A fair fight is the one YOU win. Warrior is suffering from a simplistic view of the world.

So, how do you win 'hearts and minds'? well i'll give you a clue, whether it involves defence spending being cut or not isn't the issue it does involve building schools, sending teachers to those schools. Even if it is just one American school in the capital, or one school for every 50 million people in a country.

Even if the students who go there pay fees, and some of the teachers are locals. (who have been trained in america) A school run by an American administration, with American teachers, teaching American values is the best way to influence a population.

To get the idea of what America actually stands for (the freedom to be decadent, or be honourable, as your religion dictates)

Is it not disgusting that the least tolerant and understanding people in America seem to be the religious right? When America was setup as a place of tolerance in which their religion could thrive.

Could anyone else imagine millions of muslim settlers fleeing religious persecution (Shi'a muslims fleeing sunni persecution perhaps) beingaccepted by American protestants today?

No. A fair fight is when you fight by the book and leave the civvies out of it.

TMW, are you a veteran of anything?

Yes, nobody likes when civilians get hurt. At least we don't. But we (the US) have not just targeted civilians in the past, but we've firebombed whole cities from the sky. Roasted Germans and Japanese like firewood. And gloried in it (which is the part that really bugs me. War is hell, but really?).

There are no rules in war. You might as well talk of humanizing Hell. Back in Korea, Matthew Ridgway got into a row with Army PR when they wanted him to change the name of his major offensive, Operation Killer to something less bloodthirsty and more PR friendly. He basically told them to pack sand, and opposed any measure that would sanitize the war to the population back home. War is a nasty, serious business that involves a lot of bloodshed, and thinking that its some kind of sporting affair that is nice and clean and everybody goes home.....

That gets people killed needlessly.

@TMW: Actually, a fair fight would be, by definition, one in which both sides have the same training, weapons, monetary backing, and numbers.

For instance, pistols at 50 paces between two untrained people is a fair fight. A drone flying through villages that are essentially in the third world and blowing up a target, is not. The US military does not like fair fights. No military does.

TMW "A fair fight is when you fight by the book and leave the civvies out of it"

whats this book you talk about ? suddenly refound the Geneva convention huh? cherry picking what parts of the "book" you like.

so ...you would like AQ to gather 10,000 men, put then in uniforms, give each man a rusty old ak47, get together a couple of old T series Russian tanks and then ...what? build barracks!? march the men on kabul down the main road !? and be slaughtered by a single American f22 ?
you really are an idiot

All militaries do is avoid a fair fight. They focus on achieving their objectives and keeping their soldiers as safe as possible.

and that is what AQ try to do aswell.

they may be a terrorist organisation, but that just means they don't wear uniforms and are willing to blow up civilian targets to instill fear in their enemy. (as opposed to targeting militrary positions to beat them)

This is of course the only viable tactic available to them, as taking out even a single US aircraft carrier is unthink-able. (though with some infiltration and sabotage it might be possible) instead they wnat to scare the american public into changing their government's foreign policy. (though perhaps the world trade centre attacks were more about raising their own profile on the world stage, and making sure every muslim in the world knew who they are.... )

I don't know if it could be deemed successful or not. Though they now have more American troops occupying more of their land (they were complaining about the american troops stationed in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, now the US is in Afghanistan and Iraq aswell) so i think that must be seen as a failure. However the have sparked a conflict which must be helping swell their numbers (now more muslims must think there is a problem with American troops invading their lands and some of those probably support AQ - of course others probably oppose AQ for using violence, and for bringing more Americans to their lands...)

To be honest Orathaic, I think you're attributing more rational goals to AQ than they really have. There are certainly extremists and militants in the Muslim world that have goals that the rest of the world could reasonably consider granting, and groups that can be negotiated with, but I don't think AQ is really one of them. Their goal is the establishment of a theocratic medieval islamic empire, with little to no contact with the rest of the world (Never mind that like most fundamentalists the "golden age" they are trying to get back to never really existed). But they don't simply want to go somewhere and live as they think people should, (A group like the Amish are a pretty good example of this). They want to impose this way of life on millions of people.

Yes, initially Bin Laden stated that his goal was the removal of US troops from Saudi Arabia. But those troops are no longer there, and he's simply shifted his goals accordingly. I honestly don't think there's much of anything that could be done to appease AQ. Just because a few of their stated goals are reasonable, doesn't mean that all of them are. The committed AQ members will not stop attacking civilians until the unreasonable goals they have are successful. Even then I'm not sure they wouldn't find something else to complain about and continue the use of violence.

Again, this is not necessarily true of every group of militants or terrorists, some of them have very legitimate concerns and goals, and can in fact be negotiated with. AQ is just not one of them.

All of that being said, massive military operations, especially Iraq, played RIGHT into AQ's hands, and has in fact made them look more legitimate, and has been a great recruiting tool for them. Believe me AQ was and is delighted that the US invaded Iraq. Had the focus stayed on Afghanistan, and had NATO really committed to securing and building up (with schools and infrastructure) Afghanistan I think it's entirely likely the world would be a rather different place right now. (Of course if we'd done that back in the 80's after the Soviets left, we'd probably have an even MORE radically different world today...)

@DrOct, I'm not suggesting you need to negotiate with AQ, far from it, if they are threatening to kill me, I feel perfectly happy to allow you execute them.

This is a very primal reaction, if my clan is threatened then i will respond in kind.

