Originally posted by spgoode:
Originally posted by EternalOne:
Originally posted by spgoode:
I know I'm short-sighted and ignorant of reality but you didn't address my gripe with the statement by EternalOne. He stated that if we were not in Iraq fighting terrorists, then the terrorists would try to come here. My question was, how would they get here? When would they get the chance? What could we be doing that would prevent them from getting here?



The fact remains that Al Zarqawi was a threat long before the Iraq war -- he was growing in strength and power in the region, we just forced him to the surface with the invasion, most likely before he wanted to step into the limelight once again. (Yes, again.)

Our country, by nature, has a very open system of travel -- this comes with our level of freedom. Ever hear of Ramzi Yousef? He was one of the 93 WTC bombers, in the country legally after he was granted asylum in the US.

Right now they are very limited, with them being pre-occupied with us on two fronts. Without us there they would have much greater freedom of movement in the Middle East, and that would make operational planning all that much easier. Bounce to a few free-travel countries and then onto the US. Right now they are too worried about the "free pickings" of US Soldiers in Iraq, coupled with the fact that we keep killing their leaders and gathering operational intelligence and you have us holding them back on all fronts.

E1


Again, with procedural changes and tightened border security we could be reasonably sure that nothing resembling September 11th would happen again. All this could be done at a tiny fraction of the cost we are spending in Iraq.
"Taking the fight to the terrorists" is nonsense and that is my point.


Do you really believe that? You have Ivy League colleges fighting over these types of people to attend their schools! Harvard, Yale, and Standford, two out of those three (I can't remember the specific two) FOUGHT over getting the spokesman for the Taliban to attend their school. And guess what? He's attending their school right now, on a student visa, ON A SCHOLARSHIP! These guys aren't stupid. They know how to work the system. Only by rendering their brainhousing groups unserviceable can we curtail them as a threat. There will be another attack on our soil. And in my opinion, it will be on a larger scale than 9/11. You can have all the security in the world at your front door, but these guys wait, learn, and adapt to it. Iraq and their tactics is a perfect example of such.

Ryan Trollin!