Well the good news is that at 30 dead soldiers a week our troops fighting in Iraq will live for over 300 years.
What a pointless thread. Some guy writes a book and we are supposed to believe him 100%.
You do realize they had visual footage of OBL at a compound in Afghanistan in 1998? But The Clinton administration feared lauching a missile at the house he was confirmed to live in because it may cause some collateral damage to the mosque that was 300 feet away.
I dont see the same level of anger from the left when it comes to the previous administrations mishaps on the OBL subject.
You do realize they had visual footage of OBL at a compound in Afghanistan in 1998? But The Clinton administration feared lauching a missile at the house he was confirmed to live in because it may cause some collateral damage to the mosque that was 300 feet away.
I dont see the same level of anger from the left when it comes to the previous administrations mishaps on the OBL subject.
yllus
Elite Member & Lifer
- Aug 20, 2000
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How am I possibly mocking funding alternative energy research?
That'd be great. Of course realistically that means an enormous outlay of cash for research and even more for infrastructure, and finally a decade or two of weaning off of oil as the cost of the alternative(s) comes down. Four, maybe five decades more of the same. Then a couple decades more for the developing world, where infrastructure reform is not exactly the highest concern and where the now cheaper oil is already ready to flow.If Saudi Arabia is a root problem, then let's take care of it! Diplomatic pressure like never before, invasion, whatever. What are you prepared to support?
The invasion was in 2003, it's now halfway through 2005 and you're already declaring the entire thing a miserable failure? If you have a teenage son and he goes through a few rough years in adolescence, do you drop him off at an adoption shelter and move to Maui? Let's make our expectations just the least bit reasonable, shall we?
In the meantime, plenty of social changes are quietly underway. Nobody's tearing down the proverbial Berlin Wall, but, for instance, Egypt has the ball rolling. Never in history has revolution has been a one-step process, nor will it be in this age of political twisting of information.
... What reply of mine have you been reading? I'd like to see it. Whether he was there or not, it was a big f-up. Down with Rumsfeld and Bush, right? That's the idiocy I'm writing about. That the president and defence secretary apparently coordinate and manage every situation on the ground concerning U.S. troops. Not to mention that Mt. Everest is a pretty freakin' big batch of land to hang onto.
You tell me: What happened when Al-Zarqawi was injured and feared dead? Did anyone for an instant talk about giving it up or turning to diplomacy? Not the version of events I remember... Look, while I think it's important to catch OBL, it's mostly to see if we can glean any fiscal information from him and to provide closure to those affected by 9/11. On the grander scale, nothing will have changed. The Middle East will still be the Middle East. Let's talk long term solution, not symbolic victories.
What the hell am I trying to change about "their way of life"? The part of their lives where they don't have any responsible government and are bullied around by the state as if they weren't human? I can really see how people would get totally pissed off about that. The change I want to effect is education and infrastructure, they can take it from there. Once removed from the desperation of poverty and oppression, personally I don't believe that their "way of life" is violent and hateful towards the West just for the sake of being so.
Well then, we might as well get the full scale invasion of the ME in gear then, hadn't we.
Iraq was a mistake, anybody who hasn't got that figured out by now probably never will.
I am sure we still have many many unprepared soldiers to go who will loose their minds from a forced confrontation with their real feelings.
Engineer
Elite Member
- Oct 9, 1999
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Actual alternative would have been to stay the course in Afganistan, capture OBL and leave Iraq the fvck alone. Cooking the books did nothing but CREATE terrorists. Al Qaeda has doubled in size (IIRC from recent readings) and world terroristic acts are now 8 fold (not including Iraq) what they were before we invaded Iraq.
Ah hell, forget it. You're stuck in let's blow the fvck out of the middle east for their oil mindset and you're not going to let it drop.
It's pointless arguing with you. The nice LOW approval of the war (and dropping) tells the story completely and will continue to do so as the whole Iraq war was a sham and pointless.
OBL should have been target #1...PERIOD!
/Thread
Ah hell, forget it. You're stuck in let's blow the fvck out of the middle east for their oil mindset and you're not going to let it drop.
It's pointless arguing with you. The nice LOW approval of the war (and dropping) tells the story completely and will continue to do so as the whole Iraq war was a sham and pointless.
OBL should have been target #1...PERIOD!
/Thread
yllus
Elite Member & Lifer
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I realize that oil will be a critical resource for at least the next 50 years, true. Never have I advocated "blowing the fvck out of the middle east". What I have done is outline an implementable policy that's now being tried out, while all you've done is respond in one or two sentence posts that barely mention anything I've written. If this was a race to see how far one could run from the actual argument, you'd be the fastest guys in history.
We can't even get a peace between the Israleis and the Palistinens and you think we can send troops into a foregin country and bend them to what "our" idea of democracy is??