However it's not AQ that you need to worry about negotiating with, it is the rest of the moderate Islamic world. It is the people who hear AQs arguements and think 'well yes the US warplanes did blow up a school in the next province'.
I do think it si fair to ascribe them with rational - if unimaginably difficult - goals. That doesn't mean some of those concerns shouldn't be addressed. (negotiating with them would lend them more legitimacy, instead negotiate with the governments in the region - but ONLY if those governments are representative of their people. There is no point in negotiating with a cruel dictator, lending support to someone the common people hate just lends support to the idea that the US/ western civilisation is evil/corrupt/hypocritical...)

Which is exampled by the support given to Saddam Hussein by the US to fight the Iranians (playing one regional power against another which lead to the now terrible relations between Iran and the rest of the world, I'm fairly sure the Iranian revolution could have been handled much better with some tactic which involved respecting the wishes of the Iranian people, and not starting a war between Iraq and Iran... now Iran feels the need to develope nuclear weapons to prevent an American lead invasion - and to increase their regoinal influence of course...

at least Iran is developing it's militrary capability, and needs money/economic power to buy weapons so it is trying to be a successful first world country. The one plus to forcing it to defend itself...

Basically, you can't do shit about the nutjobs. This applies to both people like Bin Ladin, and others like him (you can find them in just about any major faith). They're going to do what they do no matter what.

The people I want to reach aren't the nuts. They're the average person living in these countries. The average Palestinian, the average Iraqi, the average Afgan. Make it so these people have a piece of the pie, jobs, security, a chance to get their kids to be better of than they are, and things will change. Not immediately, but if the reactionary Islamists (I hate the term radical, its completely wrong) can't recruit their foot soldiers from the masses, they're just a bunch of angry bearded men, and they're easy to deal with. Yes, if somebody fucks with us, we take his ass out, but I'd like to have some solutions that don't just shoot the current crop of militants, but also ensures the next crop will wither on the vine.

@Orathaic - I do not disagree with anything you said in your reply to me. I tried to make clear, though perhaps not well enough, that I do think that there are plenty of people in the Islamic world with totally legitimate concerns that can and should be dealt with. Most of these people are moderate normal civilians, some of them are even people fighting against US and allied troops. I absolutely agree that there are many important changes that can and should be made to US and other Western Nations foreign policy that would not only help resolve a lot of these problems, but would just be the right thing to do.

I'm just saying AQ is not one of these groups. The hardcore element of AQ pretty much has to be hunted down and captured or killed. And while a few of AQ's goals might be described as rational, I honestly don't think their wider goals can be.

@Jack_Klein - we are in total agreement.

Im afraid we are all going to be agreeing with each other until The "Master" Warrior returns with one of his great statements that ignore reality and seems to spring from an imaginary (ie glen becks imagination) universe, maybe something like "the USA has NEVER negotiated with terrorist and never will" or "we can solve this AQ problem by maximizing our firepower and killing all current members of AQ and anyone else who is in the way"

If you're talking Geneva Convention, then keep in mind that it only applies to uniformed soldiers. A rag on your head doesn't count as a uniform. If they put on some fucking uniforms and stand up out of their caves and fight like men, then they can have as much Geneva protection as they fucking want.

Actually, the Geneva Conventions has parts that apply to soldiers and parts that apply to civilians. Under the Geneva Conventions, you are one or the other. You can not be neither. If you are a civilian, then you can be prosecuted for crimes you have committed(like shooting someone). If you are a soldier, you cannot, but you can be held as a POW. The United States has violated the Geneva Conventions and committed war crimes based on this statement. Of course, no one is able to prosecute us. I don't believe most of the Bush administration should travel overseas too much though...

they can "fight like men" for all of the 5 minutes before the satellite guided predator drone slaughters them ? but only as long as they use some of their defense budget for standardize apparel with clear unit markings?
yeah, get real
TMW- he is like Cartman without the funny

@sean:
What is sad is that he is the norm of people I hear talking about politics. Ignorance and misunderstanding, based on Fox News, and some talk radio. It sucks living in a Republican state.

I'm made a resolution. I've attempted to engage TMW in a rational way, assuming that he was actually interested in a logical discussion instead of an ignorant rant.

This has obviously been a mistake. I'm now going to make sure I mock and insult him in pretty much every silly thread he posts. This will have the dual purpose of making him look even more like a toolbag, and relieve my personal stress levels as well.

Addendum: I just want those that have paid attention here to note that I did try....

I don't think anyone bothered talking about the Geneva convention, cause we all realise that neither side of this conflict respect it.

We were talking about the realities of fighting a war and how to best win 'hearts and minds' - using schools, i meant having a cultural influence rather than simply building infrastructure/providing economic opportunities - Saudi Arabia has at least one American international school: http://www.state.gov/m/a/os/37272.htm

even if it's just a private school it helps spread culture which is very important to get other people to understand your point of view.

I suppose if Christian missionaries went to afghanistan and built a christian school (i went to a secondary school setup by De La Salle Brothers though most of the teacher are now lay people) it probably wouldn't go down very well with the local muslims....

@MW: Oh, and what is an enemy combatant? the guys held in Guantanamo Bay? Do they not count as POWs? I mean whether they are wearing uniforms or not, I don't want to listen to you hie behind some technical legal definition from 6 decades ago, but if you are the least you can do is quote the article and year for me instead of parroting propaganda.

@Jack_Klein - We've all been there (trying to engage in a rational discussion) many of us multiple times...