I am not a president, am i? Nor do i intend to become one.
But lets pick up your words.
"Any country that is unwilling or unable to pursue these terrorists within their borders".
Are you prepared to order an invasion of a sovereign nation, just because the local police is sitting on their asses? What makes you think its that easy to arrest these men? The US has 50.000 men in Afghanistan, and they still haven´t arrested shit!! And how about the terrorists that were living in the US before 9/11? Do you think the US should invade itself? Or maybe Spain, or Germany, and France? Would you order such an operation? It seems to me that you have double standards. If the country in question is a strong western nation, you resort to diplomacy. But if it´s a poor third world nation, you send in the troops! How hypocritical is that?
There can´t be any double standards at all, if you want it to work.
If you want to prevent your country being attacked, the best you can do and should do is prevent them from entering your country.

I´m going to give you a real world example, to show you just how irrational your solution is:
Acording to you, any nation who fails to capture terrorists, is open to invasion by the victimized nation, right?
So, does that mean you think Great Britain should invade New York and Boston, looking for IRA terrorists? I mean, the US has failed to arrest them, many irish IRA operatives live in the US, free of any charge, after conducting bombings across Britain, so i take it you would agree if the brits came crashing down on your home town, isn´t that right?

Things cannot and are not, all black and white. That "you are either with us or against us" mentality belongs in the Lalá land, not the real world.
A real politician knows it can´t be done.

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

I agree.

@SwamP-ThinG - by "you" do you mean me or do you mean "the US"? I only ask because, although it's quite clear that I haven't offered up any solutions (save agreeing with Startup), your post seems to imply that I have.

And if I read you right, your solution is to prevent terrorists from entering your country. I would have to agree that this is a valid solution as well. Still, I can't help wondering about what a monumental endeavor this would be given the volume of trade into and out of this country. Additionally, seems the US has been much maligned in the past for attempting to control our borders. Also, we don't seem to do a very good job of it.

But, over-riding all of these concerns is that I have a problem with any country having to be concerned about its civilians being targets of heavy military ordnance. Shouldn't all civilized nations take whatever steps are necessary to eradicate this problem and condemn it with action rather than words? And, if so, what are the limits of these actions, if any?

You´re the one who brought up invading countries who can´t capture the terrorists, as a solution. Are you backing down?

You mean a more monumental task than a full invasion and ocupation of an entire nation?
Wich one´s the biggest task? To plug the holes in your border and spend a few billions doing it, or staging a full scale invasion costing hundreads of billions and thousands of human lives?
Wich task´s the hardest to achieve, and wich task´s the costiest of the two?
Seems to me that your president has chosen the hardest path, using a sledgehammer to kill an ant.


Absolutelly! But what steps exactly is the 1 million dollar question, isn´t it?
I´d go with full cooperation between police forces, and an international organization in charge of it all, just as we are doing in Europe with an European anti-terrorism secretary. The UN and Interpol could handle the task quite well.

There are two ways to prevent terrorism:
Nº1 is preventing the terrorists from reaching their targets, either by arresting them, destroying the organizations, or closing the doors by wich they enter the target nation, i.e the borders..
And Nº2 is removing the very reason why they fight.
Untill now, the US has done the first while contributing to the very existence of the second. Instead of removing the very reason why they fight, you are actually assisting them and giving them further reasons to continue.
You might catch a few operatives, but if you don´t take out the root of evil, another will take his place.
This is pure common sense.
If you have a weed in your garden, do you cut the branches that stand above ground or do you digg and root it out?:indeed:

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

Huh? My words were:
and
I brought it up as a solution. Your post accuses me of having "double standards" and of being "hypocritical" when, in fact, I had posed no standards and had not advanced any solution.

As you're so fond of saying, "If you had read my post..."
No. There are other ways of taking someone out. And if ALL the nations of the world were as committed to eradicating terrorism as they should be, invasions wouldn't be necessary.
See now, I would agree with that. We should have sent in a small contingent of Special Forces, assassinated Hussein and left a note on his body addressed to his successor: "Y'all be good now, ya' hear? Love, George"

But then, you wouldn't go for that would you? Remember the tirade you threw when we gave Aristide a ride away from the crowds that wanted to kill him? Oh, but wait, he was kidnapped wasn't he? Still, a big difference from being assassinated.
Yea, I'm going to skip over the part about the UN doing anything well and just assume that miracles do happen. What would you do with nations that refuse to cooperate? After all, for these third world dictators who have already bled their citizens dry, the billions that could be made from harboring terrorists would be good money.
Right. Our lascivious movies, our heretical speech, the unconscionable way we don't take control of our women, our misguided love of the Jews who control our every action. Or are you under the impression that all would be right in the world if we would just leave Iraq and Saudi Arabia?

Why do i even bother...

__________________
"Quincitilius Varus, give me back my legions!"
Emperor Augustus of Rome.

Pretty please fatboy don't run for office! We already had one Dubya with an IQ of a waterchestnut rule the US... don't be #2.

In all honesty reading your post reminded me of why I have to laugh at Americans at times. There are many very intelligent and good citizens but some serious loonies too. The US has already invaded two soverign countries in it's "war on Terror" or whatever it is called. The US has not yet captured Bin Laden OR any of his high command. The US was unable to find Saddam without someone giving him up... So how many more countries should be invaded, occupied and then left in disarray without achieving anything?! And what does the population have to do with the actions of a few or has the US enstated collective punishment? If so why has the US not invaded Saudi, Germany or Spain?!

BAH what a waste of time!!

I guess you don't. You don't want to answer my questions?

@Grisu - ?

I don't understand. I'm thinking you're putting me in with the loonies. Why exactly is that? And I notice that you can criticize real well, but can you actually come up with a workable solution? Or do you just want to complain about everyone else's?

@ fatboy

ANyone that throws out there to invade countries based on their unwillingness to apprehend "terrorists" because the US sais they are or their inability to apprehend a fugitive is a loonie!

Workable solution? Uh... that would require two things:

a) knowledge of all the facts in the case (which nobody has except maybe the NSA and CIA)
b) thorogh understanding of AL-Quaida and the ability to cripple it (which nobody seems to have either).

Therefore, no there is no workable solution! All you and I can do is sit around wonder what if and hope it doesn't materialize. Maybe praying if you are of the religious kind will help you personally. A prayer that the US government doesn't sit around waiting fir the next 9/11 however may be in order as well....
I am glad to be a critic though which means that I still have not bought into the Bushology hook line and sinker.

@Grisu - Ahhh, so we can't even make suggestions. Good. That sure will open up dialogue and help to arrive at a solution.

I'm confused by this statement:
Aren't you saying that that is all we can do? I thought that was your point?
Then we can all commiserate with each other on what victims we are. I like it. Action takes so much... action. I can bitch from the comfort of my couch.