Last night rumors swirled that a military strike had killed Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of Bin Laden’s top lieutenants. But now it seems that didn’t happen and now the Pakistani people are pissed. But I found this reaction from Wizbang strange
If Zawahiri was killed it would be a major blow to al Qaeda.
Really? Somehow killing an Al Qaeda second lieutenant almost five years after 9/11 while Al Qaeda has been allowed to grow and attack Bali, Spain, London, and our troops in Iraq — would be “a major blow”? I know about the “soft bigotry of low expectations”, but that’s kind of ridiculous.
At least we wouldn’t have to think about those 19 other innocent villagers if Zawahiri was killed too. Collateral damage is cool if you get the bad guy too. If you don’t then it sucks.
Perhaps too soon to say if Aymen is not dead, but 18 others are.
Acceptable losses? Ask Mushareff. If it’s another CIA boner, it’s
as ham-handed as they come.
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/01/14/alqaeda.strike/index.html
It is strange to me that you look upon the reports of tribal villagers in Pakistan without even an inkling of suspect regarding their motives. ” Oh they were just innocent little children sleeping with their teddy bears in there!”
Of course other reports detail the immediate removal of 4-5 bodies before the government got there.
But if our government says they were all terrorists you immediately shout “bullsh*t!”
Of course OW is now using the classic four-year-old argument: “You made me do it!” As if our decimating the ranks of al qaeda in Iraq and Afghanistan is what is causing them to recruit members.
Killing Al Qaeda leaders: Good. Killiing lots of al qaeda doesn’t mean we “let it grow”, those are your twisted words.
Are you guys starting to see why most of America has a hard time believing you are on our side?
A “terrorist training camp”, or insurgent “base of operations” might be bait for a predator drone and hellfire missile, but I think we can do a little bit better than this if it was indeed a “village”. Nobody says that everyone there was innocent and we missed our mark. However, nobody can conclusively say that there were no women and children that were hit in this strike. If we had the info on him possibly going in there I think we should have gone in with light weapons.
1. Number one that is an easy way to verify even though some of our personnel would have been at risk.
2. Insurgents can’t shoot for shit, that is why they break contact or die quickly when we have the support.
3. We won’t further isolate Musharaff from the good favor of his people. Regardless of what people say, he is an ally.
4. We should already know that unpopular actions win and lose wars for us. Mai Lai was effectively the end of the possibility of success during the Vietnam War.
5. When are we going to learn?
Likewise it is strange to us why you far-righters are so willing to throw
brown babies out with the bathwater. as though of no account, when you
find any abortion to be unexcusable.
And I assume the statement; “see why most of America has a hard time believing you are on our side?” means you believe only those of your
ideology are on America’s side? Typical.
Holy crap…..Dkel are you on the ground?
Go in with light weapons?
Oh, you saw the movie “Navy Seals” and you think we can actually DO that in a hostile foreign country…..
How about this? I don’t think people in the CIA are evil. I don’t think they would carelessly or aimlessly attack a house full of people without a really good reason. These are just assumptions that I make.
Prosecuting terrorist who have a willingness to blow themselves up is not like prosecuting a drug dealer down the block. We dont’ bust in with a bunch of guys carrying AR-15’s and vests that say “US SEAL” on the back.
Musharaff knew ALL about this attack, he is now doing a sand-dance to appease the radicals in his country and to avoid looking like an american stooge.
Only an idiot would compare this to Mai Lai. At worst this is an intel blunder, not some criminal conspiracy by the CIA to kill women and children. It frightens me that the leftists in America can’t tell the difference between individual culpability for illegal acts, and state sponsored terrorism.
Finally, what ended the possibility of sucess in vietnam was our unwillingness to fight a war because of what others thought of us. We deliberately didn’t mine harbors, attack railway lines. We deliberately avoided bombing hospitals that were ammo dumps. The list goes on.
What this shows is that we LEARNED those lessons, and we are now fighting a different kind of war.
What did George Bush say? Oh, yeah: “When I take action,” he said, “I m not going to fire a $2 million missile at a $10 empty tent and hit a camel in the butt. It s going to be decisive.” Looks like he missed, and made a lot more enemies as well. It’s two-fer-one!
Dkelsmith, keen and canny observations.
Says the quaker who depends on the bravery and honor of others to protect his right to bad mouth his country….
Thank you, smith. Very good post.
It helps for the pretend-warriors around here to hear the truth from the real deal.
Good for you peedro.
Now you wanna tell us what’s wrong with what Mr. Smith has to share?
I don t think they (the CIA) would carelessly or aimlessly attack a house full of people without a really good reason.
Agreed. And I recognize that fighting terrorists is a hard slog.
Still…, their robotic, remote killers hit the wrong house and killed a bunch of people who just so happen to be NOT the ones they were aiming at… and pissed off ten thousand more people who are that much closer now to REALLY hating the United States.
Holy crap& ..Dkel are you on the ground?
Go in with light weapons?
Oh, you saw the movie Navy Seals and you think we can actually DO that in a hostile foreign country& ..
Dr. Pedro,
You figured me out, I watched Navy Seals and a host of other TMC movies to formulate my opinions on the military. I figured we could have Green Berets (actually wearing the berets instead of Kevlar and not wearing SAPI vests), charge uphill against a withering machine gun barrage. They would just dive roll out of the way of the bullets and throw a grenade about 100 meters to take them out. Then they would run house to house dispatching all of the fighters. As a finale, Al Quaeda’s number 2 man would have been captured after being knocked out by a spinning round house kick.
Sorry, its usually not my style to be snide but I felt compelled to copy you? My post is to illustrate the fact up close and personal is not nice, but it is a hell of a lot more sure than using a drone. And yes, the location was in the tribal region of Pakistan, but the last time I checked Pakistan was on the list of “allies” that we have put together. Incidentally going in light doesn’t exclude CAS for cover and to prevent the escape of the enemy. No matter how advanced our weaponry is, you never have ownership of an objective until you have a 19 year old with an M-4 standing on it.
