I gave the second part of your post above some thought,
timmbuktwo:
"And the other statements about the military being too strong a front, just look at what a hard time their having with the local guerilas, as opposed to the "UN" / Canadian peace troops . Do you think those guys would have a better chance, or do you think maybe they sent the army in to save these "peacefully directed" guys out till later???"
It doesn't seem to me as if you're considering the entire spectrum of action available in response to terrorism. Terrorists are stateless players with ambitions for political power. They're wannabees. Wherever they are seeking to build a base, they are local enemies of the state. That means counter-terrorism can have effective leverage using the existing local power bases instead of disrupting them. In Afghanistan, there was increasing friction between the Taliban and al-Qaeda. Many Afghans resented the rich Arab jihad-tourists, and expected trouble to follow them. The Taliban likely could have been convinced to sell all remaining shares of their al-Qaeda stock after 9-11. And let's not forget that the Taliban is making a comeback today, so the invasion obviously hasn't worked so great against them either.
As you can probably imagine if your own country wound up on the receiving end, foreign invasion forces should not be expected to stimulate a great deal of local cooperation in international manhunts. Every country has their own versions of patriots, rednecks and rebels, who will always react predictably to foreign invaders, regardless of the foreign army's pretext for such a profound violation of sovereignty and insult to pride.
A vastly different option would involve more lock-em-up than shoot-em-up, because most of the key terrorists are not in fact trigger-pullers. Firepower could be more effectively focused when it does come down to violence, by using cops instead of armies. Given a reasonable fraction of the funding and priority that was given the invasions and occupations of Iraq and Afghanistan, investigators (including spooks) and cops (including "special" forces) would have done a lot more damage by now to al-Qaeda than the "coalition of the willing".
Terrorist organizations can be taken down legally. In fact, a significant aspect of terrorism (well worth exploiting to the fullest) is the convenient fact that it's illegal. Coincidentally enough, it's important in applying the law that the law be applied. This rules out illegal arrests, detentions, torture, etc. because they are counterproductively disruptive to the more orderly, predictable, and legal process of properly dealing with serial and organized crime, including terrorism.
So the key in fighting terrorism is to focus on the terrorists, while contributing to maximum political stability wherever the hunt is on. If there's time to hunt terrorists (that is if the Chinese aren't invading California) then war can wait. So can normal scruples about gratuities for the cooperative.
We need to root out terrorists. But there's no need to drive them deeper underground- and no more thriving underground exists than under wartime conditions: It's the worst possible time to hunt terrorists. Creating war zones under the pretense of hunting terrorists is like
throwing Bre'er Rabbit into the Briar Patch. Reading that tale again reminded me of the misfortune that got us here- how we got messed up by the Bin Laden
Tar Baby.
I hope I answered your question without too much rambling,
timmbuktwo. I never did quite catch your meaning about UN or Canadian peacekeepers.
