Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (195503)	7/22/2004 11:45:08 PM
From: SilentZ	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1592018

>OK, but then what? Retreat back into pseudo-isolationism, at least until we're attacked again? Or take steps toward solving the problems once and for all (whether through force, appeasement, diplomacy, etc.)? Attacked by whom, Ten? I originally thought that there were tons of Muslims within the U.S. and tons of Muslim groups looking to attack us. As it turns out, that's probably not so much the case. Though they all hate us, Al-Qaida (and maybe Hizbollah) is the only group with any serious ambitions of attacking within our borders. How many Al-Qaida members are really in the U.S.? It seems not that many. The original 9/11 plans called for 26 hijackers altogether, and they were only able to scrap together 19. I'm thinking that perhaps the reason that we're not catching too many cells within the U.S. is not because the administration is screwing up or because intelligence is lousy, but because there just aren't that many of 'em here! And there won't be. It's now absolute common sense for our border officials to look closely at a dude who's spent time in the last six or seven years in Afganistan, for instance. I just don't think that Al-Qaida can pull off much more than they did on 9/11. Maybe they can do it once more, or twice more over the course of the next 10-20 years, but, s**t, over the same timeframe half a million people will die in car accidents. We're just not in grave danger here. I don't care who says so; Bush, Kerry, I don't care. Let's attack al-Qaida where we can, identify and take out most of their 20,000 or so members, and go about our lives. If we want to bomb Iran's nuclear reactor, I'm fine with that, too. We just can't break another regime. We should've known better going into Iraq. -Z

To: Tenchusatsu who wrote (195503)	7/22/2004 11:51:39 PM
From: combjelly	Respond to of 1592018

"Or take steps toward solving the problems once and for all " That is a big, no, make it a huge job. Personally, I am all for it, but I don't have a whole lot of qualms about nation building. It can be done, Japan and Germany turned out pretty well... But it can't be done by invading a country and then leaving it to spin in the wind like we did with Afghanistan. That just makes the problem worse. Sure, Afghanistan has a chance that it didn't have before, but it is a small one. And a lot of people are dead there that wouldn't have been. That, and continuing poverty is what leads to suicide bombers. As I pointed out well before 9/11, that is the biggest danger to modern, industrialized economies. It's not the rogue nations who may or may not have nuclear weapons. It is those little festering sores that breed people willing to kill themselves for an ill-defined goal. Because the West is rich and they aren't, they feel that we are soft while they've been hardened. So if they terrorize us enough, we will give up. Now the fact that has never happened in the past is a fact that totally escapes them, it seems like it should work. The problem is stepping on them doesn't solve the problem, it just breeds more resentment. The only solution is to make enough of them well off enough so that they only get the utterly fanatic. And those you hunt down. Even wealthy societies can breed the fanatics, look at Timothy McVeigh...