Will it ever end?

Question

First Afghan, then Iraq and now Iran. The War on Terror started in Afghanisatn, and before that was won, it then moved on to Iraq, and now most probably Iran. Yet it still rages in Afghanistan. Will there ever be an end to it? Or when the war is won, either by the terrorists or the coalition (someone has to win), will another country be invaded, and what will the out come be? I personally think that there will always be terrorists. Where ever you are, what ever you do, somebody out there will be upset at your actions.

Has the coalition bitten of more than they can chew? Instead of attacking terrorist communities, would it have been better to concentrate on their own safety in their own countries.

No I'm not having a dig at America, I am generally asking a question.

I am not trying to make a biased point here. I was just trying to look at the situation from all angles. Maybe I didn't do it very well. But thanks for your comments.

Answer 1

No it will never end, because it was never started in the first place. The war on terror is a misconception. There is not even a clearly accepted understanding of what a terrorist is? Who is a terrorist? Zarkawi, Osama, the IRA, Bush, the suicide bomber, the US Air Force pilot who drops a bomb and kills countless civilains or the US Marine who killed a four year old kid in Haditha. Was Hitler a terrorist? Just who exactly is a terrorist? Terror is a technique being employed by those who see it fit to use that technique for whatever reasons they have. The media and those prosecuting this "war" have added a face to this technique to sell it on that basis so as to create support for this vague concept from an unquestioning audience.THey did this in the same way that they tried to sell us the "war on drugs" in the 1990's which was infact just a police operation against the Cali Cartel in Columbia. So when they killed the head of the Cali Cartel, Escobar they said the war was won. Today drugs are still a problem and no amount of wars fought against this concept is going to stop people from taking cocaine or heroine or speed. In the same way terror will still be a problem because it is a technique rather than a tangible object which can be fought, kicked and shot to death. No doubt we'll hear many more futile and meaningless "mission accomplished" statements.

Answer 2

Will there ever be a time when Terrorists don't exist? Sure --ever is a long time. But I don't think it will happen in my lifetime. The invasions you refer to are not for the same reasons as was done in the past. There's no desire in the part of the coalition to conquer and control these countries.

You imply we need to concentrate on defence. If you look at history you will see defence doesn't work. Pick any defensive idea and you see it only works short term and not against any concreted threat. The reason it doesn't work is defenceive measures hove to work 100% of the time year after year after year, but an attack only has to succeed one time on a date of the attackers choosing. That's what happened with 9/11.

Situations like Afghanistan under the Taliban or Iraq under Saddam should never happen. But that is a failure of the UN. The nations of the world UNITED should be setting the standards of what rogue governments cannot do. And backing terrorist is the one thing that should be curshed whether it's a country, company, or private individual. And it should be done by the UN. It shouldn't be primarily the job of the US.

Answer 3

One of the problems with the media-friendly title "war on terrorism" is that the implication is that it is winnable. Terrorism from its historical roots until today has been promoted by groups with organic and/or indistinct structures and, as such, is impossible to fully eradicate ... if you could simultaneously kill EVERY member of a terrorist Organisation then all it takes is one person to see them as martyrs/role-models and take up the banner - this will always be the case. Sometimes a terrorist can only be identified as a terrorist at the point they act.

The best that can be hoped for is to choke their funding and support structure to LIMIT the harm they can do ... this includes the arguable tactic of attacking countries who support or harbour them (i.e. Afghanistan although not, necessarily, Iraq [although I can't see many folks disagreeing that Saddam supported several terrorist organisations directly and indirectly]).

In response to your last points the fully defensive strategy has never worked since Greek/Roman times - every strategist will say the same in this respect. The problem with Iraq was not the winning of the conventional war and the laying waste to an enemy (real or imagined) but the (Western Only) Geneva Convention which required the victor to stabalise and protect the country ... although there is logic in not leaving a failed state.

I honestly believe that the coalition would rather have supported an internal coup than occupying - remember the lengths they went to NOT to occupy Iraq the first time around.

Overall I am positive that, even in the unlikely event the US went against Iran, the next response would be a convention attack destroying the infrastructure of a county and its ability to subjugate its people rather than risk an attempt to occupy, even if they have to by default.

The answer above is not taking sides it is merely my calm observations on a tragic set of circumstances.

Peace out

Answer 4

I think you are illustrating the inherent laziness of most Americans. The point you are making is "this looks like it is going to take alot of time, and probably be hard also, we shouldn't even try then".

I think we are in a position where we don't really have a choice. This was a fight that was brought to us, not one that we sought out. Starting with Jimmy Carter, you could even say that the US has gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid this fight (since we started getting attacked by the terrorists in 1979).

Alot of people (yourself included) think that we should just hunker down within our borders and just leave everyone alone. The only problem: for this to work we would have to close our borders to all people, and imports, and exports.

That doesn't sound like it would help our economy much.

There will be an end to this fight. The question we need to ask, is do we want to be governed by our constitution at the end of the day, or Sharia Law?

Answer 5

Coalition forces are biting the bullets. Nobody knows today are muslims and tomorrow may be Buddhists, Hindus, Jews etc. Just to go into deeper, the politics is of OIL. Why Oil? B'coz most of the non democratic countries are holding reserves and due to lack of nationalism amongst the natives, they become easy victims to coalition forces. One more aspect- to control the oil flow will directly affect to the developing economies as their sciences are yet to find non conventional alternative to oil. This directly affects to the foreign reserves and bychecking Oil flow, one can easily rule these countries on their own terms.

Answer 6

war on terror is the perfect war. the cold war didnt actually involve war unless russia/china & usa backed those fighting (iran & iraq in the 70s & 80s, african tribes at war, bosnian war, ect). this war theres no state or individual that can be called the enemy. for instane, we arent at war with any of the countries or factions the hijackers were from. a terrorist can be from any color, culture, religion, place,... as long as there is someone willing to retaliate for what theyve suffered there will always be 'terrorism'. the usa has been caught many times setting off bombs that they blamed on someone else. perpetual. ubiquitous & entire...its the perfect war.

Answer 7

i dont think there is an end in sight. what governments have failed to realise time and time again despite so many demonstrations of it, is that VIOLENCE CAUSES MORE VIOLENCE! even if they managed to kill all the terror cells which exist now, the u.s and u.k are breeding a whole new generation of terrorists in afghanistan and iraq who will be bitter and angry at having being bombed, seeing their families killed by our weapons and soldiers. (and rightly so)
the war against terror will never ever ever succeed because all it does is heighten the problem, and the governments know that. i really dont know what they hell their aim is cos it sure as hell isnt to keep their own countries safe.

Answer 8

if we say there ll be an end to it then will be lying to ourselves there will always be wars and rumours of wars because we are in the lastdays and it has been prophecied that nations will rise against nations... etc and several others all these prophecies must be fufilled there can neva be world peace for as long as people are on planet earth because we all ve a lot of differences and beliefs.
lets only pray that in the midst of it all we will find individual peace and hope for tomrrow till jesus comes
there ll be more insurgencies earthquake killings and death records in these time and day

Answer 9

There will continue to be wars as long as people have an ego and a need to be more powerful than their peers. It's a fact of life.

Answer 10

Then I will "generally " answer. There may in the distant future be a truce of sorts...But short of one idea eliminating another the disagreement will never...END!