Is he anything like his Swedish counterpart?

You put the phrase "only reason" into my statement. I only stated that it was "a" reason, not "the" reason for the 9/11 attacks. Are you saying that Al-Qaeda didn't hope to gain new recruits after the 9/11 attacks? Any kind of organization has to grow, and they do it through events. I'm sure I'm gonna get lambasted for these comparisons, but blood banks have donation drives, political parties have conventions and rallies, and terrorist organizations commit terrorist acts.

I also think we are saying the same thing through a different viewpoint. You are saying Iraq has made American safer, because the fight is happening off of US Soil, keeping the terrorists from attacking us because they are fighting over there. I'm saying that they don't need to have a big attack in the US, since they are getting enough recruits to join the fight because of Iraq. Same end result, no attacks in the US, but for differing reasons. You yourself said in the first line of your post that most of the Al-Qaeda in Iraq are non-Iraqis, so maybe the reasons are a combination of both viewpoints.

In my opinion, the law of unintended consequences reared it's ugly head big time in this situation.

Sending the soldiers to the slaughter mill for 'maybe this will make the US safer by moving terrorism over there' (an unproven statement) is ridiculous. Prove that Iraq has made the US a safer place today. How many terrorist attacks by Al Queda were there in the five years before 9/11? What is to say that the terrorists have stopped concentrating on the US and are now totally concentrating on Iraq?

Can you prove it hasn't?

History Lesson:

US Troops were forced to keep a watchful eye on Iraq for failing to agree to 17 UN Council Resolutions, failing to agree to the 1991 Cease-Fire Agreement, and failing to provide protection to it's people, yet supporting and harboring terrorists for 12 years.

US Troops did that by keeping troops massed in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, and Turkey.

The Al Qaeda grew increasingly angry in their approach to US soldiers (infidel armies) being based on the grounds of their two holy cities of Mecca and Medina.

Their anger swelled as they recruited more and more troops for their organization. This was during "peace".

The terrorists went on a bombing spree from Malaysia to Morrocco. The only two places they did not bomb was Iran and Iraq. Some say the reason was because these countries provide great security, others because they were allied. Logic (where facts are unavailable) suggests that Al Qaeda did not in fact hold ill-will towards Iraq and Iran and were in fact harbored by them.

The demands (diplomacy) was simple after 9/11. Leave the Holy Lands alone, or face more warfare.

After failing to remove the Iraqi problem during those 12 years (which spanned three Presidency's) the problem turned into a crisis. Not only had Al Qaeda turned into a significant military arm that could strike globally against western nations, they had won the propaganda battle for the people away from their own puppet governments (the monarchy's, the aristocracy's, the theocrats, and the dictators).

The US had no choice but to withdrawal from Saudi Arabia, but there was no way to withdrawal from there without first solving the Iraq issue. Because we all saw the intelligence from the US, UK, Germany, France, Russia, Israel, and all over the world. In hindsight we don't know what they did the stockpiles of WMD's the UN inventoried, maybe we did blow them all up in Operation Desert Fox (1998), but they had plans to continue nuclear weaponry, that was proven post Gulf War II by the UN.

Iraq was not a peaceful place or a place of good intention. The Baath party was operated by thugs. Thugs that would sooner hand a $10,000 check to a suicide bombers wife than to a Palestinian Aid Relief fund.

/History Lesson

So there was a choice. Withdrawal from Saudi Arabia and surrender to the will of Saddam Hussein, or remove Saddam Hussein from power and press the fight to Al Qaeda (who was the second part of the threat).

The process will take a long time. There's no two ways about it. But to suggest that the US would be safer today if we had withdrawn from Saudi Arabia is not being realistic or fair.

The UN proved that Saddam wanted the UN Sanctions lifted so he could re-constitute his nuclear weapons program. He was bombing towns in Israel with suicide bombers and trying to develop nuclear weapons. That's not safe or breeding peaceful co-existance. This wasn't South Africa who voluntarily gave up it's WMD's and gave UN inspectors free reign to not only dismantle the inventory but to search without appointment anywhere in the country. This was a thug driven-terror supporting-rogue state run by a man who had killed hundreds of thousands of people already and was at war almost the entire time he ruled the country of Iraq. He was looking for trouble and he finally found it. Al Qaeda was looking for trouble and they found it. Not the other way around. The USA did not cause this. Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda did.

LOLOL! Are you asking me to prove the negative?

Or rather delusions! Seeing as how Saddam Hussein was a secular leader, Iraq would definately not be on the 'friend' list. But, there were no terrorist attacks in Turkey as well. Harboring of terrorists there?



You mean the problem of a leader who was isolated, boxed in, and prevented from doing any damage? Crisis? Hardly.


Why?


I thought Bush was against the US being the "world's policeman"? And if we wanted to go after thugs, there were ones that were more pressing (and still more pressing).


He wasn't bombing a damned thing :rolleyes:. Giving money to the family of suicide bombers is a far cry from "he was bombing X". This kind of playing fast and loose with the truth is characteristic of the current administration.

And every third world country is trying to develop nukes if they can so that they can 'arrive' at the world stage. How close was he is the question.