Bottom line, I believe that this guy would have been great to nab or kill, but I don’t think that “collateral” damage of this sort is something we can afford. Just my opinion though, obviously you are the expert.
Dr. Pedro,
I didn’t say that this action was the same as Mai Lai, I said Mai Lai was in fact one of the major events that helped solidify the belief that Vietnam was morally wrong, and we could not win. The war trudged on for years afterward, but that was a major blow…..many military scholars and historians agree on this. This is taught at OCS during GMSI and II. You talked about Vietnam being unwinnable to because we were unwilling to do things that would have benefitted our other stragegies there. My question is, what caused that unwillingness?
Couple of things. One, this was essentially a civil war and I believe there were many good arguments against ever getting involved.
Second, it was being prosectuted by a bunch of unethical paperpushers like McNamara.
Third, the leftists in this country were anxious for a big X in the communist “win” block. By constantly protesting, they spooked the elected representatives who then put pressure on the military to “fight nice”.
Fourth, China was a wild card, and we weren’t willing to call their bluff.
You know the military well enough to know that Vietnam was easily winnable for us. Best I can tell we made a damn near conscious decision not to win it, something that McNamara essentially admitted.
And of course because of our indecision and lack of fortitude, millions of Vietnamese were tortured and killed in the aftermath of the war. We certainly know, in hindsight, that the war was not “morally” wrong (anymore so than any war is “morally wrong” at least), and in fact, we would have been more “moral” to have prosecuted it aggressively thereby saving millions of lives…
This, more than any other single sentence you’ve ever posted here, marks you as a know-nothing blowhard.
We “fought nice”?
Haw.
I certainly didn’t insinuate that the Vietnam War was morally wrong. I said that the Mai Lai massacre helped solidify the “belief” that it was morally wrong. I know all about history and the policy of “containment” regarding communism. Look here man, disagree with me if you want, but all of this allusion to me being an idiot, (ie. only an idiot would compare this to Mai Lai), and trying to rephrase my words is ridiculous. Just because someone doesn’t agree with you, or states their opinion doesn’t mean that they are a granola muncher or an America-hater. Parachute down off of that high horse for you and stay focused.
I understand your viewpoints, I tend to disagree with them albeit more respectfully than I see you carrying on on these comment posts. But if there is one thing that you can get from all of this rancor, just understand that simply having superior tactics, weaponry, and resolve doesn’t guarantee that we win wars. War is an ugly business, so by all means we have to do what is ugly. We just need to make sure that the ugliness we display is absolutely necessary.
Well, well. A while back the leftists on this site were expalining how we should use drones and other technologiclalya dvacnced weapons to get Al Qaeda. And many were confiedntly oriocaliming that OBL was in pakistan and all we had to do was shoev that evil ol’ Bush policy/war against Saddam and focus on pakistan. Nobody once spoke of the , uhh, problem of Pakistani sovreignty. Well now you see the problem and exaclty why you can’t rely on leftist do-gooders to fight the WOT.
DKEL,
Re a light weapons, ‘hands on’ raid. Don’t believe that is a better option. First of all it would be a much grosser violation of Pakistani sovreignty and if you think of the recent (for me, Vietnam to present) history of those types of raids (Son Tay, Mayaguez, Bat 21, Desert 1, Ethiopia), they have a bad overall track record. I much prefer a single, remote strike, but acknowledge that it carries the risk of collateral damage to people and property.
Dugger
Pedro believes the only good innocent bystander is an innocent bystander with a bullet in her head and a mark next to the word “terrorist” on his body count card. He’d scalp the teddy bears if he were there.
Dugger;
Notwithstanding typos, I think you are saying that leftist-do-gooders
are overly sensitive to collateral damage and therefore cannot be trusted
to fight the WOT.
The deductive conclusion, I’m speculating, is that ham-handed spraying
of multiple cluster-fuck ordinance is the calling card of bad boy right
wingers and that collateral damage is just too damned bad. But the
latter is better at fighting the WOT(at least symbolically) despite
any Pakistani domestic politcal fallout from such undeniable screw-ups.
Perhaps if the drones were not seen and heard in the area for days
prior to the attack, there might have been the element of surprise
so necessary to getting the camera-shy bad guys. Wouldn’t feet
on the ground have been just a might more stealthy? Please stop
with the broad brush ‘do-gooder’ paint job and have a little
consideration for the ‘collateral damage’ done to liberals who want
to get the bad guys just as badly as you. That is unless you subscribe
to the merc motto “Kill ‘em all. Let god sort ‘em out!”
Semant,
I am sure that are Democrats and true liberals who want to win the WOT (Joe Lieberman comes to mind) and would fight it somewhat similar to Bush. Then there are liberals and Democrats who want to win the WOT and would not fight it ala Bush/Lieberman, but would be more passive and persuasive - a UN type of approach. And there are liberals and Democrats who possess sensivity that is somewhat selective and one that is colored by leftist political orthodoxy. These leftists, Deaniacs, MoveOn, Moore etc are equally or more sympathetic to our enemies than they are to us and see our mistakes and our problems as being equivalent to or a greater evil than what the enemy does. Hence in terms of amount and decibels, this left, which I believe is ascendant within the party is and starting to dominate the dialogue, has been much more loudly heard on say Gitmo than Saddam’s genocide - whereas the two, a rational observer would have to say, are not remotely similar.
I’m sure this will not be satisfactory to you but I would feel more doubt if just once I saw and heard a Democratic being over-zealous about fighting the WOT instead of being over-zealous in the demonization of Bush or say if there was a problem with leftist human shields protecting our “Nazi” (per Alex) marines in Iraq.
Lets remember you and I are posting on a site where the honcho basically says conservatism causes racism.
And yes my typing stinks big time- for which I apologize.
