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Originally Posted by SailorMitch
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Your answer for sck5 is unsatisfying. It does not say that President Bush did not view capturing bin Laden as unimportant. It made reference to the use of 100,000 American troops and stated more pressing goals on the war on terror.
Cam well states the desired outcome for Iraq as well as the probable required action on Iran. The problem of Islamism and the West dates back a long way. Some of the seeds were sown during the Reagan administration when we withdrew from Lebanon after the bombing of the Marines at the Beirut airport. Coupled with the feckless policies of the Clinton administration, which mostly amounted to bombing a Sudanese aspirin factory, the Islamists have had every reason to think that America is a toothless tiger that, once bloodied, will retreat to it's den. Peace will be imposed the old fashioned way. For every one of ours killed we kill ten of theirs. We will not retreat from any field where the battle is joined. The only thing that the culture of Islamism respects is strength. It therefore matters little whether Iraq was right, wrong, or somewhere in between. The US and the west cannot be seen to fail.
Europe has already half surrendered. The simple economic necessity that Europe is confronted with, a declining birth rate requiring imported labor, means that Europe is already looking and will increasingly look, Islamic. The daily strife caused by this is a staple of the European press. It's not going to get better. The assumption that Muslims will assimilate within the liberal democracies of western Europe has proven a canard. Rioting by Muslim youth is already an accepted part of life within France. Europe's ineffectual response is appeasement. these people do not take appeasement as a sign of victory, they take it as a sign of progress and merely renew their efforts to dismantle the Euro liberal democratic system. It may be in many respects already too late for Europe to do much towards her future. Demographics are destiny.
Increasingly, the US policy will be forced to become one of, "for us, or against us". There will be no room for a middle ground in this fight, the enemy will not allow it.
It's been an entertaining forty years observing Israel and the Palestinians. Much stupidity and perfidy's have been displayed. It is now no longer a spectator sport for the western world to be safely enjoyed from our davenports while reading and watching the news. All of the west is now Israel. We are now all Israelis. Our enemy has distinguished us as such and I believe they mean what they say.