[Cyrus]

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You are making an artificial distinction here regarding terrorists and insurgents. There are not two different types of enemy here, but only one which uses different tactics in different situations against their enemies. Al-Queada makes this clear since its operatives both carried out the 9/11 attacks, and also carry out guerilla actions in Afghanistan. Same thing with various palestinian groups that have both carried out homocide bombings in Israel, and also fought small pitched battles/ambushes with small Israeli military units.

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I think the label of artificiality fits your argument rather than mine. Let me elaborate a bit:

Qaeda will NOT stage a "pitched battle" between itself and American or other organised military forces. I would stake a lot of money on that claim. Whatever "pitched battles" we are seeing in places such as Iraq are mostly the work of nationalist Iraqis, whose passion could be fuelled also by religious fervour. Or it could be the other way around, nationalism fuelling religion. It's also the case that Qaeda aids and promotes the Iraqi insurgency directly. Finally, Qaeda's fighters could be getting "first hand" experience in drawing blood, just like they did in their anti-Soviet struggle in 1980s Afghanistan!

But the threat right now, and ever since 9/11, to the safety and security of the United States of America is NOT -- let me be very emphatic here-- N O T from "pitched battles" by small groups of armed angry men against American military units, N O T from bombs detonating in places frequented or traveled by Americans, N O T by assassinations of American officials and N O T by suicide bombers carrying out "small-time" missions, such as killing 20 Iraqi policemen or 5 U.S. Marines.

All those confrontations, in one variety or other, and though they are indeed causing harm, sometimes big harm, the United States, like the modern imperialist superpower that it is, has been facing (or facing down) regularly since the end of World War II ! Americans, whether full-scale military or just "military advisers", have been dealing with insurgents all over the world every year, eg Latin America, (and those people were being labeled terrorists only for political reasons). They have also been dealing with terrorists, eg November 17, for decades and while that was a hassle, it was not a threat to the safety and security, etc etc.

The threat concerns major attacks carried out by islamic terrorists on American home ground.

And that threat needs a focused and specific policy to be confronted and eliminated (or, at least, minimized as much as possible). The war against Saddam Hussein's Iraq is insignificant, to the point of being almost irrelevant, in the war against terror. Some argue that it is even counter-productive! (E.g. draining of resources; getting tied down in one place; alienating allies and friends in the process; losing the PR battle worldwide; etc.)