And I don’t minimize technology-associated collateral damage. But if you look up the histories of some of the missions I mentioned, you will see there was a huge amount of ‘collateral’ damage in those small arms, hands-on missions. And I can assure you, having ex acquaintances who died because they did not eject to steer nearly out of control airplanes to civilian free areas, that the military cares about and tries to minimize collateral damage.
Dugger
Dkel I guess you just need to be more straightforward in your language.
“I said Mai Lai was in fact one of the major events that helped solidify the belief that Vietnam was morally wrong, and we could not win”
when you say something like that, it assumes you agree. Since you apparently don’t, then I guess you and I agree.
And since you DIDN’T compare it to Mai Lai, I wasn’t calling you an idiot, I said anyone who compared it to Mai Lai was an idiot.
Hope that clears it up
“And I can assure you, having ex acquaintances who died because they did not eject to steer nearly out of control airplanes to civilian free areas,”
This is the distinction which I agree with wholeheartedly. Having had
no military experience, I do have para-military groundings and I have
found within that vocation both the worst people I’ve ever known as well
as the best. I don’t always trust those in command to do the best thing,
nor do I default to trust the right order to be carried out as intended.
The moral equivilence thing is another story. Ignorance and stupidity
as to the average ‘grunt’ and his part in the war in VN, caused
unnecessary harm to returning vets. Their treatment by certain folks
in the 70’s was inexcusable. I do not think that same mindset is at
play even amongst the ‘Deaniacs’. It is not moral equivilency that
they seek, rather, it is the desire for us to maintain not just the
veneer, but the actual ‘high ground’ we should occupy as the model
of democracy. I think many feel we are sinking to the level of tactics
we would not accept from other nations not so developed as we.
Not making excuses for those who hide behind democratic ideals
in order to undermine the military for other agendas. Just recognizing
that with a quarter-billion people, you have to account for shades of
grey in their Bush dislike.
Hey guys, please tell me how we could have won in Viet Nam. As far as I can tell we left because the ‘bad guys’ controlled more territory than we did. There was a populace that didn’t necessarily support them but was 80% against an outside occupying power (it seems we see ourselves as liberators but the locals don’t share that view) and gave the insurgency a background to blend into. Because of a lack of local political and cultural understanding (never high on an army’s to do list) we engaged in widespread targeted assassinations that killed civilians and non-combatants as well as VC (ie. hamlet pacification, Operation Phoenix). Then there’s the Agent Orange deforestation program, we won a lot of hearts and minds with that one too. By the time Nixon and his buddies (Rumsfeld, Cheney, et al) got the idea that we needed Vietnamization of the mission our own grunts were blowing up their officers to avoid going out into the jungle to be target dummies for the NVA and the Viet Cong. We left because that war was unwinnable from the get go. Kinda like Iraq? You can talk all you want about inserting kill teams and pacification but the locals will still be there long after we’re gone. We need to take a look at our own war of liberation from Britain to understand how we could lose these wars. Superior weapons systems aren’t the only factors in modern low intensity warfare. When you give someone a job to do that they are not equipped to do, nation building or whatever you want to call it, things can get very hinky. The failed attempt on Zawahiri, with its women and children killed while they slept aspect, just adds to the perception in the rest of the world that we just don’t give a shit about anyone but us. Thanks in advance for your input.
So Dugger, you are saying the best way to fight the war on terror is not to catch, stop or deter terrorists where they live and train, but to invade countries near to where terrorists operate, send our soldiers in with bullseyes on their backs and let the terrorists shoot at them, meanwhile they gather recruits, financing and strength, while we weaken our military, spend our resources, alienate our allies and divide our people at home over such issues as the stupidity of the Iraq invasion as relates to the real War on Terror, the lack of planning that went into the invasion, the lack of planning or desire to get us out of there, and the sheer incompetence of the Bush administration for invading in the first place, failing to plan for the insurgency, failing to adapt to the insurgency now, failing to get broad international support, failing to send enough troops and failing to have a plan or the desire to get us out of there.
“I do not think that same mindset is at play even amongst the Deaniacs .”
I think I agree and actually some of the antipathy to returning Vietnam vets has been slightly exaggerated. There were some bad examples, but it was not an everyday ocurrence.
Both sides are perhaps guilty of attributing the positions of the extremes to the not-so-extremes in the other guys party.
And you are absolutley right about there being a mix of bad and good in the military. My bias is that there are not very many bad and that the good are very good. I think I know some young captains and 0-6s who could run this country better than Bush or Clinton. But then it takes politicians to actually run a country and they aren’t very good at that.
Dugger
mitterpidge,
Are you up to a serious debate or is this just another sniper attack with no substance behind it. If the latter, don’t bother. If the former, the best way to win the war on terror is to kill terrorists. Kill as many as you can. To do so requires hard men doing hard things. If you don’t like that, then you must find a kinder, gentler way of fighting this “WAR”. But certainly one way (of many) to fight the war is to attack enabling states - states that fund and shield like Saddamite Iraq. There are many other ways also. But IMO, trying to reason wih terrorists, trying to understand the root causes in lieu of fighting back, trying to be liked by a less than courageous international community are all very ineffective ways to fight the WOT. There may be a pacifist answer to the WOT, but I don’t think so. Economic sanctions? To people willing to die at the drop of a hat? Right!!!
And congratulations for the longest single sentence in OW history. Might have been better to pause and think a little more here and there.
Impor,
Huge differences between Vietnam and Iraq. Start with terrain. Follow that with a completely different world geopolitical situation. Follow that with technological advances in weaponry. And more.
And in actuality, the war in Iraq - the big war, if you will- was won with the fall of Saddam and his forces. We are now fighting an insurgency of irregulars. A completely different critter. The actual cost of this action is not that high when compared to the big war, but the vicissitudes of the American political process may make it much harder to sustain this fight. So the little war, the insurgency, is winnable in Iraq, if we have political will. The military is up to it. And the war in Vietnam was definiteley winnable, but more difficult, much more difficult.
