Laura said:
That's a great big pile o' baloney and insulting to anyone who disagrees with you. Left-wing notions are just as good as right-wing ones, and there are nutjobs on both sides. I don't think one side is wholly right
or wrong, but I agree more with the left than the right. Big deal. I'm no more ignorant, immoral or hypocritical than most conservatives.
There are many ways to fight terrorism. You can use
good intel to spy on them and get to them before they board a plane or strap on the suicide bomb. You can also use that intel to find their sources of funding. Military action could be necessary in some cases, as in Afghanistan to fight the government that had funded Al Qaeda.
In Iraq's case, Saddam Hussein was considered an "infidel" (aka secular socialist) by Osama bin Laden, so to me it seemed really pointless to pursue Iraq under the guise of fighting the war on terrorism. To make matter worse, the way the war was played out (not closing borders, etc.) terrorists linked to Al Qaeda have been able to enter Iraq and fight the US troops there and anyone who supports them. The insurgents aren't all
real insurgents; they're not for freeing Saddam from his prison cell and reinstating the former regime. But once Bin Laden saw a Muslim country being attacked by the US, he released a statement saying "Socialists are infidels wherever they are. ...It does not hurt that in current circumstances, the interests of Muslims coincide with the interests of the socialists in the war against crusaders."
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0211-11.htm
I only intend to insult LW fanatics who are morally corrupt, intellectually dishonest and flagrantly hypocritical. They know who they are.
I have made it plain that I do not include you in that category - so there could not possibly be any insult directed to you.
Your leanings to the left are obvious - as are mine to the right.
You mentioned "good" intel. That is certainly what everyone wants. Nobody wants "bad" intel - but you get what is available. Especially in "humint" - i.e. spies who have infiltrated the enemy. Why do you suppose that we had such poor humint on 911? Primarily because democrats like Church had emasculated the CIA networks for decades. The simple fact is that we HAD NO SPIES in the area, nor had any prospects of getting any for another decade. You do not just sign up someone and give him the job of getting into al-qaeda next week to find out their plans.
Sadly, we had to use defectors, and some of them had ulterior motives. Some of them made stuff up. But - that was the best we had. Do you have a suggestion of how to get "good intel" from this situation?
Of course, we could have just said, "well, these guys are not perfect, so we better just wait for another fifteen years while we groom some really good spies." I reject that as irresponsible.
Again - I stress MY opinion that as long as your avowed enemy MAY have potential to cause GREAT DAMAGE to your military force, the best thing to do is to REMOVE that potential harm. This is war - this is not negotiation.
About the secular vs fundamentalist positions of Saddam and OBL, I do not put any credence in that. As long as they had a common enemy - the USA - your very own post shows that they will not hesitate to combine against us.
Again - I have challanged everyone who opposes the war in Iraq to come up with a sensible plan for maintaining an aggressive war on terrorism with a hostile and emboldened Saddam controlling Iraq. It could not be done = unless someone has a plan I have not heard yet.
Regardless of what you know now, there was nobody who claimed to know beforehand that Saddam did not have the WMDs. Everyone agreed he had them. Unless you believe Saddam. Giving Hans Blix another month or two would not have resolved the matter. All that would have done was move the prospect for invasion into the summer heat - when everyone agrees that it would be impossible to wage a successful mission. Actually we WAITED until the very last moment - and possibly too late. It already became unbearably hot before it was over. Thank God we won so quickly. If we had to wait any longer to get started, it would have to have been delayed for another year. That would have meant stagnation in the war. Saddam would have been emboldened; His bribes to France and Russia would have continued to put pressure on the UN; our forces would have been in danger throughout the summer, penned down in the dust and heat - they could not have maintained the encirclement that had forced the 'concessions' that Saddam had already made. <Remember that Saddam did not just "allow" the inspections thru his good nature - we had 150,000 US troops on his borders. - they could not have maintained that pressure thru the summer>
No - it is very clear that had we not gone when we did - then Saddam would have won. There would have been no chance to do it later. The war on terrorism would have died with the overthrow of the Taliban. We would have had to withdraw our troops back to the USA and then wait for the next 911 attack. Not my idea of a good 'plan.'
Anyway - I await your analysis of what could have been done - with the available intel at the time. It is not fair to re-make plans NOW based on things that were unknowable THEN.
This is what LW fanatics do and I am singularly unimpressed with their efforts.
GW Bush and Tony Blair have done far more to fight terrorism and spread freedom than Carter and Arafat have ever done.
My own post proves that the invasion made things worse by having Al Qaeda start siding with Saddam's loyalists.
