The United States Will Lose the War on Terror (Esp. Iraq & Afghanistan).

Yes - you make a good point. I believe "winning" the WOT would involve providing adequate counterterrorism enforcement so as to prevent a majority of instances. Obviously, the shooter in the mall is going to slip through, but I'm focusing more on preventing another 911, Oklahoma City, or Madrid train bombing... I'll address some of your responses below... >>"When the WOT was declared, the U.S. was not the only one in this. Other nations did as well. Every nation would fight the extremist groups that threaten them, and many other nations would assist if needed to be." This is only sort of true. The US invasion of Afghanistan was a legitimately recognized international "war" (congress never declared war). However, it was a NATO operation that was sanctioned because the Afghan Taliban was harboring al-Qaeda, and nobody likes either group. However, Iraq is NOT internationally sanctioned, and the only countries that invaded Iraq were the US, UK, Poland, Denmark, and the Peshmerga (Kurds). So not every nation was willing to fight extremist groups... >>"Obviously OBL has been a very important figure both in AFG and A-Q so going in to AFG is a no brainer." Correct - but nobody contests this. The problem is that we can't actually win, even by killing OBL, which actually might make it worse. I'll touch on that later. >>"He showed animosity towards the demands of many other nations who backed us up in regards of WMD's. A show of force was clearly made to him, and he still refuse to comply. In the interviews after his capture he stated that, due to the pressure from other nations towards the US not to go in, he did not believed G.W.B. had the "guts" to defy them. We sure proved him wrong!" Wonderful. It was still a misfounded invasion that was actually technically illegal by international law. We broke several rules, especially ones concerning placing spies in international inspection teams, and violating the sovereignty of another country without due cause. Saddam Hussein was a terrible person, don't get me wrong, but that's still not the issue - the fact that we're going to lose the Iraq Insurgency is. >> Uday and Qusay Hussein, etc... Again, wonderful. They're dead and can't serve as figureheads. But now they're martyrs and we have a real problem on our hands. The atrocities of the Hussein family are irrelevant to the WOT as a totality except in that we killed them as part of it... >>"WOT in Iraq??? Well it began that way, and then we had to change the route. You also have to realize now we are on their turf. OBL has been clear stating it has been easier for him to fight the "Infidels" since we went across the ocean. Is the world better with ought Saddam in power? Definitely! Did we fight the war correctly in Iraq? No, not really. When you look at my profile I stated Against the WiI, just for the fact that we need to change the current battle plan. You may also debate there was no A-Q in Iraq, got it. This is one of the reasons OBL is "happy" we are closer." Ah - well now were a little closer. However, the WiI did not start as part of the WOT - it was about WMD's, The Axis of Evil, Oil, and the idea that Iraq had attacked the US. In a huge "OOPS" it turned out that the WMD and the Attacked US were just plain wrong. The Axis of Evil really had more to do with genocide than terrorism - Saddam's regime wasn't really a terrorist organization (the Kurds may differ on that), but rather just plain evil, like Machiavelli-Gone-Wild or something. Until the removal of Saddam, there actually was no AQ in Iraq, mostly because Bin Laden hated Hussein's regime because it was too secular (yes, too secular - AQ is Wahhibist...). ***************************************************** I feel you haven't really refuted any of my points. You dance around the issue with talk of the Hussein brothers' atrocities and how OBL is a major figure in the WOT. This is fairly obvious to anyone with a TV, newspaper, magazine, or computer. Once again, I'll outline the situation... We're fighting a war we can't win. Nevermind the notion that you can't kill an idea - I'm talking about a qualitative solution, not a quantitative solution. In other words, winning is containing terrorism, not killing the terrorists. The problem is that the terrorist organizations (primarily AQ as the US is concerned) are fighting a type of war we simply don't know how to fight. The US is exceedingly good at the type of warfare practiced during WWII - the troop movements with air and artillery support. However, the US is terrible at fighting guerilla wars - this is pretty clearly evidenced by Vietnam, and Iraq. Insurgencies have been historically quite successful against superpowers: The French and US in Vietnam, the Afghan rebels and the USSR, France in Algeria, The People's Revolution in China. As the US is fighting now, we cannot win this war. Our contracts with companies like Blackwater are a HUGE part of this problem. The reason there's a huge snafu about Blackwater at the moment is that the terms of the US contract with them state that neither the US nor the Iraq government can prosecute them for civilian deaths. This doesn't make the Iraqis very happy, and in an insurgency, that's VERY VERY bad for the US. Another HUGE problem was that we defeated the Iraqi military and then disbanded it, leaving the state of Iraq with no military, no functioning government, and a lot of angry, bored warriors sitting around with nobody to fight. Oops - here comes the Iraq insurgency and Al-Qaeda looking for members... We've pissed off the Iraqi military, the Iraqi people, and we've got an insurgency on our hands. Without a MAJOR policy change and a HUGE influx of new troops, the Iraq insurgency will push the US military out of Iraq. And, by the way, the US media is part of the problem - a HUGE part of the problem. In Afghanistan, we perceive our efforts to be defeating the "head of the monster" that is AQ. The problem here is that AQ is a huge international organization, not actually that much unlike McDonalds. In fact, it would be a very apt analogy to call AQ the McDonalds or Starbucks of the terrorist world. If we even find the "base" of operations in Afghanistan, which is kind of unlikely anyway, they can simply pack it up and move the base to someplace else in a matter of (probably) hours. The al-Qaeda manual is on CD, easily movable, they use the internet for information movement, don't establish permanent bases... We're fighting ghosts in Afghanistan and Insurgents in Iraq. We can't win without changing policy and getting a lot more troops on the ground - like 400-500 THOUSAND troops, which is actually initially what the first general in charge of Iraq said was needed before he was fired. Oops again. We've taken the first step with Petraeus' counterinsurgency manual, but that's simply not enough. We need to study previous insurgencies and learn how to nip them in the bud. Essentially, we need to provide security for the Iraqi people - not gun-toting commandos prowling the streets, but living with them like UK peacekeeping forces do. We need to change our agreements with companies like Blackwater to make them liable for their actions. We need to get the Iraqi people on the side against the insurgents, which is something we've not done too well. And we need for CNN to start showing some positive aspects of the war too - they're not helping things by providing the insurgents with a propaganda machine (and it's not JUST CNN...). I hope that gives you a better idea of where I'm coming from... I look forward to your next rebuttal.