Is "modern" terrorism just guerilla warefare on a grand scale

Rachel from north London: 339 days left and counting In her post Rachel talks about waterboarding and Dubbya's sanctioning of it. Rachels post sparked off some thoughts on what terrorism is today and the question of whether or not the West is actually operating its own brand of terrorism?

9/11 happens and the US turns left and kicks the living daylights out of Iraq on a pretext of WoMD. Spin it up a bit, hunt for Saddam and remind people about Osama. Oh and the UK blindly? joins in despite condsiderable pressure and opinion from the public not to.

Who pays? Largely the people of Irag, bombed to hell and beyond and left with a legacy of suicde bombers fighting guerilla style. I'm sure lots of those people will view us as terroists. Our course there are soliders, many of whom are just doing their job, and trying to stay alive. The public of the US and the UK are carrying the financial cost, but the soldiers are paying with their lives or limbs or mental health.

It must be difficult for them, in the past armies did as they were told. The ruling (upper class) minority used the lower classes as cannon fodder. (WWI being a prime example). Today it is different, media and information and access to opinion abounds. If I was a soldier I;d feel sold down the road if I was in the middle of a fire fight in a country where I might feel we shouldn't be, not to mention scarred shitless that life might be about to end.

To be a soldier today I think you have to be brave, because ultimately in this type of war they are the equivalent of cannon fodder, the only difference being they can now see the insincerity of the politicians that run our countries today. I feel sorry for US and UK and other nations whose soldiers are fighting, their governments don't care about them. They don't care about the innocent victims in the battleground countries.

Vietnam, Northern Ireland etc, You'd think the politicians would learn that big traditional fighting forces are ultimately no match for guerilla warefare. The modern western army is designed like the old Roman armies. Big beasts to slug it out against equally big beasts on open ground in a very short time.

Gulf war 1, the west wiped out the Iragi army pretty quickly. GWII.....it is still going on, is the West really winning?

Waterboarding, torture etc makes us terrorists too, but the politicians seem to think it is justified. Publicity on all this is only going to incite reaction from sympathetic groups in the West who may endeavour to launch terrorist attacks themselves.

How much of a threat is there? how many threats do the homeland security services in the UK and US actually thwart? Surely they should be singing from the rooftops about the attacks they stop, won;t that discourage local cells from attacking?

No apparently it is much better to keep it all secret. The 7/7 attack in the UK, still no clarity, smoke and mirrors. Political credibility is zero. The arrogance of the politicians to think that they can spin their way out of situations is amazing. The scary thing is the spin instances happen so frequently that next one makes the last one yesterdays chip paper. Look at all the bullshit surrounding MPs expenses and allowances.

Jesus we actually elect these idiots!!!