and don't you realize that as long as we make war in the middle east people there will always hate us? Our wars will be breeding grounds of hate. 'look at those westerners always invading us.'
See this opinion is pretty much baseless, the grudge that Al Qaeda has is with the governments that exist there and the fact we support them. They desire to see it transformed into a Wahhabist Superstate and they wish to achieve this by toppling unpopular governments and putting themselves as the only alternative. By working to bring true liberal democratic principles into the region by transforming Iraq (and this will take decades if ever) and showing the Arabs that we did not come there for imperial or colonialist reasons or to steal their oil it will gather good will in the region in the long run (Because the Middle East was not some sort of bastion of love for America before the Invasion of Iraq, they went from the Great Satan to the Slightly More Great Satan, don't kid yourself about the myth of the Arab Street being inflamed, its better to make a change for the better than leave them to stew in hatred). A strong democratic Iraq that works will also force other regimes to change, Jordan would accelerate political and economic reforms and once that occurs social change is inevitable (honour killings etc. would cease in a country where people embraced freedom and modernity) and eventually the entire region could become a trading partner with the rest of the world and could come to foster peace and understanding towards the Jews and the West, as it stands the region is just a terrorist producing factory and something must be done to change it.
We will never see a stable democracy in these countries in our lifetimes. At least not via the means of war brought in from the outside.
the strongest and most stable democracies created from dictatorships are those formed through internal revolution not from external invasion and pressure
Now these two points are both based on the noble idea that peace and freedom cannot be brough through war and that the only way to have any stability is internal revolution, I say these are both flat wrong especially when dealing with Iraq.
Iraq did not have any internal resistance, Saddam's Baathist regime was firmly entrenched and rotting away and the people had no freedom. They just lived their lives in abject poverty being ruined by the dictator and tortured and killed by his police if they complained. The bones of the dead in the mass graves are the sole remainder of the internal revolution (now I blame Bush Snr. for this because he had to bow down to Arab demands not to push into Iraq proper, then telling the people to rise up but allowing the regime to use attack gunships in the south to quell them, a very bad decision), the only way was to invade and topple the dictator then build the country up again. This is what we are doing now and it can be done, the the former Yugoslavia millitary actions were able to bring about change and democracy, Iraq is different but still quite possible, it is wrong to believe that if we just leave the arab world alone we will be left alone, that is exactly what Osama desires, if we stopped engaging in the region then the possibility of toppling the regimes increases and so does the possibility of his outlandish political goals becoming a reality. By engaging and introducing a competing ideology we can deliver a knockout blow to terrorism.
External force was the only thing that could remove the regime and it is the best hope for peace and democracy these people can ever get. The alternatives would always result in greater bloodshed or the creation of global problems (Internal Collapse results in Civil War, Qusay takes power costing even more lives over another 30 years, Iran invades Iraq to annex the Southern Oil Fields etc. they all result in hundreds of thousands of deaths).
Can you think about how many internalm revolutions have brought about peaceful democracy as opposed to the number that bring about violence and opression, the fact is that internal revolution is a much more violent and bloody affair that does not resolve the problems nearly as well as a strong millitary force that can eliminate threats to a democratic system and prevent the new state from collapsing.
I find that the patriot act is a haphazard and dangerous way to fight terorism. These measures just give the illusion of security the only way you are going to have a solid chance is if you investigate your mistakes and then make the changes after you have the facts, not the 9/11 comission has released its report I would hope Bush could take the top Civil Rights lawyers, Law Enforcement officials, Government Beurocrats etc. and get them to come up with a model for dealing with the threat, this would take time which unfortunately is not something you take for granted when there are problems in a system.
I still think tasers are a good idea, they would furthur reduce the threat because even if a group of armed men could get aboard they could be subdued quickly and without major risk to the passengers, the only other major alternative is once a plane has been hijacked is to shoot it down killing hundreds of innocent people to avert a potential disaster, see why I think we shouldn't be so quick to rule out some courses of action.
A very good article about the effect of a 300 Kiloton nuckear detonation in Washington may give you guys an idea of how dangerous these weapons are in the wrong hands.
http://www.thebulletin.org/issues/2004/jf04/jf04eden.html