News Is an Open-Ended War Without Boundaries Justifiable?

[daveb]

What determines that a war is won? With our current method of waging war, it cannot be won on our side. We can't prosecute ourselves to victory. The enemy has to be defeated.

What does this have to do with what I asked?

How are the hostile muslim extremist defeated? They have to be killed. Surrendering does not work for this particular enemy. It works for us because when faced with a no win situation we will surrender, submit, and adapt in trade for our lives. But this type of enemy will not submit.

What do you mean by it doesn't work? Do you mean they don't surrender, or that if they surrender, it's more of a burden on us to take care of them? I'm not sure I understand this statement.

Basically, we should either fight brutally or quit altogether. It seems we are doing neither and because of that there will be no victory.

Again, this still hasn't answered the question. I asked under what circumstances they are considered to have submitted to our authority.

 

[chemisttree]

Ah yes! The quote from the totally impartial Times of India. And Selig Harrison? Wasn't he the one who claimed credit for convincing Kim Il Sung to 'agree' to halt his nuclear ambitions in exchange for economic concessions in 1994?

So the US aid to Pakistan during the war was applied two years after the end of the war? The Taliban were no threat until 1994, two years after the mujahadeen grasped control from the communists and continued fighting amongst themselves.

Took your advice and googled 'Taliban'. Found this:

(Wiki)
"Two contrasting narratives of the beginnings of the Taliban are that the rape and murder of boys and girls from a family traveling to Kandahar or a similar outrage by Mujahideen bandits sparked Mullah Omar and his students to vow to rid Afghanistan of these criminals... The other is that the Pakistan-based lorry shipping mafia known as the "Afghanistan Transit Trade" and their allies in the Pakistan government, trained, armed and financed the Taliban to clear the southern road across Afghanistan to the Central Asian Republics of extortionate bandit gangs. In either or both cases, the Taliban were based in the Helmand, Kandahar and Uruzgan region, and were overwhelmingly ethnic Pashtuns and predominately Durrani Pashtuns. They received training and arms from Pakistan although they retained some independence, often refusing the advice of the Pakistan government."

I can accept that the US helped remove the communist government in control leading to a power vacuum that eventually allowed a Pakistan-trained Taliban to take over after several years of civil war, corruption and so forth, but I see no evidence that the CIA funded Pakistan to aid the Taliban in their fight against the Soviets and by doing so 'cemented' their power.

Selig's warning against encouraging foriegn muslim involvement in the Soviet era war in Afghanistan hardly rises to the importance of being predictive of the excesses of the Taliban regime ('creating a monster')... even if HE thinks so.

 

[drankin]

What does this have to do with what I asked?

What do you mean by it doesn't work? Do you mean they don't surrender, or that if they surrender, it's more of a burden on us to take care of them? I'm not sure I understand this statement.

Again, this still hasn't answered the question. I asked under what circumstances they are considered to have submitted to our authority.

To answer your question: They are no longer declaring war/jihad against the West and the evidence of that would be that Western lives are no longer taken or threatened.