Sweeping Hamas Victory in Palestinian Election

[rexallllsc]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Not any safer? How many attacks on US soil since then? And your quoted report doesn't include the Kobar Towers bombing, which was pre-9/11. How many of your recent stats include attacks taking place inside Iraq as part of an insurgency?

I feel much safer knowing we're fighting on their soil instead of ours. They've been limited to two "significant" attacks (Madrid / London) since 9/11, both close to their homebases, and neither on the scale of 9/11.

So yes, I feel much safer than I would had we simply gone into Afghanistan after 9/11 and left it at that. Because the pre-9/11 escalation of Al-Qaeda attacks tells me that we'd have been hit again, and pretty hard again, were they not so busy trying to kick us back out of the Middle East.

Wow. You really think we haven't been attacked because "we took to the fight to them"? That's pretty sad.

There was 8 years between the two WTC attacks. They seem to act very deliberately when they do.

Not that we shouldn't try to prevent it, but I find it hard to believe we won't be attacked again. The only real defense, IMO, would be a shift in foreign policy (i.e. All US troops out of the Middle East NOW.)

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by rexallllsc

Not that we shouldn't try to prevent it, but I find it hard to believe we won't be attacked again. The only real defense, IMO, would be a shift in foreign policy (i.e. All US troops out of the Middle East NOW.)

Yeah, that'll stop 'em!

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

He did actually bomb Iraq a couple of times. Hussein was considered a serious threat under Clinton, so my point stands.

No it doesn't. Let's take a look at your original statment:

Originally Posted by gstelmack

that Clinton's administration felt the same way about WMDs in Iraq.

My point was that if the Clinton Administration felt the same way about WMDs in Iraq as the Bush Administration did, they would have invaded Iraq. Since they didn't invade Iraq, they didn't feel quite the same way.

So invading Afghanistan and working hard with the Pakistani government isn't making much of an effort to bring those guys to justice? Besides, the goal here is not to bring them to justice, the goal is to stop them from hitting us again.

If the goal is to stop them from hitting us again, then I'd say that based on Madrid, London, and the 9/11 Commission's report on our vulnerability to terror, it's not been a goal attained.

Plus, there's plenty of evidence to indicate that we're not doing all that well against the terrorists in Afghanistan and, by extension, the greater "war on terror".

Yup, I do. Hussein wouldn't work with us, while the Pakistani government is (at much risk to themselves). Hussein did his best to alienate himself from the rest of the world, while Pakistan wants to join in and is helping us hunt down their violent element.

There's plenty of evidence to indicate that Pakistan's efforts have been massively overstated. For instance, the reluctance of the central government to force local governments on the border to cooperate with U.S. forces and/or interdict Al-Qaeda elements, is a big problem.

North Korea has not actually used any of that on their neighbors. Iraq had.

"We don't want the smoking gun to be the mushroom cloud." - Many members of the Bush Administration.

Not any safer? How many attacks on US soil since then? And your quoted report doesn't include the Kobar Towers bombing, which was pre-9/11. How many of your recent stats include attacks taking place inside Iraq as part of an insurgency?

Read further. The Washington Post article I linked talks about the State Department's own statistics, which do show stats from Iraq, and still show an increase in worldwide terror.

Again, do you really think Al-Qaeda haven't attacked us on U.S. soil since 9/11 because we've been in Iraq? Is that really your argument? Tell me, how many years passed before the WTC bombing and 9/11?

I feel much safer knowing we're fighting on their soil instead of ours. They've been limited to two "significant" attacks (Madrid / London) since 9/11, both close to their homebases, and neither on the scale of 9/11.

"Their soil"? So terrorism is only sustained in the hot sands of the Middle East? Again, is your argument that Madrid & London show that Al-Qaeda is no longer a threat to strike on U.S. soil?

Terrorists need a safe home base to operate from, and right now they don't have much of one. Iraq is the closest they've got, and they're having to fight for it.

Here you're just wrong. In both Madrid and London, the operations were carried out by locally-based Al-Qaeda groups.

Naive to me is thinking that by sitting back and making all nice-nice with everyone (an impossibility, by the way) this would be one happy world with everyone loving us.

Where did I say this? Come on, show me, or retract it.

You hold the Democrats up as these greate paragons of foreign policy virtue, yet Al-Qaeda grew and prospered under a Democratic foreign policy.

A cursory examination of the fact will show you that Al-Qaeda existed much earlier than 1992 and in fact many of its origins have to do with interference in the Middle East and Afghanistan by the Reagan Administration. But don't let facts get in the way of a good argument.

I'm glad we've got a President with the guts to go after these guys on their home turf

We're talking about the draft dodger, right?

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

If the goal is to stop them from hitting us again, then I'd say that based on Madrid, London, and the 9/11 Commission's report on our vulnerability to terror, it's not been a goal attained.

