I believe the war on terror is like the war on crime. In the war on crime, there are people who are going to be criminals no matter what. Those people cannot be reformed, and must be removed from society, and sometimes from Earth.
But, we must also attack the roots of crime: poverty, lack of education, drugs, injustice, and hopelessness. If we don't, then it doesn't matter how many criminals we lock up and/or fry, there will be more to take their place.
Same with the war on terrorism. We need to recognize and remove the root causes of terrorism as we simultaneously attack and kill those who are too far gone and have fully embraced the terrorist cause. IMHO these roots include the Israel/Palestine problem, support of repressive Middle Eastern regimes, unilaterism, and our tendency to think we have imminent domain over the world because of our wealth and military might.
As far as Iraq, we're in it now, so we have to look at the logical conclusion. I believe neocons believe the logical conclusion is a strong democracy that causes a domino effect on these other repressive regimes. Unfortunately, I believe we lost that chance in the disasterous postwar planning and execution. Now, our best hope is to change the occupation from a US face to an international face, and let the Iraqi people go through their own journey from repression to liberty. Until they fight for and embrace their liberty themselves, they won't value it enough to sustain a democracy on their own. |