Dugger
Dugger, your “kill all the terrorists” strategy remains, as ever, far too simple to be effective. You can’t hunt terrorists to extinction, because a terrorist is an ideology, not a race or a species.
Say we killed Zawahiri as well as the other 18 people. Good for us, because Zawahiri was a high muckamuck in the current version of al-Qaida and it does hurt them to lose high muckamucks.
But say we also killed 18 innocent people. These 18 innocent people had innocent families and innocent friends. As any caring human being, they feel wronged, and they feel vengeful. And what do they do to get revenge? They join al-Qaida.
So in exchange for one high muckamuck, we gain at least a handful of new terrorists. This is not good math for your strategy.
The logical end to your “kill all the terrorists” strategy is genocide and religious crusade: kill all the Muslims and then burn their books, so that no terrorists can ever happen again.
Nice try Impor.
We won the Iraq war in 6 weeks, the fastest win in the history of the world.
The vietnamese were an agrarian culture when we were fighting. Had we mined the harbors, blown up the railway lines and destroyed the minimal factory areas and ammo dumps there, the “war” would have ended very quickly with the VC being left to fight with sharp sticks.
I agree that we might never have had popular support, but I suspect even that would have turned around in time.
You knuckleheads have beautiful 20:20 hindsight, but haven’t been much good with foresight.
Remember all the warnings about fighting in Afghanistan “never fight a land war in asia”, “it was a Russian Vietnam” blah, blah, blah?
Then there was the “street to street fighting in baghdad” and the, somewhat unusual “they’ll use their chemical weapons..(that we thought you guys knew they didn’t have…).” and “the Brookings Institute put its estimate of possible U.S. casualties at 5,000 dead and 30,000 wounded”
We left because we refused to fight the war. And your hero Richard Nixon was the one that got us out.
Jesus!
How many stupid, and or, inane statements can be crammed in
a few paragraphs?
Holy Moly.
BD,
Beg to differ. I do not say -ever- that it is simple to do. Precisely the opposite - takes hard men and women doing hard things. But it is the ONLY strategy that I see that is effective re terrorists. Keep in mind one might have to adopt different tactics to implement this strategy and I have no quarrel with that. I also have no quarrel with less violent means to deal with potential terrorists/terrorist situations.
And I don’t for one second believe your 18 terrorists scenario. Tell me, did the terrorists create 3,000 terrorists when they murdered all those people in the world trade center? Did they create one?
The primary ‘reason’ there are terrorists opposed to us is: who we are (free, modern, primarily Christian, prosperous peoples), who we support (Israel (and sometimes other Mideast factions opposed by other Mideast factions - ie, no win) and the fact that we fight back sometimes - fairly (leads to contempt). We were being attacked by terrorists right and left well before Iraq, lest you forget.
Dugger
I definately have to weigh in: I’m anti-genocide. I know that this has to be an obvious statement, but it apparently isn’t. As a right-winger, I do desire to destroy the enemy. It’s a good thing the more terrorists we kill (though capturing them USED to be a good idea, it’s mostly just a hazard, now)
However, I find it hilarious to think that, if someone had suggested that all terrorists are Muslims on the right, then they’d immediately be a racist. I know that you probably wrote that comment, BD, in a fit of umbrage at Dugger, but most free-thinking people would realise that it wouldn’t have been safe for me to say much the same thing to you.
I think that the War in ‘Nam and the War in Iraq are similar in one basic way: The endgame. If we win, then Democracy and a certain lack of fear has been given to thousands. If we lose (by backing out, tails tucked) then we’ve got another “Unjust” war for our buddies in Europe to rail against us with, and those possibly freed thousands will be butchered ruthlessly, oppressed, and subjected to an ideology which can only survive by turning it’s people’s hatred on someone else. Usually us.
I dunno. You tell me.
Since 9-11 have you heard anyone say we ought to blow up any cities, just to assert our superiority? Has anyone cast the fight in terms of good versus evil? Does anyone really think that the deaths of civilians will eventually give us a victory over those who oppose us?
If your answer to any of these is yes, I’d say they created some terrorists.
Impor,
If, during the Treaty of Versailles, notice had been taken of a London waiter (later to be known as Ho-Chi Minh), and his appeal to the French for a bit more vietnamese contribution in their government (not even the vote, mind), perhaps the Vietnam war would never have happened. or the Second World War.
saying that, if McArthur’s plan to use or threaten to use nukes in Korea had been adopted (given that China had none and the USSR about 2 at the time), the COLD WAR might have been a lot different to.
“If”. what a gigantic word. If my aunt had balls, she’d have been my uncle!
Dutter,
Iraq was not an enabling state of anti-American terrorism. they had nothing to do with 9-11. What made Iraq a target of invasion was oil, location, religion, past history. Not WMDs and not terrorism and not human rights.
Bush pissed away American credibility in the lead up to the invasion with his “bad intelligence”. He failed diplomatically to get the second UN resolution. He failed diplomatically to get meaningful international support. That has real consequences with the situation in Iraq now.
Bush failed to adequately plan for the invasion. His father knew the danger of invading Iraq, how could Bush Jr. not? Yet they sent too few troops to secure ammo dumps, secure suspected WMD sites, secure the cities or provide security. That condition stands today, we do not have enough troops there to provide security. That lays in Bush’s fault, they expected flowers and failed to anticipate bombs. We still don’t have enough troops today.
They allowed torture to take place in Iraq’s prisons, not just Abu Ghraib, but across Iraq. That is in Bush’s lap. That was policy, that was not sending JAG officers to ensure the rights of the prisoners. So much for human rights.
They took a state with no known ties to terrorism and turned it into a country where terror attacks happen daily.
I fail to see that my saying these things encourage an enemy that is too busy taking the explosives Bush failed to secure and turning them into bombs used to kill our improperly armored troops in their improperly armored Humvees.