They were up to 3000 killed in one strike. Since then they are at 500 killed across 10 strikes (by your stats). I think we're in better shape here than the direction we were headed in.

Look at your stats again. Al-Qaeda was accelerating their attacks both here and abroad. Many of the post 9/11 attacks you discussed occured in the first 2 years after 9/11, and based on their history that means they were in planning while 9/11 was going on. Since then they've started petering out again, except in Iraq.

I think we're doing a pretty decent job of limiting their attacks. Or to phrase it another way, I think things would be MUCH worse if we hand't reacted the way we did.

Or to put forth a famous quote: "We have to get it right every time. They only have to get lucky once." Stopping them is a difficult job. But taking away their safe havens is step number one.

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

A cursory examination of the fact will show you that Al-Qaeda existed much earlier than 1992 and in fact many of its origins have to do with interference in the Middle East and Afghanistan by the Reagan Administration. But don't let facts get in the way of a good argument.

Actually, anti-American sentiment goes back to the '70s and our support of the Shah in Iran, along with our backing of Israel. Remember that Carter was President when the embassy was taken (again, I don't think party politics has anything to do with this, it won't matter if you put a peacenik like Nader in office, they're still coming after us, but if you want to keep trying to blame Republican foreign policy for this mess then be my guest; the reality is much of the fault lies with the British for using the Arabs in WWII then carving up the Middle East and abandoning quite a nice mess in their wake). They hated us to no end while fighting the Soviets in Afghanistan, even while taking our arms. We've provided a nice rallying point for these powermongers to rally their troops against and help build their power for a long time. Al-Qaeda wasn't the start, nor will it be the end of these terror groups.

We win this war by crushing the terrorist groups out of existance (you simply can't reason with these folks) while trying to make friends with the rest of the Arab world (thus taking away their ability to recruit new members). How we do that, I don't know, given that it was only a couple of decades ago that many of them were nomad tribes constantly at each other's throats. Some of this is only going to take time and effort, working with governments like Pakistan and Saudi Arabia while showing governments like Syria that we will NOT be pushed around or bullied any longer.

I think winning friends in the Middle East will be much like the Civil Rights Movement here in the US: it's going to take time, effort, a lot of bumps and bruises, and to a certain extent letting a stuck-in-their-ways generation or two die off while the youngsters grow up with a different, more tolerant outlook.

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

If you don't think the world changed on 9/11, you need to think more or harder.

How did the world change on 9/11? It seems the same to me, only much of the country went bat-shit insane with fear. What's changed, our oceans don't protect us anymore? Britian burned down Washington in 1812, and they were across an ocean. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, they are across an ocean. We spent fortysome years in a cold war against the Soviet Union, fearing annihilation from an enemy across an ocean. What else could of changed? We can't let WMD's fall into the hands of terrorists anymore? We were already doing that. Bush seems to care less about loose nukes than Clinton did, so that couldn't of changed.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by MrBigglesworth

How did the world change on 9/11? It seems the same to me, only much of the country went bat-shit insane with fear. What's changed, our oceans don't protect us anymore? Britian burned down Washington in 1812, and they were across an ocean. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, they are across an ocean. We spent fortysome years in a cold war against the Soviet Union, fearing annihilation from an enemy across an ocean. What else could of changed? We can't let WMD's fall into the hands of terrorists anymore? We were already doing that. Bush seems to care less about loose nukes than Clinton did, so that couldn't of changed.

Before 9/11, there seemed to be a general consensus that with the Soviet Union gone, there were no threats to the US, so we could simply dismantle the military. We only needed a token force to deal with the occasional disturbance.

9/11 proved that the world isn't the safe place everyone wanted to believe it was.

And as my original point stated, 9/11 meant that we'll no longer play some pissant dictator's little game with weapons that could be used to make 9/11 look like child's play.

It means that we'll look after our security first, as trying to go along with what other countries wanted and make everybody happy didn't stop 9/11 from happening.

So if you don't think that 9/11 changed our foreign policy outlook, you're much more naive than everyone is accusing me of being.

[MrBigglesworth]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

Before 9/11, there seemed to be a general consensus that with the Soviet Union gone, there were no threats to the US, so we could simply dismantle the military. We only needed a token force to deal with the occasional disturbance.

There still aren't any threats to the US. You think Al Queda is going to topple the government? We also don't need a huge force to take on Al Queda. We actually need a low tech force, and all we would need would be a token force if we had the cooperation of other nations, something you argue against two points down...

Originally Posted by gstelmack

9/11 proved that the world isn't the safe place everyone wanted to believe it was.

Everyone already knew the world wasn't safe, I'm not sure what world you were living in. There was the first World Trade bombing, the Cole, etc. A terrorist attack on NY was precicted forever.

Originally Posted by gstelmack

And as my original point stated, 9/11 meant that we'll no longer play some pissant dictator's little game with weapons that could be used to make 9/11 look like child's play.

