Why can't they attack us here if we're over there?

Question

The mantra of the pro-war crowd is that the U.S. military must fight terrorists in the Middle East so that they can not attack us here. Given that a terrorist attack typically requires very few people to pull it off, why does the presence of our military in the Middle East assure that they will not attack U.S. civilians in America?

Charming Gentleman:

Your analogy to sports doesn't hold much water with me. In soccer, there are defined rules that are reliably followed. Not so in war.

fakevetusaf, gugliamo00:

Your responses do your positions injustice. That's assuming that you have real positions and are not just trolling. If you're serious about having a debate, let me know.

I don't troll.

exsft:

Not a bad response. The major argument that I have against your view is that you are comparing apples and oranges. Germany was a state that relied upon moving hundreds of thousands of men and massive amounts of equipment. Terrorist organizations are lean. They only need a few people (even if it is hundreds, that's still a few compared to standing armies) to carry out operations.

It is likely that the military has disrupted some of their operations. I hope so. It's also possible that terrorists are targeting their attention on soldiers in Iraq instead of doing operations in the U.S.

I still posit though that a group working out of (say) Saudi Arabia (remember where most of the 9/11 hijackers came from?) could decide to stop focusing on Iraq and stage an attack on the U.S. The Iraq occupation would have nothing to do with such a group.

Mohammed F:

Another thought-out answer though I disagree with your conclusion. You do raise an important consideration. Terror groups require logistical support. If that support can be disrupted, their plans can not succeed.

Personally, I do not believe that conventional military is the best tool for targeting these small groups. I would think that we could get them without occupying an entire nation. That being said, I am certainly not an expert on the matter. If you don't agree, you could be right.

My last comment applies to you. Our occupation of Iraq offers no deterence against a group existing in another country (again, I offer Saudi Arabia). If anything, it assures that such a group will have a larger pool of willing recruits.

While there may indeed be a few Muslims who really do "hate us for our freedoms", I suspect that there are MANY who hate the U.S. for wrecking their homes.

XNinja:

I agree. There is no question that terrorist organizations are security threats. Conventional military does not address them. Indeed a clumsy, destructive occupation of a Muslim country do nothing but encourage recruits.

m1a1mikegolf:

I see that you are a top military contributor, so I may be presuming much to debate you on strategic thinking. Respectfully, I'd like to ask you to consider Sun Tzu's most famous quote:

"It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle." (http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Sun_Tzu)

Your dictim to fight offensively is wise if you really understand that fight that you're in. I don't believe that we do.

I'm going to ask you to get to know bin Laden. In doing so, I am not defending him. Even if his charge is true that the U.S. was responsible (pre 9/11) for the deaths of one million Iraqi children, he still is responsible for the deaths of innocent people himself.

[To be continued]

Read the full text of his statement immediately after the 9/11 attacks:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/1585636.stm

I would argue against many of his points. But his view of hypocrisy regarding U.S. foreign policy is extremely fair.

I hope that you'll read the whole text, but a couple of important quotes:

"What the United States tastes today is a very small thing compared to what we have tasted for tens of years."

"As for the United States, I tell it and its people these few words: I swear by Almighty God who raised the heavens without pillars that neither the United States nor he who lives in the United States will enjoy security before we can see it as a reality in Palestine and before all the infidel armies leave the land of Mohammed, may God's peace and blessing be upon him."

By occupying Iraq, we strengthen his cause.

As to the fact that there have been no more attacks in the U.S., I don't doubt that intelligence agencies have been actively trying to thwart attempts. I do think though that the threats are exaggerated (most recently, al Qaeda was blamed for the fires in CA - I'm not kidding!).

I suspect though that the absence of attacks is also related to the true weak nature of our enemy. Let's face it. Most Middle Easterners are horribly impoverished. They were fortunate to succeed on 9/11. They may simply be unable to mount more attacks.

Whatever the case may be, whether it's the CIA thwarting them or their poverty, I still don't believe that our military occupation has anything to do with the absence of attacks. If anything, the occupation is creating more would-be terrorists.

exsft:

Thanks for checking back and responding. I do concede that moving soldiers into the region provides a target for enemies to spend their time on rather than coming here. However, I also believe that their presence creates countless new enemies that would otherwise have left us alone. On balance, I believe that we are far less safe multiplying our enemies. Eventually, some of them will decide to quit targeting the military over there are return here. You haven't addressed the concept of a group operating outside of Iraq.

