Be Careful what you wish for

[NickCole]

I don't, and didn't, in my post to Naked gent state that Iraq and Afghanistan wasn't a recruiting tool for Al Qeada and others. I posted that so was 9-11 and other activities of militant Islam since. Our "top intell" experts are saying that. I doubt they are saying things like, "Bush and Co.'s unnecessary and mismanaged war there."...have any sites for that statement from them?

The wording was mine and I never pretended it was anybody else's. My assertion is supported by the link I already posted:

"The war in Iraq has become a primary recruitment vehicle for violent Islamic extremists, motivating a new generation of potential terrorists around the world whose numbers may be increasing faster than the United States and its allies can reduce the threat, U.S. intelligence analysts have concluded.

"A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/23/AR2006092301130.html​

Unless Bush & Co intended their war in Iraq to become the primary recruitment vehicle for violent terrorists or that the situation in Iraq would worsen our position with terrorism, clearly the war has been mismanaged. That it was unnecessary was obvious to some of us from the start but became unavoidably true once it was discovered Saddam Hussein was hiding no stockpiles of WMD.

This is from the official report to the DCI concerning "detainees, aggressive interigation and it's intell value. ...

Not only did I read the exerpt you pasted, I read the entire report. Nothing there about waterboarding "saving countless lives." That came out of your own imagination.

The entire document is a good read.

I used to write documents like that for a living. The wording is chosen very carefully. Your interpretation was an embellishment out of your own fantasy.

How bout' Bush supporters...The New York Times, Sep. 10 2006?

"There is a consensus among counterterrorism officials and independent experts that the government’s actions over the last five years — from the dismantling of camps run by Al Qaeda and the decimation of its leadership, to the tightening of visa and border controls, to the scores of terrorism-related prosecutions — have made the country a harder target."

"Have made the country a harder target," which is the BEST of all the vague stuff you quoted, does not support your claim that, "Reforms in American intell and cooperation between agencies and our allies have prevented MANY attacks that we know of." You alter information into dishonest propagandist lines the same way Bush & Co did to sell their Iraq war.

 

[NickCole]

Will they guess right with America? Thats up to today's Democrat Party.

The neocon BushRepublican war in Iraq has been a huge mistake. (I characterize it that way not to be insulting but to be accurate. Neocon Republicans were urging this during Clinton's presidency and he rejected the idea. As soon as they had power and a way to justify invading Iraq (9/11), dishonest as it was, they jumped at it.)

If you can't see that then you are incapable of seeing reality.

It's a huge mess that cannot be fixed, that's pretty much what General Abuziad said yesterday. More troops, no that won't help. Pull out, no that's not an answer. Partitioning, nope that won't fix anything. He's right.

There is no way to achieve "victory." That opportunity was lost a while ago through Bush & Co's incompetence.

So what we have to do now is come up with a plan that minimizes the damage and gets us out of this disaster of spending hundreds of billions of dollars for the privilege of getting Americans killed in Iraq and making Arabs hate us even more. We have got to get out of there.

That doesn't mean Al Qaeda wins, it means we're smart enough to recognize a mistake and to stop pouring our resources into it.

 

[Andreus]

