What are a liberal's alternatives to the ways in which effectively combat terrorism?

Someone who is a liberal mentioned in an answer that he could answer this question. I'd really like to hear the alternatives. I've already heard the Ron Paul solution. It appears to me that terrorism is happening world wide with or without America being involved and it's usually done by Islamic radicals. No offense meant to Islamic people who don't condone it. It seems to happen Islamic people by Islamic people in some places.What are a liberal's alternatives to the ways in which effectively combat terrorism?
the liberal alternative is to surrender and meet their demandsWhat are a liberal's alternatives to the ways in which effectively combat terrorism?
Hugs.
Police it like you would any insane criminals on the fringe of society. By declaring ';war'; against these sociopaths, we give them credibility, like they are some sort of legitimate government or official army that deserves to be treated like any other official country. The army is ill suited to the task at hand. More money should have been put into intelligence gathering, and supporting global police efforts. Efforts should have also been made to make friends and allies all over the world, rather than the ';you're with us or against us'; and ';we don't need any allies, we can take the world on alone'; attitude that was so pervasive in our foreign policy for years.
WHERE DO THEY GET THE MONEY TO TERRORIZE?! OH YEAH! ......., STOP BUYING OIL FROM TERRORIST!!!!!!!!!
Terrorism is a tactic, not something you can wage war against. Terrorism is primarily a law enforcement problem. You don't get rid of terrorism by marching in with tanks and by bombing villages. Throwing every adult man you find in a farming village into jail creates more terrorists. Instead, you fight terrorism with traditional police tactics. You use human intelligence, infiltration, stings, money tracking, etc. That's how the Germans caught the recent plotters in Germany. Despite all of the money we're spending on Iraq, it was old-fashioned police work that caught them.
If Americans try to kill everyone who ever hates America, they will only succeed in making more people hate America.





Ron Paul sees the terrorists and their teachers as individuals and not as representatives of any foreign nation or the religion of Islam.





Ron Paul is not a pacifist.


At the time of the September 11, 2001 attacks, Paul, defining them as an act of ';air piracy';, introduced the Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001, which would have granted Letters of Marque and Reprisal, as authorized by Article One, Section Eight, against the specific terrorists, instead of warring against a foreign state.[17] He has also reproposed this legislation recently under the new title of Marque and Reprisal Act of 2007.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Political_p…





Another important part of keeping America safe is securing the borders.





Tancredo, Ron Paul, and Hunter have the most conservative voting records on immigration.


http://www.betterimmigration.com/candida…


http://www.betterimmigration.com/candida…





Of these three, Ron Paul has the best chance of winning the Primary election.


Paul's campaign has almost 4 times as much money to spend as Tancredo.


http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-…


http://projects.washingtonpost.com/2008-…





This is his six point plan:


Physically secure our borders and coastlines. We must do whatever it takes to control entry into our country before we undertake complicated immigration reform proposals.


Enforce visa rules. Immigration officials must track visa holders and deport anyone who overstays their visa or otherwise violates U.S. law. This is especially important when we recall that a number of 9/11 terrorists had expired visas.


No amnesty. Estimates suggest that 10 to 20 million people are in our country illegally. That’s a lot of people to reward for breaking our laws.


No welfare for illegal aliens. Americans have welcomed immigrants who seek opportunity, work hard, and play by the rules. But taxpayers should not pay for illegal immigrants who use hospitals, clinics, schools, roads, and social services.


End birthright citizenship. As long as illegal immigrants know their children born here will be citizens, the incentive to enter the U.S. illegally will remain strong.


Pass true immigration reform. The current system is incoherent and unfair. But current reform proposals would allow up to 60 million more immigrants into our country, according to the Heritage Foundation. This is insanity. Legal immigrants from all countries should face the same rules and waiting periods.


http://ronpaul2008.com/issues/border-sec…





The NAFTA Superhighway might be another significant threat to American borders.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBmFrYWPo…


http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul349.…
To begin with, the single most horrific, terrorific act in the U.S. before 9/11 was caused by a whacko who was a home grown product of these United States. A man who had served in our wonderful armed forces,¨our troops'; . He was probably also a born again Christian,or if not actually one himself, certainly came from that millieu.





Then again, we suffer terrorific violence in our country- such as the Columbine assasinations and the more recent Virginia Tech massacre- with a frightening frequency that certainly strikes terror into my heart . We also hold the free world´s record for presidential assasinations (some also by former members of our troops). As far as I know,none of the guilty parties had the slightest interest in or connection with Islam.





Organised crime and criminal massacres are no strangers to our country. We have even ¨glorified¨them in movies,literature and TV series.





Our crime rates and our motor accidents on any single holiday weekend are terror enough for any sane person who wishes to consult the statistics.





Would anyone have thought that declaring a war on Timothy Veigh's home state or bombing his town or his home was an effective way to combat this terrorist and others like him? Why didn't we shut down Virginia Tech as a breeding ground and obvious shelter for the murderous killer who terrorized our universities? Why haven't we bombed Italy to smithereens for mafia massacres or nuked Chicago during the gang wars? Do I even have to answer these questions?





Terrorism is not a strange phenomenom that appeared in our country imported from abroad on 9/11. Terror is caused by criminal acts carried out by determined criminals acting without(as opposed to within) the laws which govern countries. 9/11 was perpetrated by organised criminals and we should have gone after these criminals,their resources,their bank accounts etc and collaborated with the governments and intelligence agencies of the countries where they hide,infiltrating their organisations,offering incentives to informers.,etc etc . SLOW,painful,PATIENT but ,in the end, successful police and detective work.





