Crabmaster,

You raised a very good point...trying to fight terrorism with traditional warfare DOESN'T work. The best that it can hope to accomplish is maybe to eliminate or neutralize governments which sponsor or support it, and that may indeed in some cases prove necessary and effective.

However, as I said before, these madmen operate outside of government or sovereign nations. In a sense they are like the pirates of old. We could not have defeated French pirates by attacking France, or Spanish pirates by attacking Spain, even if those countries sponsored or supported those pirates. They operate independantly of any governments or countries.

And you are also right that it only serves to increase anti-western sentiments (but shhhhh, don't say that, that's what the terrorists want you to say, and that makes you a traitor!, as if everyone doesn't already know that!)

No, you can't nuke the whole country of Iraq or any other, nor can you invade, conquer, or occupy every nation in the entire world, and expect to be successful in eliminating terrorism. All that will do is serve to turn the entire world against us and then we will go the way of every other nation that has tried to dominate the globe.

That is why, as Kerry has tried to point out, we must try to win over support diplomatically, to the greatest extent possible. We must try to reach out to our allies as well as our enemies, and foster enough good will that everyone turns their back on the terrorists thus isolating them from any and all safe haven or support of any kind. Then they will be exposed, vulnerable, and can be effectively neutralized. Simultaneously we must try to do to a very large degree what LBJ wanted to do during the cold war, and that is to wage a "hearts and minds" campaign, as corny and wimpy as that may sound to some of you hawks.

If and when those efforts fail we may indeed have to resort to force. But shouldn't we give those non-violent and diplomatic methods every opportunity before we resort to war? Isn't it worth saving the lives of our sons and daughters in uniform if there is a chance we can avoid war?

And I think a big part of this also is trying to bring about some lasting peace between Israel and Palestine, in order to defuse the Islamic hatred for the U.S. And to do that we need to be more neutral and more sympathetic toward the Palestinians legitimate desire for a sovreign land of their own. We seem far too biased in favor of Israel. One should again go back and study the history of the creation of Israel by the U.N. after WWII to get a sense of why the Palestinians feel as they do. They have not endeared themselves to the rest of the world with their history of acts of terrorism by the extremists among them, but how would we feel if the U.N. "gave" California away to a Native American tribe to have as their homeland without considering the people who were living there? I am not anti-Israel, nor am I anti-Semitic in any way, but there are two sides to that ancient story, and if we are ever to broker any peace there, we need to be more objective and impartial. And clearly we have a vested interest in bringing peace there.

(Either that, or I was once of the opinion that we should just throw everyone the hell out of there and cordon it off as an international, free religion zone under the auspices of the U.N. and not give any one religion control over that area. We all know why this area is disputed, right? Each religion claims it as the land of their ancestry because of it's religious significance. If they can't share it equally, maybe we should just take it away from everyone. But then everyone will still hate us and we're right back where we started from, aren't we?)

By continuing to do more good in the world, education, food, health care, defense against the terrorists who intimidate other countries who align themselves with us, etc., we can turn that anti-American sentiment around, instead of simply exploiting and profiteering from other nations and their people. But that means doing more for those who have less, and as you can see, if there is no money to be made in doing so, people like those on this forum don't even want to do that right here in the U.S., do you think they'll want to do that overseas?

No, the only thing that matters to these people is the almighty dollar. Peace and prosperity for all is not important enough to sacrifice the pursuit of grand wealth. We are the most powerful nation in the world, and are out to turn a profit. Anyone who gets in our way will feel the wrath of our awesome military power.

And if the wealthy make a few extra bucks along the way, so much the better, right?