Cute, but try telling that to parents of soldiers who didn't want to be in Iraq that it was "Saddam's fault". I don't think they'll buy into that dream. It was no one's fault but this dumbass administration that we are losing soldiers in Iraq (where we shouldn't even be - we should have been rooting out OBL in Afghanistan, but W wanted to get the guy who tried to kill daddy). End of story.

It's an all volunteer army. As far as I'm concerned, those people have nothing to complain about. They weren't bitching when they got free college tuition.

Amen....we didn't know they might have to fight when they signed up...give me a break. I feel bad for anyone who has lost their kid...I really do. I know two people who went over for 18 months and both thankfully came back safely. The majority of those soldiers know what they're doing and WANT to be there.

They may be volunteers, but guess what, their parents are VOTERS! If their kids didn't see the need to go to Iraq or their parents thought their kids died in a meaningless war, that's making a different at the ballot box. If they don't believe the war was "Saddam's fault" then that has a big impact.

Whether their kids are volunteers or draftees is irrelevant. It is the effect of their deaths and if people believe whether the conflict was needed is the point.

Yes. However, I think there's an expectation that going to war is a big decision that should only be used as a last resort (and justly at that). Not a new crusade. Not a war for revenge. Not a war for an unknown, sinister reason.

I think that's what bothers people. This is not WWII. This is Vietnam II.

Edit: sp

Bingo. A lot of people, including some parents who have lost their children, believe the war was a waste. That it was for no reason other than revenge and a sideshow from the real WoT. You'll note that people did not get upset when soldiers died in Afghanistan because it was justified and for a good reason. Iraq is entirely different animal.

rexallllsc, rowech, Franklinnoble. I agree its an all volunteer active army force/reserves and I know the friends I had in the first Gulf War all were gung-ho before-during-after. Only one acquaintance in the second Gulf War and he was on the Military Channel as a team member that caught Saddam, pretty cool.

I suspect the vast majority in the military support this action. Its not gotten to Vietnam II yet in terms of military support/morale etc.

Nevertheless, I think some consideration should be given to the national guardsman. I think the ones in the units that got sent really got hosed.

"The president is not going to make military decisions for Israel," White House spokesman Tony Snow said.

He didn't have a problem asking Iran to stop their nuclear program (even though it's not known if it's military purposes), or for NK to give up their Nuke program!

The US made some very real gains in Afganistan: overthrowing the Taliban and installing a less repressive regime. But there is the possibilty that those gains could slip away. The Taliban have reorganized and are mounting a growing insurgency. Western military manpower does not appear adequate at this time to maintain security in many places outside Kabul.

Karzai's government is in danger of losing its already tenuous ability to govern areas outside of Kabul because of the insurgency and tribal politics. Another problem is the growing role of narcotics production--Afghanistan's economy is increasingly reliant on it and the drug kingpins of Afghanistan have grown more powerful to the point that they operate with impunity as everyone else is focused on the Taliban.

Not sure what can be done now, but it does seem that some of the present problems would have been mitigated if security was maintained during Karzai's early years allowing his government's institutions to take root throughout the country.

I always say it...Germany does what they did in 1938-1945 and we would ignore it today. We would have simply let them take over Europe because politically, it would be "bad" to go and our kids would get over there and they wouldn't even bother to fight. Sad to know this country is on it's last legs because of how radically different our citizens are because of Vietnam.

In addition, this isn't EVEN CLOSE to vietnam. We lost something like 50,000 men there...we've not even lost 3000 here.

Well, even back then, we did let them do it. We didn't send any troops until after we were attacked by Japan. We didn't confront Germany directly until 1942.

I think what bothers most people is the lack of post-war planning and ability to stablize thing, not the war itself. The reasoning Bush gave to the people could have of been better, but I really don't think it would mean anything if we are able to suceed in Iraq.

Are you kidding?

Besides the obvious flaw that we ignored what Germany did then, and only attacked them after they declared war on us, there is another problem with your argument: name a country that has been invaded by another country that we did nothing about in the past 20 years. Name a European conflict, even a civil one, that we have failed to act on since the iron curtain fell.

But now because people are against an aggressive war only after three years of it being a complete failure, that means that we wouldn't stop another aggressor?

Well, at least they don't have to suffer through the Lions. ;)

I'm saying we wouldn't even have gone after we were bombed. We would have seen how tough those two would have been and said no way.

Is this based off of any evidence, or just a gut feeling that you have?

Yeah.. because there really was a lot of opposition to going into Afghanistan after 9/11. Please, get in touch with reality.


That's probably true, but I think those things really got peoples' ire up about why we went in the first place. I think it also seems to feed into what rexallllsc was talking about with the idea that it wasn't for any noble purpose, but for revenge (or whatnot) and it seemed like we went there as quickly as we possibly could (after trying to sell it to the UN once) and didn't use the war as a last resort.

I think the reasoning undermined the operation from the beginning.

Not to mention, Baghdad is worse off now than it was under Saddam.

hxxp://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/513779.html

You can't compare body counts. Too many reasons to go over.

