OK Am i the only one who sees that a war on Terrorsism won't do anything long lasting or really all that helpful. I mean Terrorsism has been around since the done of man and it will be here in one form or another untill we are gone, or untill humans learn peace. So thats great the US charged into the middle-east and did a whole bunch of nothingness. Yeah sure we disrupted Al-quada and they are in hiding, now thats all good and fine, but what about all the other radicles in the world. I mean middle-easterns are not all terrorists. I mean lets look at a whole series of terrorists invading the US called GANGS. I mean if you truly belive we are in the middle-east for terrorism then ask yourself why aren't we occupying every country on earth. Because Terrorists are not a bunch of guys in caves with guns.Terrorism is all humans who use there great minds for death, including the US goverment.

peace

I mean.... yeah... like...no one but you sees it. ;oS

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"Trust none of what you hear And less of what you see" Springsteen

When the Founding Fathers protected our right to free speech, I think that meant we were supposed to use it.

Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi was the world's most unhinged lunatic. He's now dead. So that moves Ann Coulter up to first place - David Letterman

O, when she is angry she is keen and shrewd; / She was a vixen when she went to school, / And though she be but little, she is fierce. — Shakespeare

51 days left http://www.backwardsbush.com/

Terrorism can be curbed and beaten. In fact it is WORKING in Iraq. And it has worked in places like Northern Ireland. A war on terror works better when you do not hamstring your options and create politically correct methods of fighting. The US soundly defeated a terror war in the Philippines in the early 1900's And the British beat one in Malaya ( I believe that is correct) in the 1950's.

Just allowing terror to continue and escalate is ignorant as hell. What you are suggesting is to just give terrorists what ever they demand or suffer their attacks.

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The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

Oh so others do see it, so just further proof americans are fat and lazy.

thats cool great! it woks! Wait we use force to control terrorism. so we are just using terrorism to fight terrorism, thats awsome! Look man You can't really fight terrorism with out causing more of it. Simple as that. I mean come on Osama was trained by the CIA. further proof that terror leads to terror leads to terror. If we truly want to fight terrorism why not stop thee gang shootings in the country first? I mean we could try to stop terrorists in the middle east, but that just makes the US weaker. The real terror is the economy, the gas prices, the low education standerds. I mean we are trying to fight a state of mind most americans have been living in since 9/11.
so no you can't stop or slow down terrorism untill humans can live in true peace, somethung you or i will never see.

You are aware that Osama Bin Laden was NOT trained, equiped or supplied by the US Government in Afghanistan? Well of course you are not cause you just made that statement. We worked with the Northern groups which did not have ARAB contingents.

__________________
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

After leaving college in 1979 bin Laden joined Abdullah Azzam to fight the Soviet Invasion of Afghanistan and lived for a time in Peshawar.By 1984, with Azzam, bin Laden established Maktab al-Khadamat, which funneled money, arms and Muslim fighters from around the Arabic world into the Afghan war. Through al-Khadamat, bin Laden's inherited family fortune paid for air tickets and accommodation, dealt with paperwork with Pakistani authorities and provided other such services for the jihad fighters. During this time bin Laden met his future al-Qaeda collaborator Ayman al-Zawahiri, who encouraged Osama to split away from Abdullah Azzam. Osama established a camp in Afghanistan, and with other volunteers fought the Soviets.Abdullah Azzam was funded by the american CIA to help fight the soviets. so go fuck your self

Zeddicus is right, of course.

People living in every ghetto in american live with terror every day.

Why aren't we protecting them?

(Hint-- there's no oil under Harlem.)

That is very much disputed since the notable documents have not been declassified because then we would have evidence for the indictment of even more Reaganites who carried out his policy of organizing, funding and using as proxies international terrorist organizations who carried out crimes against humanity as an extension of American foreign policy. If you are under 30 and live until 100, you may live long enough to know what our government knows of the truth.

What we do know is nothing like RetiredGySgt has expressed.

Firstly the "northern groups" did not formalize any alliance until 1996 out of necessity due to the oncoming onset of the Afghan civil war. These ethnic Afghans did not work necessarily inside the same organization as the Arab groups to which the poster mentioned, known as the "Afghan Arabs," but they certainly were unified in opposition to the Soviet forces, the only reason why the CIA was funneling money and training into Afghanistan. This relationship model used between the Afghans and the Arabs has been used all over the world, for example in Algeria. It was that model that bin Laden used as the basis for al-Queda. A unified effort without necessarily being aware of other cells working for and loyal to the main effort. Just like bin Laden's call today for jihad, the Mujahideen (derived from the arabic word Jihad) were answering a general call to resistance. Like today, there was no central command.