Ahh Quaker finally lets his moral equivalence out of the bag.
We are just like the terrorists……..
We needn’t know any more about Quaker’s arguments, he gets them from watching movies like “Munich”
And if I lived in the tribal regions of the Hindu Kush, and I heard Predator drones flying over my head everyday, I sure as hell wouldn’t invite AQ’s number 2 man over for dinner with the kids. At least if I wasn’t a terrorist I wouldn’t….
I dunno. You tell me. — No
Since 9-11 have you heard anyone say we ought to blow up any cities, just to assert our superiority? Has anyone cast the fight in terms of good versus evil? Does anyone really think that the deaths of civilians will eventually give us a victory over those who oppose us? No — Yes (correctly so), — No.
And I agree with Pedro. There is no good and evil if you can’t sort out the differences between the responses to terrorism and terrorism. Might make for a good John Lennon song - but not for a code of conduct among human beings.
Do you oppose the principle of inoculations with a needle?
NO,PIDGE, NO!
Iraq violated 12 UN resolutions as well as a cease fire agreement. Iraq used WMD’s. Iraq violated the oil for food agreement. Iraq was a base for terrorist groups that turned out at least 2000 foreign terrorists a year. Iraq supported the palestian terrorists and suicide bombers.
We took over the entire country of Iraq faster, and with fewer casualties (hostile or allied) than any war in the history of mankind. It was an actual benchmark, never been done better. If we had more troops you would complain we were running a police state.
If we allowed torture, why are the “torturers” (as I have said before, worse “torture” happens every saturday night at fraternity houses around the us) currently in jail?
Just admit it….you cannot hope for any sort of victory in Iraq, and when we have them you will deny them. You hope for American failure, as that is your only hope for victory in an election.
You aren’t stupid, just ideologically blinded, you and your leftist democratic collegues
And THAT is why the american public won’t allow you into the white house anytime soon. Please continue to spout your revisionist nonsense, it will save the GOP adverstising money in the next election
“You aren t stupid, just ideologically blinded”
Whereas Dr. Pedro is just stupid, thus precluding the need to ideological blinders. He buys this shit — “worse ‘torture’ happens every saturday night at fraternity houses around the us” — straight.
Bryan,
That was the first chance. Ho asked for help from the freedom loving people of the US more that once. I guess it makes me a commie sympathizer to know some history but so be it. Politics, politics, politics. And Pedro as for 20/20 hindsight please apply that to your belief in the winnability of the Viet Nam war. Here’s a hint for basic debating, be careful that you don’t unwittingly give points to your opponent…
OK. OK, we won! Mission accomplished! If this is true why can’t we leave? Why are we still throwing troops into the meat grinder? Your examples seem to contradict each other. Yes, the terrain is different and now we’ve got smart bombs and airborne drone cameras, but the results appear to be the same. (Rent The Battle of Algiers DVD for a primer on urban guerrilla war if you want a nice eye opener). We can’t even keep the road to Bagdad airport open 24/7. Again I ask how we could have won in Viet Nam. The VC and NVA were being supplied by trucks on an improvised mountain road not by train or sea. We dropped more bombs on Viet Nam, North and South, and Cambodia than in all of WWII. We’ve dropped even more in Iraq. Please give me some factual basis for your assertions. As for Afghanistan our people are stuck in Kabul or going out on sorties in force because the Taliban and the warlords that still support them own the ground. You tell me how that is a win. If you can come close to making a rational argument for your point of view without insulting other people I’d love to hear it. Personally I don’t have an answer for this shitstorm but what we’re doing now is just not going to work in the long run. If all you want to do is argue about who is more of a patriot and how we got in this mess keep on wankin.’ I’m sure that we have very different political points of view on the whys and wherefors of this situation. Viewing this through a political prism is why we’re in this. Let’s all get pragmatic about solving this problem start talking tactics not talking points. Comprendo?
“Tell me, did the terrorists create 3,000 terrorists when they murdered all those people in the world trade center? Did they create one?”
No Dugger, 9-11 did not produce any terrorists. It did however produced a president willing to lie to the American people, willing to hold American citizen’s without charge indefinitely, willing to torture, willing to spy on Americans without warrants, willing to accuse his critics of treason and willing to use fear as an instrument of government. You support Bush in all this. Way to go.
Impor you seem to know alot about Vietnam. So you know that while trucks supplied the locals, trains and ships are what brought most stuff into the country. You also know that the VC hid AA batteries as well as ammunition in hospitals and schools. Further you know that they kept third party “neutral” ships in the harbor at all times to prevent bombing.
As I am sure you also know, we dropped more bombs on empty jungle than any war previously or since.
As far as you assertions about Afghanistan and Iraq, both are just false. Both countries have had multiple free elections that were certified by international bodies, so the countries are not quite as overcome by anarchy as you claim.
What we are doing now, particularly in Iraq, is training the locals to take care of the foreign terrorist themselves. We are also trying to incorporate all the groups into coalition governments (see the rate of voting among the sunni in iraq in the latest election as an example).
I agree that all will not be goodness and light. But both afghanistan and Iraq were hotbeds of terrorism and other unhealthy stuff, and both are now free and on their way to complete self-protection and rule.
So in short, I think we have a pretty good set of tactics going right now…while the only tactics you have described are “I don t have an answer for this shitstorm but what we re doing now is just not going to work in the long run”……sorry, that doesn’t qualify as a “tactic”, and that is exactly what the republicans complain about.
Bitch,bitch bitch, but no ideas.
by the way Impor,
was that “comprendo” supposed to be some sort of racial slur?
I find it interesting how often the word “Stupid” is used about drpedro. Quite frankly, his comments always have a point, they are always typed with thought, and they are always evident of some intelligence beyond third grade level. More than one could say of many of the users of the word, stupid.
