If you can't beat them, join them...?

Question

Obviously traditional military tactics do not work against terrorists. So why do we spend all this money on trying to beat them - what we really need to do is employ their tactics of sneaking around in the shadows, kidnapping their leaders / activists and killing them - no court, no jury. Just think of the benefits.

It's far more effective - no civillian casualties
It's much cheaper.
Fewer soldiers in combat situations.

I think we need to re-evaluate our whole methodology in order to win, don't you?

Another alternative is to find a replacement for oil. If you can remove a state's ability to fund terrorists then it becomes very difficult for the terrorist to buy weapons.

Your thoughts please.

Answer 1

I agree fully. Throughout history we have always fought the current war by addressing the mistakes of the last one. We do not take into account our enemy, technology, or the effectiveness of our strategy. Perfect example. The Maginot Line was created to address france's weakness in WWI. When WWII started, the line was proven pointless because technology (tanks) and war strategy (guerilla tactics) had made trench warfare obsolete.

We have the technology, the soldiers, and the intelligence to fight fire with fire (terrorism with terrorism) the war we are fighting now is a failed attempt to assert our weakening influence on the world and has now backfired and we will fall from superpower status within out lifetime if we do not change to address modern times.

Answer 2

I should imagine this is already happening and has been for a long time think CIA, MI 5 (or is it M I 6?), SAS, Mossad. Even the James Bond movies were based on romantised facts. We would only hear of this sort of thing in the media when things go wrong (like the Mossad kidnapping and killing the wrong people in Norway a few years ago).

As for a replacement for oil there is a start to finding alternative energy solutions, but it is going so slowly I think that it will be a long time before the various terrorist organisations lose out on funding from the opec couintries

Answer 3

Thank You. I have always felt that if you want to take out a terrorist group you have to act like them.

Employ our CIA agents to do the job. A bloated military ground action is not the answer if the terrorists just hide in the crowd anyway. It's like strolling up in a tank when you should be blending into the group.

Damn straight with oil alternative. That would solve alot of problems.

Of course, none of this will ever happen.

Answer 4

Since terrorism is considered a more negative thing to most people, the most common or expected thing to do is fight the evil.

Your ideas are kind of just out of nowhere, but they still have thought in them - you could like just make peace with the world, but if our country turned into some terrorist nation, there would be like havoc in the streets, all over the world and all around.

George Bush would be pretty much be a second Osama in that case - other countries and unions would have to send in their troops and do the stupid things that Bush did to try to stop the terrorists, but in that case, it's the US, not Iraq.

Just because one country joins them, doesn't mean the whole world will.

Answer 5

not a bad idea but do you believe this doesn't go on anyway in western countries? the only thing we don't do is bomb buildings full of business men and women, tube stations, Internet cafes, crowded markets town and city centres those act kill hundreds of civilians and injure even more we can go around doing things like that.

and also remember that 9 times out of 10 these people do these types of attacks but they are under manned and out gunned by larger countries like the USA so if these people had their know countries weapon factories or money to buy better weapons like tanks, planes and laser guided bombs they would more than like wage war in the more "old fashioned" way.

I been to Iraq and Afghanistan and seen first hand the tactics used by these types of "terrorists" in Iraq they hit and run and use run side bombs to attack their targets because they are forgien insurgents and not really in there know country. where as in Afghanistan they stand their ground as is it their country and they are defending it but in both cases when ever they get in to big fire fights with better equipped force they fail because they are out gunned that is why the use the types of attacks they do around the world,

but i think if they could they would roll tanks up the banks of the river Thames and carpet bomb new york so we have to make sure we stop them be for they get to that point

Answer 6

Well, Im not sure how much of what youre saying I agree with. I do think that the frontal attack is mostly never the best course of action and it is true that we are not sticking to tried and true methods of overcoming an enemy. Unfortunately, our leadership and leadership all over the globe seem to preferr to announce "Hey can we come in and kill you?". Ive been saying for a long while how high profile military action is not the best course of action and trying to quell insurgency is like trying to kill a spider with a shotgun. You might get the tiny spider you might not, but you will definitely destroy a lot of property in the process.

Answer 7

It does sound like a good idea except that terrorists tend to go after civilian targets rather than military instillation. Instilling fear among the people is the terrorist's greatest weapon. We saw this in Spain. I don't think we could condone that as a country.

Answer 8

Platobeenz is quite correct!! The British SAS, US Navy Seals, Delta force, are in almost constant combat with selected terrorist targets.

Answer 9

More chance of soldiers dying...not good for governments.. they no like.

I think that your idea would also break some of the international laws and agreements that are in place.

And finally what about justice, how would they be certain it's a terrorist?? mistakes do happen you know.

Answer 10

You need to grow up