wrote in message
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On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 12:30:38 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

Saddam never threatened the US and Iran is not threatening the US. You
do the math. Who are they threatening?

Our oil interests in the region. Do the math.

"Oil" is a red herring for knee jerkers.
The oil companies would have been more than happy to business with
Saddam and he was a willing seller.
If we were not killing people in the middle east oil would be 30 bucks
a barrel.

But Saddam wasn't really a willing seller and he had a lot of baggage. The
great game is what was/is going on.

Actually, it's the instability that causes high prices... mostly. Complain
to OPEC for the rest. They can't seem to get it together very often.

wrote in message
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On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 12:30:38 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

All we have done is strengthen the Taliban. They are now the patriots
and we are the invader. It has come out that Bin Laden was only the
finance anyway. The real mastermind behind 9-11 was Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed and we have been torturing him in Gitmo for years.
The real deterrent to serious attacks these days is cutting off the
money, not chasing ghosts around the mountains of SE Afghanistan.
We have become very successful at that, using drug war tools.

Among some, I'm sure that's true. Most Afghanistan people just want to
live
in peace and they don't particularly like the Taliban.

True but we are giving the Taliban the reason to make them believe we
are the bad guys.
Nothing tags you as a bad guy faster that blowing up a bunch of women
and children.

We don't do that regularly, and compared to what the Taliban did and does,
it's noise.

It's nice to know you have inside information about who is doing what to
whom wrt to terrorism. I'm sure the intelligence community would like to
hear from you!

This is on the f*cking Wiki 9-11 page, (KSM/9-11) it is not a secret.

Actually, we stopped torturing him during the Bush administration, and it
was over a couple of months, not years. So much for your facts.

OK we haven't tortured him lately. He is still locked up and we will
end up hanging him some day.

And, how do you propose we "cut off the money"? We've not been successful
doing that using "drug war" tools. Actually, the Taliban were pretty good
at
it.
We are using the same kind of tracking money transfers they used to
stop the Colombia/Caymans money laundering. Now the Taliban is left
with moving money the same way the Mexican drug cartels do, in cash.
That is not easy to do from Kandahar and we are monitoring all
communications in and out of the area. OBL may be there and he may
have some millions of dollars in a bank somewhere but he has no way to
access it and if he does try, we will take the money ... just like we
would if a drug dealer had it. I guarantee you, if you wire $1000 to
your kid somewhere, NSA will see that transaction and someone will
look you both over. Back in the olden days it would only be the DEA
and IRS looking.

wrote in message
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On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 12:33:24 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


wrote in message
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On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 09:49:34 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


wrote in message
m...
On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 06:04:07 -0400, Secular Humoresque
wrote:


I agree we had no business being in Iraq but Clinton and Bush 1 were
there keeping the fire stoked. We should have come home in 1991.

Nope. They were containing Saddam. It worked.

What the hell does that mean? The sanctions were largely ineffective
and he was in the process of pushing us out anyway. Most of western
Europe had abandoned the effort. It was basically just Clinton and
Blair against the world.

They were working. They weren't perfect, but they were working, and he
wasn't a threat to the region.

How were they working? The sanctions were not working (similar to the
Iraq sanctions)

How many countries did he attack? Did he go after the Curds during the
sanctions and no-fly zone enforcement?

Was the plan to keep flying over them and bombing them for another 10
years? We were about to be kicked out and we would either leave
quietly or we would escalate the war. That idiot Bush decided to
escalate the war, using the same phony WMD argument Clinton used for 8
years.

Clinton didn't use a WMD argument to contain Saddam. He was preventing him
from attacking his neighbors. Eventually, he would have been overthrown, one
hopes anyway. In any case, it sure was cheaper than war.

The word "containment" did not get used until after the invasion.

Well, what was it called then?

This was still all about Israel. If we didn't take out Saddam, Israel
was going to try to and we would have been drawn is as Israel's ally
when the war escalated, a far worse position than just being the
cowboys with bad intel.

