid of that perception now when it comes down to following up on al-Qaeda.
Some people, even on this board, claim he had evidence he didn't show to the US and the UN about Iraq when he said he would come up with some. If he wasn't lying, then he must have been afraid to show it. Americans were embarrassed! After all this time, he can't even make up any convincing evidence about Iraq and al-Qaeda, but he repeated his non-sense often enough so that a Gallup poll showed that nearly 40% of Americans thought most 9/11 terrorists were from Iraq. I used to think, "does Bush really think that enough Americans are that stupid?" and now I wonder about all of us. I apologize for the insult, but I think sometimes that there might be people on this board who believe that Saddam has links to al-Qaeda.
So now President* Bush has another chance to go after the country that harbored most of the terrorists. He is still a coward! He is afraid to even mention in public that the Saudis are anything but one of our closest friends in the Mid-East. (Strangely he also said that about Turkey, the genocide-prone country we'll forgive in advance.)
Why does Bush give in to these countries that harbor terrorists? He is scared to death of Saudi economic retaliation. The pro-attack people on this board should be quick to point out that just because the terrorists came from a certain country, it does not make that country at fault. So if that's true, why attack Afghanistan? Why attack Iraq?
And speaking of cowardice, why was Bush so afraid of the UN inspection? He made it obvious to the many in the world that he was afraid they would not be able to show what he had already claimed our "Intelligence" could prove, but didn't. So he had to stop it because he was afraid they would embarrass him.
I feel terrible for both the American and Iraqi soldiers, many of whom are no doubt are convinced they are doing the right thing. Too bad they are both working for cowards!
Gamaliel
