George W. Bush is an idiot. Not exactly a revolutionary statement, but in the wake of all the buddying up with America some people seems to forget this. So I'll say it again. HE'S A FUCKING IDIOT. He is not a great leader, he is not a man to be admired. HE'S AN IDIOT. If you asked him to tell his arse from his elbow he'd probably start a war with his arse in defence of the 'Elbow Way of Life', without actually telling them apart in the first place. He's thick.

For a few brief seconds I thought to myself, 'Gee, well done, Bushy-baby. You're going in after Bin Laden and the Taliban, but you're not going to kill any innocent people at all.' Well, that's crap. The whole current US policy is based on a lie; namely, that we're at war with someone. We're not at war with anyone. This is an example of a war: two sides fighting each other's military, until one or the other's military is defeated. That's a war. What we have is mutual terrorism; one side attacks indiscriminately, killing innocents, then another side retaliates in the same way. I don't believe for a minute that the US won't kill many, many innocent people in their 'targeted' attacks. Because let's not forget the American military generally just fire in roughly the right direction and hope for the best.

America is making the mistake of comparing this conflict to with Iraq and, worse, the Cold War. In Iraq there was some sort of clear enemy; there was a military to fight, and there was a war. But we're not even at war with Afghanistan. It's all very well dropping food on them from a great height, but no amount of aid can disguise the fact that America and Britain are bombing Afghanistan with actual bombs. The actions are of a country at war with another country, but that's apparently not the case. Yet I'm sure if we started bombing, say, France, there'd be war declared pretty sharpish.

Because the problem is that whenever you go to war with a country, you automatically damage that country. The Afghani people might not yet actually have been bombed personally, but they're already suffering. If America wants to go to war on Afghanistan, then they should do it. But pretending they're 'targeting' certain areas is shit. The people who are being hurt the most will be the innocents.

The thing is, this isn't a war. It's terrorism. Terrorism isn't about military might, who has the most guns. Terrorists become terrorists because they've already lost the war, which is why for the most part they don't attack military targets, but innocent civilians. So no amount of military force can win against terrorism. Northern Ireland showed that clearly; the British instituted extreme, violent measures against the IRA with no result. All that happened was the terrorism escalated, and that is what will happen here. Attack terrorists and you don't defeat them, you just put your own people in more danger.

Many governments are talking about stopping the forces behind terrorism, the structures which allow terrorists to operate. Well, that's lovely. SO DO IT. Bombing Afghanistan isn't going to do any good, believe me. Maybe we'll catch Bin Laden and oust the Taliban, but it won't stop terrorism. We'll have our revenge, but we won't be any safer. What really needs to be tackled is not the structures which supply terrorists with weapons, but the entire attitude of the Western World, not just the United States. The way the West treats the rest of the human race is the problem here. Bin Laden and the Taliban are not just psychopaths. It takes a lot to drive someone to mass-murder, and we have to look at what's behind terrorism. You can never kill every terrorist, and it only takes one terrorist to kill hundreds. There'll always be lone nutters, but equally we have to understand why whole countries or whole peoples can become so violent. The problem is not an isolated one, but a global one. It's not in the Koran or in any other book, it's a combination of a whole economic and political system which isn't fucking working.
 

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