This has little to do with Israel, even though that's a convenient
forgetting of the facts.

OK let's just jump ahead 10 years and look at Iran. What is going to
happen there if we don't act?

I don't know. It's not clear that Israel can do much, but ultimately, we
don't need to attack Iran unless they do something truly aggressive.

What is the "over/under" on the date we attack Iran? I probably want
the under.

Attacking another country... launching missiles... who knows. Not sure what
you mean by you wanting under though.

Unfortunately our Afghan war has still put is in the position of being
at war with Islam.

Only in the eyes of the radicals. Unfortunately, they're very good at
spreading that lie. Look at the hatred people in _this_ country have
toward
Muslims.


You see the same thing in every war. You have to dehumanize the enemy.
That is the nature of war. It is the only way you can convince young
people to kill their fellow man and convince their parents to pay for
it..
In this case it is a double whammy since we are not paying for the
war. We are borrowing the money from the same generation we are making
die for the war.



Well, maybe we should stop hating Muslims. That would be a good start.


The best way to do that is to withdraw from the Crusades.

The best way to do that is to stand up to the extremists in this country...
like the fake mosque controversy.

wrote in message
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On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 12:37:09 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

The only time we had troops on the ground in Iraq was during Bush I,


Using your logic, Germany was never at war with the UK. They never had
troops on the ground there either, they were just flying over and
bombing.

?? This is your logic not mine. You're trying to equate the US with Nazi
Germany. It doesn't hold.


You are the one who defines "war" as "troops on the ground".
I am just trying to understand that.
We blockaded Iraq, denied them the use of the air space over their
country with deadly force and killed a lot of innocent civilians.
All of those things are acts of war.
You prefer the "death from the air" method of warfare. In 1940 they
called that "The Blitz"
You are only upset that we actually put some of our people at risk by
taking the next logical step.

Sorry, but you're way off base on this. It's not reasonable to equate the
two countries.

wrote in message
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On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 13:13:28 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


wrote in message
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On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 10:41:22 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

The Taliban still holds big areas in southern Afghanistan and they
will be back in Kabul the day we leave. Right now they are across the
road in Pakistan and our ability to do much there is really limited.
We are killing about 50 innocents per terrorist we kill and that is
worse that the ratio of Nazi reprisals in WWII. The rest of the world
is waking up to that reality. We also risk losing Pakistan.
If we destabilize a nuclear power we have really set world safety
back 40 years. It won't be a Soviet missile that blows up a US city,
it will be a leaked Pakistani warhead delivered in a Ryder truck or a
small boat.

Right, but they don't harbor bin laden and there are negotiations
underway
to bring them into the political framework (basically we get out, they
don't
harbor terrorists is the gist of it).

What? Bin Laden has been in Pakistan for bout 9 years. Somebody there
is harboring him. Islamabad has about as much control in that area as
Kabul. You really need a GPS to tell the difference between Pakistan
and Afghanistan down there anyway.

And your point? We went in to get bin laden. We would have settled this
without a war if the Taliban had turned him over. They didn't.

... so we are going to kill men, women and children until they do.

No wonder they hate us there.

We do it less and less. It's against policy and every incident is looked at.
See Petraeus.

Pakistan could deal with it if they really wanted to, but they have their
own political problems. And, as you said, we don't want to destabilize
that
gov't any more than necessary.

It is not clear Islamabad has any more influence in those mountains
than we do. They are shaky enough that they could lose that fight. If
they do, we all lose.




Gitmo should be closed. The Republicans and their fear-based diatribes are
holding that up too.


