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  Sarge at 08:26 AM JST - 19th June

  Jahdog - "Iran's gain"

  You mean Iranian people no longer being killed by Saddam? Is that a bad thing? You happy about that?

  "Wingers"

  What are Wingers?

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  Jahdog at 08:35 AM JST - 19th June

  I mean Iran's greatly increased influence in the region, amounting to a Shiite Crescent: the possibility of Iranian domination of a weak and divided Shi'a-dominated Iraq. In a recent visit to the region, in fact, I found a dominant concern in the Gulf countries to be the possibility that the United States, by intervening as we did in Iraq, may inadvertently be creating a Shi'a crescent in the northern tier of the Arab world, which could offer Iran unique opportunities that it has not had for many years, to exercise a dominant role, and to exercise that role in ways that may be destabilizing to others. http://www.mepc.org/forums_chcs/41.asp

  You know, the stuff the CIA and State Dept warned W about before the invasion?

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  Simon_Foston at 09:54 AM JST - 19th June

  Sarge said...

  "Jahdog - "Iran's gain"

  You mean Iranian people no longer being killed by Saddam? Is that a bad thing? You happy about that?"

  It's not such a great idea to use the Iran-Iraq conflict to support the "America rid the world of a dangerous tyrant and spread democracy" argument. Not when President Reagan issued a National Security Decision Directive in June 1982 making it formal policy to, in his own words, "do whatever was necessary to prevent Iraq from losing the war with Iran."

  Moderator: Back on topic please.

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  WilliB at 01:32 PM JST - 19th June

  Jahdog:

  " Btw, do you acknowledge that W/neocons were duped by Iranian intelligence into invading Iraq, to Iran's gain and US losses? "

  I think there is no doubt any more that Chalabi is an Iranian stooge. I do not know to what degree this is an elaborate Iranian conspiracy, or just a lot of luck (for Iran) factors coming together, I don´t know, but it has worked out swimmingly for the mullah regime. They got the stupid Americans to depose Saddam for them, install a Shiite government in Bagdad, and let it write "islamic principles" into the constitution. Since Shiites are the majority in Iraq, Iranian influence is guaranteed in Iraq now. And by keeping a moderate level of terrorist pressure on, they can keep and squeeze the Americans in Iraq forever. For Teheran, this situation is win, win, win, win, win, and win again.

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  adaydream at 01:48 PM JST - 19th June

  george bush had a war where the soldiers and Marines actually were fighting the real war on terror. But he pulled them out for a war of choice versus a war against terrorism. < :-)

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  WilliB at 01:54 PM JST - 19th June

  adadream:

  " george bush had a war where the soldiers and Marines actually were fighting the real war on terror. "

  And what is "the real war on terror"? The last time I looked, "terror" was a strategy, not an entity or ideology. Not something you can meaningfully declare war on.

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  adaydream at 02:28 PM JST - 19th June

  The Taliban/Afghanistan attacked us. Iraq never attacked us, unless you live on some strange planet.

  But enlighten me. Who attacked the United States on 9/11/2001?

  Unless your answer is Afghanistan, go away.

  Since Afghanistan attack us and not Iraq, Afghanistan was the aggressor and the terrorist that attacked us.

  george bush decided to attack Iraq based on lies his henchmen created and allowed Afghanistan to rebloom into the new Taliban territory. They are retaking Afghanistan and right now we can't stop them. Only stall it from increasing, maybe. < :-)

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  Jahdog at 03:52 PM JST - 19th June

  Who attacked us: a bunch of Muslims w/blessings of OBL, in response to US bases in Saudi Arabia, perceived US support for Israel belying the stated policy of neutrality, and all the Iraqi civilians who died from Gulf War I sanctions (what OBL said after 9.11)

  Righties like to talk about terrorists being wackos, but I think most of us would get a bit whacked if we all had relatives and friends who died as a direct or indirect result of an occupying force which was also supporting our regional enemy.

  Back on topic: Bush/Cheney have proven to be virtual Manchurian candidates in terms of hurting the US and thus strengthening its rivals--and ignoring the intel on impending 9/11 attack, AND letting OBL get away at Tora Bora! (yes, Clinton should have had him taken out earlier, but 9/11 happened 9 months into W's watch. How can the righties...? whatever).

  McCain might really be a Manchurian candidate! but whatever the case, will likely continue playing into OBL's strategy:

  Why would OBL go out of his way to challenge that superpower with its awesome array of resources and weapons, deliberately provoking it into declaring war to the death upon him and his organization? The enormous risks are obvious. What were the potential gains?

