Is it simplistic to think of the London attack as a Tet moment

[LittleClarkie]

I keep coming back to that thought. But the notion only works if you start with "We fight them in Iraq so we won't have to fight them on our own soil."

Tet represented the realization that the war was NOT almost over.

The London attack might represent the realization that we've spent almost 3 years fighting the wind, to little avail.

What do you think?

[Vincardog]

1. Bush's war in Iraq was never about terror. It was and is all part

and parcel of the NeoCon PNAC plan for world domination. Earth to aWoL empire doesn't work.

[lvx35]

2. I don't think so.

If the "secret organization of al queda in europe" is actually from strait from Iraq, as in insurgents I would be suprised.

I personally think this is different from tet. it would be tet if it were in Iraq and very successful.

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

3. Not at all.

Reasonable people can look back at The Nam and look forward and see that a "Tet Moment" looms on the horizon. That doesn't mean it will manifest itself. But it is a distinct possibility.

[Frederik]

4. As far as the "war on terror" is concerned

I would definitely agree. I think this should lead to the realization that terrorism cannot be fought by dropping bombs on innocent goat-farmers and invading faraway countries.

The direct causes of the emergence of Islamist terrorism were the constant meddling in Arab affairs by the United States and other Western countries for some 70 years and the predominance in the region of dysfunctional dictatorships that are dependent on Western military backing for their survival. Remember that most Islamist terrorist attacks happen in Muslim countries, only very rarely in Western countries (today was the fourth that I can think of since 1993, if indeed it was carried out by jihadists, excluding attacks in Russia blamed on Chechens and attacks in Israel which really is a separate conflict with its own dynamics).

Both of these things need to change for there to be any hope of defeating terrorism. Of course the perpetrators need to be brought to justice (in real, ordinary courts), but you will keep on treating the symptom forever if you don't address the root causes.

Ending military aid to and support for despotic or semi-despotic regimes like the current ones in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Egypt is not going to happen, because it would mean a geopolitic withdrawal from the entire region and potentially threaten oil supplies and the interests of the Anglo-American oil cartel.

Second best: Make all military aid or even sales contingent upon the gradual establishment of true democratic institutions, without imposing a particular economic model or demanding privatization of state companies and public services World Bank-style. And withdraw completely from Iraq and Afghanistan.

[JohnnyBoots]

8. Wolfowitz is head of the World Bank, good luck there buddy

[TayTay]

5. I think Fallujah was that Tet moment

The reports of the insurgency in Iraq are all bad. The minute that US forces 'secure' a city and move on, the insurgents move back in and recapture it. We have 136,000 troops over there, nowhere near enough to truly 'secure' the country. This war is doomed.

I believe that we need to pull back US troops as soon as possible. We are attracting the militants and are the best advertisement for militants to come to Iraq to train to defeat the invaders. We have to come up with a different strategy. (US to patrol the border areas, turning over Iraq to Iraqi troops. People will die under this scenario. Truth to tell, people will die under all scenarios.)

Europe has a significant Muslim population, much more so than the US does. It also has had difficulty melding the Muslim population into the economic fabric of the various countries. Poverty breeds discontent, in Europe no less than anywhere else on earth. There is a large population from which to draw people who are disaffected enough to fall into radical and violent beliefs. This was true before 9/11 and it is true now. Europe has always had a sort of gun pointed at it's head. Ocassionally, that gun is going to go off, as it did today. (There are several radical mosques in London where wehemently anti-US, anti-western clerics have preached violence against western civ. This is a breeding ground for terrorism.)

Note the overt allusions to poverty, racism and having a large population of young males without jobs in this. This is a formula for trouble anywhere on earth.

[Name removed]

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[LittleClarkie]

7. Metaphorical perhaps

That's rather what I meant. Not literally.

[Pepperbelly]

9. from their view, they carried it to the belly of the beast yet ...

not the biggest beast. From thier p.o.v., of course. But the more interesting question is why?

Iraq has done little more than help the people who are doing these things.