Seconded.

As one stated somewhere on facebook:
"-With weapons you can kill terrorists
-With education you can kill terrorism"

My current answer is that we actually need both. I said 'current' because only bigots don't change their minds, and situation are not crystallized. They're evolving too.

I have to disagree. Intentionally targeting civilians instead of militants/soldiers is the stuff of war crimes and why I see terrorists as lesser human beings.

When does a terrorist become a terrorist? At birth? At a year old? At four years-old? As a teenager? As a young adult?

And why does the terrorist choose his path? Because of comfortable and happy life made possible through modern technology and education? Or because of suffering, marginalization, and a hope to escape the hellhole he currently lives in?

A terrorist of today is very difficult to negotiate with at best. But a terrorist of tomorrow has yet to be born.

An enemy of the entire free world is an enemy of mine. I don't need propaganda from anybody's government to convince me that the cold-blooded murder of peaceful civilians is wrong and the result of a perverted religious fanatic cult. Don't be naive by thinking that the money spent on national defense is a complete waste just because we're not all dead yet. Without that defense, extremists would have destroyed the country by now.

@type568: +1.

If we support our government dropping bombs then we're responsible for the destruction those bombs cause. If you don't agree with what your government is doing then you should be trying to communicate to your representatives in government to stop it.

Of course, it's clear that a good number of Americans do support war efforts, but it's also clear that most Americans don't seem to know the first thing about the planet outside of US borders so who are they to make decisions that affect the rest of the world?

It seems that many French citizens also support the attacks these days, but they're probably a little bit emotional about it. I wonder what they'd have to say if you asked them in the street of their strategy. Do they think French planes will just drop a bomb and this problem with go away? If that's what they think then obviously they haven't been paying attention for the past 2 decades.

What is a "militant"? We're not talking about free people enlisting for an army because it's a good opportunity to pay for college. We're not talking about a world power with a refined military force with uniforms, disciplined marching and military bases. We're talking about civilians that take up arms for reasons unknown to us. And they operate among civilians because they're essentially civilians themselves. You can't expect them to target military targets. They wouldn't get close. They're like our criminal gangs (bikers, drug dealers, etc.). The only difference is that where we live we have wealthy governments with more resources than the gangsters. Where they live the government is powerless to fight back and the gangsters run the world.

Since they're attacking "us" it's our responsibility to use our influence over our governments. The government doesn't actually hurt when a bomb goes off in a train station. Those guys are safe and sound in a fortress with champagne and hors d'oeuvres. They're playing god and they're not god.

It seems to me that war itself is a thing of a past. An embarrassing moment in human history before we had the Internet and united worldwide. I don't think we should resort to war anymore. Ever. We should know better. All of us. And we need to work towards working together. We need to stop playing god because we obviously suck at it. History shows us that.

I read that the US can't target the fuel trucks because they're driven by civilians, but the Russians have no such squeamishness.

I never heard U.S. using it's financial superpower status to sanction those purchase the oil from Daesh.

ISIS won't be defeated by ignoring them, otherwise their influence will spread. And neither can ISIS be reasoned with, so diplomacy is not an option. Most importantly, no matter how "terrible" Western foreign policy is when performing air strikes and other attacks against militants, it's indescribably better than ISIS has ever done to their own members, let alone others. And ISIS is very much to blame for civilian casualties--they use civilians as shields while conducting their activities.

They're the embodiment of a terrible infection. The infected portions must be removed (i.e., military action) and other measures (e.g., social services) must be taken to prevent the infection from spreading and/or relapsing.

Idealism doesn't fix things. You can work towards an ideal world, but it's useless other than creating a vision or goal...

The article says no reported casualties and warning leaflets were also dropped. Targeting terrorist infrastructure and resources instead of personnel is as fair as any military strategy can get. And apparently you don't realize this, but it has been well established that selling oil used to be ISIS' primary source of income (to the tune of 2-3 million dollars per day) but as their irreplaceable equipment (ie. trucks) is being destroyed it has become less and less of a money maker for them and now nets them somewhere along the lines of 1-2 million dollars per day. Bleeding them dry of cash WILL reduce their ability to wage war on Western civilization.

No, duh?

You're wrong.

Religious brainwashing isn't delusional, for the record. Do you know what a delusion is? Oh, and "religious zealots in America" aren't waging war against civilians on any significant scale... So again, you're wrong.

You're wrong.

You're wrong.

Really, you are just as out of touch with foreign affairs as any Fox News or CNN zombie, and your opinion is no more valid than theirs. It's actually worse, because you are trying to humanize the atrocities committed by ISIS...

I mean, I haven't actively developed a "view" on very messy issues such as foreign politics--because there's so many different factors compounded over decades and passed on via generations--so I refrain from anything more concrete, but your posts are really out there...

If so, that's a terrible excuse. I treat most mainstream media articles/sources with only slightly more validity than tabloids on any important issue, but I use whatever information they parrot to find trustworthy sources elsewhere. Trustworthy sources varying from the claims made in an article; could be a video statement or evidence (in the case of "Soandso said thingummywut") to the actual sources (and not second-hand interpretations or collections of said data, either)... Proper critical thinking and research skills help filter the mountain information and data found on the internet (and elsewhere, but there's nothing comparable to internet in that regard).