Muzzies, Godwin's, and Liberal Media BiasFollow

Holy fuck...

Yes, to invade Afghanistan.

...with Clinton's army.

I did.

My whole post was to argue that I don't think the sanctions/UStroops in Saudi Arabia was the major reason for the 9/11 attacks. I argued the "roots" of the problem were much deeper than that. I disagreed with the basic premise of your argumentation, and tehrefore argued on that.

We can talk about what we should've done with regards to Iraq if you want, but I think it's less related to 9/11 than, say, the Israel/Palestine question.

If you re-read my posts with that in mind, I'm sure they'll make much more sense. I wasn't making a strawman, I was disagreeing with the fact the 9/11 happened purely, or mostly, because of the sanctions or US troops in Saudi.

Now, what should we have done with Iraq after 9/11?

Not much. It wasn't a pressing concern. The military should've focused purely on Afghanistan and the neighbouring region with Pakistan.

Moving the troops from Saudia Arabia to Qatar would've been a good move, without a doubt. We should've left the inspectors in the country, so that they could keep on disrupting Saddam's crappy WMD programs, or prevent him from building them.

And then we should've funded and aided the opposition parties in Iraq, through covert operations if needed. Formenting dissent and revolution. The US secret services are great doing this (no sarcrasm), and that's what they should've done. Fund the opposition, give them weapons, buy the member of the armed forces, basically try to make the regime crumble from inside, which couldn't have been that hard considering the poor state of the Iraqi army, and the hatred that the country had for its own dictator.

But even all that should've been way down the list of priorities. Israel/Palestine has much more resonance amongst Muslims than the Iraq sanctions. It's a problem that should've been addressed years ago, and which should've been solved once and for all after 9/11.

What annoys me in this story is that on the one hand you claim that we can't negotiate with terorist, or talk to hamas, or talk to iran, or give in to the terrorists' demands, and yet you justify the invasion of a country on the grounds that the terrorits were pissed off about it. Isn't that giving in? You can't have it both ways.

And the seond that annoys me, even more, is that everyone knows the neo-cons had wanted to invade Iraq since the late 90's. It is very well-documented, and every senior members of the adminstration came out saying that the invasion of Iraq was an old neo-con strategy, part fo the masterplan to democratise the ME, and that 9/11 provided an opportunity for doing this. Anyone interested in the story knows that.

Now, I can understand the neo-cons vision. Really, I do, I'm quite sympathetic to the idea of humanitarian intervention, and I totally understand that if their plan had worked, it would've been great for the ME. But this plan was independent of 9/11, and the huge mistake was trying to merge them into one. Pretending that 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq were linked, is a pure lie. 9/11 was an convenient excuse to achieve their plan. Nothing more. Strategically, it was a disatreous move.

There could've been cirumstances in which the invasion of Iraq would've worked. But 9/11 was certainly not it. If anything, Saddam was a shield against Islamic terrorists, in his country at least.

If you wanna fight the fanatical ideology, fight it.

If you want to remove tyrants and dictators that genocide their own people, do it.

But you can't kill 2 birds with one stone on this subject. The ME is too complex, its people not stupid enough. The whole world is watching, and while you might be able to fool some locals through repeated misinformation, you can't fool the rest of the world that way.

Well, it's Monday morning and I'm quite hungover, so I just don't have the energy or the inclination to respond to every paragraph. So, I'll try to keep it concise.

I don't doubt that US troops in saudi and the sanctions were part of the reason listed in the fatwas OBL issued.

But, contrary to you, I think these were just one amongst many reasons. And that, to most fanatical Islamists, they weren't amongst the main ones. Maybe for OBL they were, since he was a Saudi, but for the most part, i don't think so.

But, in a way, that's besides the point. It's a big msitake to focus purely on one reason, especially one such as this. Second, if we were going to focus on that reason, then surely invading a Muslim country, killing hundreds of thousand of Muslims in the process, and occupying the place, is totally stupid. it dwarfs all the other reason islamists have to be pissed off, and offers them a incredibly potent propaganda tool.



Well, considering they call us "Zionists and Crusaders", maybe you can figure that one out for yourself.



You can. You know as well as I do that we "control" Kabul in Afghanistan, and er, thats it. And even kabul is not completely pacified. All the rset of the country is back in the hands of warlords, and there is a very real risk that the talibans can take power back. Poppy production is back to its highest levels, and the Talibans are re-grouping and re-arming. The British fores are over-stretched, and NATO doesn't have enough troops to control anything outside the capital.