The idea of a creating a democracy in Iraq was nothing but a pipe dream from day one, made up as a justifacation for the war in the absence of WMD's. Firthermore, if the Iraqis want to cower in fear, that is their business. It certainly isn't our job or resposibility to sacrafice our young men and women to establish a democracy for them.
Starbuck1975
Lifer
- Jan 6, 2005
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Bernsten's contention is that they knew that Bin Laden was in Tora Bora, and that Rumsfeld didn't clear the necessary military assets to take Bin Laden...this of course creates the leap of logic from the left that those EVIL NEOCONS allowed Bin Laden to escape.
Taking into account the media coverage of the war in Afghanistan, there was a great deal of speculation that Bin Laden was in Tora Bora...the challenge with Tora Bora was that it was a heavily entrenched Taliban and Al Quaida stronghold, dating back to the war against the Soviets...it wasn't like Bin Laden was sitting in a mud hut on top of a hill somewhere...the ferocity of the fighting around Tora Bora only confirmed our suspicions that Bin Laden was holed up there.
That being said, short of nuking the entire region, no amount of military assets short of sending at least a division's worth of soldiers into those tunnels would have resulted in the capture of Bin Laden. Perhaps it was a strategic error not to isolate the region, but quite difficult given that our enemy certainly had the home field advantage of knowing the terrain...we suspect now that Bin Laden is hiding somewhere in the remote mountain regions of Pakistan...not an easy tactical scenario.
That, and our strategic plan was to facilitate the overthrow of the Taliban from within...while this strategy was quite effective in preventing the anti-American opposition we now face in Iraq, it also limited our Special Forces soldiers on the ground to dealing with Afghani factional soldiers who weren't exactly professionally trained, and negotiating with warlords that were sympathetic to Bin Laden.
Hindsight is 20/20...Bernsten has a book to sell, and short of tangible intelligence that proves Bin Laden was there, this is as much promotional as it is factual.
Taking into account the media coverage of the war in Afghanistan, there was a great deal of speculation that Bin Laden was in Tora Bora...the challenge with Tora Bora was that it was a heavily entrenched Taliban and Al Quaida stronghold, dating back to the war against the Soviets...it wasn't like Bin Laden was sitting in a mud hut on top of a hill somewhere...the ferocity of the fighting around Tora Bora only confirmed our suspicions that Bin Laden was holed up there.
That being said, short of nuking the entire region, no amount of military assets short of sending at least a division's worth of soldiers into those tunnels would have resulted in the capture of Bin Laden. Perhaps it was a strategic error not to isolate the region, but quite difficult given that our enemy certainly had the home field advantage of knowing the terrain...we suspect now that Bin Laden is hiding somewhere in the remote mountain regions of Pakistan...not an easy tactical scenario.
That, and our strategic plan was to facilitate the overthrow of the Taliban from within...while this strategy was quite effective in preventing the anti-American opposition we now face in Iraq, it also limited our Special Forces soldiers on the ground to dealing with Afghani factional soldiers who weren't exactly professionally trained, and negotiating with warlords that were sympathetic to Bin Laden.
Hindsight is 20/20...Bernsten has a book to sell, and short of tangible intelligence that proves Bin Laden was there, this is as much promotional as it is factual.
Engineer
Elite Member
- Oct 9, 1999
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I'm saying that we had no business in Iraq. Iraq wasn't responsible for 9/11. OBL was and we let him slip. You an argue that we should go into the ME and implement geopolitical reforms until you're as blue as your avatar and it won't get past anyone, anymore. Do you think that the US public and the congress would have fell for this sham of a war without the WMD lie?
Solution was to leave Sadaam and the ME alone and there would have been LESS terrorism in the world today than there currently is. All this for what? 50 years of oil? bah. $300,000,000,000 could have went a good distance on alternamtive energy. Now it's just pissed in the sand.
We fvcked up and now the people see it for what it is...."WORTHLESS" (actually causing more harm than good). Finishing OBL would have done far more than a defenseless Iraq....but then again, OBL didn't have oil (unless you count Saudia Arabia and we're in bed with that terrorist hugging state like no other).
yllus
Elite Member & Lifer
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In other words, let's get back to the same short-sighted policy that's gotten us to where we are today because all this sounds really tough? Thanks but no thanks.
I'd rather give the Iraqis a good, solid try at democracy which lets them write their own ticket. I'd like to give other people in the region time to take a good look at what can happen in Iraq and what they could themselves enjoy one day. But hey, "WMD! WMD! WMD!" What's really important is that "Bush lied", right guys? For all the talk about me being a slave to the Republicans, the bunch of you sure have the Democrat whine down cold.
Engineer
Elite Member
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Alright, since you say that we're going back to the same short sighted policy that we used in the past...what harm has Iraq done to the US in the past? Did they attack us? Were they really a threat?
Saudi Arabia, hell China, is more of a threat to the US than Saddam.