The other methods to thwart terrorists may be valid and effective. They could (and I argue should) be pursued without occupying a nation and antagonizing an entire generation of Muslims.

Answer 1

A war is fought on all fronts not just the trenches. During WW2, not only were GIs fighting on the front lines, but allied bombers flew into Germany and blew the living heck out of Hitler's industrial capacity to conduct a war. By going to the source , so to speak, it is hoped (nothing is certain in war) that that the terrorist infrastructure is disrupted enough that they are unable to conduct operations in the US itself. As they say, better that a suicide bomber blows himself up in downtown Baghdad against armed US soldiers than in downtown Chicago against defenceless civilians. (of course this was after 9/11, but there hasn't been a major terrorist operation within the US since then..not yet anyway)

Answer 2

Mainly it is a matter of logistics. While we might only see a few people involved in a terrorist attack, the fact is that these people are only the operational portion of the attack. You need people to gather intelligence, obtain supplies, provide transportation and travel documents, provide a safe-house, clothing, food, etc. The list is endless, and it must all be done without raising suspicion. For every terrorist you see with a gun there a dozens or more who worked to put that gun in his hand. This type of support is hard enough to achieve in your native country or a country with a large sympathetic population. To do this is a nation with a less than sympathetic populous, vastly different culture is substatially more problematic at the best of times. Add on top of that the fact that your advisary is now operating in your back yard and actively looking to destroy you, your training camps, and your support, the difficulties increase. Add to this the fact that your enemy is not just made up of western military forces, but is also made up of rival religous groups, local militias, crime syndicates, nationalist movements, and local government forces, each one wanting to kill you or at leats remove you from the playing field, attacks on foreign soild become less of a priority and less appealing in the cost-benefit sence.

Answer 3

In order to understand this you have to also learn something about Al Quaeda doctrine and some of the general principles in strategic thinking.

The first thing to remember is that you tend to lose if you fight a defensively. As a result we need to take the initiative and force AQ to respond to our actions. A study of AQ doctrine indicates they require themselves to prevent the spread of non-Islamic values in the Arab world.

Putting these two concepts together indicates that by taking the strategic offensive in the Middle East will force AQ to fight us under conditions where we are strong and they are weak.

Something that the media has failed to do is present any real analysis of the disaster Iraq has been for AQ. They lost virtually all of their trained and experienced talent, lost much of the sympathy the Arab world had for them - and even worse gained the appearance of losing in Iraq.

Remember that AQ really, really wants to attack us here at home. We were subjected to a series of attacks on ourselves, our ships and our embassies prior to the change in policy that cause AQ to fight our soldiers on a battlefield. As a result - AQ has not been able to conduct any attacks on us since 9/11.

The policy appears to be working - lets not change it unless you can present a better idea.

Answer 4

Look at it from the perspective of sports. In soccer the team typically follows the ball to which ever side of the field it is on. There are some people left on the opposite side who are waiting for the chance to strike. The only reason why they are not able to successfully impliment a strike here is because we are taking the game to their goal post. They are busy trying to save their goalie and therefore they cant pay much attention to their guys here. Now having said that, we get terrorist threats all the time but our homeland agencies are catching up on the way to play the game and have made phenominal strides in preventing any of those threats from coming true. Its a team effort and quite literraly we have the best team.

Answer 5

They can, wether you are there or not doesn`t really matter. They actually prefer to have you bogged down there draining your resources. The terrorists are not based in Iraq, they could easily regroup somewhere else, then launch another attack, elusive as they are. It`s U.S homeland security that needs to b vigilante

Answer 6

And, is it the mantra of the anti-war crowd that it would be better to fight them here? That it would be better to invite them here so we could lose American lives in the fight against them?

There is no assurance that our presence in the Middle East prevents them from attacking us here. But I would point out that since we began fighting them in Iraq, there haven't been any more major attacks in the US. Coincidence? Maybe. But are you saying that we should test the hypothesis? Smart move... Never been in the military... huh?

Answer 7

There you go again, trying to make sense out of the nonsense. I'm guilty to. :)

You are right. Isn't Al Qaeda (sp?) here already? They have been bombing in other countries outside of the Middle East.
Just another thing that Bush says that is just wrong.

Answer 8

The terrorists that attacked us on 9/11 weren't even in Iraq back in 2001, so our government is barking up the wrong tree anyway.

Answer 9

i think the main reason why we're still their is to keep our foot in the door for the oil......its all about the money

Answer 10

another lie