Wednesday, April 14, 2004
Hearts and Minds
Bush quote from Slate:
Whether the military operation is the main part of the "War on Terror" or the law enforcement/intelligence aspect is the main part is core difference between the Republican and Democratic party. I think that it all depends on what the battlefield is. Of course, in Afghanistan, the only choice we had was to go in and assist the Northern Alliance militarily. Bush saw the same problem in Iraq: he tried diplomacy, through the U.N., but when that failed, we had to use force. He now calls Iraq "the main front in the war on terror". That appears to be true, because he made it the main front.
The war on terror should be all 3 components, intelligence, military and law enforcement all working together. As we've seen with the recent terror arrests in Spain and London, the extremists have infiltrated most countries, including the United States. Does President Bush expect us to bomb Los Angeles and London, in order to kill tterrorirstssts? No, in those cases we have to have intelligence agencies working with law enforcement. Like Eliot Ness did with the Chicago mafia, we have to arrest the terrorists any way we can. If they spit on the sidewalk, arrest them.
Iraq is now a haven for Islamic extremists to kill Westerners, it wasn't like that before the war. With bloodshed increasing, more and more Arabs and Muslims will be seeing brutal footage on Al Jazeera and go to Iraq for revenge. I think Iraq is a case of the military causing more terror, rather than stopping it. We do have to kill or capture the terrorists that are out there, no question about it. However, we must stop the next generation of Muslims from becoming terrorists. To me, that's what President Bush and his Administration are missing. This is a public relations battle as much as anything else. If we don't win over Muslim "hearts and minds", the War on Terror will last forever.
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"Some are skeptical that the war on terror is really a war at all. My opponent said, and I quote, "The war on terror is less of a military operation, and far more of an intelligence-gathering law enforcement operation." I disagree-strongly disagree. ...After the chaos and carnage of September the 11th, it is not enough to serve our enemies with legal papers. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States of America, and war is what they got."
President Bush, March 25, 2004
Whether the military operation is the main part of the "War on Terror" or the law enforcement/intelligence aspect is the main part is core difference between the Republican and Democratic party. I think that it all depends on what the battlefield is. Of course, in Afghanistan, the only choice we had was to go in and assist the Northern Alliance militarily. Bush saw the same problem in Iraq: he tried diplomacy, through the U.N., but when that failed, we had to use force. He now calls Iraq "the main front in the war on terror". That appears to be true, because he made it the main front.
The war on terror should be all 3 components, intelligence, military and law enforcement all working together. As we've seen with the recent terror arrests in Spain and London, the extremists have infiltrated most countries, including the United States. Does President Bush expect us to bomb Los Angeles and London, in order to kill tterrorirstssts? No, in those cases we have to have intelligence agencies working with law enforcement. Like Eliot Ness did with the Chicago mafia, we have to arrest the terrorists any way we can. If they spit on the sidewalk, arrest them.
Iraq is now a haven for Islamic extremists to kill Westerners, it wasn't like that before the war. With bloodshed increasing, more and more Arabs and Muslims will be seeing brutal footage on Al Jazeera and go to Iraq for revenge. I think Iraq is a case of the military causing more terror, rather than stopping it. We do have to kill or capture the terrorists that are out there, no question about it. However, we must stop the next generation of Muslims from becoming terrorists. To me, that's what President Bush and his Administration are missing. This is a public relations battle as much as anything else. If we don't win over Muslim "hearts and minds", the War on Terror will last forever.