Instead we chose to go in and indiscriminately invade and bomb sovereign states causing death and destruction to countless innocent people with no possible connection to the crimes commited on 9/11. We did this in Afghanistan and in Iraq. Neither of these sovereign states attacked the U.S.,their people were not collectively responsible for the actions of an independent criminal network.





Arabs world wide and followers of Islam received the blatantly clear message that we, as a nation, had no respect for innocent lives if those lives were not those of U.S. citizens. Because of our unfair dealing over 5 decades with the Palestinians, they had long suspected this but our actions after 9/11 confirmed their suspicions.





We pushed many disaffected Islamic arabs, people with little to lose - teetering on the edge- over into extremism. We ruined the case that moderate, modern followers of Islam were struggling to make among their people. We infuriated many young people in the Muslim communities struggling to integrate in our western societies with this message that Muslim lives were expendable and of no account. We strengthened the extremists and played into their hands,proving their hateful rhetoric right.





These often ignorant fanatics do not distinguish between the nations of what they see as the Christian ,Western world. The U.S. 's invasion of Islamic countries was seen as proof of our collective disdain for them and their religion.





We are ,as a nation,an impatient and vengeful people and our leaders,knowing this and wanting to capitalize on our indignant rage, took us into war ,in part,so as to be seen as ¨doing something¨.





Our older allies balked at our hasty and erroneous decisions and tried to placate us with tepid support in Afghanistan but we villified them for their sage advice.¨With us or against us¨was the neocon battlecry.


We always want simple solutions to complicated problems. That is our national failing. We didn't take into account ( or didn't give a damn) that it would be our European ¨ fellow Christians and westerners¨ who would pay for our hubris. Most of these European countries have large Islamic and /or Arabic communities. Their borders are very permeable and no convenient oceans separate them from northern Africa and the middle east. They are far more vulnerable than we in the U.S. so it was no surprise that the extremist terrorists retaliated there against our wars. They look at us as all one and the same enemy.





Europeans have been battling criminal terrorist groups of all persuasions for decades without resorting to war. Spain has never bombed and invaded France in retaliation for ETA(a Basque nationalistic terrorist band of villains) actions,although for years ETA had a safe harbour in that country. GB did not bomb Northern Ireland to the stone age and deprive the people there of a basic infrastructure. Neither has Morocco been invaded or bombed, although almost all of the Madrid train bombers were from that country. Since these attacks, most of those directly responsible have been captured,brought to trial or blew themselves up with no harm to civilians as a direct result of efficient police and intelligence work. Many cells have been disbanded and more actions foiled by this same type of work.





I consider myself a conservative and nothing NEO about it,,not a liberal,so perhaps I should not have answered your question. I'm sorry if I have taken up too much of your time.





My thesis is that war does not effectively combat terrorism and can not be justified. People,no matter what their ideological reasons or motives,who resort to criminal violence and break our laws are criminals and should be combated and treated as such. Victims of ideological violence and victims of non-ideological violence are equally victims. One is not more deserving or sinned against than the other. Terrorists are people who break our laws. Our constitution and our laws tell us how to deal with these people. Let's follow its directives!
First of all stop trying to make it a war against Islam. 2 of the last 4 terrorist attacks in the US were commited by extremist right wing christians.


Secondly fight terrorist organizations not governments we don't like under the excuse of the war on terrorism. Bush admitted in 2002 that ';I truly am not that concerned about him (bin Laden)';. So his vow to hunt down those responsible lasted less than a year.


Thirdly do not ignore developments because they are diplomatically inconvenient or deliberately misrepresent what others are saying about it. When Obama pointed out that Musharraf is either unwilling or incapable of attacking AQ training camps in Pakistan and so strategic strikes on those camps may be required - conservatives en masse ignored the real problem and instead took advantage of a cheap tacky opportunity to make a political buck by claiming Obama wanted to invade Pakistan.


This administration asked for bipartisan support following 9/11. They got it. Since then neo-cons have been more and more partisan in cynically using the emotions created by terrorism to attack local political opponents for any disagreement with a foreign policy that is clearly not aimed at eradicating terrorism.
Well throwing innocent people into black sites sponsored by the CIA is not the way to handle it. Doing this is a sure way to increase the motivation for people wanting to join such groups in the name of revenge.





I agree with the previous three posters. Unfortunately it seems our leaders lack common sense. How sad and potentially disastrous.
Pretty simple: Take troops out of Iraq. Put troops into Afghanistan and Pakistan if necessary. Destroy Taliban. Find and Kill Bin Laden and all of Central Al-Qaida. Go home and celebrate great victory. Secure borders and make sure we keep a close eye on people who enter the country. Problem solved.
They think that they can end it by....








-Surrendering by pulling the military out of Iraq.


-Ridiculously hurling them into Al Qaeda.


-Somehow believing they can just find Bin Laden immediately and put an end to him in an instant (though two presidents, even the one they love so much, couldn't accomplish that.)


-Then get the military out again and live out their little socialist fairy-tale of an idea for the country and annihilate everything by doing exactly what they claim Bush is doing; Wasting the lives of thousands of American soldiers.
The lib alternative is to try and reason with people whose sole purpose is to convert every last man, woman, and child, in the world, to Islam.