Do guns fight an idealogy?

I would like to say that from the osnet of this series of wars for peace (which doesn't make sense on it's own to begin with), that I recognized that the idea of a 'War on Terrorism' was crazy and nonsensical. But sadly, I can't.

Instead, I'll hide behind the veil of age: I barely remember September 11th, 2001. I do know I was in math; beyond that, I remember during the incident being curious as to what I was looking at.

I've never been particularly patriotic. I find it hard to love an entity, the entity being the United States. It's a government, a country, a flag, a few words put together in a way to represent invisible lines that are somehow owned and operated by the entity thereof. Maybe I'm to literal, but I just don't see myself 'Loving' America.

Conservatives cry out hearing this, immediately calling me to run to communist china (formerly USSR). It's not that I don't love where I live, or that I dont' love the people I live near (and hope to help represent one day). It's that, the United States isn't a being. It's not a person, and it's impersonal. The USA deals with statistics, with numbers, with management: Not with actual concern for people. That's te people that run the United States do.

I did indeed stray off topic, but that's okay for now. It doesn't make sense to me at this point, though, why we are fighting a 'War on Terrorism'. How exactly do you fight terrorism? Logically, everyone turns to guns, and bombs, and missiles, and airplanes, bullets; things that destroy something physical.

But terrorism has more to deal with psychological issues than physical ones. Guns and bullets have created more terrorists; invading a country and taking out a tyrannical leader reduced it. But then becoming the new tyrannical leaders of that country created more, and every innocent we kill, every time we tell the world that there can be no exit, there can be no plan for leaving, the problem gets worse.

So how does one fight terrorism, I still have not been able to answer. It's obvious that our current strategy using physical weapons that cause mass or precise death haven't worked particularly well. When people say that I should support the war in Iraq or I'm supporting 'terrorism', I just have to ask: What is terrorism? Certainly it's more than blowing up a building; that's just the result of it.

So what exactly is the United States fighting then? How do you stop terrorists, exactly, when the definition is vague at best? Under many definitons, even President George W. Bush could be a terrorist (for causing terror to the American people), right along with basically anyone who used fear to their advantage.

I ask with this blog, to you, in spite of my ramblings: What, exactly, are 'we' (that could be up to interpretation as well) fighting, when we say we're waging a war on terrorism?

Have a good day, I must be getting to lunch.

-Xbot