(09-15-2012 06:53 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(09-15-2012 12:26 AM)jmufan Wrote:  On the thread title. I think people would be for a declaration of war, the problem is who are you going to declare war against, which government? We already have a police action in several countries to fight terrorism.
I am all in favor in bringing every troop home and would love to see it happen, but I also realize we live in a time where the world operates at a global scale--everything connected one way or the other. I don't know what the answer is

That's the problem, we are engaging in police actions whether than fighting wars. We need to go in somewhere and fight a war. Those people are not going to like us, ever, no matter how hard we try. The best we can hope for is that they fear us enough that they will behave. And that requires showing them what war looks like.

Unfortunately, that requires first that you have something worth fighting a war over. And right now, we don't have that. We have the situation best described in the words of my State Department counterpart in Saudi many years ago--We have tried to micromanage the world and screwed it up, so we send in the troops to erase State Department's mistakes.

Armies can do two things well in the words of Norman Schwartzkopf--kill people and break things. Use them when you need people killed and things broken. They make very bad erasers.

Exactly. Everything we are seeing is a direct result of multiple failed US policies in the region. We have been so intent on being the policeman of the world and trying to control the affairs of other nations that we have made enemies everywhere..especially in the ME. There really is no viable alternative to this mess other than to leave the region. I submit the time is NOW. Don't make a big deal of it or announce it....Just quietly leave.

I think we should have learned appeasement does not work. We should just quietly leave? How does the US quietly do anything? We just should not worry about world hunger, the scourge of drugs, famine, genocide, slavery, kidnapping or killing of Americans or children or anything global. No American would ever have to leave the US. We can just hope none of it affects us. And when our national interest and citizens are affected we can just say, thank you, I'll have another.

The right approach is to clearly outline America's interests with both friend and foe. Someone interferes with our interests and a price is to be paid. Someone actually attacks our interests and kills US citizens (like 9/11, embassy attacks, Marine Barracks bombing, etc.) and the USA releases the hounds of the military to do what it does best - kill people and destroy things.

None of this protesting at the UN or Congressional debate or other written proclamation of outrage and demand of investigation. Nope, those approaches are merely precursors to talking and not doing. What works is the old fashioned military intervention on the attacker's country/people/city. We warned the world in advance what the repercussions would be for attacking the USA, so now it's time to pay the piper.

Oh, and after the US retaliation is complete, the media can rant and rave and paint America as bullies all they want. We don't give a rat's @ss. Nor will America help rebuild what they just destroyed.