All the jawboning from Bush and Cheney won’t change the actual facts. Al Qaeda is now operating again in Afghanistan. Had we stuck to our guns instead of going off to Iraq, we would have decapitated them in Afghanistan and be able to destroy their other outlets. Instead now, they’re all over the place (Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bali, to name a few) — and you’re fooling yourselves if you don’t think they’re coming here.
A US soldier was killed yesterday by a bomb that exploded near a troop patrol in eastern Afghanistan, and President Hamid Karzai said he expected such attacks to continue ”for much more time to come.”
The attack was carried out a day after suicide bombers rammed cars filled with explosives into NATO forces in two attacks in Kabul. It was the first major assault on foreign troops in Kabul in more than a year.
Yesterday, the death toll rose to nine, as police found more bodies in a ditch, and a wounded man was reported to have died.
Police said Al Qaeda was responsible for the suicide bombings. Such seemingly coordinated attacks are unprecedented in Afghanistan and reinforced fears that Osama bin Laden’s terror network has teamed up with its old ally the Taliban, which claimed responsibility for the attacks.
The idiotic leadership of the Bush presidency is going to make America lose the war on terrorism.
Oh no, Afghanistan is fine. Everything is fine. It’s a warlord-style narco democracy. Mission Accomplished. La-la-la-la-la-la-la ….
Randy, you obviously haven’t read this blog long enough to know that Oliver thinks that we can eliminate terrorists with pinpoint accuracy, but that our military is only capable of doing that if a Democratic President is in office.
He also thinks that we should strike Saudi Arabia and Pakistan militarily.
One of his fans on another thread essentially said that if Bill Clinton were in office, he could have eliminated Saddam with a single missle.
I didn’t realize until I read this post that Oliver also believes that al Qaeda had limited reach outside of Afghanistan until 2003.
But, hey, he works for an organization that apparently pays people for “exposing” the fact that people like Sean Hannity are conservative, so I guess that’s not entirely a bad deal.
“we would have decapitated them in Afghanistan and be able to destroy their other outlets. Instead now, they re all over the place (Afghanistan, Iraq, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bali, to name a few)”
Are you that dim?
al Qaeda launched a series of terrorist attacks against the United States, starting with a failed attempt to target U.S. troops in Yemen in 1992, Subsequent attacks include numerous embassy bombings, a boat attack on the U.S.S. Cole, bombings of airplanes and movie theaters out of the Philippines. al Qaeda has also been linked to recent attacks on the U.S. Consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, and on a nightclub in Bali.
al Qaeda is a highly decentralized international organization. According to Jane’s Intelligence Review, al Qaeda is a “conglomerate of quasi-independent Islamic terrorist cells in countries spread across at least 26 countries, including Algeria, Morocco, Turkey, Egypt, Syria, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Burma, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Indonesia, Kenya, Tanzania, Azerbaijan, Dagestan, Uganda, Ethiopia, Syria, Tunisia, Bahrain, Yemen, Bosnia as well as the West Bank [and China].” Other countries where al Qaeda is known to have covert operational cells include Pakistan, the Philippines, Malaysia, the United States, Britain, France and Canada.
This spread hasn’t just happened since 9/11. Furthermore, al Qaeda is informally allied with at least 24 other terrorist groups, including Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Egyptian Islamic Jihad, Abu Sayyaf, Jemaah Islamiah, Hezbollah, Hamas, Hesb’ I Islami and the Islamic Group.
“al Qaeda is a highly decentralized international organization.”
And attacking Iraq addressed this reality, how?
Frame:
From the 9/11 Committee Report:
Page 61:
“Bin Ladin was also willing to explore possibilities for cooperation with Iraq, even though Iraq’s dictator, Saddam Hussein, had never had an Islamist agenda save for his opportunistic pose as a defender of the faithful against ‘Crusaders’ during the Gulf War of 1991. Moreover, Bin Ladin had in fact been sponsoring anti-Saddam Islamists in Iraqi Kurdistan, and sought to attract them into his Islamic army.
To protect his own ties with Iraq, [Sudan’s Islamic leader] Turabi, reportedly brokered an agreement that Bin Ladin would stop supporting activities against Saddam. Bin Ladin apparently honored this pledge, at least for a time, although he continued to aid a group of Islamist extremist operating in part of Iraq (Kurdistan) outside of Baghdad’s control. In the late 1990s, these extremist groups suffered major defeats by Kurdish forces. In 2001, with Bin Ladin’s help they re-formed into an organization called Ansar al Islam. There are indications that by then the Iraqi regime tolerated and may even have helped Ansar al Islam against the common Kurdish enemy.
With the Sudanese regime acting as intermediary, Bin Ladin himself met with a senior Iraqi intelligence officer in Khartoum in late 1994 or early 1995. Bin Ladin is said to have asked for space to establish training camps, as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but there is no evidence that Iraq responded to his request. … [T]he ensuing years saw additional efforts to establish common connections. ”
Page 66:
“… In March 1998, after Bin Ladin’s public fatwa against the United States, two al Qaeda members reportedly went to Iraq to meet with Iraqi intelligence. In July, an Iraqi delegation traveled to Afghanistan to meet first with the Taliban and then with Bin Ladin. Sources reported that one, or perhaps both, of these meetings was apparently arranged through Bin Ladin’s Egyptian deputy, Zawahiri, who had ties of his own to the Iraqis. In 1998, Iraq was under intensifying U.S. pressure, which culminated in a series of large are attacks in December.
Similar meetings between Iraqi officials and Bin Ladin or his aides may have occured in 1999 during a period of some reported strains with the Taliban. According to the reporting, Iraqi officials offered Bin Ladin a safe haven in Iraq. Bin Ladin declined, apparently judging that his circumstances in Afghanistan remained more favorable than the Iraqi alternative. The reports describe friendly contacts and indicate some common themes in both sides’ hatred of the United States. …”
Here’s what Congress itself said in October 2002 in passing a joint resolution justifying and authorizing war against Iraq:
“Whereas Iraq both poses a continuing threat to the national security of the United States and international peace and security in the Persian Gulf region and remains in material and unacceptable breach of its international obligations by, among other things, continuing to possess and develop a significant chemical and biological weapons capability, actively seeking a nuclear weapons capability, and supporting and harboring terrorist organizations;
Whereas the current Iraqi regime has demonstrated its capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction against other nations and its own people;
Whereas members of al Qaida, an organization bearing responsibility for attacks on the United States, its citizens, and interests, including the attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, are known to be in Iraq;
Whereas Iraq continues to aid and harbor other international terrorist organizations, including organizations that threaten the lives and safety of United States citizens;
Whereas the attacks on the United States of September 11, 2001, underscored the gravity of the threat posed by the acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by international terrorist organizations;
Whereas Iraq’s demonstrated capability and willingness to use weapons of mass destruction, the risk that the current Iraqi regime will either employ those weapons to launch a surprise attack against the United States or its Armed Forces or provide them to international terrorists who would do so, and the extreme magnitude of harm that would result to the United States and its citizens from such an attack, combine to justify action by the United States to defend itself; …”
Oh please.