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Originally Posted by Nephythys
if terrorists and insurgents drive us away- if we leave the area, the message is clear. That we will retreat in the face of violence- and that will empower them to believe (because these people are hardly known for rational thought) they their actions drove us out, and they will want to continue.
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And what, may I ask, is wrong with "retreating" to our own borders and defending
those? Are we somehow pretending that we are going to kill every terrorist on earth? If not, then they will always be
somewhere. Let them be where they will be. Try to kill them clandestinely or economically, but not via warfare. Ahem, especially warfare that has been completely inept (see, e.g., this week's Time magazine for a history of the missteps that are quickly making Iraq this generation's hate-to-say-we-told-you-so Vietnam).
I hate to say it, but it appears that the only way to kill terrorists conducting a guerilla campaign is to also kill tons of civilizians that they put themselves in the midst of. This is true whether we attack them preemptively in other countries or attack them in actual retribution in other countries. The terrorists are never going to be hanging out in their own TerrorTown. They take over actual towns and cities, and we must either bomb that city into complete oblivion or let the terrorists escape with the civilians.