US Threatened To Bomb Pakistan

[brunota2003]

I have a question...when they attacked us in '93 and 2001, how were we trying to make Westerners out of them? I'm interested in that...

[Lindaloo]

They attacked us in 98 too.

[SouthFloridawx]

I always find this debate that's been going around for the past couple years, very interesting. On one had you have the people who don't think we should attack and get to the root of the problem. These are the people that think that violence is not the answer.

The other hand is the people who think that the US needs to fight this war on terror and do so by whatever cost is necessary.

This proposed dichotomy leaves out the large body of people (including me) who feel that we must strongly fight our enemies but in a focused and intelligent fashion and the way things have been and are being done involves strategic blunders of incredible scale coupled with an obstinate clinging to those bad strategies - and that both these things are very destructive to our long term security.

Yet for whatever reason - maybe because this doesn't fit the media narrative of what the debate is supposed to be - it's very difficult to discuss the issue on these terms. One is constantly challenged to defend some charicature of an argument one has never made and never would make.

Yes you are correct, and I think Bill Clinton made a great point about fighting this war in a different way. I think we should fight against terror but, are we doing in the proper fashion? Should we not question the decisions made by our government? If we are made to think that if we oppose the way that the government is handling this war then we are against the government. I do not think it's realistic to think that this administration is correct on everything that they do. They should be held closely accountable for the decisions made just as all of our presidents in the past. They should be questioned. That is just my thoughts on this.

[gtalum]

I have a question...when they attacked us in '93 and 2001, how were we trying to make Westerners out of them? I'm interested in that...

I'm not justifying attacks on the US, but we have been meddling in the Middle East since teh discovery of oil there. While we have made some few middle easterners wealthy, the rest want to live in the 7th century and resent our presence there.