The way to lose the war against terror is for the media and government to perpetuate a state of fear of terrorists.  This victory (for terrorists) can be sweetened by coercing the government to actually punish its own citizens - tapping their phone lines, secretly detaining them incommunicado indefinitely without due process of law, and even things like making them stand in long lines like a cattle-processing plant in airports, where they are herded around, made to take of their shoes, have various innocent items like toothpaste confiscated, and generally made to feel like concentration camp subjects.

Nah, that's the status quo.

Just stick to the victory conditions mentioned in the original post.

USA move:

Terrorist need money and manpower. Manpower is usually bought with money but in certain places (Iraq mostly) they get manpower for free. Too many people who have lost everything they ever cared for flock to terrorist groups for a bit of revenge. The USA has to eliminate this steady source of manpower.

Either create much much more civilian casualties or much less. In the latter case, also reimburse damage to private property.

Either way, the number of volunteers go back and manpower has to be bought or the number of enemy combatants go down.

The mind set of humans in general needs to change from what it is now to something very different when it comes to thier thinking, attiudes and opinions of one another or nothing is going to change.  That is a very sad state of affairs because what it says about all of us is that since we are all so unwilling to change and get along in this world we would rather go to war.   Killing has become the acceptable means of solving our differences.

I'm not a very religous nor am I a very political individual, and for some reason I have managed to still be alive in this world with serving my country for almost 30 years in the military.  Now that I am over 60 problably my most important observation is that wars, conflicts, all the bad things that we watch day in and day out owe thier existance in history to only two groups, i doubt that I need to idenfy the two groups. 

It's ironic that these two groups will always tell you straight to your face that they have yours or my best intersts at heart.  Hmmm, lets see, count all the wars and all those that have died.  You would have thought by now all the problems would have been solved.  And yet we still follow.

Nah

Philly, you've got me stumped. Which two groups? Males and females?

this is incorrect.

you must realise that, you as a human being are the representative of all of human history up to this point in time, all its problems, failures, successes etc.

so in fact you yourself are the "bad things", as am i, also the "the bad things". "you are the world" so to speak.

our problem is human conditioning. we are taught that everyone is different and that our own view on life is more important that everyone elses. for example, giving is a selfish act, because you feel better about yourself when you do it, or you think its the right thing to do, either consciously or subconsciously.

we describe people as christian's, scientologists, Australians, Americans, Indians, Asians, blacks, gays, whites, educated, wealthy due to our human conditioning aswell.

how was this all this crap created?

human thought. everything around us that we believe in to be "right" like science, mathematics, religion, politics was all created by human thought, and human thought breeds conflict

if we can see the world for what it really is, when we are not influenced by our own past experiences and knowledge, then we will find solutions to these problems.

Short of a stroke and moving to Antarctica....or being raised by wolves, what are you proposing? Zen Buddhism?

Well... This is based off a modified idea from my American History proffessor from a few semesters back. For the ultimate terrorist attack: 500 terrorists infiltrate the USA, and spread themselves out across the nation's states, 10 per state.

Day 1: 2 or 3 terrorists per state enter large schools, heavily armed, killing all adults and 99% of students, leaving a small handful alive, and extremely traumatized; similar to leaving a single soldier alive in a war to report back about the horrors committed

Day 4: same as day 1, different schools

Day 16: same as 1 and 4

Day 47: same as 1, 4, and 16.... by this time, all terrorists will be dead. The random timing will leave everyone on edge for months, if not years; schools are a soft target, since the most horrifying thing anyone can do is harm children. It would be one of the worst acts in history.

Luckily, it is very unlikely, since getting 500 terrorists into the United States and then keeping them concealed through the investigations which would surely follow the attacks would be near to impossible.