Secondly, there is no documentary evidence that bin Laden's weapon trafficking network did not receive the benefit of US funding and training exercises. The CIA, as well as Chinese Intel services were funding the Afghanistan effort through Pakistani intell (ISI). It is well known that ISI absolutely did not discriminate against the Arab factions, and in fact it would make sense that they would be partial to them because they were not native. For instance, if bin Laden was receiving the benefits of that funding, he is more likely to go back to Saudi Arabia and not be a threat to Pakistan, whereas the Afghan networks were much less likely to leave, and thus be armed and organized on Pakistan's border. Notably, Bin Laden has said he never saw any benefits of American funding, but that isn't credible. His interest is in promoting Islamic Unity. Saying the Americans helped benefit the Mujahideen's great victory in Afghanistan doesn't serve his interests.

So basically no, we don't know that the CIA funded or trained bin Laden's network, but its basically irrelevant because bin Laden was a small player who was trafficking weapons into Afghanistan. If I was to speculate, I would say he did not see CIA benefits. However, and in my view much more important, is that we do know that the networks established by the money being supplied by ISI into groups resisting the Soviet invasion was EXACTLY what bin Laden exploited after the Soviet withdrawal to establish what we have come to know as al-Queda.

Of course the term al-Queda (literally "the base") is basically a boogie man word, but thats another story all together.

So when the CIA said that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and intended to build more, they were lying, when they said They never funneled money or training to Osama Bin Laden, they were lying, when they said Iran has Nuclear weapon ambitions they were lying, etc etc etc, BUT when they said Valarie Plame was an undercover operative, they were the most truthful organization on the face of the earth?

__________________
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

We are not lazy!

I really like that smiley, it's just so cute!

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Poor Spot! He was tired of being thought of as stupid. "I'm gonna join Mensa," he said to myself, "and then I'll be legally permitted to wear the society's insignia--a tattoo of a little map pin pushed into my flesh--and then everyone'll know that I'm not dumb at all!"
Spot Joins Mensa
by James "Kibo" Parry

Iraq - no, the CIA told the white house exactly what they knew. It was the white house that decided what of that information they would use for their PR campaign to kill, as of today, 4103 American soldiers in a war of national liberation not unlike Castro's wars in Africa or Khrushchevian foreign policy.

Funding bin Laden - they wouldn't know on money, most was funded through ISI. Either way, the documentary evidence will never be released, so we go on the word of both sides. Bin Laden nor the CIA want it to look like they funded him, so we really don't know. It may or may not be true. Without question, the CIA was funding networks and cells that later became rolled into the al-Queda movement.

Iran - has nuclear ambitions. Any independently minded observer couldn't blame them. If I were to speculate, they don't want to deal with a nuke but like N Korea they have to prove they can do it. What they really want is for Israel's nukes to be disarmed and the threat of invasion lifted, which will never happen.

Plame - in the CIA's broad undercover designation, she most certainly was.

Spot on.

The CIA is NOT to blame for the war in Iraq.

George Bush and his band of chickenhawks are. They selectively took only the information that supported their case for war and systematically repressed any information that did not, and more, they repressed anyone with in the INTEL or MILITARY community who had the audacity to point this out, too.

The CIA reported what they knew and what they knew would NOT have lead anyone to assume that Saddam was a REAL THREAT to the USA.

Mushroom clouds over New York, indeed.

Forking liars.

And yet the 2002 NIE proves both of you so wrong as to be mind bending.

__________________
The fact that an opinion has been widely held is no evidence whatever that it is not utterly absurd. Indeed in view of the silliness of the majority of mankind, a widespread belief is more likely to be foolish than sensible.

-Bertrand Russell

Facts are stubborn things, but statistics are more pliable

-Laurence J. Peters

I never said that you had no right to have an opinion. I just said that it was, in fact, worth nothing.

-Maineman ( on 12 June 2007)

NIE are signed off on the NSC Adviser, who serves at the pleasure of the president.