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Originally posted by "BillW"+--></div><table border='0' align='center' width='95%' cellpadding='3' cellspacing='1'><tr><td>QUOTE ("BillW")</td></tr><tr><td id='QUOTE'>Fundamentally the approach Kerry has outlined (as far as anyone knows) is to revert back to the Clinton, Reno, and Richard Clark model regarding terrorism. Kerry has repeatedly stated that he thinks the war on terror should be treated as a law enforcement issue rather than a military issue.[/b]
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You mean the model that operated WITHOUT a 9/11-level attack against? I'm not going to make the fallacy of saying that just because 9/11 happened after Clinton's watch that Clinton's watch effectively staved it off -- I don't know, you don't know, nobody knows. But it's worth noting that 9/11 happened after W. drastically cut the funding for counterterrorism and essentially ignored the intelligence which labeled it a possibility and/or likelihood.
But now that Bush is a big Anti-Terrorist Cowboy after the fact his methods are the benchmark? What? Did I miss a memo?
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Originally posted by "BillW"@
The Secret Service also deals with the most criminals that are not deterred by the prospect of getting caught such as Oswald or Hinckley.
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Of course Oswald wasn't deterred by the prospect of being caught. He didn't even know what he was doing.
I do agree with you that punishment often doesn't serve as a deterrent. You stated crimes of passion, and those are a good example. Terrorism is certainly a "crime" of passion, if you want to call it that -- such that it is an act that has little to no regard for the consequences of the perpetrator. For a terrorist, the act of terrorism far outweighs their own life much less the posibility of life imprisonment or execution. (They can't be negotiated with, etc. etc.)
But where has Kerry stated it should be relegated to law enforcement rather than military action? I can't recall him saying that and I'd like to know if that's something of a direct quote or your interpretation. I do know that he wants to internationalize the counter-terror efforts, and that certainly doesn't equate with shifting it into the realm of law enforcement.
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Even worse than Kerry’s boneheaded ex-prosecutor perspective on terror is that he would let a country like France unilaterally alter what he knows needs to be done. This despite the fact that he understood that France had a huge vested financial interest in maintaining the status quo no matter what the consequences to the US or the UN’s respectability.[/quote]
This is classic Bush bullheadedness. It doesn't matter what anybody else in the world thinks about possible solutions, possible targets, and possible methods. Somehow Bush has declared the US the sole arbiter of counter-terror methodology and then says "if you're not with us, you're against us". I'm actually quite surprised you "know" what Bush "knows" needs to be done. First, I question if you know Bush's or Kerry's counter-terror plans as I doubt they're made available to the public like the plans to create jobs. Secondly, I'm not so sure Bush really knows what his counter-terror plans were in the first place. And, considering that 9/11 happened and the perpetrator has not yet been caught leads me to believe that they were half-cooked ideas if there were any there at all.
You're a classic neo-conservative just as much as some of us are classic lefties. You refuse to acknowledge that it was your actions in the first place that have created this anti-America terrorism. And don't for a second tell me that it's terrorism in general that Bush is concerned about stopping, as it's ONLY anti-America terror: he's pretty much completely ignored the Israel-Palestine situation, effectively destroying any gains Clinton made during his tenure; he made no reply to the situation in Russia; but he's started two wars since America was hit by it. You, nor him, nor any other neo-conservative imperialists will EVER acknolwedge that it's your haphazard cowboy foreign policy that's created this Anti-Americanism in the first place, nor will you acknowledge the irony of fighting this Anti-Americanism with the same kind of foreign policy that put you in this situation in the first place.
Terrorism is not just an evil of the world that's always been there and has to be dealt with. Terrorism will always exist if that's the only means of a people to express their resentment and despair at their societal conditions. You can't stamp it out unless you stamp out the reasons for its existence. You've got the chicken/egg thing completely wrong here and your solution can't ever work unless you correct your view of the situation.
Just my thoughts. Hoping to hear your reply.