Who's responsible for assuming Iraq would end terrorism?

Iraq Forum

So was the invasion of Iraq about ending terrorism? Please explain how invading Iraq helped in preventing the Madrid bombings? Or how the Iraq invasion will prevent any future bombings that will undoubtably happen?

If this attack was Al Quida then Spain may well have been targetted because of the upcoming election and for supporting the Iraq invasion, an invasion very much carried out against the democratic wishes of the majority of Spanish people.

One more thing, who's to say bringing democracy to anywhere will reduce terrorism? Isn't this just an assumption? If so then where did the Japanese terrorists that attacked the Tokyo subway with Sarin gas come from? Where did Timothy McVeigh come from? Where did the Badder Meinhoff group spring from, ETA, the IRA etc etc etc.

One more thing - please explain why we did not concentrate on the two things that we know are having the biggest influence on terrorism - Al Quida and the obvious cause of much Western hatred, the Israel/Palastinian conflict.

First of all democracy comes from within, what is applicable for some is not applicable for others. No one can force democracy on others, democracy is what a group of people think, believe and apply. in the Islamic countries, for an example, women roll skate in shorts and bikinis on the main roads is not allowed, this is the heritage, this is what they believe is indecency, so it is not allowed, for some westerns it is welcomed. Cursing the president in many countries is against the law, in America it is not.
Reasons for me to have these examples above, is to tell the rest what apply to some might not apply to others and visa versa.
Back to the main issue here, Iraq invasion was not based on bringing democracy to Iraq; Iraq invasion had opened wide doors for all exteremests to wage war all over the globe against the US and its allays. Those people are not in Afghanistan or Iraq only they are every where around us. Fighting them in an open war is a losing battle for regular armies, they are not in uniforms and they can’t be found in one area or one country or even in one continent. For terrorism to end or to be contained, we need to understand why they are there in the first place, why do they attack? Was it because they want money? Power? Land? Privileges? Or something else, why a person blows his/her self and die, he wouldn’t enjoy the money or the power, he is dead and he will not use any of the above. To do such act needs a person either mad or desperate.
Calling him mad is to convince ourselves that the matter is over and by getting him killed we had became more secure, but the fact is that they keep coming and coming and seems no end for that. So there must be other reasons for him/her to blow up their selves causing the killings of others.
I am totally against such act, and I don’t like it and don’t agree on it. But my opinion would not stop them from doing what they are doing. To stop those people from continuing this, we need to look for the motive behind it. We need to understand why they are willing to die, the simple answer would be they are defending what they believe in, in their minds they are soldiers, just like the your regular soldiers, thy fight because they have been attacked first. No one in the west would think for a moment, why? You may ask, what did we do to them? Why they are after us? Why they want to destroy us? Certainly it is not because they hate the western civilization. The simple thing would be because others have forced their democracy on them (or try to), their own democracy which did and will not fit their believes. Why Israel kill Palestinians? And why Palestinians kill Israelis? Why bin laden was a friend of the US when he was fighting the Russians in Afghanistan, and why he is not a friend of the US any more. Why America supported Saddam for many years and changed its stand against him later. Why lots of Arabs wish to fight the US?? Why all the troubles are in the Middle East and not some where else? What is there in the Middle East to have all those troubles makers (as you may call them)? Isn’t it oil?? Isn’t it greed? Isn’t it the interest of the US and its economy? When the US dropped 2 nuclear bombs on Japan it was in the name of humanity, when Israel develop WMD it was acceptable by the US, and when Pakistan Developed WMD it was not acceptable by the US. And so on.
Bottom line here the origin of terror came from the US and not somewhere else.

It is a start. No one said it would completley end it. If they did, they were wrong.

A start? The Iraq invasion had null effect on Al Qaeda or the war on terrorism for the US. Maybe it helped Israel out, but there was absolutely no tie to Al Qaeda and Iraq until after the invasion.

So what kind of start was this on terrorism affecting the US? Because Bush said one day Saddam "could" give Al Qaeda or other terrorists WMD? Turns out they didn't have them, but N. Korea did.

So much for fighting terror on the grounds of WMD.

Al queda is not the only terrorist orginization out there. This is not a war on al queda, it is a war on terrorism.

Asantana raise the right questions hereabove. It think that misunderstanding is the major parameter to account for the tension between the west and the arab/muslim world at large.
Democratical values such as human rights based universalism are indeed a core value to the whole mankind. But it took centuries to us europeans to get emancipated from the Church temporal power over society. Not so far ago the religious power was prevailing in some parts of our countries.
As free thinkers, solidified by our secular societies rules, we think too easily that our principles are appliable to other cultures the same way.
Iraq is a muslim society, having known nothing else than brutal power from a strong ruler. Bringing democratic rules into such a society is possible. But the task is difficult, and requires some neutral supervision of international institutions. The UN is appropriate for that, at the one condition that arab countries are part of the process.
The US are dealing with people here, whose psychology is not modelizable as would be the parameters of any big industrial or military project. Believing that an intervention the like of this war on Iraq, followed by a ruling during a few months, is enough to clear the way to a brand new democracy, with all the maturity and force this requires, is gullible. This process will take long, long years to reach some equilibrium - I don't even mention "to be completed". And this path is full of traps.

Every century -- since Earth formed it's crust -- has been long.

As long as there are people like you oneofpeace, who think getting rid of terrorism is impossible, it will be. If it were accepted that terrorism could be stopped, then it would be stopped.

