The same can be said for the KKK. Kids of KKK members often joined themselves. Racism in general is usually passed down from parents to kids. And so is political ideology. Kids of liberals are usually liberal, and kids of conservatives are usually conservative. There are some excpetions, but yes -- even though we hate to admit it, we are often much like our parents.

But none of this changes what the effective solution is. Unfortunately, there is no quick fix. But fighting terror with terror simply does not work. It didn't work with the KKK. It didn't work for the British in their fight against the IRA. It hasn't worked for the Israelis in their fight against Hezbollah or Hamas. And it won't work against al-Queda.

For some reason, none of you wants to ask the magic questions, which is "what causes extremists groups to become powerful?"

Every society has extremist groups. Even here in the United States, we have some extremist groups. But they are not powerful. They are very small fringe groups that do not really provide any significant threat to society. Why is it that our extremist groups are small and insignificant, but extremist groups in many third world regions are much more powerful and do provide a threat?

The answer is "living conditions". When people live in places with lousy living conditions, poverty, hunger, war, violence, etc. -- they are more likely to be desperate and to listen to extremists. If you look at history, you will see that in every country where extremists came to power, it was always following a period of terrible living conditions.

1920s Germany had a terrible depression following their defeat in the most destrictive war mankind had ever seen up to that point. So desperate people were more willing to put their faith in the Nazis, who were indeed seen as extremists, but promised all sorts of things to the people.

The KKK formed after the Confederacy was defeated in the Civil War, and the South was in economic ruins.

And now we have Al-Queda, which was formed in Afghanistan during the 1980s when people were starving to death and Afghanistan was in middle of a civil war. Not hard at all to understand their appeal to the average starving and unemployed person, when they promised to defeat the godless invaders (the Russians), and restore peace and religion to the country. And now we see them spreading to Iraq, another war-torn country with terrible economic conditions, over 30% unemployment, and an occupation by a foreign army. No big surprise there.

The question is how to get rid of the terrorist group. And the answer is quite simple. Have a policy which gets rid of the lousy living conditions, which attempts to rebuild the country, and gets rid of the occupying army. Will the problem go away overnight? No. It will take years. But at least we will be moving in the right direction.

Remember.....happy people do not become terrorists.

__________________


my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

I can actually agree with that to a point. The answer is easy to say, but creating a solution is not so easy. How do we go about creating better living conditions? Is that our responsibility? Will that make the majority of the terrorists happy? Maybe the terrorist should put all the money they are getting for weapons and such towards making their community a better place to live. Why is it so easy to riase money for terrorism and not for better living conditions? They can buy RPG's but go without indoor plumbing? Makes no sense to me. Maybe they should focus on buying books and educating themselves instead of what they have been doing.

Anyone who can scheme up and pay for the terroristic things they have been doing can also use that money and thinking to progess themselves as a society, IMO. By the way, why in the hell are you defending them so much?

Exactly.

Nope, it's not our responsibility. But we are already spending $9+ billion per month on our military occupation. So why not spend that money instead of rebuilding the infrastructure that we destroyed 5 years ago, helping people find new jobs, and making sure people there have what they need to live.


Doubful.

Will it make some of them happy? Probably

Will it make the general public who are not terrorists happy? Yes

Remember that without new recruits, any organization will die.



Spoken like a true liberal.

I've been saying that for years. I wish our politicians thought that way. $9 billion per month would sure go a long way towards rebuilding old bridges, repaving old roads, building new electrical grids where needed, and building a 21st century transportation system.



Makes no sense to me either. Maybe if some foreign country bombed our neighborhoods and killed our families, and we were angry about it, then it would make sense to us.


Not defending them. Just disagreeing with you guys on what their motives are and how to best eliminate them as a threat.

__________________


my experience on X5world when I spend too much
time posting in political threads in the lounge...

Eh.... not defending them on this thread? ......thats debatable...

The best way to eliminate a terrorist organization is to fight like them...Period... (No not kill innocent people) In order to defeat your enemy you must understand them on the military level...And because of ROE (Rules of Engagement) and Utopian fanatics like yourself, which you most surely support on all levels and situations....OUR guys are dying because we're letting "goat herders" strapped with AK's and IED's walking by with their "goats" are not directly shooting at us, we cannot engage and take them out....Even when one of those Sons of bitches has an AK pointed right at one of our SEALs heads in a reconosaince (that means no ones fighting yet. or non combat situation, mainly an observing type of scenario) WE cannot engage until that SOB drops our guy first... Because lord knows people like you will hold our guy responsible and label him a cold blooded murderer... THAT is a major problem which you most undoubtedly support... I'm a supporter of ROE..But not in all types of scenarios and situations...That's just one example above...

Since you love reading books so much...Read "Lone Survivor"...It will drop you to your knees...And if it doesn't..well..Enough said...