We are still there because it would mean DEATH for the new Iraqi Republic, and many of it’s innocent and freedom-loving citizens. And ANYONE who has any delusion that this would be ANYTHING but a bad thing is not only asinine, but their comments can get dangerous. They are dangerous to the people of Iraq. They are dangerous to our men on the ground. Finally, they are dangerous to those of us at home who enjoy the freedom of typing on these sites, arguing whether or not we should.
Another point… We are still in Germany. Just thought I’d hand you guys that one…
No No No! Where in that entirely baseless response did you in any way respond to what I wrote?
You try to justify the invasion based on flawed arguments. The US failed to get a second resolution. The US failed to get meaningful international support. Diplomacy failed.
2,000 terrorists a year? Are you sure you don’t mean electricians or gardeners or something? I didn’t think anyone made that kind of assertion even in the depths of freeperland.
Torture did not start with those lowlevel grunts who are in prison, it started farther up the chain. Those were just the idiots that were caught and scapegoated.
We may have taken over the entire country of Iraq, but we don’t control most of it.
I cannot see any hope of victory in Iraq because we do not have any kind of leadership. I do not even know how to define “victory in Iraq”. Maybe, Iraq not being the terrorist training camp it is today and bringing most of our troops home would be a good start.
You are so gungho for some kind of revenge for 9-11 that you don’t care who we exact it on.
I’m rubber and you’re glue… I won’t let you get away with your revisionism, Drp even as you accuse me of it.
drpedro-
My apologies on that one. Being a Californiano I use that in my daily speech. After posting I realized that it could be taken that way. Sorry again for any offense, none was intended. As for your interpretation of Viet Nam we did bomb hospitals and schools in the north and in the ‘empty jungles’ (Do rice paddies count as empty?) We also bombed Haiphong harbor more than once if I remember. You may not believe the accounts by locals but they are out there to be read. I hope you are correct about what is happening in Iraq and Afghanistan but the strength of the insurgency, Iraq-3 choppers downed in the last two weeks, Afghanistan-introduction of suicide bombing in a culture that has never done it until the last six months, seems to belie the rosy talking points you regurgitate. In your example of a freely elected and governed Afghanistan Hamid Karsai travels with foreign forces protecting him, not Afghanis. Iraq looks to, at best, be heading towards a tripartite federalist state with radical theocratic Shia aligned with Iran in charge of the national government. Hopefully we can keep Turkey mollified and the Republic of Kurdistan will be a strong surrogate for us in the region. The Shia in the south can cosy up to the Iranians and the rump Iraq run by your good buddy Mr. Chalabi will keep the black gold flowing for us. Just don’t anybody tell China, OK? As far as knowing about Viet Nam I lived through that clusterfuck and I was hoping I wouldn’t have to see another one like it in my lifetime. Silly me, thinking no one was stupid enough to light the fuse in the Middle East, I imagined it would happen in Latin America! I guess with a socialista running Chile now and the cocalero in charge in Bolivia there’s still some hope for an ‘adventure’ in our own hemisphere yet! The politicians, generals and war lovers are saying all the same things now that they did then. Hope you folks are enjoying spending the blood and treasure of this great nation on a pipedream of spreading democracy from the barrel of a gun. I may bitch but I ain’t Bush’s bitch. Peace out.
“The secret training took place primarily at three camps–in Samarra, Ramadi, and Salman Pak–and was directed by elite Iraqi military units. Interviews by U.S. government interrogators with Iraqi regime officials and military leaders corroborate the documentary evidence. Many of the fighters were drawn from terrorist groups in northern Africa with close ties to al Qaeda, chief among them Algeria’s GSPC and the Sudanese Islamic Army. Some 2,000 terrorists were trained at these Iraqi camps each year from 1999 to 2002, putting the total number at or above 8,000. Intelligence officials believe that some of these terrorists returned to Iraq and are responsible for attacks against Americans and Iraqis. According to three officials with knowledge of the intelligence on Iraqi training camps, White House and National Security Council officials were briefed on these findings in May 2005; senior Defense Department officials subsequently received the same briefing.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/550kmbzd.asp
yea you’re right, torture didn’t start with the low level grunts, they were being controlled by a mind control ray eminating from Karl Rove and the Barvarian Illumunati. Come on moron, you start in with the completely unsubstantiated conspiracy theories, you must not have an argument.
So here is the real question. What are YOU going to do when the Iranians start mass producing weapons grade fissile material and the UN won’t do anything about? When do you stop negotiating? When do you call in the air strikes? No patsy answers about “when ALL other negotiations fail!”, unless you define failure for me (i.e. when Tel Aviv is a smoking hole, then we can really get mad at them!).
Well, that explains it. You get all your information out of the political equivalent of a supermarket tabloid. Simply replace the words “Bat Boy” with “President Bush”. Talk about unsubstantiated conspiracy theories and all contained in one weekly magazine! Lucky you!:
“How many of those unexploited documents might help us better understand the role of Iraq in supporting transregional terrorists? How many of those documents might provide important intelligence on the very people–Baathists, former regime officials, Saddam Fedayeen, foreign fighters trained in Iraq–that U.S. soldiers are fighting in Iraq today? Is what we don’t know literally killing us?”—How many of these unexploited documents will be used as a porn substitute by a lonely Pedro in his nightly forays?
Widespread abuse at several locations. Damn those bad apples got around.
What will we do in Iran? Apparently the army is occupied elsewhere. Oooops. We will probably take the same tack we used with North Korea: beg someone else to take charge for us and try to buy them off.
mitter,
“Iraq was not an enabling state of anti-American terrorism. they had nothing to do with 9-11.”
You put these two thoughts in the same sentence, yet one does not prove the other at all. I know of no one in the Admin who said or says Iraq had something to do with 9-11 (we don’t know that they did) but that does not at all prove that Iraq is not a terrorist enabling state. Are you aware of Saddam’s payments to the families of suicide bombers? I would call that enabling. (See, its a lot harder to actually debate rather than name call). The rest of your post is a tired rehash of leftist urban legends (its about oil etc) and there are other reasons the Admin and a bi-partisan COngress. cited for going to war. But I’m not sure you are able to seriously debate beyond cant.
