Terrorism is a criminal act, the worst kind, unless it is being carried out on behalf of a nation. Then it is an act of war. Calling the need to eradicate Al Qaida a "war" is actually a misnomer, except with the possible exception of the invasion of Afghanistan which did officially harbor them.
Apart from the Afghan situation, all other fighting against Al Qaida can only be seen as an intelligence and law enforcement task, using allies and sometimes Delta Force type SpecOps. But those SpecOps would not being waging a war, they would be used for infiltration and surgical hunter-killer strikes. So Kerry was right about this and Bush is wrong, especially when he suspends our civil liberties in the name of "being at war".
The invasion and occupation of Iraq was onlky indirectly related to any "war on terror" and it actually ended up creating thousands of new terrorists and potential terrorists.
it also greatly depleted our military might and may cost a trillion dollars and thousands of needless US deaths and maimings.
Actually if you wanted to to go war against a country for harboring and aiding Al Qaida, the two biggest culprits would be Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, both close Bush-Cheney allies.
After that, Iran, but we have no real military option there.
Also remember, the second worst terrorist attack we've suffered was not from an Arab group, but from Timothy McVeigh, a rightwing terrorist sympathizer of the Wackos From Waco. So terrorism is not by any means from one source. It is from multiple directions which are always changing. |