That's nothing but rhetoric, for several reasons: 1) Some of our allies are pissant dictators with WMD's 2) Going after said dictators makes us less secure due to our vulnerability from having our forces stretched thin 3) We are not even bothering with tracking down loose nukes

Originally Posted by gstelmack

It means that we'll look after our security first, as trying to go along with what other countries wanted and make everybody happy didn't stop 9/11 from happening.

When did we go along with everyone? That's not why we were attacked. If we had pissed off more people, we wouldn't of been less vulnerable to attack.

Originally Posted by gstelmack

So if you don't think that 9/11 changed our foreign policy outlook, you're much more naive than everyone is accusing me of being.

Haha, the neocons wanted to invade Iraq long before 9/11. The only thing that changed is that people got piss in their pants scared, which allowed them to whip up the people into going to war. Foreign policy hasn't changed. Bush is going the Kerry route with regard to North Korea and Iran.

[flere-imsaho]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

I think we're doing a pretty decent job of limiting their attacks. Or to phrase it another way, I think things would be MUCH worse if we hand't reacted the way we did.

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I think our success at disrupting Al Qaeda has been overstated.

I think winning friends in the Middle East will be much like the Civil Rights Movement here in the US: it's going to take time, effort, a lot of bumps and bruises, and to a certain extent letting a stuck-in-their-ways generation or two die off while the youngsters grow up with a different, more tolerant outlook.

Well, here's something we can actually agree upon. Additionally, I think moderating elements in the Middle East can only be helped in their efforts by less of an overt U.S. presence there. This does not seem to be the policy of the current U.S. Administration.

Additionally, it's clear we need to start making real efforts to improve our intelligence, specifically in the areas of collaboration amongst agencies and in human intelligence on the ground. Again, these areas haven't really been touched by the Bush Administration.

[gstelmack]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

I think we're going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I think our success at disrupting Al Qaeda has been overstated.

Don't get me wrong, I think we can be emminently successful and still have terror attacks happening up until we finally squish the last one. The terrorists hold most of the cards in this game, especially as long as we remain a free society. I just believe that we may well have been hit harder than we have were we not making them focus most of their efforts on Iraq and Afghanistan. That's all. But this is also hard to prove, and we may never know the answer as we're each both just guessing at what could have / would have been. So I agree to disagree on the point.

[Buccaneer]

I heard on BBC's The World on NPR that there were four cities in the West Bank that were governed by Hamas prior to the election. After the election, despite a solid national victory, the Hamas government in each of those four cities were voted out. The reasons? Corruption, broken promises, incompetence and taking a hard-line culturally against a diverse, more secular population.

[flere-imsaho]

Somewhat tangentially related, but the head of Israel's domestic security agency, who's obviously a student of realpolitick, has said that having Saddam in power was preferable to the current situation in Iraq.

Source

"When you dismantle a system in which there is a despot who controls his people by force, you have chaos," he said.

"I'm not sure we won't miss Saddam."

But hey, just today the Iraqi elections were certified so they can now finally form a government. Peace and stability is just around the corner, right?

Maybe not.

Virtually every measure of the performance of Iraq's oil, electricity, water and sewerage sectors has fallen below preinvasion values even though $16 billion of American taxpayer money has already been disbursed in the Iraq reconstruction program, several government witnesses said at a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Wednesday.

[gstelmack]

For all of you who felt that Hamas would mediate its position now that it was in power, looks like you were wrong. They're sticking to their guns:

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

[Dutch]

I'm not sure anybody should be surprised. It's still Hamas afterall. The wierd part however, is when Israel targets terrorists with missile strikes, they will also be targeting elected officials. I'm not sure how that washes out.

[st.cronin]

I'm not even a little bit surprised. I actually expect them to become more extreme.

[MrBigglesworth]

All of you that thought that the Hamas rhetoric would magically change to asking for kittens and flowers on the FIRST day of parliament, what say you now???

[Deattribution]

Originally Posted by flere-imsaho

We're talking about the draft dodger, right?

This statement is absolutely hilarious on so many absurd levels when using it to try to defend Clinton.

Not that there is a ton of credibility in this thread to begin with anyway - it's all my side against your side.

[Glengoyne]

Originally Posted by gstelmack

For all of you who felt that Hamas would mediate its position now that it was in power, looks like you were wrong. They're sticking to their guns:

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

So far they are sticking to, at least, their rhetoric. The front runner to take over as PM, as I understand it, is one of if not their most moderate leaders. By moderate, I guess that is relative. Pragmatic seems to be the way that most others have described.

I still have hope, that now that they are responsible for much, that they will do what it takes to take care of their people. In my book, that means playing the game with a different deck of cards than they used to.

Changes like what we are talking about aren't happening overnight, and I don't exactly think that Hamas will advertise those changes, if/when they actually happen. So I'd expect their rhetoric to be unchanged, even if they do start to moderate.

I can't say I know enough to predict that it will happen, but I think it is unreasonable to rule it out.