Define Winning

All that Israeli air power is driving Hizbollah back, right? There is at least progress in this new front in the war on terror, right?

No. Of course not. Yesterday, 140 rockets from Lebanon landed in Israel... the highest daily number to date.

Israel occupied southern Lebanon for 2 decades, and couldn't put a dent in Hizbollah with constant street patrols. Now they think they are going to accomplish Hizbollah's complete destruction from 10,000 feet? Keep dreaming.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: You can't bomb away terrorism.

The one and only solution to terrorism is to simply create a new iron curtain around the Middle East. Cut that entire part of the world off and forget about it. Perhaps in half a century or so, after all the fundamentalists are gone, the Muslim world can be let out of this jail, but until then, let Muslims be the only ones who have to deal with Muslim extremists.

This is why I think that the most important challenge facing us right now is finding a way to become 100% independent of gasoline. Without oil to worry about, we have no reasons to deal with the middle east, no reasons to go there, and no reasons to have Muslims (and the terrorists among them) outside of their countries.

Yes... mine is an extremist view, but it's also a pacifist view as well. You have my option, or you can just keep bombing these people in a hope that one day we will kill every angry person in the middle east.

Even I get a certain cathartic satisfaction hearing about terrorist cells getting blown to bits, and get a chuckle from extremists ranting and raving about "Western decadance" and Zionist conspiracies, but it is all just frosting. No real progress is being made, no damage is being done, no terrorists are being killed who aren't replaced with more terrorists, and most certainly, the Muslim world isn't becoming happier, more peaceful, or easier to get along with.

So, I'll say it again: We should say our goodbyes, make our apologies, close and bolt the door from the outside, and then walk away from the Middle East, and let everyone inside of these no-go places deal with themselves and their own problems in their own way. And, in the end, isn't that what everyone in the Middle East has always told us they've wanted? To just be left alone? Perhaps it's time we listened.