To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of the Taliban's demise appear to have been exaggerated. Evidently, coalition forces have just launched Operation Mountain Thrust, the largest offensive against the Taliban since 2001:

[url]http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200053,00.html[/url]

I thought we were supposed to have finished these guys off? I don't recall a "Mission Accomplished" sign or anything, but this sort of offensive now -- using over 10,000 troops -- suggests that perhaps the news of the Taliban being defeated in Afghanistan was tantamount to "major combat operations have ended" in Iraq.

For me, this is really the most troubling thing about the whole Iraq thing. Forget WMDs, forget bad intel, and just explain to me why it is that Bush thought it was a good idea to start deploying military resources into Iraq before finishing the fucking job in Afghanistan.

We got Al-Zarqawi in Iraq. Great, but big fucking deal IMO. If any of you can honestly tell me that you knew who he was before we went into Iraq, I owe you a bunch of beer. The fact of the matter is that we can continue to take out new Al Qaeda leaders, and new ones will continue to emerge, capture our troops, torture and kill them, yet Osama bin Laden still walks the world a free man. That just blows me away.

Re: The Real War on Terror

just bomb the shit out of the enitre region and let musharaff rule it all. seems to be the only guy in the region willing to separate religion and government and wants to try to become a leading nation.

Re: The Real War on Terror

[QUOTE=toasty]To paraphrase Mark Twain, rumors of the Taliban's demise appear to have been exaggerated. Evidently, coalition forces have just launched Operation Mountain Thrust, the largest offensive against the Taliban since 2001:

[url]http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,200053,00.html[/url]

I thought we were supposed to have finished these guys off? I don't recall a "Mission Accomplished" sign or anything, but this sort of offensive now -- using over 10,000 troops -- suggests that perhaps the news of the Taliban being defeated in Afghanistan was tantamount to "major combat operations have ended" in Iraq.

For me, this is really the most troubling thing about the whole Iraq thing. Forget WMDs, forget bad intel, and just explain to me why it is that Bush thought it was a good idea to start deploying military resources into Iraq before finishing the fucking job in Afghanistan.

We got Al-Zarqawi in Iraq. Great, but big fucking deal IMO. If any of you can honestly tell me that you knew who he was before we went into Iraq, I owe you a bunch of beer. The fact of the matter is that we can continue to take out new Al Qaeda leaders, and new ones will continue to emerge, capture our troops, torture and kill them, yet Osama bin Laden still walks the world a free man. That just blows me away.[/QUOTE]

We knew that we weren't going to completely eliminate the Taliban in Afghanistan, but knew that we could disrupt them enough to limit future terrorist attacks. Before 9/11, Osama and his thugs were basically running the country and making deals with Halliburton allegedly. Today, the Taliban is hiding in the hills. Besides we didn't use many troops at all to bring down the Taliban in Afghanistan. We used mostly special forces and paid off warlords.

And Osama isn't walking around a free man. You make it sound like he's at Blockbuster renting DVDs and eating dinner at Red Lobster. The moment we find out where he is then we'll bomb him like we did Zarqawi. Which means he's probably hiding in a cave somewhere isolated from humanity fearing the same fate as Zarqawi.

And you can't guarantee that the future leaders of any organization can continue in the place of a previous one. This goes for not only politics and religion, but sports and business. We've been waiting years for the next Michael Jordan in basketball.

Re: The Real War on Terror

[QUOTE=superdave]We knew that we weren't going to completely eliminate the Taliban in Afghanistan, but knew that we could disrupt them enough to limit future terrorist attacks. Before 9/11, Osama and his thugs were basically running the country and making deals with Halliburton allegedly. Today, the Taliban is hiding in the hills. Besides we didn't use many troops at all to bring down the Taliban in Afghanistan. We used mostly special forces and paid off warlords. [/QUOTE]

Well, they were hiding in the hills shortly after 9/11, but I'm not sure that's still so much the case. The article I cited seems to suggest that they've regrouped and are out in the open again.

[QUOTE=superdave] And Osama isn't walking around a free man. You make it sound like he's at Blockbuster renting DVDs and eating dinner at Red Lobster. The moment we find out where he is then we'll bomb him like we did Zarqawi. Which means he's probably hiding in a cave somewhere isolated from humanity fearing the same fate as Zarqawi.
[/QUOTE]

Well, that's probably a fair point. It bothers me, though, that coming up on 5 years after 9/11, that dude has still not been brought to justice. What happened to Bush's statements after 9/11?