So we could've used a lot more manpower there, and it would've been much more useful in the long-term.



You justify it so, but it's still wrong.

The only qualified people to argue that war was legal under interntional law and republican academics. That's it. Every single other academic, attorney-general, foreign minister, knows it was illegal. We've had this discussion before, and we could have it again, but the bottom line is that it was illegal, and everybody without a vested interest in this story says so.

But anyway. The point in all this is that you have to know your ennemy. We won't defeat radical islam if we don't udnerstand it. And i don't just mean the ideology itself, but also the reasons behind its existence, and its evolution. Who funds it? Why? Where? What pushes seemingly reasonable young men to commit murderous suicide?

We can't fight it properly until we understand fully. And it's not just their justifications we have to fight, it's the way in which this ideology has been spread around the globe. It's the lack of education in these parts of the world that enable others to brainwash people so easily. It's the money that's being spent on promoting this ideology.

Well anyway, I don't doubt we'll have plenty more opportuities to discuss all this.

First off, Joph, I did not intend that to mean it would be impossible to operate the southern no-fly zone from anywhere other then SA. Just that it would be much much more difficult. Kuwait *is* pretty darn small. LA county is 4,048 square miles, so that makes the entire country about half again that size, right? I wouldn't want to have that as my sole base of defense against a potential future Iraqi agressive move. Sure. We could base from Qatar, or heck, just operate a carrier group, however, I think we can all see that there's a significant strategic benefit to operating from a nation with a large border with Iraq. SA is the only nation that fits that need.

The point I was getting at is that until there was some sign that stationing our troops in SA was a problem, it was by far the most logical choice. We already had them there from operations Desert Shield and Desert Storm. We already had the necessary agreements in place. It was far and away the best choice.

The correlary to this is that the first possible signs that this might cause us problems occured *after* Bush 41 left office, and became abundantly obvious sometime between 1996 and 1998. That places the onus squarely on Clinton's shoulders. If you agree that the correct action should have been to move our troops elsewhere to enforce the UN sanctions, then surely you agree that Clinton was the president who should/could have done that and that potentially 9/11 would not have occured if he had?

Which is why I say that understanding the importance of US troop presence in Saudi Arabia is a key component to understanding why 9/11 happened *and* why Iraq is significant to the issue as a whole. You don't have to agree with Bush 43's "solution" to the problem (invading Iraq), but I really do think at least recognizing that there is a connection between the two.


And on to Red...



But OBL wrote the fatwas. Hence the point. Now, it's possible that a group of random Muslim fanatics might have decided on their own to plan and conduct the 9/11 attacks without OBL having written those fatwas, but the fact of history is that he did write them, and 9/11 hijackers acted directly as a result.

Cause. Effect. I'll also point out (which you suddenly seem to magically forget for just this one discussion), that most of the 9/11 hijackers were *also* Saudi. That little tidbit suddenly makes perfect sense, doesn't it?



No. It doesn't. And the fact that you don't understand why is a huge part of the problem. This is like arguing that invading Spain will make the situation in Ireland with the NRA worse because there's a lot of Catholics in Spain. While invading Iraq will certainly anger some Arabs, it's not an issue specific to the religion of Islam. Having foreign soldiers in Saudi Arabia *was*.

They are totally different issues. Invading Iraq pisses some of the factions in the region off, and certainly will (and has) cause some to flock there to "fight Americans". But it simply does not (and hasn't at least not to date) resulted in the same kind of globally orchestrated attacks that our presence in Saudi Arabia did.



So what? The Islamic extremists *always* list "support for Isreal" when rattling off things they are unhappy with the US over. But, without stating the incredibly obvious, not until Al-queda did any of this result in actual attacks on US soil. Clearly, there was something motivating this group beyond the normal issues that have existed for 50+ years.



No. It would have made no difference. The current problems with the Taliban and Al-queda have nothing to do with military applications and everything to do with politics. We control pretty much the entire country, except for some pockets in the rough mountains in the SE. The problems there really don't have to do with troop strengths though.

And certainly, having two or three times as many men there would have no impact on the region in Pakistan where Al-queda and the Taliban have pretty much set up shop. Again. The issue is political, not military.



Every single one? Or just every single one that the anti-war crowd cares to listen to and repeat?

Are you suffering under the assumption that everything you don't like must be "illegal"? Cause that's the only way you can call the invasion illegal. It is legal in terms of internal US law (authorized by Congress). It is legal in the sense of international rules regarding war (cease fire agreements specifically). In fact, the only way you can even vaguely claim illegality is that the UN didn't sign off on it. That doesn't make it illegal though. It just means that the UN didn't authorize it. Sorry to burst your bubble, but the US has a sovereign right to declare war independant of UN permission.