Impor, WHy can’t it be complex. Why does it have to be all victory or all defeat. We won the major combat war in Iraq. The insurgency is ongoing.
WE could have won Vietnam, IMO, by committing more forces, using more deadly weapons and being more ruthless in our tactics. I said and say Vietnam would have been harder and I believe that. But if we had reduced Hanoi and Haiphong to rubble, would the the war have continued - with a viable NVA presence? I don’t think so. Remember, you asked if it was winnable.
Dugger
Dugger, I’m aware of everything in your response, but that doesn’t change the fact that your previous post did make it sound as simple as “kill all the terrorists and we win.”
We’ve been killing terrorists long before 9/11. We haven’t won. Why do you suppose that is?
For that matter, we’ve been burning drugs and arresting dealers for over a decade, and we still have a drug problem.
Fighting the War on Terror and the War on Drugs strictly on the supply side is a recipe for unending war.
K-Man - I’m also anti-genocide, and I never said that (a) all Muslims are terrorists or (b) all terrorists are Muslims.
However, the fact of the matter is that not all children who grow up orphaned by an erroneous CIA attack are going to forgive and forget when they hit adulthood. Some of them are going to grow up bitter and resentful and pliable in the hands of the right imam.
As are some of their best friends. As are some neighbors.
And while I’d never go so far as to say there’s moral equivalency between terrorism and counterterrorism, it’s not black-and-white, either. The same people who believe that 3,000 Americans were killed by Iraqis–and far too many still do–are the same people who turn an apathetic eye to Abu Ghraib, thinking “well, they deserve it” because they’re similar to the hijackers.
We want the world to believe we’re Superman–and I want to believe we’re capable of it–but we behave a bit more like Dirty Harry, willing to break any and every code in order to win.
Are you guys starting to see why most of America has a hard time believing you are on our side?
Honestly, the guy is a plant. “Most of America”, LMAO!
Read much? Not since 2003, that much is certain.
less tha 70. I don’t mean “Dugger” at all, I only say people named “Dug*” are below 70 in IQ.
This is like the army’s recruiting now, they are going after people that are
You put these two thoughts in the same sentence, yet one does not prove the other at all. I know of no one in the Admin who said or says Iraq had something to do with 9-11 (we don t know that they did) but that does not at all prove that Iraq is not a terrorist enabling state.
Another voracious reader of the news. Number one, they are not meant to ‘prove’ each other, so I hasve no idea WTF you are talking about.
Number two, I wonder where 69% of public got the idea that Suddam Hussien waqs involved with the attack on the World Trade Center, whether or not anyone said specifically as much.
Why do you types have to be so insipidly stupid? You split syntactic hairs when the overwhelming truth is what is at issue, and that is that Bush and his band of criminal miscreants, imply, in every single speach, that 9/11 and Suddam are related.
Sort of like if everyone always talked about people named “Dug*” have IQ
What Dugger? I said Iraq didn’t sponsor anti-American terrorism then followed with Iraq didn’t have anything to do with 9-11? Where did I learn to do that? If only I could remember. I think it was the multiple times George Bush mentioned 9-11 immediately after saying something about Iraq. It must have worked. I now linked them in sequence. Did you note how I was very careful to say anti-American terrorism? Did you see it? I’m an American. I don’t have to defend Hussein’s activities at all, I just have to note he wasn’t engaged with anti-American terrorism, and that is the debate point - why should America invade Iraq? And was it a good idea? And what benefit did the US get for its trouble?
See a bipartisan congress did not vote to go to war. Thats republican revisionism. A bipartisan congress voted for the threat of war to force Hussein to open up for inspections. George Bush lied to them. Some like Lieberman just wanted the war. Others wanted to defuse the “threat” that rightwingers kept screaming Iraq was. Turns out Iraq wasn’t a real threat then but is a very serious threat to this country now that we invaded it. Good job, wingers, why do you hate America?
Boy pidge I wish I could brush away well documented and sourced facts as easily as you do! Of course, this is why leftist don’t like arguing with republicans, they always bring a pea-shooter to a gun fight…
I guess now I will just immediately discount everything the liberal papers say NYT, WAPO, LAT etc etc.
I gave you the evidence for large scale terrorist training camps in Iraq, you do with the information whatever you wish.
Yes, the Weekly Standard is a paragon of reporting balance, excellence and fact checking. Nonetheless, I read your article and found it to be lacking. Where are these documents they cite, who are these anonymous government officials? It’s not a solid news article, its an op-ed piece.
Incidently, why anonymous government officials? There are three main reasons government officials are anonymous: they fear retribution, they are lying, the reporter is lying. Since this is information beneficial to the admin, I would rule out fearing retribution.
We did bomb Hanoi and Haiphong (OK…maybe not “to rubble,” but bombed.)
That would be taking “destroying the village in order to save it” to a new extreme, wouldn’t it?
Quaker,
The question was: was the V war winnable? My answer: yes (didn’t say it was winnable via means acceptable to you or the left). My suggestion for the politicians is don’t train us one way, take us to war and then not let us fight the war like you trained us to. W has been much better about that than LBJ.
Mitter,
First of all you have no idea if Iraq did or didn’t sponsor AA terrorism. I would argue that harboring Abbas comes pretty close. And secondly it is not George Bush’s fault if you or your friends have a reading comprehension problem. The fact is he DIDN’T say Iraq was involved in 9-11. Words being close together won’t hack it all. Try something else. You have no leg to stand on there.
And a bi-partisan Congress most certainly did vote to go to war. They gave the chief executive the option to go whenver he felt necessary. Why do they call it a war vote? Why did Kerry say: that even if he had known then what he knows now, he still would have voted to authorize the use of force against Iraq in October 2002.
