Why "War" on the War on Terror is the WRONG WORD

Pronunciation: 'wor
Etymology: Middle English and Anglo-French werre.
(1) a state of usually open and declared armed hostile conflict between states or nations
(2) : a period of such armed conflict

War is an "armed" conflict; this presupposes that the War on Terror is about weapons, hostility, and conflict. I suppose that plays a part, at least it is an accurate description of what is happening in Iraq, Afghanistan, and now (very sadly) in Israel against Lebanon, and (even more sadly) within Israel as they shoot the "fish in the barrel".

God, how I hate this.

What is the purpose of the "War on Terror"? To show might? To "win"? To have an endless Military-Industrial-Petroleum boost to our Economy? Arrrrrgh!

Terrorism is a cancer - ugly, destructive, self-defeating, and a disease.

Do you fight cancer with Surgery? Certainly. This is an appropriate treatment. Do you kill the host to kill the cancer? Never. What about the innocent people who are being killed daily? That is killing the patient.

Going after terrorists with weapons is short-sighted, antagonistic, and also self-defeating. Surgery can spread cancer as surely as a needle biopsy spreads the cells.

We need to consider the Treatment (not War) of Terrorism, much like we ought to consider the treatment of cancer rather than to think of the scalpel.

...and then there is prevention.

Smoke? No, thanks - I gave that up many years ago.

If you want to erradicate cancer, you need to Prevent it as much as Treat it.

We need to consider the Prevention of Terrorism, much like we ought to consider the prevention of cancer rather than to think of the treatment.

Sanctions: a bad idea. What do you expect when you impose sanctions that cause the populous to suffer? That they would revolt against the Administration? No. They hate the people that withdraw their nuturing - we punish the women and children in Iraq in the vain and vainglorious position that we have morals and ethics. How could we discern the difference between the People of a Nation and its Leader? George W. Bush has somewhere between 20 and 50% backing, yet the terrorists will as likely kill me as anyone else, and I don't support the Bush administration in its War on Terror.

Stop it. STOP IT! S T O P I T !!!!!

A momentary emotional outburst is understandable, but revenge and retribution are the saddest parts of humanity; one who has found religion will know that revenge and retribution are not in harmony with the Path. We need to expand the concept of "us" to include everyone. We need a world that has no concept of "us" versus "them".

GWB had a position of being "a uniter, not a divider", but he immediately started the rhetoric of "if you aren't with us, you are against us". Who is "us"? Evil Doers are "them", not "us" (even if we do evil - not us!).

The US support of Israel and our inability to affect any change in the Palestine/Israel dialog is a core problem that isn't being faced. How can "we" let a country like Israel erect a fence while our "hero" Ronald Reagan admonished Mikhail Gorbachev to "tear down this fence!"? How can we consider a fence between the US and Mexico when we have [cough!] NAFTA? But I digress...

Unity.

Credit where credit is due - there is *something* about Democracy that is appealing:
one person, one vote (we are all the same)
rule of the majority (the people elect the Government)

...but that is about it for the "credits". What would we do if a democratic process elected someone we didn't like? Haiti and other South American "democracies" show that the USA will interfere with a Democracy - damn the people. Florida and the Voting Rights Act? Not all people are the same - another "dis" on democracy.

America is living a lie. I had such hopes growing up - saluting the Flag as a symbol of Greatness, reading the wisdom of our Founding Fathers (side note: Patriotism [patriota] means respecting the Father, inherently sexist if you ask me! Where is our Matriatism?). The 21st Century - the Policy of the New American Century - is leading us to our doom. I won't even go into Global Warming, we won't last long enough to suffer through it. [I cry]


What can we do? Diplomacy...

...is the skill in handling affairs without arousing hostility
(see definition of War, above). How can you have diplomacy with war? Oxymoron.

If the A-rabs and Muz-limz and "towel heads" knew that we saw them as people, that would diminish their perception of our hostility. If we stopped saying that 'Christianity is the "only way"', that would help; there are other Religions that "get it". If we offered help to the sick, the dying, the abject poor, that would help. Alas, America is not a very helpful nation, though its People have great hearts and reasonable pocketbooks.

The people in the Gaza Strip are being punished by Israel and the USA - no electricity, no water, no travel, no hospitals; fish being shot in a barrel.
Do we really think that everyone in the Gaza Strip is a Terrorist? Are all Palestinians Terrorists? If we believe so, then send in the Hydrogen Bombs, cause WE HAVE weapons of Mass Distruction and America has shown that WE AREN'T AFRAID of using them! I suppose we could justify genocide on those grounds, couldn't we? Kill off the children to protect our future...