Yabby, you do realize that all of the terrorist attacks we have recieved ourselves were to try to force our interests out of the middle east?
As in, every single terrorist attack was because we were following a discourse- the very same one, that we believe we need to jump into these countries and sort them out?

To imply that they're going to convince people to blow themselves up over us just because we're infidels and they want to convert us is bordering on the outright silly.

*To imply that they're going to convince people to blow themselves up over us just because we're infidels and they want to convert us is bordering on the outright silly.*

Silly for you Hazza, because you are looking at this from your
perspective, not their perspective. You refuse to understand what
drives them and their ideology.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sayyid_Qutb

The big change that Qutb brought about, was viewing jihad as offensive, rather then defensive. He was disgusted by America,
when he went on a visit.

Zawahiri is a disciple of Qutb. Bin Laden was taught by his
brother, after he was killed by the Egyptians. But that is the
ideology that drives Islamism, that is also the kind of State that
the Taliban were intent on building in Afghanistan.

Dying for your religion is considered a very noble cause amongst
these people.

Your big mistake is judging the world from your perspective rather
then theirs.

But you are free to inform yourself if you wish.

Sorry KH but yabby is much closer to the truth here.
No way, not a chance these folk are only defending their country's.
Primitive and radical Islamists get the wish to kill out of their holly book.
It is true we face danger from within much as you say.
I never said stop fighting them, the reverse is true fight them forever.
Do not buy or sell to them.
No trade no way.
And come down hard every time they try to harm us.
But we dream if we think they even want our Democracy our lifestyle our freedoms.
We must confront the truth we make new terrorists every day.

Hi to you 'Belly' and all...

From inception, I agree with most of you. I'm a veteran myself, and as I've often stated herein (ad nauseam), we should never have gone into South Vietnam. The same MUST be said for Afghanistan. Without deployment of multiple and substantial Nuclear Weaponry, neither war was or is winnable.

I'm as loyal to the USA as the next bloke (read 'Redneck' for my many detractors ?). But I can see no rationale, on this occasion why we should blindly follow them into every conflict they choose to prosecute.

They (USA) enjoy massive military might. Together with a level of patriotism probably incomparable anywhere in the Western world ?

Where we (Aussies) regrettably, do not possess such 'military brawn', nor do we exhibit the levels of overt patriotism, as evidenced by the good folk of the United States of America.

In any event, the US generally does the 'heavy lifting' in any collaboration of Military interdiction in which we unwittingly, become involved.

The unnecessary loss of over twenty of Australia's finest young people, is an absolute parody and charade, in this war that can NEVER be won !

We should (must) leave now, before any other young life is lost in this unwinnable war.

Sung Wu.

My point is it still doesn't matter;

The past 60 years have proven that hatred for infidels has not been substantial enough to motivate attacks from international terrorist groups, but hostilities towards a specific country's interactions with Islamic countries, or attempts to implant infidel enterprises on Muslim soil.
Or else why would they single out America in 911?
If xenophobia was motivation enough, Europe would be receiving as many terrorist attacks as Israel- but they're not.

Not to say there isn't spontaneous, domestic terrorism like frequent sexual assaults on infidels or murdering Theo van Gogh for his Koran film, but to try to connect these to Al Queda in Afghanistan is pretty stupid.

My point is that you only attract international terrorism by giving an international reason. Otherwise Terrorism is a domestic issue, resulting on inviting people we shouldn't be allowing into our societies.

lentaubman,
Yes very hard to explain to these women why we forced ourselves on their country gave them false hope and left them in a much worse position than they were in.
I have issue with the comparison of the taliban and Nazi's. The Nazi's at least had a standing army that could be engaged, the taliban use gorilla tactics and are more or less unidentifiable. There is also the historical perspective that we were going to loose this argument as so many have before us, or be the first to defeat Afganistan. Sorry but we are not that good.
Emotive arguments are all well and good but maybe you should apply that to why we went there in the first place. It seemed at the time everyone wanted someone to blame and any excuse was good enough. Unless we are prepared for the long haul (not 10years try a generation) and billions invested into constructing a countries infrastructure then we will never be able to give these women the security and social change they deserve