"War on terror" saves few lives: expert

Well.....sure, a lot more people die from diseases than acts of terrorism, but we might actually prevent the latter. We've been working on cures for the former for a long time, and shunting money away from anti-terrorism efforts might not make any significant impact on our progress toward disease cures.

The obvious counter-argument would be,"Yeah, and what has the billions spent on anti-terrorism measures gotten us, aside from a huge up-jump in federal dead wood (Homeland Security playing I-Spy and generating mountains of classified BS at the expense of the taxpayer,) longer waits at the airport (enough said,) and distraction from non-terrorist threats (e.g. acts of nature, pollution, and diseases)?"

Zipping back to the other side of the court, the requisite counter-argument to that: "Preventative action doesn't yield glamorous results, but that doesn't make them irrelevant or valueless. We can't ignore the folks who are trying to kill us. And we shouldn't focus solely on blocking their short-term attempts. We need to secure the future for our children and fight our enemies."

....Good Lord, I'm talking to myself on an internet forum. This can't be a good sign.
 
I was ready to call the article "a day late and a dollar short" to the tenth power, but putting it in discreet financial terms (if accurate) make such comparisons more understandable to the average US citizen.

The article fails to mention one of the more oft cited problems in funds allocated to fight terrorism: that funds were equally divided among the states (so that Wyoming, for instance, received as much as New York).
 
to be fair though, bush IS announcing a new plan for disease prevention next week

he's going to propose fighting disease 'over there' before it gets to 'our shores'

george_w_bush_apprehensive.jpg


if we go in light and fast we can topple disease in a few days and be out of there by Thanksgiving.
 
We can't ignore the folks who are trying to kill us. And we shouldn't focus solely on blocking their short-term attempts. We need to secure the future for our children and fight our enemies."
Click to expand...

See, that's my issue with what's being done. The slow, grinding process of imporiving relations, conditions of countries, reducing reasons for people to become extremists and other causes of terrorism is exactly what isn't being done. The method is "kill em all", with a side order of what I mentioned, but it can't overcome what the "kill em all" solution creates. Our method is an intended long term solution, but in reality nothing more than a short term solution because it treats terrorists like a finite military army, there's 1 million "soldiers", kill enough, they surrender and then the wars over.
 
[quote name='alonzomourning23']See, that's my issue with what's being done. The slow, grinding process of imporiving relations, conditions of countries, reducing reasons for people to become extremists and other causes of terrorism is exactly what isn't being done.[/QUOTE]

One could argue that such an approach, while pleasant-sounding, is unattainable. Sure, it would be great if we could always be friends with all of our neighbors in this world (or, if not "friends," at least at peace with everyone,) but is that something we can ever maintain in the long run?
 
[quote name='RBM']One could argue that such an approach, while pleasant-sounding, is unattainable. Sure, it would be great if we could always be friends with all of our neighbors in this world (or, if not "friends," at least at peace with everyone,) but is that something we can ever maintain in the long run?[/QUOTE]

Angering people and pushing moderates and conservatives into extremists isn't going to help. It's not "be friends with everyone", but working at root causes, primarily social and economic. The way we're working it, there's always more to replace the ones we kill.
 
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