Why does any polictal discussion on here, any other board or discussion with people in general in america always go back to 9/11 and Iraq. This is a bi-partisan leveled criticism of both parties. Maybe this is one reason why everyone else in the world finds us Americans to be arrogant egotistical, who think everything is about us. Sorry, long day at work and all this middle east shit has kind of pissed me off. People on this planet just suck .

No argument here.

BUSH 2004

:)

http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/...ast/index.html

Hezbollah declares they are ready for "open war" and will bring the war to Haifa if Israel continues to hit Beruit or the suburbs

Breaking News according to CNN: Hezbollah declares they are going to "open war", they have fired rockets on 6 israeli towns and wounded at least 100 people

Rowech: You really have no idea what you are talking about. There is no comparison between Islamic terrorism and WWII. Go read some history and enlighten yourself. To say the US wouldn't have gotten involved in WWII even after Pearl Harbor is pure ignorance.

:(

My question would be why have we not bombed North Korea? It should have been done months ago...instead we continue to prolong this. Why? Because public opinion would not allow us to do it. I'm not saying Afghanistan time period...I'm saying right now.

I realize it's impossible to transplant times, etc. I love watching Israel do what they're doing though. They have two soliders captured, not even killed, and they go to bat for those two folks.

you know it's bad when i start getting addicted to watching cnn

I have a very good sense of history, thanks. Why do people want us to come home from everywhere then, even after 9/11? It is a modern day Pearl Harbor. The war in Iraq, generally speaking, I will grant you had nothing to do with 9/11. However, most polls show the desire to pick up out of Iraq too.

Given light of Vietnam and now Iraq/Afghanistan if we picked up and left and were attacked 5 years down the road, public opinion would not allow us to go fight a major war against a major power.

needless to say Im pretty happy Syria & Iran dont have nukes right now.

North Korea is comparable to Nazi Germany to you? What kind of threat is NK? They barely have missiles that could reach Japan.

Hezbollah rockets are exploding in Isreal as I type this, in all likelihood killing Isreali civilians. This is what you show as an example of the right way to act?

On a side note...I wish there was a new version of FOF so we could all talk about it instead of this or the other countless number of non-FOF related topics on the board. Hopefully, that's something we can all agree with.

I have to wonder that if one of them did have nukes, if Isreal would have escalated things the way they did.

Well, this is important. I'm upset about it enough that I really haven't been able to get good work in the last couple of days.

I'm always worried that these groups are going to get the weaponry needed to eliminate Israel once and for all. Do we even think for a second that if Iran builds a nuclear weapon that it's not going to be in the hands of militants within minutes?

It's pretty much a roll of the dice that I'm an American. My ancestors, being victims of the Russian pogroms of the 1890s, may have had a choice whether to flee through Ellis Island, as so many did, or join the Zionist movement settling what now is Israel. I'm always going to feel very connected to those who live in Israel today, under constant threat. Will there even be an Israel five years from now?

Nope. like america, they lack the will to decalre total war. unlike us, however, being in the middle of it all will result in their total defeat. oh wel....their choice - i voted for Netanyahu!

There is no question there is a difference in the threat of nuclear weapons now as there was then. When it was the USSR/USA, no matter what, I think the majority of people on both sides understood that if we use one, it's the end and that mutual assured destruction was enough. (read/rent Fail-Safe if it's never been viewed for the ultimate in decisions)

I agree with you on this...I do believe if Iran had a bomb, they would not hesitate to use it against Israel...not for a second. Israel would not hesitate to use theirs either but they would use many many more.

What brings up the point, should Israel or anyone else look at going after Iran before they have the capabilities of a nuclear weapon?

Fuck yeah. look at how many deaths they are directly resposble for in the past 3 days alone.

I love history and it is fascinating to watch this current crisis unfold. If this escalates a little more, its something our children will read in the history books.

It does look as if its hitting the fan as per cnn, foxnews etc. Very pessimistic, maybe not WWIII but probably a regional war ... I think its beyond the point of no return between Israel and Hezbollah/Hamas and it'll be a knife fight.

I think the real question is: will Syria, and then Iran will get into the fracas, will the US get pulled in and (to amdaily, solecismic point) will there be an Israel 5 years from now.

My dad was a diplomat. I wish Israel and Palestine was able to work it out by negotiating.

A valid complaint, but would be a "last resort"? We have tried to talk with Iraq for a long time, and Saddam kicked out UN inspectors and peacekeepers. I guess a big concern is what is consider "last resort"? I don't want to be trigger happy, but I don't want to allow a country like Iran or North Korea to obtain nukes when we have the ability to stop that from happening. We have talked with many of these countries for a long time, but what does talk do to these leaders? You can't change them.

Who is directly responsible? Iran? :confused:

according to bloggingbeirut.com the lebanese army repelled an israeli amphibioius landing attempt by Sidon.

What's "open war"? I heard that the Hezbollah missed a Israeli ship and hit a ship from Egypt. This true?

The Hezbollah is an "arm" of Iran.

not according to CNN. it's being reported as an israeli ship, with varying degrees of damage depending on who you listen to