Iraq says Zarqawi sending some militants back home to commit terrorist acts.

[Ted Striker]

.

[Patroklos]

It is totally normal for violence to escalate once you declare war, anyone care to offer an example to the opposite?

While obviously not a good thing, these people have no skills that will allow them to infiltrate, which is the most impresive skills posseced by the 9/11 bombers. They are going home, where they will kill their fellow muslims and in the end destroy their cause.

Ted, grab your head, its spinning.

[Patroklos]

It's one of the most disgusting behaviors we Americans have and alot of it is based in racism.

Can you at least pick a tangent and stick with it please

[Ted Striker]

.

[Patroklos]

There are medications available to help your delusions.

I good nights sleep will do you good

I congradulate you though, in typical fashion you hit racism as the cause of all thing not agreeing with your viewpoint, Ted Striker talking point #84.

[Ted Striker]

.

[Patroklos]

Oh common, you can do better than that, it isn't that late yet...

[Ted Striker]

.

[Pekka]

Pat, right.. but those are not the folks that would attack in US soil most likely anyway.. it would be the more sophisticated ones.. the sleeper cells.. that waited for years the last time anyway. I think we can bet our homes that there are still cells in the US, as there is in Europe, and some other parts of the world as well. They haven't just acted yet.

War in some other parts of the world wouldn't put any kind of stop to them. And like said, striking in someones country is extremely easy. I mean you don't have to be super intelligent to be able to pull it off. Of course the difference between sophisticated ones and others would be what happened with 9/11.. suckers that can fly the plane and execute it perfectly.

But what is certain is that these fellows have been trained before, and way before Iraq ever happened. It's just a matter of time and the only way to stop them is through good intelligence and good police work, there's nothing war in other countries will do to stop it.

I'm just battling the argument of 'rather there than here'.

Iraqis weren't coming into the US to do street fighting and taking over blocks anyway.

Will some terrorist die in Iraq as result from US offensive? Yes, absolutely. Lots of good kills are made there. How does it affect global terrorism as a whole, well I guess that's a matter of opinion but my opinion is not very much.

In fact, I believe the war in IRaq is exactly what true terrorists wants. They don't give a crap about their fellow muslims anyway. They can die for all they care. But they can be living peacefully in Saudi Arabia an other bastions of terrorists and enjoy watching US spending lots of resources, getting its boys killed there, and at the same time having ME even more pissed off, and of course seeing some shaking in the coalition.. for the cost of what? They don't have to chip a dollar into it.

If I was terrorist, this would be what I wanted to happen. Of course this is not necessarily what they tried, but this is countering the argument 'we are kicking their ass and they are on the run'. Where are they running exactly? IF they want to get their azz kicked, they actually have to run all the way to Iraq.

Furthermore, they likely just send some dudes there to recruit more folks.. that's it. And provide them with guns, ammo, training and all that stuff. And most likely few hot headed ones, the young guns can't wait but go there anyway.

I mean only the most stupid ones will fall into 'come on out! Don't be sissies! Come on here and fight!'. Few do, but the sophisticated ones and the dangerous ones won't even go there at all, except maybe for few motivational speeches.

So, I'm not taking a stand here if Iraq war should be fought and stuff, I'm just trying to reason, that there is absolutely no believable scenario where the most dangerous terrorists would go to Iraq and fight, and that this would keep the fight in there. No.. this is just one extra fight. Or that they would be on the run because of this. My view is they are climaxing, not running.

And in the bigger scheme of things, this would give them the initiative as well. Like we saw in Bali, Madrid and London.

[Patroklos]

All good points Pekka.

Not Ted, please do us the pleasure of telling us why Zarkawi sending his foriegn fighters home is racist

[Dinner]

Originally posted by Pekka
I don't understand how fighting in Iraq stops any terrorist attacks around the world though.

Let me check.. hmm Bali? Madrid? UK? Bali again?

You forgot Turkey, Morrocco, Tunisia, Egypt, several in India, Several in Pakistan, several in Afghanistan, etc...

The invasion of Iraq did remove an evil dictator but the world is over run by evil dictators and this one was in a cage and so couldn't harm his neighbors. Because we were so busy in Iraq we couldn't effectively respond or realistically brow beat Iran or North Korea out of getting nuclear weapons. In my opinion those two issues were far more of a threat to world security then Saddam was in 2003.

Lastly, it's created a ground swell of new terrorist recruits and lots of new propaganda about the evil west. Any way you look at it the invasion of Iraq has increased terrorism and made us all less safe.

[Ted Striker]

.

[Pekka]

Pat, thanks.. of course they aren't the ultimate truths, just another view on the few popular arguments.

IT's rather deceptive the 'rather there than here'. Because the answer is OF COURSE YES RATHER THERE THAN HERE!
But it's a question that is mostly rhetoric, and carries less significance than it first seems. It's not a question that should be asked in this connection.

But at the same time, I have to say that yes, I bet US has caught many terrorists in Iraq, killed some of them, and continues to do so.

If I was asked, is this an effective way to fight global terrorism, I'd say no, but it's one way to fight it, one thing to do. Is it succesfull, I don't know. In some aspects yes, in some aspects no. But it's something. The problem is, to fight terrorism.. well that's kind of almost impossible. So, Iraq as one thing, sure, it's killing some of them terrorists, but there needs to be more to fight terrorism, and I'm sure there is, and most of it is something we don't know, because it would be secret and not exactly public information.

[Patroklos]

I do not think that the Iraq invasion is the best way to fight terrorism, and that is not why I support it.

However, anyone with any bit of common sence must of realized that whatever method we attempted to attack terrorists worldwide, it would lead to at least a decade of watershed attacks as they brought their best means to bare against us as we are against them. Thats how conficts work.

[Dinner]

The root causes of terrorism tend to be things like unemployment, anger at their own government's lack of freedom, wahabism spread by the Saudi government, and a belief that the US is supporting the dictatorships of the Arab world. The biggest threat to the US was and is Al Qaeda most of whom are in Afghanistan or Pakistan.

Can these root causes be dealt with in a creative way which would not result in a massive surge of new terrorist recruits? Yes, what is needed is economic development and political reform in the Arab world tied with coordinated action in Afghanistan and Pakistan. We just didn't see lots of new terrorists signing up during Afghanistan since even the Arab world was appaled by 9/11 but Iraq was seen as an imperialist crudade to steal oil (rightly or wrongly) so it did result in the negative effects we've discussed. It seems pretty clear the reforms could have drained much of the swamp the terrorists breed in while staying focused on Al Qaeda would have reduced actual attacks on America. Invading Iraq didn neither of those things and in fact made them worse.