Terrorist Acts Suspected of or Inspired by al-Qaeda
1993 (Feb.): Bombing of World Trade Center (WTC); 6 killed.
1993 (Oct.): Killing of U.S. soldiers in Somalia.
1996 (June): Truck bombing at Khobar Towers barracks in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia, killed 19 Americans.
1998 (Aug.): Bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania; 224 killed, including 12 Americans.
1999 (Dec.): Plot to bomb millennium celebrations in Seattle foiled when customs agents arrest an Algerian smuggling explosives into the U.S.
2000 (Oct.): Bombing of the USS Cole in port in Yemen; 17 U.S. sailors killed.
2001 (Sept.): Destruction of WTC; attack on Pentagon. Total dead 2,992.
2001 (Dec.): Man tried to denote shoe bomb on flight from Paris to Miami.
2002 (April): Explosion at historic synagogue in Tunisia left 21 dead, including 11 German tourists.
2002 (May): Car exploded outside hotel in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 14, including 11 French citizens.
2002 (June): Bomb exploded outside American consulate in Karachi, Pakistan, killing 12.
2002 (Oct.): Boat crashed into oil tanker off Yemen coast, killing 1.
2002 (Oct.): Nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia, killed 202, mostly Australian citizens.
2002 (Nov.): Suicide attack on a hotel in Mombasa, Kenya, killed 16.
2003 (May): Suicide bombers killed 34, including 8 Americans, at housing compounds for Westerners in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
2003 (May): 4 bombs killed 33 people targeting Jewish, Spanish, and Belgian sites in Casablanca, Morocco.
2003 (Aug.): Suicide car-bomb killed 12, injured 150 at Marriott Hotel in Jakarta, Indonesia.
2003 (Nov.): Explosions rocked a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, housing compound, killing 17.
2003 (Nov.): Suicide car-bombers simultaneously attacked 2 synagogues in Istanbul, Turkey, killing 25 and injuring hundreds.
2003 (Nov.): Truck bombs detonated at London bank and British consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, killing 26.
2004 (March): 10 bombs on 4 trains exploded almost simultaneously during the morning rush hour in Madrid, Spain, killing 191 and injuring more than 1,500.
2004 (May): Terrorists attacked Saudi oil company offices in Khobar, Saudi Arabia, killing 22.
2004 (June): Terrorists kidnapped and executed American Paul Johnson, Jr., in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia.
2004 (Sept.): Car bomb outside the Australian embassy in Jakarta, Indonesia, killed 9.
2004 (Dec.): Terrorists entered the U.S. Consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, killing 9 (including 4 attackers).
2005 (July): Bombs exploded on 3 trains and a bus in London, England, killing 52.
2005 (Oct.): 22 killed by 3 suicide bombs in Bali, Indonesia.
2005 (Nov.): 57 killed at 3 American hotels in Amman, Jordan.
2006 (Aug.): More than 25 arrested in plot to blow up jetliners between London and U.S.

and the american republican violence upon americans....

...

Level of violence and harassment at abortion clinics

One source reported in late 1996, that there has been "over $13 million in damage caused by violent anti-abortion groups since 1982 in over 150 arson attacks, bombings, and shootings." 1

​

[FONT=trebuchet ms,arial,helvetica]Notes:

1. Includes 554 Anthrax hoaxes.
2. Partial data for 2004, as of 2004-SEP-16.

[/FONT]
...

it would seem you have a sellective method of focus and seem to not care that more violence is being perpetrated, systematically, against american citizens, specifically pregnant women and doctors, BY american Citizens, specifically the pollitically conservative ones.

OOppps

wouldn't want to infer that you are engaging in the politics of fear just to further your own political agenda.

 

[NickCole]

Your own source claims nothing about mismanagment.

As I said, unless the intent was to create a breeding ground for terrorists, that's mismanagement. One would think the intent would be to diminish the number of terrorists and terrorist threat to us, rather than increase both.

It simply states that the presence of a large American force in Iraq, (or anywhere else in the islamic middle-east I'm sure...), is a catalist for terrorist action and recruitment.

No that is not all it states. It's not merely "the presence" that is a catalyst for increased terrist recrutiment and hostility. From the article:

"A 30-page National Intelligence Estimate completed in April cites the "centrality" of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, and the insurgency that has followed, as the leading inspiration for new Islamic extremist networks and cells that are united by little more than an anti-Western agenda. It concludes that, rather than contributing to eventual victory in the global counterterrorism struggle, the situation in Iraq has worsened the U.S. position, according to officials familiar with the classified document."

Dealing with the insurgency is what Bush & Co have mismanaged and allowed to spiral out of control. THAT'S the problem, not our simple presence there.

We could of course sit at home under the covers and hope the bad man go away.

There you go again.

Our options do not end at either pulling the covers over our heads or being engaged in a war that's producing nothing but dead bodies, debt and ill will against the United States. We are achieving nothing of value in Iraq and that's not going to change by staying the course. What Democrats have been saying is that we have to explore our other options. That means discussion and debate, which Republicans have done their best to silence by calling all opposition opinion anti-American or unpatriotic or pro-terrorist. We need to have an open and wide ranging discussion about our options and everybody needs to be involved. That's probably the reason Democrats were voted into power -- Americans know that Democrats won't banish Republicans from the discussion as Republicans have done everything they can to do to Democrats these past years.

The report is specific to our intelligence agencies program of detainee "agressive interigation". It was specific to the defense of charges of various forms of that interigation. You just didn't grasp that huh?

I grasped it just fine. Nowhere in there does it say that waterboarding "saved countless lives."

From the C.I.A. to the Director of Central Intelligence? Oh well. I couldn't possibly come up with any report more clear than that.

If the report said what you claimed it said, you'd have cut & pasted that into your post. But you didn't. You cut & pasted what you want me to believe says what you claim. But it doesn't say that. All you did was show how your mind alters what you read into something that suits your bias.

Reading comprehension is really not your forte, is it? I have posted numerous sources of evidence to both you and naked gent in this thread supporting my assertions exactly.