You PNAC (Projtect For the New Amercian Century - created by Rumsfield, Bush, Cheney, Wolfowitz, etc) fanboys are pathetic. Spread our democracy and run it our way in the oil rich ME at the barrell of a gun and who cares how much we spend or how many lives we lose.
Again, pathetic!!!!
OBL should have been target one. The rest of the ME noticed Afganistan. They also noticed Iraq and started a terroristic wave like none seen in history and is growing (last throes my ass Mr. "DICK" Cheney) every day.
Oh, and Democrat whine? I voted and registered Republican for 8 years, independant for 4 and then, in pure spite of the @sswipe Bush, swithed to Democrat, only to switch back to independant. I'm not anti Republican, although I find that they have no more to offer than Democrats, but I'm anti Bush and his bushsh!t wars. I was 100% behind the man when he stood on the rubble of "OUR" fallen towers, but Iraq has sent the bastard and his PNAC crew to the bottom of the sewer! :|
yllus
Elite Member & Lifer
- Aug 20, 2000
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So as long as Iraq doesn't do us any overt harm, it's all good? Saddam spends another solid decade or two leeching off of oil-for-food cash and telling his citizens we're to blame and everything will turn out A-okay? Gee, I bet his sons would totally have turned over a new leaf once the mean old man was gone and warmed up to the West. The fact that they're not stupid enough to do anything overt should be your cue to realize that that's not the way it works anymore.
Lovely to know that I can be a fanboy of something I didn't even know existed. But spread our democracy and run it our way, damn right. There isn't enough room on this planet for two opposing ideologies. Didn't work for democracy/fascism, didn't work for democracy/communism, it won't work here. If we can all live side by side in peace, I couldn't give a rat's ass if the rest of the world converted to tree worship. Unfortunately the events of the last decade have clearly (or not so clearly to some) pointed out that the lives and desperation of those around the world effect you sitting at home.
What I find pathetic is the insistence to shunt people into "PNAC" or "Repugs" or anything lame little label you seem to find amusing. I'm a social liberal and a fiscal moderate, but I know a failed foreign policy when I see one. Firstly, Afghanistan isn't in the Middle East. Secondly, if they noticed anything, it was to keep the implicit sponsorship on the down-low and just deny everything. What are we gonna do, call their bluff? Not of the likes of you have a say in the matter. Sit at home after Afghanistan, everything will be fine.
Lovely to know that I can be a fanboy of something I didn't even know existed. But spread our democracy and run it our way, damn right. There isn't enough room on this planet for two opposing ideologies. Didn't work for democracy/fascism, didn't work for democracy/communism, it won't work here. If we can all live side by side in peace, I couldn't give a rat's ass if the rest of the world converted to tree worship. Unfortunately the events of the last decade have clearly (or not so clearly to some) pointed out that the lives and desperation of those around the world effect you sitting at home.
What I find pathetic is the insistence to shunt people into "PNAC" or "Repugs" or anything lame little label you seem to find amusing. I'm a social liberal and a fiscal moderate, but I know a failed foreign policy when I see one. Firstly, Afghanistan isn't in the Middle East. Secondly, if they noticed anything, it was to keep the implicit sponsorship on the down-low and just deny everything. What are we gonna do, call their bluff? Not of the likes of you have a say in the matter. Sit at home after Afghanistan, everything will be fine.
Engineer
Elite Member
- Oct 9, 1999
- 39,234
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End of thread. It was a goddamned lie and nobody will fall for it again unless the fearmongering and warmongering planets align, and I, for one, thank GOD for the super low approval of the damn thing.
Too bad it was a waste.
You want to fight the bastards, go lobby your Canadian government for it. Sure nice and easy to want the US to do it and pay for it, eh?
/End of comments to you on this sickening subject! *bah*
Too bad it was a waste.
You want to fight the bastards, go lobby your Canadian government for it. Sure nice and easy to want the US to do it and pay for it, eh?
/End of comments to you on this sickening subject! *bah*
Why are you only concerned about the middle east? Are your parents/grandparents from that region? Isnt the situation in Africa much worse than the situation in the ME? I mean nearly the whole contitnent seems to be in need of assistance and a regime changes. Why not do more to help the Africans (besides sending them money which probably wont get to those who need it the most). You seem to have some personal agenda with the situation in the ME. If you suppor the "war" so much why dont you do something about it instead of arguing? Have you thought about enlisting? Or do you just speak about your ideals all the time? The fact remains that Saddam was not an immediate threat to the US and the main reason given for the war on Iraq was infact a lie. Who are we to topple other governments? Is there a list of regimes that we have to change to help "democracy"?
"There isn't enough room on this planet for two opposing ideologies." ...... didn't work for democracy/communism, it won't work here.
So do we need a regime change in NK? China? Cuba? Will you enlist for all those causes too? Will you send you sons to fight those worthy wars? Have fun with that.
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