Dugger (I’m beginning to understand why you snipe rather than debate)
You didn’t mind anonymous sources when it came to wiretaps and valerie plame, why raise your standards now?
Many sources go on “backround” and if you notice in the article they have multiple, consistent sources….the NYT could learn something from that.
Bush didn’t need to say that Saddam and 9/11 were connected because Cheney was saying it then and is still saying it now. The concept is called ‘plausible deniabilty’ also employed to insulate Saint Ronald from his guns and drugs business in Central America and Iran. Dugger, if we won your way there would be no Viet Nam for us to rule over, that ain’t victory that’s genocide in anybody’s book. And before you attack me for denigrating the military realize that the decision to destroy the country to save it would have been made by politicians not generals. Military men don’t like using up resources, ie. losing soldiers, when there is no strategic point to it, something that will affect how the war in Iraq plays out. By your definition of ‘winnable’ a nuclear war would have been winnable, your point is rhetorical, not reality based. Even Henry Kissinger realized the indiscriminate bombing of the north was ineffective and talked Nixon down when the bloodlust got the best of him and he started talking nukes. Another question is what strategic problems have followed from our withdrawal from Viet Nam? Is the US any less safe from having a non proxy state in place there? Is Austrailia quivering under threat of communist hordes streaming down through Indonesia? Who is the biggest supplier of shrimp for Red Lobster? There is a strategic difference when it comes to Iraq though and its one the neocons seem to avoid talking about, petroleum.
Dugger -
And secondly it is not George Bush s fault if you or your friends have a reading comprehension problem. The fact is he DIDN T say Iraq was involved in 9-11. Words being close together won t hack it all. Try something else. You have no leg to stand on there.
Help me out here.
At one point in a run-up to the war, the polls indicated that something like 7 in 10 people believed Iraq was involved in 9/11. However, you would have us believe that this idea simply occurred out of nowhere, and certainly not from the Bush administration.
Above, you complain that this idea is a “reading comprehension problem” on the behalf of liberals.
But most liberals didn’t believe that there was a connection between Iraq and 9/11.
So really, your ire is directed at the average Americans who are apparently just too dense to pick up the subtle nuances of George Bush’s purple prose.
I’m sure you were out there in 2003, making sure everybody understood that Bush wasn’t trying to conflate the two. It’s not his fault, after all, that all those Americans who supported the invasion did so because they didn’t hear him correctly.
BD,
Missed your response earlier. I don’t claim we can or ever will kill all Ts. I do believe that has to be our policy though. I assume your point is to the effect that while we kill terrorists we create more of the same. Wish it were that easy. Then all we would have to do is not fight back and we win the WOT, right?
AS to the idea that we have been killing Ts and we are still having to fight the war. Well yes. They are a tough and fanatical (suicidal) foe and their hatred of us and what we are (and Israel) is very deep.
I do not know if Iraq was exactly the right or wrong thing to do but I sure support a pro-active policy in fighting the Ts. Anybody who believes that the proper way to fight terrorism is to be able to repond with rescue forces more quickly after the next attack is missing something. Better to kill the people who plan to perform that next attack.
Dugger
The logic that “doing nothing would stop terrorism” is wrong and you know that’s not what I meant, so enough with the cute debate tricks, okay?
If you’ll permit a classical example, it’s the Lernean Hydra problem that Hercules had to deal with–cut off one of its nine heads, and two more took its place. He had to burn the stump that remained, in order to defeat the beast.
Killing terrorists is half of the equation. The other half is fostering an environment where no new terrorists can grow. It’s burning the stump.
Yes, I’m sure this comes across as some namby-pamby “root causes” thing, but the only way you kill something that goes so deep is by attacking the roots.
The root of terrorism is desperation and those willing to exploit it. The surest way we have to cut down on the number of new recruits is to behave the way we say we’re going to. Our credibility is a powerful weapon, because it undercuts the opportunists who would sell the a package of “America is out to steal from you, crush you underfoot, and destroy your culture.”
Abu Ghraib apologists, for one, missed this point. We told the Iraqis that we were coming in to save them from the humiliation and torture of Saddam’s regime, and then we set up a humiliation and torture chamber in his old prison. Yes, we can argue all day about how PFC England and her ilk were just a few bad eggs, but then again, the Baathists were also a few bad eggs who managed to gain control of the country.
(And no, no, a thousand times no, I’m not equating our entire military with the entirety of the Baathists.)
We’re set a higher standard. That’s what happens when you foster that image of yourself. We win the war on terror not just by defeating al-Qaida and all the other organizations, but by maintaining that higher standard.
It is you who have a reading comprehension Dugger. I neveraccused Bush of saying Iraq was involved with 9-11. DRDoper drew that conclusion for you when he questioned the proximity of two statements, I explained it was a habit picked up from Bush.
DrDoper, dumbass, yes, I did have a serious problem with anonymous sources in the Valerie Plame matter. There the anonymous sources revealed national secrets for pure political retribution against an outspoken critic of the Bush Iraq claims. that isn’t whistleblowing. There’s a difference. I did not have a problem with an anonymous source revealing Bush’s illegal (-alledged) wiretapping activities. I think that source is now revealed. That si whistleblowing, adn the details he revealed i.e. existence of a secret program operating outside the law of the US, has been confirmed by the government. Your anonymous source cites evidence unavailable to anyone, unconfirmed by the government or other sources, conclusions and evidence that would only be of benefit to the administration. In other words, why is it anonymous, why isn’t it being trumpeted by GWBUsh and his spokesmen, and why hasn’t the identity of the anonymous source been of any concern to said authorities?
Don’t you remember in the lead up to the Iraq invasion, anonymous government sources were leaking all sorts of information and evidence, much of which was shown to be untrue and known to be untrue or unreliable at the time it was leaked. This is so similar.