How does America win the war? By not treating it like a war. The only way to win in a religious war is not to get in one. There will always be nut jobs; that is a constant throughout all of recorded time. Education is a very important factor in preventing them from carrying out their depraved acts upon society. In addition to education, a global increase in standards of living would also help to prevent potential terrorists from going on killing sprees. Part of this is just the classic 'Haves vs Have Nots' conflict; the only difference now is people can see who the 'Haves' are from across the globe.

what am i proposing?

you have the answer inside yourself.

buddism is just another religion, where you are expected to follow "teachings", it gives no answers.

this right here is part of the problem

http://www.boredstop.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=157&Itemid=32

also lack of education by the government is a definite contributor.

i.e. My 8th grade history teacher while traveling in a foreign country met a woman who said that America launched a suprise attack against the Japanese in WWII

In Palestine schools are not allowed to admit the existence of the Holocaust in order to better portray the Israeli state as evil.

SO

the war will never end bc there will always be ppl who think that America is represented by that map and only that map (the link)

I've though about this alot, probably need to think about it more but here would be my strategy.

I'd say the best way to beat the 'terrorists' and I assume you mean of middle eastern originis is to fight like them. If I were the president I would gather up all the leaders of the countries we suspect of aiding terrorism and insurgency...Which would be quite a bit of middle eastern countries. Tell them that they need to actually work to catch these people and put a stop to it...After all who is more suited for the job? A soldier from half way across the world or some one who grew up around it and lived in it? They would have a much easier time of identifying these 'terrorists' and locating them and getting rid of them.

I would give them a date saying terrorism and insurgency better be reduced by this much by that date. If not, we will start nuking your holy sites and cities off the face of the earth, one by one. Of course we would tell all these leaders seperately and keep it a seceret that the nukes actually come from us. Yes I mean islam and muslim holy sites, Now I have nothing agaisnt these religions and I realise that its but a very small percentage of them that are considered 'terrorists' or radicals by the USA. Well you are thinking that would only piss of many more into fighting us. I don't think so, I think intially they would react they way until we actually follow through with the nuke. Then most would realise it's really those radicals and terrorist to blame. Then the countries would whip them selves into shape and start hunting the terrorists and yada yada down.

Now of course I haven't included in all the politics and all that bs. Plus the U.N. would be screeming and all that shit. But what can they really do?

Lets assume you didn't post this just for that bait comment.  Never mind, too preposterous.

Cheap shot #1:  Afghanistan has no strategic resources.  Zip.  It's like the shittiest patch of ground on earth.  All we're doing there is destabilizing the drug industry, which means more violence at home due to price swings and availability problems for the users.  The money spent, thanks to our military being the most advanced, and vastly more expensive force on the planet, will eclipse, with an embarrassing margin, any gains we could possibly have off Iraq's oil.  Just the medical costs for the injured troops will probably have it beat.  The idea that we could somehow get away with looting their oil is just preposterous.  Even our own media would have a field day with it, and the population would be out for a blood bath, compliments of the soon to be dead politicians that tried to get away with it.  They will never willingly repay us for the costs, and we'll never force it.

Cheap shot #2:  The industrial complex has lost multiple big ticket items exactly because we invaded two useless shit countries with nothing resembling a military threat.  The brand spanking new, comparably godlike F-22?  Never been used because there wasn't a threatening airforce to spank with them...  Afghanistan didn't even have one at all, a few helicopters that didn't even run.  We lost at least two tanks off them too.  Yet again because we were fighting forces where our tanks were overkill.  Instead, they get new jeeps.  The increased deficit from that war time spending has aided in the downfall, spending extravagant amounts of money on new weapon systems is even harder to get through when you're running a 500 billion dollar deficit than it is when you're about even.  Only an idiot would push for a war with two useless shits that couldn't even compete with the last generations army.

If we go to war with Russian and take over the oil fields in the Arctic circle, then you've got a point.  We'll be having casualties that could have been prevented by having bigger and better weapons, and we'll have something gained in the end.

This is like asking how to win a game of chess against yourself...

DrJBHL, am I to assume that by posting that vid, you believe the US should not fight at all?  You do realize where that naive line of thinking eventually leads, right?

so the only way to "win" in a sense is to bring about a new way of thinking in all humans, which is not poisoned by propaganda, religion, politics, institutions, and opinion.

Except, that is not, nor most likely ever will be, reality.  While some may try that, try telling that to a suicide bomber and see how naively idealistic such views are.  Face it, some people can only be stopped by lethal force.  They laugh at your attempts to diplomatically reform them.  Welcome to Reality™.