Has Osama Bin Ladin won the war on Terror?

[brandonb]

http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/...t/11/01/binladen.tape/

That is old news article about trying to bankrupt the US economy as a way to win the war. Do you think Osama has won yet? It's been nearly 4 years since that article came out.

But in those 4 years, I'd like to say he succeeded in his job. The USA isn't changing its position on Iraq or its foreign policy, and therefore I believe we will go down the toilet as Osama predicted.

 

[OrByte]

it is a war that no one will win.

 

[Fern]

Our current financial/liquidity problem seems entirely related to a correction in home housing prices.

I don't see how he is in anyway responsibly for that.

Fern

 

[bamacre]

OBL hasn't really done anything to cause the financial problems we have. We are bankrupting ourselves without any doing on his part.

 

[NaughtyGeek]

The whole purpose of the "War on Terror" was to create yet another endless/unwinnable war. Special thanks should be givin to the Military Industrial Complex on a job well done.

 

[NoStateofMind]

Originally posted by: NaughtyGeek
The whole purpose of the "War on Terror" was to create yet another endless/unwinnable war. Special thanks should be givin to the Military Industrial Complex on a job well done.

:thumbsup:

 

[Robor]

Originally posted by: NaughtyGeek
The whole purpose of the "War on Terror" was to create yet another endless/unwinnable war. Special thanks should be givin to the Military Industrial Complex on a job well done.

Soo... Mission Accomplished?

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: brandonb
Has Osama Bin Ladin won the war on Terror?

Easily.

Job finished in Afghanistan? No.

Military bogged down in overseas conflict? Yes.

Mortgaging our future fighting terrorists? Yes (to the tune of $3 trillion+).

Global terrorist activity up? Yes.

al-Qaeda expanding to new countries? Yes.

Of course, al-Qaeda wasn't a huge threat in the first place. It's miraculous how this country was somehow conned into spending $500 million per day fighting terrorism. I'd say one of the biggest cons in the history of our nation.

 

[fleshconsumed]

Originally posted by: Fern
Our current financial/liquidity problem seems entirely related to a correction in home housing prices.

I don't see how he is in anyway responsibly for that.

Fern

It's a long trail but one could argue that he contributed to it. Let's see...

Planes fly into towers. The stocks which already took a major beating from the tech bubble drop another 5-8 percent immediately after 9/11. Bush says we need to keep spending to keep economy up. To keep everybody happy fed lower rates, easy credit makes the home prices soar, and the rest everybody knows.

Yes, it is a long trail and I would never argue that he is solely responsible for current problems, but it is not impossible that he has not contributed to it in some way.


What I'm much more concerned about is that thanks to him we now have blatant disregard of constitutional freedoms - patriot act, telecom spying, blatant lying in the name of the terrorism. 9/11 was the dream come true for all of those in power, now they just have to say "terrorism" and they can pass any piece of legislature they want, then can disregard existing laws and constitution in the name of national security and nobody will say a thing. It's all good now. Yeah...

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

No doubt he thinks about winning all the time as he hikes up his skirt and runs from place to place, in total fear of his life, which he will have to do to the end of his days.

To the victor goes the spoils, as they say.

 

[Throckmorton]

Osama scammed me into a sub-prime mortgage

 

[StageLeft]

It cannot be won or lost. Terror is a methodology. Winning it would be akin to working in construction and trying to beat your competition by going to hardware stores and removing all the hammers and nails. Bush is an idiot and so are those who tout his line about winning this. Neither him not bin laden will win whatever the hell they think they are trying to win, although bin laden does have clear, quantitative goals that are actually, in theory, attainable, whereas "winning the war on terror" clearly is not. The best way to fail is to try and achieve an impossible goal.

OBL hasn't really done anything to cause the financial problems we have. We are bankrupting ourselves without any doing on his part.

Really? I go on tv as an expert in something and say that we're all going to die unless we eat at least one gram of raw gold a day and everyone does it, you think I've had no part? In some ways, bin laden led the horse to water and the horse is indeed drinking. The US has not reacted intelligently to 9/11. It has wasted time, money, lives attacking the problem ineptly, but the problem was introduced by bin laden. Some would say he was surprised by afghanistan. Maybe he was, but when we see articles like this and how the US has engaged, "for terror/wmd" in the second most costly war in the history of mankind, one has to wonder.

Osama scammed me into a sub-prime mortgage

Maybe not, but he scared somebody into a WMD boogeyman that has helped push the US into a true deficit of about half trillion a year.

 

[Jaskalas]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: brandonb
Has Osama Bin Ladin won the war on Terror?

Easily.

Job finished in Afghanistan? No.

Military bogged down in overseas conflict? Yes.

Mortgaging our future fighting terrorists? Yes (to the tune of $3 trillion+).

Global terrorist activity up? Yes.

al-Qaeda expanding to new countries? Yes.

Of course, al-Qaeda wasn't a huge threat in the first place. It's miraculous how this country was somehow conned into spending $500 million per day fighting terrorism. I'd say one of the biggest cons in the history of our nation.

You managed to hit 1/9th of our deficit by focusing on the only thing that matters to you, the war. Where did the other 8/9?s of the deficit go?

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: Jaskalas
You managed to hit 1/9th of our deficit by focusing on the only thing that matters to you, the war.

