MaverickWhig wrote: First off, the failed War on terror? You seriously need to take a good hard at the world and what the U.S. is doing.
The good work the USA has done? Alienated the Middle-eastern population against the West, engaged in supporting dictators in order to secure energy sources, proliferation nuclear weapons by helping India get into the atomic life cycle (with India not being a member of various no-proliferation pacts), destabilized Pakistan (mind you it was not that stable in the first place), and given a whole new generation of Muslims a reason to hate the west and carry on with Jihad. Such a wonderful job has been done during Bush’s time in office – gunboat diplomacy was back on the menu.
MaverickWhig wrote: Second, Israel has actually been able to take down many terrorist uprisings when fighting fire with fire.
Terrorist uprisings? You’re not generalising all Palestinian uprisings as terrorism are you now – that would be generalising a vast population with the one assumption.
MaverickWhig wrote: Look at Munich, they sent Mossad agents after the incident to terrorize the terrorists. And it did work, the PLO became solely political and no longer a violent terrorist group.
At the cost of killing innocent civilians in the process. But it could be rebuffed as the PLO turned to dialogue because Israel in turn was pushed towards dialogue by its Western allies (via Oslo and the USA). But even then, this also gave rise to resistance groups who still wanted to keep fighting. Which as lead on to groups like Islaimc Jihad and Hamas.
MaverickWhig wrote: Hamas is something new, and the Israelis haven't really been THAT proactive with them as they were with the PLO.
Yes they have been, assassinating their political figureheads, arresting their political wing members, raiding their associated groups and bombing them from helicopters and aircraft – not to mention the recent incursion into Gaza!!
And yet after all this, Hamas still is willing to fight. So obviously just “fighting fire with fire†only creates more fire!
MaverickWhig wrote: The Los Pepes were set up as basically a psychological operation against Escobar, which worked. He started making mistakes, he started to show his locations, and then one day...
From my memory, Los Pepes arose out of the blood feuds Escobar created by his own killing of rivals and other victims of his bloody way of dealing with people who get in his way.
MaverickWhig wrote: Fire against fire does work if people stop complaining due to simplistic views they hold.
Yet it never worked in the Second World War or even the Korean or Vietnam wars where the death toll was so much greater – so why think fighting fire with fire will work now? Fighting fire with fire is the same idea as assassinating political rivals – yes it works to silence your detractors, because their dead, and you just end up being a murder. Doing thus does not make your stand point correct, moral, ethical, simply because you have wiped out those who criticise your point of view.