Originally posted by st8_o_mind
Well, forgive my absense. I needed a break. It seems my comment that W is a weak commander did not sit well with everyone. Ah well.
Well, forgive my absence. I needed a break. It seems my comment that W is a weak commander did not sit well with everyone. Ah well. HereÂ’s a few thoughts for the grist mill.
Once would have been sufficient!
As I already posted, we have squandered the good will of our allies, vast sums of money, and our military forces to fight Iraq, a country that posed no direct threat to the United States while the terrorists who did attack us were reorganizing and recovering from the Afghan conflict.
Please, our allies are right where they were before, nothing has changed. Don't believe the liberal hype you read in the local rags. Shoot, even those that weren't our allies are now lining up to make mends with the US!
Vast sums of money have been spent thus far on the war on terrorism. I consider every last cent spent to be well worth it.
The war in Iraq was quite necessary. Almost every objective has been reached. The miltary never left Afghanistan, and you'll notice things are quite a bit different over there now too. Yes, Al Qaeda and Osama are still on the loose. But now you have 2 countries that are better off than they were 2 years ago.
They absorbed the blow from the mightiest military in the world and they are not only back on their feet, they are launching deadly attacks throughout the world, have decentralized their command making a decapitation strike near impossible, dispersed their human, intellectual and financial assets, and, thanks to the antipathy to the US which now stands as the most hated country in the world, they are recruiting a new generation of terrorists. The King of Jordan warned that attacking Iraq would create 100 new Osama bin Ladens. I fear that may be quite true. Thanks George.
And yet all the while hundreds of terrorist plots have been foiled and hundreds of terrorists have been either captured or killed.
Do I think the war against terrorists will be over in two weeks? No. Two years? No. IÂ’m not even sure we can win this war. How do you defeat an idea? You canÂ’t capture a person, a city or even a country now and stop terrorism. Or even contain it.
You do what we've been doing all along, take them out one cell or one terrorist at a time. Ignoring them certainly isn't going to help matters. Many will claim it was either Bush or Clinton ignoring them to begin with that lead us to not be able to thwart 9/11. So which way do you think we should proceed?
No, I donÂ’t think the war will be over soon. And Bush's oft-stated declaration that Iraq is the front lines in the war against terror is a load of dung. I live a few blocks from the Capitol. I am on the front lines in the war against terrorism. So are my friends in New York. And Spain. And Turkey. And Indonesia. And so is your family wherever you live. The enemy strikes when and where he chooses, is not a standing army that can be attacked in a conventional sense, has no borders that can be controlled, no king to surrender.
Currently, more terror strikes are being perpetrated in Iraq than anywhere in the world. You're also contradicting yourself here. You just stated a few breaths ago that we shouldn't have left Afghanistan. But if the front lines are in NY, Spain, Turkey... why would it matter where we are taking on the terrorists?
The first rule of battle is to understand the enemy. George the military genius said we were attacked on 9/11 because the terrorists “hate freedom.” What scares the piss out of me is that may really be as deep as debya’s understanding of terrorism runs.
Know thy enemy? Our commander in chief doesnÂ’t know shit.
Bush will get briefed daily and will make decisions when necessary. His decisions will be based on recommendations from the miltaries top brass and top security advisors. I think they are extremely competent and experienced.
You can't possibly proceed to rule #1 without understanding your own country first.