Wild guess, but perhaps that is because the thread is titled "Has Osama Bin Ladin won the war on Terror?"

 

[Jaskalas]

Could have sworn the OP mentioned bankrupting us, which plenty of other posters have mocked when attributed to Osama.

 

[JS80]

.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: brandonb
Has Osama Bin Ladin won the war on Terror?

Easily.

Job finished in Afghanistan? No.

Military bogged down in overseas conflict? Yes.

Mortgaging our future fighting terrorists? Yes (to the tune of $3 trillion+).

Global terrorist activity up? Yes.

al-Qaeda expanding to new countries? Yes.

Of course, al-Qaeda wasn't a huge threat in the first place. It's miraculous how this country was somehow conned into spending $500 million per day fighting terrorism. I'd say one of the biggest cons in the history of our nation.

In the past 6 years we have spent $14 trillion perhaps $900 billion of which has gone to the war on terror ($150 billion a year)

Perhaps we should look at the 93% of spending that has not gone to the war on terror before we declare that the war has bankrupted our country.

 

[SSSnail]

You're either very naive or stupid to believe that anyone will actually win the "war on terror". Terror is has always have the same definition and premise for as long as man existed, just replace the players.

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: brandonb
Has Osama Bin Ladin won the war on Terror?

Easily.

Job finished in Afghanistan? No.

Military bogged down in overseas conflict? Yes.

Mortgaging our future fighting terrorists? Yes (to the tune of $3 trillion+).

Global terrorist activity up? Yes.

al-Qaeda expanding to new countries? Yes.

Of course, al-Qaeda wasn't a huge threat in the first place. It's miraculous how this country was somehow conned into spending $500 million per day fighting terrorism. I'd say one of the biggest cons in the history of our nation.

Just look at the bright side: A lot of the money isn't leaving the US, it's just being moved into the pockets of Bush' and Cheney's friends in the war industry.

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: ProfJohn
In the past 6 years we have spent $14 trillion perhaps $900 billion of which has gone to the war on terror ($150 billion a year)

Perhaps we should look at the 93% of spending that has not gone to the war on terror before we declare that the war has bankrupted our country.

I think I've figured out your angle. If the ship is sinking, there's no harm in setting it on fire while it's going down, right?

Here's my angle. Government spending is wasteful. We need to start trimming the fat, beginning with the most unnecessary expenditures. You never fix a large problem by solving it all at once.

The difference is, you and I have different views on what the most unnecessary expenditures are. For me, our "global war on terror" is the picture perfect example of money spiraling down the toilet bowl. For you, the problem obviously lies somewhere in our domestic entitlements.

Sound about right?

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Originally posted by: brandonb
That is old news article about trying to bankrupt the US economy as a way to win the war. Do you think Osama has won yet? It's been nearly 4 years since that article came out.

Our nation's economic problem stems, not from the War in Iraq, but rather from the economic forces of global labor arbitrage, population explosion, Peak Oil, skyrocketing energy costs, and Malthusian biology.

Don't give Osama more credit than he deserves. He really had little to do with our nation's current problems.

 

[palehorse]

Eliminate the war in Iraq, and the remainder of our global efforts against terrorism, and their associated expenditures, are absolutely justifiable and necessary.

 

[EagleKeeper]

Originally posted by: Skyclad1uhm1

Originally posted by: jpeyton

Originally posted by: brandonb
Has Osama Bin Ladin won the war on Terror?

Easily.

Job finished in Afghanistan? No.

Military bogged down in overseas conflict? Yes.

Mortgaging our future fighting terrorists? Yes (to the tune of $3 trillion+).

Global terrorist activity up? Yes.

al-Qaeda expanding to new countries? Yes.

Of course, al-Qaeda wasn't a huge threat in the first place. It's miraculous how this country was somehow conned into spending $500 million per day fighting terrorism. I'd say one of the biggest cons in the history of our nation.

Just look at the bright side: A lot of the money isn't leaving the US, it's just being moved into the pockets of Bush' and Cheney's friends in the war industry.

And who works in thewar industry - American engineers, technicians and office people.

those whom you choose to condem happen to also be your neighbors andput their paychecks back into the economy.

 

[jpeyton]

Originally posted by: EagleKeeper
those whom you choose to condem happen to also be your neighbors andput their paychecks back into the economy.

A popular argument, but an empty one. Paychecks for contractors/soldiers in Iraq amount to roughly $650 million out of the $3.5 billion we spend there every week; 80% of the budget isn't going anywhere but down the toilet.

Besides, the *only* time in history a war-based economy worked in our favor was when we dug our nation out of The Great Depression during WWII. Our economy needed no such help this time around; quite the opposite, Iraq is proving to have a *detrimental* effect on our economy.

In nearly every war prior or since WWII, the costs of war have burdened far more than it helped. Iraq is a prime example.

Next.

 

[StageLeft]

In part, jpeyton, most nations know that when they go to war and start spending, they have to pay for it. In this case we have the peculiar mix of going to war and cutting taxes.

Paychecks do come back home, but money spent on a war is not the same as that spent on, say infrastructure. For a nice sortie of jets dropping munitions the same money could go toward building a bridge, for instance. Americans make money in both cases, but which one has a long-lasting benefit?