Holy crap, that is the funniest thing I have ever read on this site.”

Thank you. It’s funny because it is so true.

Yes, I can see your point San Fran. Let’s just send a few FBI agents over to Pakistan, knock on the door to the cave or hovel OSB is hiding in and ask him to politely come out with his hands up so they can arrest him and bring him back to the US for trial. Now, of course, we won’t be able to get a search warrant because that’s outside of US jurisdiction so they won’t be able to kick it in and go in after him, so what are they to do if he refuses to come out? Does the fact that the extension of your argument is totally ludicrous even sink in? While I will admit that the thought of being able to send in a few special operators to bring out OSB and capture (we mustn’t kill them, they have rights ya’know)all of Al Quaeda certainly does sound good, the fact that this isn’t a video game wherein a 6 man team takes on hundreds of fanatics and walks away with nothing but a few blisters on their trigger fingers precludes that.

BTW San Fran, you’re Special Forces idea isn’t all bad, OSB and Al Quaeda have simply gotten too strong for it to work at this point. Had we done that back when OSB was in the Sudan and we had the chance to nab him, we wouldn’t have been having this discussion. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. The proper response when Sudan offered up OSB would’ve been for Delta to go pick him up, and drop him off over the Med from a few thousand feet. A couple dozen bodyguards are not hard to take out, the couple hundred he currently keeps around him are another story.

The most dangerous man in any fight is the one who feels he has nothing to lose, including his life. With many of the terrorists’ families being rewarded with the equivalent of multiple years worth of pay after the terrorist’s death, the terrorists are frequently worth more to their families dead than alive. This makes them VERY hard to defeat. Reasonable people will often surrender when outnumbered and assured of humane treatment, fanatics rarely will. They simply must be killed or incapacitated.

The IslamoFascists of the Taliban had taken over an ENTIRE country in Afghanistan and IslamoFascists are currently in control of the CITY of Mogadishu in Somalia. These terrorists are well funded (Heroin trade out of Afghanistan funded the Taliban and out of the Bakaa Valley helps fund Hezbollah), well armed, (enough money can buy almost anything now that the old Soviet Union has collapsed, China has opened its arms factories to the world trade, and well, France is a low cost whore that will do anything for money.)well organized, well trained, and highly motivated. These are not some “the South will rise again” redneck wannabe rebels with a couple of shotguns and a cooler full of beer. Many of these people have been trained in small unit tactics, and unlike the US soldiers, have no concern about getting themselves or their men killed.

Personally, I’d prefer putting our own capacity to produce chemical weapons to use. We had, though it may have been destroyed by now, a wonderful little incapacitating agent known as BZ in our arsenal. This non lethal, though having potentially hazardous side effects (not the chemical, just the lack of perspiration and potential dehydration that it causes), could be absorbed through the skin as well as inhaled and reduces the mental capacity of the victim to that of a sheep (Or heavy marijuana user) for 48 to 72 hours. At the end of the time, the effects wear off and the person returns to normal except for being really hungry and thirsty from not eating or drinking for 2 to 3 days. Imagine the benefits of being able to simply gas an entire town and then walk through rounding up and separating the terrorists from the rest of the population simply by loading the terrorists into one holding pen and the non terrorists into another? All that would be required at that point would be to provide medical attention to all effected personnel to prevent heat related injuries until the chemical wears off. Doesn’t that just beat the hell out of having to bomb and shoot up the town? Unfortunately, use of ANY chemical agent, including tear gas (CN or CS), is generally frowned upon under the rules of land warfare. Yes there were complaints about us using tear gas to drive VC guerrillas out of tunnels during the Vietnam War. Yes, the police may tear gas hostile crowds, the Army has to shoot them.

I didn’t come up with this, I’m more pragmatic than that. I’d let the military use whatever it has at its disposal to keep casualties and collateral damage to a minimum. I’m also enough of a realist to know that both are an unfortunate part of warfare, they always have been and always will be. The difference between us and the terrorists is that we try to keep both to a minimum while they include increasing both as integral parts of their battle plans.

Holy crap, that is the funniest thing I have ever read on this site.

How about we don’t stick our head in the sand, and we don’t go attack every Muslim country. How about a well thought out practical solution instead of pandering to our own extremists?

We could get hit by an asteroid as well. Why is this threat so over emphasized while other threats are ignored? Could it be that American politicians and voters are really bad at risk mitigation?

Not at all Robert, terrorism should NOT be ignored.

But it should not be overreacted to!!

You don’t send the whole army in to do the job of law enforcement and, at best, teams of Special Forces.

Invading and occupying Muslim Iraq – a country who did not attack us or threaten us – like Bush did, has done nothing to stop terrorism and in fact has made it worse by inciting the radicals and pushing moderate fence sitters into the fight.

It also has made us weaker in the region, diplomatically speaking.

So no, don’t ignore terrorism at all, but do not over-react to it.

Instead focus on the real problems, like the human contribution to Global Warming! THAT is what you need to be concerned about! Draft Al Gore to run in 2008! We NEED Al Gore to save us from this crisis! Give money and power to those who will save us from our attempts to destroy the environment! Worship Al Gore!

Would you send your children to war to prevent that very remote possibility?

(And I’m sure you are nice, none of this is personal, and nobody should ever take anything said here personally. We’re all brothers and sisters in a way, and we all fight like brothers and sisters do!)

But honestly I have been afraid for many years. I have been paying attention since the Iran hostage crisis and it has escalated, not declined, since.

As for being manipulated and unduly scared. I work less than 5 miles from the Pentagon. While I know we weren’t the target the scary part is that the plane that went down in PA hadn’t been planned that way. Who is not to say that if it happened again they would miss and hit me where I am.