  Any serious and unemotional consideration of this question makes it apparent that the answer “He hates America and wants to destroy it” will not do. If that were his concrete strategy and end, that would make him a fool, which he is not. Any fairly intelligent person would know that an attack like that of 9/11, or even ten such attacks, would not suffice to defeat the United States or make it give up the struggle against terrorism and accept the unhindered spread of radical revolutionary Islam in the world. Any intelligent person would instead expect the attack on the American homeland to have precisely the political, psychological, and military effects it actually had—to mobilize the government, the American public, and many of its allies around the globe for an all-out struggle against al-Qaeda and international terrorism. Anyone with intelligence would also have anticipated the huge risks to himself and his organization from the inevitable counterattack—a military campaign by an overwhelmingly superior foe against his political base and secret camps in Afghanistan, blows to his cells wherever they could be found, international police, intelligence, and financial measures against his organization on a vastly increased scale, heavy pressure on regimes that had secretly supported or tolerated his activities to crack down on them, the imprisonment or death of anyone in al-Qaeda’s ranks from bottom to top—in short, all the measures that the Bush administration carried out and has trumpeted as successes in the War on Terror. Why would bin Laden knowingly risk all this for the sake of an attack, however spectacular, that he knew would not seriously damage the United States as a nation? ... The only sensible answer, once the foolish and inadequate ones are discarded, is that OBL anticipated the American reaction and wanted it. His purpose in attacking the US directly in its homeland was to get the American government to do what it had not done in response to his previous attacks: to declare an all-out war against him and al-Qaeda and a worldwide War on Terror led and organized by the United States, with every other country in the world summoned to follow and support or be considered an enemy...

  Deliberately provoking the United States into open, declared war against him, his forces, radical Islamism, and worldwide terrorism was bin Laden’s way of expanding a struggle he was already waging but losing, one he could not win on account of its insoluble contradictions, into a larger war free from internal contradictions that he could hope ultimately to win. To put it in a nutshell, OBL needed the US as a declared enemy to enable him to win his war against his primary enemies (secular Muslim governments) and thus achieve his goals. http://www.amconmag.com/20041025/feature.html

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  RedMeatKoolAid at 07:40 PM JST - 19th June

  Telegraph headline: Barack Obama aide: Why Winnie the Pooh should shape US foreign policy By Tim Shipman in Washington Last Updated: 2:04AM BST 17/06/2008 "Winnie the Pooh, Luke Skywalker and British football hooligans could shape the foreign policy of Barack Obama if he becomes US President, according to a key adviser."

  Obama is a fraud, but at least he is an amusing one. No problem. So long as he is out of the running by September or so.

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  Madverts at 08:21 PM JST - 19th June

  meat,

  Bleat about whatever you want. The fact your all queuing up to Deny here is that bin Laden is still potentially free, and the so-called war on terror is a failure, due to GOP policies.

  If Luke Skywalker and Winnie the poor were shaping US foreign policy, I'd wager a bet that they'd have more success than the current Miserable Failure.

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  SuperLib at 10:06 PM JST - 19th June

  Adverts...

  The US has more troops and resources committed to Afghanistan than all of Europe combined. Yet who do you criticize for not focusing enough?

  Numerous terrorist attacks have happened in Europe since 9/11 while there have been zero in the US. Yet who do you criticize for having failures against terrorism?

  The Global War on Terror is just that....global. It's a partnership initiated by the US but includes governments from all over the world. Yet who do you criticize when a bomb goes off in Spain?

  OBL listed one of his reasons to start Jihad as seeing foreign troops in Saudi Arabia. That would be all foreign troops, including your own. Yet what do you attribute OBL to?

  Al Queda has attacked nearly 30 countries and have had attacks foiled in even more. They've attacked countries aligned with the US and hostile to the US. They've attacked countries involved in Iraq and not involved in Iraq. Yet who do you say is Al Queda's enemy?

  Europeans refuse to give any criticism of their own governments. They refuse to look at terrorist attacks in their own country and ask who failed. The refuse to believe the GWOT goes beyond the White House.

  Yet you do you claim the lemmings are?

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  adaydream at 02:29 PM JST - 20th June

  SuperLib, there's creadence in most of what you said, but I disagree with one portion.

  Afghanistan attacked us. We attacked them. This is our war.

  But george bush allowed this war to wane when he made the conscience choice to attack Iraq while we were at war already and Iraq had not attacked us.

  We should have kept our troops in Iraq.

  NATO has vollenteered through whatever avenues to help us. But we should have gone in, done the job right and ensure that the Taliban didn't raise their ugly heads up. But we didn't complete the job. < :-)

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  WilliB at 03:12 AM JST - 21st June

  adaydream:

  " Afghanistan attacked us. We attacked them. This is our war. "

  Total nonsense. None of the 11 jihadists who flew the planes on 9/11 were Afghans. They were radical muslims following the call of one particular cleric who happened to be in Afghanistan under the protection of the salafist government. But similar calls for radical jihad you can hear from muslim clerics all over the world, including Europe itself. Like most naive Westerners, you look at the jihad through the lense of your own cultural background. That is meaningless.

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  Blue_Tiger at 11:54 PM JST - 22nd June

  I guess the honorable senator from Illinois is forgettign that a Democrat President of the United States had Osama offered to him on a silver platter, and turned down the offer. That President was William J. Clinton.

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  RedMeatKoolAid at 07:00 PM JST - 24th June

  What's Obama's plan? Is it to apologize for our very existence? Is that why he redesigned the presidential seal a couple weeks back? Not even elected and he already has his flightsuit moment.

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