On what basis do you call the invasion illegal? I'm really curious to know...



Which is doubly funny since that's what I'm talking about. See. It's *you* who don't "understand the enemy". You don't even know why he attacked us, but seem certain that you know exactly how to get him to stop...

Think that's funny? I don't.



Yup. Hence my argument that we should understand why we were attacked. A concept you seem to want to ignore at every turn. Instead of looking at the specific actions that caused the greatest amount of negative response, you insist on painting the issue with a broad "They don't like us because we're not like them" brush. Um... Of course they don't. But there's a big difference between not liking us and deciding to fly planes into our buildings.

We can't do anything about who we are. We *can* do something about the specific actions and choices that lead to specific harmful responses. Why you insist on ignoring this aspect of the issue is beyond me. It's like you want it to just be a broad ideological struggle or something. Maybe that makes sense to you, but it doesn't make sense to me. You can't "resolve" that. You can only continue to fight over it.


Even more bizaare is the haphazard way in which you address this. It's not the specifics of soldiers in SA that caused 9/11. Nope. In that case, you have a big blindfold over your eyes. But you can oh-so-clearly see that US troops in Iraq must be having a major effect and we should stop cause it's going to **** off radical Islamists...


History shows that the former *did* cause massive global attacks. So far, there have been *zero* attacks against the US outside of Iraq itself as a result of our being in Iraq. That should tell you right off the bat about which one triggers a global Jihadist response, and which one simply triggers a regional and more political/secular response.


Your positions on this seem to be chosen, not based on any assessment of the facts, but purely based on which supports your pre-existing political ideology better. You don't want to believe that the UN's actions regarding Iraq resulted in massive global terrorist response, so you ignore that. You *want* to believe that the US invasion of Iraq is, so you believe that wholeheartedly. All of this despite all evidence to the exact opposite. And while that may be a convenient bit of political mangling for you, it absolutely does not help us to understand the issue at hand.

Didn't say it was our "sole base". It was, however, the base from which we enforced the southern no-fly zone.



There's a ton of strategic benefit to operating continuous air operations from a location in which you have hundreds of miles of border to choose to enter the zone in question, and your base is also a decent distance from the border itself, and you don't have to fly over any other nation's airspace to do it.

Only Saudi Arabia meets those criteria. Can you operate from another nation? Yes. Is it as ideal? No.




My point of mentioning ground forces was not to invade Iraq from, but to *defend* the airbase. Kuwait is small enough that Iraq could have potentially overrun it (and our airbase) in a very short amount of time (as they did in 91, right?).




We can speculate on that. However, it is clear that the so called "neo-conservatives" *did* have an agenda to remove Saddam from power, by force if necessary. A fact that is often brought up in a conspiratorial manner by liberal commentators. We can't know if part of that agenda involved a recognition specifically of the impact regarding SA and OBL, however we do know that it did involve a belief that the UN sanctions weren't working, and would likely never work without a stronger incentive (ie: threat of invasion if he didn't comply).


I would argue that we *were* closer in principle on Sept 10th, 2001 then we were during Clinton's administration for the simple fact that this was on Bush's agenda list. I've argued this before, and I'll argue it again. Even if 9/11 had not happened, the Bush administration would have at some point pushed the same ultimatum (UN resolution 1440 IIRC) on Iraq and pushed for the same results (invasion) upon Iraq's failure to comply. We can debate whether they would have had the ability to actually pull off an invasion under those circumstances, but clearly had it gone forward the same results would have occured, our troops would have been moved out of Saudi Arabia, and (again, assuming this all happened before a 9/11 style attack) we would not have lost 2 very large buildings and 3000 civilian lives.

I would also argue (and have before and in this thread) that had Dole won the election in 1996, it's quite possible that the "neo-cons" agenda to press an ultimatum on Iraq would have happened in the late 90s (like 98/99 time period). If we want to play "what if", this presents a scenario in which the same invasion process of Iraq would have occured, the same removal of troops from SA would have resulted, and it's quite possible that 9/11 would not have occured at all.

In short. I really disagree with your assertion. We were "closer" to both removing those soldiers when Bush took office. It just wasn't "close enough" to have it actually happen before 9/11 did. Push the 9/11 attack back a couple years, or have Dole win the election in 96, and we might be living in a very different world today.