[QUOTE] "The most important thing is for us to find Osama bin Laden. It is our number one priority and we will not rest until we find him." President Bush, 9/13/01

"I want justice...There's an old poster out West, as I recall, that said, 'Wanted: Dead or Alive,'" President Bush, 9/17/01 [/QUOTE]

The truth is that we devoted a disproportionate amount of military resources to Iraq before the job was done in Afghanistan. OBL has [B]not[/B] been our number one priority, not for a long time -- and while we've been on this Iraq boondoogle, the Taliban, which we all thought were pretty much done, have had an opportunity to reconstitute and regroup, which of course requires more of our already stretched military. Or maybe they've still been there in force all along, and the reports we received of their demise was just propaganda. I have so little trust in Bush at this stage, I wouldn't put it past him to have made shit up about our success in Afghanistan to speed things towards his pet project in Iraq.

And I agree, by the way, that you can't assume that the new leaders will be able to pick up right where the old one left off. That's why I really think that getting OBL ought to be our number 1 priority. Knock him out, and although I'm sure it would not signal the death knell for Al Qaeda, it will have more of an impact that knocking out the next in a line of people that step up to be number-whatever in the organization. FFS, from what I understand, even our folks didn't know shit about this new dude in Iraq before he was announced to be stepping in for Zarqawi.

[QUOTE=superdave] We've been waiting years for the next Michael Jordan in basketball.[/QUOTE]

The NBA could use another Jordan, too. Wade, perhaps? I watched him in Indy at the NCAA tournament a few years ago when he was with Marquette (beating my team, unfortunately) and he was just sick. After his performance in the Finals, who knows...

Re: The Real War on Terror

The bloodlust of the time makes the attempt to trace the Terror to any single intellectual source, or peculiar circumstance—to Enlightenment rationalism gone mad, or to the paranoia of the encircled Republicans—feel inadequate to the Terror’s essential nature, which was that it didn’t matter what the ideology was. The argument that a taste for the ideal and the tabula rasa leads to terror, after all, would be more convincing if its opposite—a desire for an organic, authentic, traditional society—didn’t lead to terror, too. The Red Terror led to a White Terror; Robespierre’s head had hardly fallen before the Gilded Youth were attacking the now helpless Jacobins. It sometimes seems as if history had deliberately placed Hitler and Stalin side by side at the climax of the horror of modern history simply to demonstrate that the road to Hell is paved with any intention you like; a planned, pseudo-rationalist utopianism and an organic, racial, backward-looking Romanticism ended up with the same camps and the same carnage. The historical lesson of the first Terror is not that reason devours its own but that reason cannot stop us from devouring each other.

Re: The Real War on Terror

^^^what book does that come from?

Re: The Real War on Terror

now that Bin Laden is making tapes again, looks like the job never got done...

Re: The Real War on Terror

Let's think back - Terrorism didn't start on 9/11/01. Al-Qaeda and Islamic terrorists didn't just pop into existence when NYC and DC were attacked that day. They had been planning and attacking for years before '01. The American public, government, & media were too busy with tech stocks and Pres. Clinton's sex life to concentrate on terrorists who got bolder with each attack. Quite frankly, most people didn't give a damn about or even know Islamic terrorists until 9/11.

My point is that I don't think we'll stop terrorism completely, but hopefully disrupt them enough that they aren't able to attack us like 9/11 again. And killing the head of terrorism in Iraq is a good step towards that. I agree that killing or capturing Bin Laden is the most important goal.

Re: The Real War on Terror

if they capture bin laden, they shouldnt tell us, WAIT listen why.

ok, cool down..

they should tie him up, get him nice and healthy. then drop him off at station 2 NYFD. and video tape it. its the firehouse that lost all but 3 guys who were out on vacation. again keep the tape rolling. get some paramedics and doctors on hand to keep him alive as long as possible. let the firemen, who lost more than we care to mention, beat him to withinin an inch of his life, then let the docs and medics bring him back, then do it again. then air it on TV, and let the millions of ppl in this country who actually give a damn and appreciate what we have, watch it. and maybe someone can finally understand why we let a redneck [B]idiot [/B]serve two terms with a vengence and an uber-sub-par government in hopes something decent MIGHT happen.

Re: The Real War on Terror

That's not graphic enough. Why don't they just fuck him with various animals? Then they could kill those animals, cook them and serve them to all of us and we can all say that we ate the animals the fucked Bin Laden in the ass. That'd be sexy. :Anal: