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Rant

Can we really win these wars?

Posted 20 months ago|9 comments|481 views
No more war
Written by
CrbBob
Costa Rica
Can we really win these wars?

As the wars drag on in Iraq and Afghanistan, I feel compelled to ask myself a question.


What are we fighting for?
Are we there to protect someones rights or to change their beliefs? I found find it hard if some other Country entered the US and told us we need to change the way we treat each other when we have been doing it our way for years. But I totally understand the trying to change the mistreatment of the women in those countries. As that is totally unacceptable the way they are treated there. But to try and make peace between people that have been fighting for hundreds of years makes no sense. Let them fight and we should focus on educating the non fighters. You could start this with the children then as time goes on the fighting would have to stop. How can this be done you might say? Easy, ask one simple question. Who wants to learn? Take those people and move then to an island far away from the others, then tell everyone else, "Here are some weapons have at it!" In 20 years, they will have killed each other and the others can come back and build a peaceful land. I'm sure this solution is cheaper then the money we are spending now to fight these wars.
War is a ugly thing and should only be a last resort if needed.

Sometimes I find myself so ticked off when I hear about a suicide bomber taking the lives of people, even innocent children sometimes. Have these bombers no respect for themselves? They claim to be doing it in the name of God and the wanting of 72 virgins. What God would let you into heaven for killing poor defenseless women and children?
Those are the times when I think the US should just make a new place called the "Lake of Afghanistan" and end this craziness.

Seems to me we are fighting another 13th century religious military campaign in the 21st century. But I could be wrong here.

I do hope I have not ticked anyone off here, as I'm a strong believer in free speech and religion. Everyone should be able to believe in what they want, just don't let it hurt others.
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COMMENTS
Altruist
Altruist
Eugene, OR
20 months ago: You are correct. We can't change people's beliefs or win their hearts and minds through force. Bombing is counterproductive because it kills more innocent civilians than bad guys, and each innocent has friends and family that then join the opposition vowing revenge.

You can change things by education, especially of the young girls.

Greg Mortinson has been successful at building schools for girls in Taliban controlled areas in Pakistan and he can build something like 20-30 schools for the cost of sending one soldier over there for a year.
http://www.unesco.org/en/education/dynam...
CrbBob
CrbBob
Costa Rica
20 months ago: Wow did not know it was that many schools per soldier. One would think the govenment would wake up and see this.
20 months ago: Too much red tape for our government to build anything over there for that price. So many morons get their fingers in the pie that by they time a $10,000 building materials list gets from one end of the pipeline to the other, it cost $1,000,000 and you still just get $10,000 worth of materials, if you're lucky.

I had to buy some equipment while I was stationed in Pax River, budget was $100K, found the equipment for $90K, cost me $5,600, JUST to spend the money, it's called "pass-through", if you spend money, someone has to review the paperwork and they charge you to do that so they can pay their wages, the fee is not based on the time it takes to do the review, it's based on how much you are spending. The left over from the $100K cost another couple thousand to spend because of the pass-through. Didn't leave much for the rest of the stuff we needed.
20 months ago: Bob, we can't win the wars. The people of the countries we are in must step up and take responsibility for their fellow countrymens actions. So far they haven't done a very good job. They offer a lot of smiling faces, handshakes and promises but as soon as we (the West) turns our back to go home, they snigger and break them all. It's easier for them to go back to how they have done business for hundreds if not thousands of years than it is to change. They don't want to change, they like the way they have done things.

The only way to change this is to take millions of children out of the country every year, raise and educate them in other parts of the world, then put them back. After about 20 years, there will be a large enough base of citizens who know that there is a better way to live, that treats all citizens as humans and has respect for other ways of life.

We've tried to do it in-country and got a bunch of kids killed, especially females. It's hard to change a way of life when you only work within the constraints of the original way of life.
20 months ago: Ultimately the answer is NO.
Perfect Horizon
Perfect Horizon
Chicago, IL
20 months ago: No, you cannot win a war against an emotion..."War on Terror" is not winnable as terror can exist in many forms all over the world.
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
20 months ago: Yes we can! Yes we can! Yes we can!

Sorry got carried away.
Out Of The Box
Out Of The Box
 Moderator
20 months ago: We're just getting started good in Yemen. Al Queasy is controlling much of the outlying territory.
20 months ago: What are we fighting for?

In Afghanistan, a group of people got together and called themselves the Taliban. Within the safe haven of that country and without modern water, sewer and electrical power, the group plotted the downfall of global civilization. Recognizing it would not be possible to impose their will by force of arms, they adopted another method to overwhelm and control Earth's civilizations. They chose terrorism.

For some years, like thinking people have used terrorism in India (mostly from Pakistan), attempting to further their Religious/Political will. Afghanistan's Taliban followed this pathway in an attempt to put the USA's population into fear. Attempting to stop civilization's spread, attempting to terrorize people into doing nothing.

So ask yourself this. What is a "won war" where a government trains its soldiers in terror and kills civilians in other countries?

A "won war" is where terrorism fails. Where terrorism groups are unlikely to have power. Where other countries can go about their daily business.

But you can not kill every terrorist because terrorism is a mind set, a kind of thinking. Even today there are KKK members. The KKK was a minority group of people who used terrorist tactics to implement their will against a much larger population. Those few individuals are still convinced their way is right, convinced they should have the right to terrorize everyone else into their way of thinking. Even though they are utterly wrong, there are still such individuals and there is still a KKK group. So too with the Nazi party (Hitler's Nazi party). But they have very little power and are not likely to gain power.

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