The Terrorists will be defeited as soon as the world realizes that. Spain just tucked their tail and ran, which gives terrorists an advantage. Don't you see a pattern? Socialism pops up, and helps terrorists.

That's easy for you to say Sayzak, you didn't have to deal with that carnage Spain dealt with and for what? What did Spain gain (besides the monetary bribe from the US) in this invasion into Iraq?

See like I said many times before, Iraq and fighting terror has little to do with each other. If Bush honestly wanted to fight terrorism why not start with the nation those hijackers came from? Why did they fly the Saudi Royal Family and other Saudis sent home packing immediately after the 9/11 attacks?

Bin Ladens evacuated from U.S. after 9-11

So after finding out these hijackers were from Saudi Arabia, we invade Iraq. And you still believe we're fighting terrorism? Well Bush couldn't have picked a less significant target to get this fight started on "world terror".

Facts are these Sayzak

Bush stated Saddam had tons of WMD
He gave Spain concessions for their loyalty
We found no WMD
The world now has questions concerning US motives
Al Qaeda threatens all who collaborated with the US
Spain, who collaborated, gets hit hard

So you don't see a correlation here? They are much easier to get hit that the US, we're across miles of ocean. In fact if 90% of the US citizens thought we were in a bad and unnecessary war, we'd vote our our president too. In fact, you will see just that come Nov 3rd.

There are basically 2 ways of fighting against terrorism :

1- use force as Bush did, invade each and every country that has more or less ties with terrorists. That includes all Middle East. A hard task but it has to be done if one wants to be efficient. Then "pro-terrorists" European countries will have to be brought somehow into line as well since some remaining al qaeda cells are still present in their territories. Then at last, the world will be safer and pro-American (warning! pleonasm!).

2- leave them ALONE ! No more American military bases in Middle East. support a fair solution to the Israel Palestine conflict.
and Al qaeda will be soon nothing more than a (bad) memory

The joke is the ones that go into their lands and then call them the bad guy. Securing friendly governments is one thing and is good politics. But setting up house there is quite another. Then you want to blame those whom lands we're in reaping economical benefits they lack and wonder why we have so much trouble.

If you want the honey, occasionally you're gonna get stung by the bee. Don't complain when you do.

jock

n : a person trained to compete in sports [syn: athlete]

I'll take that as a compliment.

Anytime. Anything else, just ask.

thanks, when ever I am wrong I will be glad to be corrected, no one is perfect

damn right.

I'm pretty sure he (Curley) got the message Advance. Asantana is not from the States. I'd like to hear many of us speak Iraqi and see how we make out.

The object is to communicate. He's done that very well.

I know, I have just seen him make the same mistake (jock / joke) a few times here on this board.

thanks both, for your assistance

Charles
Who says we are not concentrating? Don't get confused between what the media decides to show you because they think it will increase ratings, and what the government is working on.

As someone said previously, I think we can be pretty sure that because of the enourmous amount of money spent in Iraq and the amount of troops there that we have NOT been concentrating on Al Qaeda as much as we could.

Take a look at Afghanistan, Taliban's making a comeback, Warlords have control of huge areas - btw weren't they warlords the guys that the Taliban chucked out much to the delight of the Afghan people all those years ago?

whooops, moved post to right place

http://www.inreview.com/showthread....8126&forumid=13

deleted

I totally agree that the Palestine Sinkhole problem should be the UN's responsibility. But will it be done? Probably not. I do not think that the money people want any problems solved. They profit from Arms sales. High Oil prices and world strife. Remove the profit and the problems will disappear.

Remember the mystery stories where the detective said "Follow the Money" and you will solve this case .

Getting back on topic here.

I am not sure who is saying that overthrowing Saddam would end terrorism. And as I have said in the past, Iraq ties with terrorism were a bit weak although they did exist. So I think that it is those who are opposed to the Bush doctrine of premption that are saying that Bush said it would end terrorism. Everyone knows that Bush never said that and it is silly to think that he did. It's even more silly to even suggest it.

Oh and let's get something else straight, The Bin Laden's are not terrorist except one and his son. Osama and his son are the terrorist. Osamas father the rest of the family are well respected citizens of Saudi Arabia. Actually I believe that Osama's father died a years ago but is credited with building many structures including schools and roads. You probably could have equated him Saudi Arabias version of Donald Trump.

Now as I understood it, the plane to leave included Saudi Prince Bandar and some others who feared they would be targeted because of 9/11. Not saying that they had anything to do with it but just that they were afraid of their lives.

Who knows why they were “spirited off” as the media puts it following the 9/11 event here in NYC. It is certainly plausible to think that their lives would be endangered because of those events and I could easily accept that Ron.

However does it not also show the belief that this administration believes direct links to 9/11 came from that nation? There are political undercurrents here concerning Saudi Arabia and 9/11 that doesn’t for some reason warrant digging deeper into the source of those men about those airliners smashed into the WTC and Pentagon.

Also Ron, I don’t think non supports of Bush are saying that Bush said invading Iraq would end world terrorism. I believe they are pointing out that it had non effect on global terror whatsoever and it wasn’t a wise choice to start there if indeed global terror was at the center of Bush’s agenda when choosing to invade Iraq.

Squashing Saddam is working out. We will have another democracy in the world, eventually. I am neither for or against our President's decisions. The results will emerge in the future. Ridding our world of people who select the innocent as homicide targets in the name of "Something" , I think ,should be the primary objective of every nation in the free world..And keep your eye on North Korea. ++