I didn't say our current policy is good or bad. You posted that since they didn't have an army, navy or an air force they present no threat. That has nothing at all to do with the debate about whether our current policy is the correct one or not. You're simply changing the subject. Do you stand by your assertion that because they have no army, navy or air force that they are no threat? Did they have an army, navy or air force leading up to 9/11?
Ah, a revisionist history . . . and I haven't read it yet. How can you lose a war in which you win every battle? We didn't walk out on South Vietnam, we turned the war over to them, gave them more resources that the Russinas were giving the North, and they failed to do squat. They were unworthy allies from the start. We owed them nothing. We owe the ragheads nothing either. You don't get to write "the book". A surrender is a defined thing and we didn't meet the definition. Nor did we give the North "everything they wanted". Exactly, they defeated the South Vietnamese after the US had withdrawn, they did not defeat the US The US never surrendered, they turned the war over to the south to wage themselves. It never was our war. We neevr had vital national interests at stake. Not our war. The power vacuum existed after the French colonials left in WWII. The subsequent power struggles in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia were the result of the French, who actually DID surrender at Dien Bien Phu. It was colonial political aftermath which we never should have gotten involved with. You keep saying this. What did they get that they wanted? They wanted us to stop bombing them into the stone age and they made all the concession that we wanted in order to end the bombing. IF YOU FIGHT. Thats half of the Powell Doctrine. The other half is that you don't go to war at all unless it is a vital national interest, the US people are solidly behind it and you have an exit strategy in place. ENotice he always says "exit strategy" . . . not victory. Sometimes you just quit a war because it's not or is no longer in our interests. Nixon quit Vietnam because it was in our best national interests to do so. Reagan quit Lebanaon and Clinton quit Somalia for the same reason . . . there was no compelling national interest at stake and no apparent exit strategy. Well, you think that all withdrawals are retreats and therefore surrenders. But strategic withdrawals can also be saving our resources and protecting our forces so that we can redeploy them where they are more useful. When our forces left Vietnam they reinvented themselves, re-equipped, and kicked severe ass in the next war that they fought. Thank goodness they were not still occupying North Vietnam. Don't you think we've been in South Korea and Germany long enough, too? Not in an insurgency. Insurgents fight the occupiers and can be defeated by leaving them no foreigners to fight. We went to Iraq to defeat Saddam and to eliminate the WMD's. Well, Saddam is dead and the WMD's were imaginary. Why do you think we need to stay any longer? We're in Afghanistan to defeat bin Ladin and eliminate Al Qaida. Well, we toppled the Taliban government that was supporting them, but Al Qaida escaped. We need to support the Afghan government to prevent them from falling to the Taliban again, but Al Qaida and OBL have moved on so it makes no sense to stay there forever when that mission lies now in Pakistan. Glad you didn't call him a National Socialist . . . :hihi:
You are blinded by your political biases. What Clinton did was make the political decision to authorize the military to attack bin Ladin based on CIA intelligence. The raid was planned, targeted, and executed by the military, who have some very serous military credentials indeed. Those missiles were no carrying leaflets and they were intended to kill and destroy.
cmon man. desperate religious poor lunatics in a country that allows them to train and organize are a threat. a huge one. they have done terrible damage to us.
Our policy has a lot to do with the debate. There were plenty of reports before their action on 9/11 that many high ranking officials ignored and have since come out on. This isn't new information. I consider them a very low priority on the global scale of threats. Not to mention they are spending us into a financial hole. They did the same thing to Russia and look where they are now.
It seems the only thing you are an expert on is blaming Obama for the policies of the last 2 decades. At what point are you and your "conservative" friends going to wake up and smell the kettle. The Republicans and the Democrats are nothing but one in the same and the way they are running this country is pathetic at best. We need people with answers and solutions. Not the constant dribble that comes from the sheep majority.
Al Qaida, yes, but the Taliban only want to control Afghanistan. We missed our chance to eliminate Al Qaida at Tora Bora. Sticking around forever won't make them come back to Afghanistan so that we can kill them. We have to hit them where they live now. Not true. Our presence occupying two Islamic nations has greatly increased Al Qaida's enrollment. Before, they were a small group of international criminals with an agenda (bringing terror to America) that the other Islamist groups didn't think was their fight. Their fights have always been with Israel or internally between Sunni and Shiite. But with two American armies on the ground for almost a decade, many recruits have joined because they now see the US as an invader and anti-Islam. Warring upon these criminals in Al Qaida is justified and necessary, but they are not countries. They should be hit selectively and ruthlessly. But it should be obvious to even the most jaded right-wing, knee-jerk extremist that simply invading and occupying a country does not eliminate Al Qaida, it just forces them to move, leaving a home-grown insurgency in their wake to plaque us and distract us. It leaves us totally responsible for countries that hate us, waste our treasure, and kill our soldiers. Countries that offer us nothing we need nor offer us any credible threats. Fighting Al Qaida is not conventional war and never will be. It has be be done smarter than we have been doing it. Trying to eliminate Al Qaida by killing 1.4 billion ragheads is a fool's errand.
