No appeasement for al Qaeda.

I think we should go to the UN or NATO and ask them, "What do you want? What's it gonna take to get you to play?" It's really hard now because of the way we went into Iraq. I think we burned a few bridges doing that.

Using the military is the right way to go about chasing al Qaeda, but we should have continued our focus on them rather than focusing on Iraq. We had Saddam where we wanted him. He was contained, of little or no threat.

There's a lot of people out there that have a cavalier attitude about global opinion of the US. Many neocons couldn't care any less what the rest of the world thinks of us. So now we have al Qaeda hiding in over 60 countries. Who do you think is more likely to help us out and turn them over; those that like us or those that hate us?

Global diplomacy and public relations is absolutely paramount right now. It's too easy for terrorist sleeper cells to melt into the population and hide. We've got to convince the world that we can provide them a better life if they help us out - and that doesn't necessarily mean an American way of life.

I think the world views us as a very arrogant nation, and we need to humble ourselves a little before we'll get any real cooperation. But that in no way means appeasement to the enemy.

However, we need to do a much better job of understanding al Qaeda; find out what motivates them and gives them the courage to strap a bomb to themselves in the name of Allah. Simply calling them whackos, killers, murderers, etc. doesn't do any good. They are soldiers fighting for a cause. Instead of tanks, missles, and planes they have strap on bombs.

The more we know the enemy soldier, the easier to defeat them. Know your enemy.