There are plenty of Democrats who feel the same way.
Nobody really has a better idea about what to do with the detainees.
Maybe they should load them all up on a surplus C5A and take them back
to Afghanistan. Then they could have a problem in the air, the plane
crashes and the crew were the only ones with parachutes. ;-)

wrote in message
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On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 13:13:28 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


wrote in message
. ..
On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 10:41:22 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

The Taliban still holds big areas in southern Afghanistan and they
will be back in Kabul the day we leave. Right now they are across the
road in Pakistan and our ability to do much there is really limited.
We are killing about 50 innocents per terrorist we kill and that is
worse that the ratio of Nazi reprisals in WWII. The rest of the world
is waking up to that reality. We also risk losing Pakistan.
If we destabilize a nuclear power we have really set world safety
back 40 years. It won't be a Soviet missile that blows up a US city,
it will be a leaked Pakistani warhead delivered in a Ryder truck or a
small boat.

Right, but they don't harbor bin laden and there are negotiations
underway
to bring them into the political framework (basically we get out, they
don't
harbor terrorists is the gist of it).

What? Bin Laden has been in Pakistan for bout 9 years. Somebody there
is harboring him. Islamabad has about as much control in that area as
Kabul. You really need a GPS to tell the difference between Pakistan
and Afghanistan down there anyway.

And your point? We went in to get bin laden. We would have settled this
without a war if the Taliban had turned him over. They didn't.

... so we are going to kill men, women and children until they do.

No wonder they hate us there.

Pakistan could deal with it if they really wanted to, but they have their
own political problems. And, as you said, we don't want to destabilize
that
gov't any more than necessary.

It is not clear Islamabad has any more influence in those mountains
than we do. They are shaky enough that they could lose that fight. If
they do, we all lose.




Gitmo should be closed. The Republicans and their fear-based diatribes are
holding that up too.


There are plenty of Democrats who feel the same way.
Nobody really has a better idea about what to do with the detainees.
Maybe they should load them all up on a surplus C5A and take them back
to Afghanistan. Then they could have a problem in the air, the plane
crashes and the crew were the only ones with parachutes. ;-)

Even the innocent ones? How do we know who's actually a terrorist?

On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 12:33:17 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 00:50:50 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:

BTW history may say the Iraq war deposed one of the worst dictators of
the 20th century and Afghanistan accomplished nothing ... at about the
same price.

The Iraq war was started not because of some ugly dictator. It was started
because of the neocon wetdream vision of transforming the middle east into a
laissez-faire capitalism.

Iraq all about Israel, as the upcoming Iran war will be.
Afg was and is a useless war. There is nothing to win there.

except the death of al qaida's influence

but you hate the US so regret that


The Afg. war WOULD have accomplished more than it has if Bush had actually
finished the job. He was the worst failure in US history.

Here. I posted it again for you.

Repeating a rant does not make it any more true.

read the TNR article on how bush let bin laden go

On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 15:07:17 -0400, wrote:

On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 09:47:32 -0700, "nom=de=plume"
wrote:


Nope. The Jews didn't do it this time. It was the right-wing Christians.

Saddam never threatened the US and Iran is not threatening the US. You
do the math. Who are they threatening?

iran is killing US troops. is that enough for you? oh...


Afg was and is a useless war. There is nothing to win there.

Nope. The Taliban supported and protected bin laden. There was and possibly
still is something to stablize.

All we have done is strengthen the Taliban

really? they once ran a country. now they live in caves. is that
strength where you come from?

.. They are now the patriots
and we are the invader.

so they say. and no one cares

On Thu, 07 Oct 2010 12:41:57 -0400, wrote:


Unfortunately our Afghan war has still put is in the position of being
at war with Islam.

only to the paranoid psychotic religion known as islam that considers
any living non muslim to be a threat

On Thu, 7 Oct 2010 11:07:12 GMT, "A.Boater"
wrote:


On 7-Oct-2010, bpuharic wrote:

really? where are the taliban? they still rule kabul and have al qaida
training camps in afghanistan?

Where are the boyz in the Taliban? I'll tell you. They are in secret talks
with Hamid Karzai, aimed at forging an alliance between Mullah Omar and the
"Afgan Government".

because they dont rule afghanistan. thanks. i already knew that.