The sources you've cited do not support your assertions exactly. They don't even support your assertions inexactly. Your assertions are embellishments and not truthful.

I have posted , for instance, the New York Times article which states tha the Homeland Security Act and various reforms and new found cooperation among the intelligence services have netted real results in the successful breaking of Al Qeada cells and foiling active plots.' I'm sorry, but how much more clear does it get?

Which part of that is supposedly a quote from the New York Times? The article you posted does not state what you wrote above. Did you think, because you didn't include a link, I wouldn't find and read the article?

Your assertion, "Reforms in American intell and cooperation between agencies and our allies have prevented MANY attacks that we know of." remains unsubstantiated.

I posted at least three to five unbiased, (biased Left actually...), sources.

None of which supported your assertion.

Somehow I think that when presented with sources that you just don't like, it all becomes fuzzy to you....

Your sources are fine. Unfortunately for you, nothing in them supports your assertions.

 

[NickCole]

Mr. Clinton supported our invasion of Iraq, countrary to what you revisionist of the Left claim today,

No he didn't. Clinton said Bush should have waited until the inspections were completed, which is what most of the opposition to the war said.

Were you watching the same hearing bud? Gen. Abuziad said nothing of the kind. In fact he said that...

He said that more troops should not be deployed and that we should not pull out. He also said partitioning would not work. He supports staying the course, continuing as we have. Well, that has been a failure and there isn't a single sliver of evidence that doing the same thing over and over won't produce the same failed results. So unless one buys into Abizaid's stay the course assessment, one has to reasonably conclude from his full report that the situation is unfixable.

...it sucks to loose a war, lets not deny what will happen...

We don't know what will happen. Republicans are pretending they know what will happen, just like Republicans pretended they knew what would happen if we invaded Iraq. You do not know, and that's an important thing to recognize in determining our next step.

 

[naked gent]

It's a huge mess that cannot be fixed, that's pretty much what General Abuziad said yesterday. More troops, no that won't help. Pull out, no that's not an answer. Partitioning, nope that won't fix anything. He's right.

I like your summation of Abuziad's testimony Nick. Jon Stewart would be proud.

 

[Kulindahr]

I listened to a bunch of what Gen. Abuziad had to say, and found it an intriguing mix of hopeful and discouraging. I paid a bit more attention to the two-faced hypocrite McCain, though, so I may have misses nuances. I did get the impression, though, that the good general is taking a view longer than any of our politicians are: beyond the span of terms of office. Recall that politicians as we know them are always focused, above all else, on the next election. Abuziad doesn't worry about elections, he's worried about getting the job done -- though I could see he was considering politics in his answers, as well.
That longer view is important. If we had gone with the original plan -- keeping the Iraqi army intact and using it to keep order, alongside our own forces -- AND if we'd gone in with a simpler plan, such as turn Iraq into a tribal Republic, or something -- then we could have been in, achieved some rebuilding and given them new infrastructure as well, and departed in a matter of under a year, easy. Unfortunately, Bremer and Rummy disbanded the army, departing soldiers stole munitions which ended up in the hands of terrorists, and some became terrorists themselves, others fed the various "militias", and most drifted around unemployed. Now we have what my old colonel friend from the U.S. Army would politely call a "clusterfuck".
But it is possible to recover from a c-f, and that is where the longer view comes in: it takes time, it takes patience, it takes a steely will -- none of which the American public has had; we even almost gave up in the Civil War (thanks to the forebears of today's Democrats). It's a process that might take decades, as it took the British in India, but it can be done.

The problem is that our presence there does in fact help recruit terrorists. It's not as extreme as having our forces in Saudi Arabia, which is considered sort of holy ground, but the presence of "infidels" from "the Great Satan" on the lands of Islam is offensive to quite a few, and of those, some turn to the path of violence.

So if the goal is a stable government in Iraq that won't fall to radicals Islamists about as fast as our troop planes get home, "victory" is possible, just not on any time scale that either politicians or the U.S. electorate will tolerate; if the goal is a serious blow against terrorism, well, we did that at the start, but they're gaining more recruits than ever, I think, and it won't be long till if we just look at that aspect we're worse off than ever.

So a balance has to be struck, a cost-benefit analysis, really, and the big question in that is just how damaging it will be if we leave Iraq before we've achieved that stable government. There's no doubt that it will be damaging, in several ways, one of which is that if we leave too soon, the world will shake its collective head and sigh that we didn't learn a thing from Vietnam. And the way the politicians are going, it looks like we're right back there, with politicians mucking about in long-range matters that they want "taken care of" in the short term, so they can point to "success" before the next election.