I'll point out again that Bush *did* have an intention to push that ultimatum on Iraq (with presumably the same intended course of action as a result). That would have resulted in our soldiers leaving SA just as it did in 2003. Clearly, Bush's agenda would have removed that cause from OBL, had he only been able to do it.


You're trying to equate what Clinton could have done but choose not to, to what Bush wanted to do but didn't have the time. I just don't think that's a fair assessment...

Not really, no. Given that we had free reign to operate in Southern Iraq and given that we have airbases in Kuwait and given that we would have almost certainly had use of Saudi airspace, you're really overstating the importance of the Saudi border.Kuwait or Qatar could have done just fine operationally. The reasons we selected Saudi Arabia weren't strictly military ones.Huh? The US wasn't operating military bases in Kuwait at the time of the 1991 invasion. If you're trying to compare the Iraqi army essentially sneak attacking the Kuwait forces to the considerably crippled post-91 Iraqi army attacking a US force waiting for said attack, well... I dunno, man. Good point, I guess "Speculate" on what? We had no plans to clear out of Prince Sultan prior to 9/11. It's that simple. If you have evidence to the contrary, go for it.Ooohhh.... "in principle". Well, that and fifty cents will getcha a cup of coffee when a couple skyscrapers come down because you still had troops in Saudi Arabia. Maybe Bush should have faxed Osama his "agenda list".
No, I'm equating what Clinton did do to what Bush did do. Both kept troops stationed in Saudi Arabia. Your apologetic stance notwithstanding.

Gbaji, you can be such a stupid prick sometimes.

Seriously.

What kind of "political point" do you think I have? I don't write blogs, I don't run for office, I'm not even affiliated with any party. I'm not the one posting two miles of posts everytime someone loosely affiliated with the Pubbies gets attacked or questionned.

This isn't a question about domestic politics, as much as you want to turn into one. So, if it makes you feel better to think that the whole Islamic terrorism exists because of Clinton and liberals, then be my guest, wallow in your sense of superiority, I couldn't care less.



How many times are we gonna go through this?! Do you only to choose to read the 2 paragraphs that suited your theory? The fatwa mentions a whole list of other reasons, which I linked in previous posts. Can't you read them? Do they not enter your mind? Or can read OBL's mind and decide for him that the other reasons "didn't really count"? Please enlighten me...



No, it's not. Islam is not Catholicism, the NRA is not AQ, it is not the same thing at all. I know you like to make stupid comparaisons at every turn, but you just can't compare everything and anything. It's not like Peter Pan and the 7 mermaids.



Is it not? Did you decide that?

Please, read this.

And tell me again, with a straight face, that none of their arguments matter. When you've done that, explain to me the authority under which you decide the qualitative value of their reasons.



No, you're quite right, what's happening in Iraq right now looks nothing like "globally orchestrated attacks". In fact, I'd say the whole Muslim world seems pretty chirpy right now!



Have you been living in a cave all this time? Seriously? So you know better than NATO itself? Than NATO members? Than [link=://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/07/18/europe/EU-GEN-Britain-Afghanistan.php]people with who are active there[/link]?

Now, before we move into the legality of the action itself, this little gem:




In the immortal words of the Virgin Mary... come again?



Right. The fact that all the intelligence services in the Western world now have their eyes on the ball, sharing intelligence, and are actively infiltrating terrorist cells has obviously nothing to do with it.

And is there only the US involved in this? Don't the terrorist attacks in London matter? Madrid? Bali? Turkey? Were they not involving AQ? Is this not part of the "war on terror"?

And anyway. if your argument was true, than that would be it. We've won. Troops are out of SA, no more sanctions in Iraq, so that's it?! The war on terror is over? No more terrorist attacks? No need for the Patriot Act, no need to worry about Pakistan or Israel or anything else Islamic related?

Somehow, it just doesn't feel that way.

But it's probably just me. It's probably just the fact that everyday when I take the tube, or go into a club in central London, I know there's a chance it might blow up. But who cares, right?!

It's not "US soil" so who gives a shi't, right?

It's a ridiculous argument. Think about it. If people are pissed off about sanctions, please tell me how replacing them with a full-scale invasion and occupation make them any less pissed off?!



Edited, Jul 24th 2007 11:37am by RedPhoenixxx

Guess it would have been a good idea to let the UN inspectors have another couple of weeks after all. OOPS!

And all it took was a trenchant analysis of international law. See how easy that was?

Careful now. You're six hours away from getting the smackdown one can only give after taking a Computer Ethics course.

Well, I meant that *you* are due for said smackdown only, only my grasp of the English language is shakey at best.