the war on terror

[swamp]

What a letter to the editor.........

Thought you might like to read this letter to the editor ~ ever notice how some people just seem to know how to write a letter?
This one sure does!

This was written by a Canadian woman, but oh how it also applies to the U.S. , U.K. And Australia

THIS ONE PACKS A FIRM PUNCH.


Written by a housewife in New Brunswick , to her local newspaper. This is one ticked off lady.
.................................................. ..............................................

'Are we fighting a war on terror or aren't we? Was it or was it not started by Islamic people who brought it to our shores on September 11, 2001 and have continually threatened to do so since?

Were people from all over the world, not brutally murdered that day, in downtown Manhattan , across the Potomac from the nation's capitol and in a field inPennsylvania ?

Did nearly three thousand men, women and children die a horrible, burning or crushing death that day, or didn't they?

And I'm supposed to care that a few Taliban were claiming to be tortured by a justice system of the nation they come from and are fighting against in a brutal insurgency.

I'll start caring when Osama bin Laden turns himself in and repents for incinerating all those innocent people on 9/11.

I'll care about the Koran when the fanatics in the Middle East start caring about theHoly Bible, the mere belief of which is a crime punishable by beheading inAfghanistan ..

I'll care when these thugs tell the world they are sorry for hacking off Nick Berg's head while Berg screamed through his gurgling slashed throat.

I'll care when the cowardly so-called 'insurgents' in Afghanistan come out and fight like men instead of disrespecting their own religion by hiding in mosques and behind women and children.

I'll care when the mindless zealots who blows themselves up in search of nirvana care about the innocent children within range of their suicide bombs.

I'll care when the Canadian media stops pretending that their freedom of speech on stories is more important than the lives of the soldiers on the ground or their families waiting at home to hear about them when something happens.

In the meantime, when I hear a story about a CANADIAN soldier roughing up an Insurgent terrorist to obtain information, know this:

I don't care.

When I see a wounded terrorist get shot in the head when he is told not to move because he might be booby-trapped, you can take it to the bank:

I don't care.

When I hear that a prisoner, who was issued a Koran and a prayer mat, and 'fed special' food that is paid for by my tax dollars, is complaining that his holy book is being 'mishandled,' you can absolutely believe in your heart of hearts:

I don't care.

And oh, by the way, I've noticed that sometimes it's spelled 'Koran' and ot her times 'Quran.' Well, Jimmy Crack Corn you guessed it,

I don't care!!

If you agree with this viewpoint, pass this on to all your E-mail friends Sooner or later, it'll get to the people responsible for this ridiculous behavior!

If you don't agree, then by all means hit the delete button. Should you choose the latter, then please don't complain when more atrocities committed by radical Muslims happen here in our great Country! And may I add:

'Some people spend an entire lifetime wondering if they made a difference in the world. But, the Soldiers don't have that problem.'

I have another quote that I would like to add, AND.......I hope you forward all this.

One last thought for the day:

Only five defining forces have ever offered to die for you:

1. Jesus Christ

2. The Canadian Soldier.

3. The British Soldier..

4. The US Soldier, and

5. The Australian Soldier

One died for your soul, the other 4 for your freedom.


YOU MIGHT WANT TO PASS THIS ON, AS MANY SEEM TO FORGET ALL OF THEM.

AMEN!

[Herne]

I think she has a very good point about the war in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately both the wars in Afghanistan (the overt war that is) and the one in Iraq have very little to do with the war on terror, and never did- except Afghanistan originally.

[ncboman]

I think she has a very good point about the war in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately both the wars in Afghanistan (the overt war that is) and the one in Iraq have very little to do with the war on terror, and never did- except Afghanistan originally.

Guess I'll have to disagree.

Believe it or not, there are some very smart guys working for DOD and they didn't just declare war on terror without well thought out plans.

I'm not privy to our war plans but looking at what's happened it's fairly obvious seizing military control of Iraq kinda hung the taliban out to dry so to speak, reducing their ability to travel and gather forces in the region. This may not completely isolate them but it does tend to reduce the freedom of travel greatly and run them to locations where they have difficulty arming logisticly and hopefully where we can identify and kill them in numbers.

imo, the taliban fighting forces are not the main culprits. The culprits are the ones doing the financing. I'm fairly sure there are plans for dealing with those also.

ncboman

[Herne]

WMD? Iraq. Half the world was looking at hte pix and saying "This army hasn't been sorted since Gulf 1". how many WMD did they find. One? Two? or none. Don't forget th whole point about Iraq was the "direct and present threat against the populations of our countries". Well there wasn't one was there.

Afghanistan. The first part was played very well. The use of the Northern Alliance and air power so put the Taliban and Al Quaida out of business in that country. Also in the case of Afghanistan, the US was attacked by al Q, the A gov't was given an ultimatum - hand over OBL or else. They chose "or else". Fair cop.

Then we lost the political advantage, getting involved in a drugs fuelled war, in an area which everyone knew was the graveyard of armies. (against a lot of good military advice too). Screwed up financing of rebuilding projects, failure to deliver on infrastructure, and the dream went sour through inadequate resources, inadequate results and the value of opium. And that's where we are now - fighting the Taleban, who are not al Quaida and never were, not over terrorism, but over opium. The wrong enemy, in the wrong place, at the wrong time and for the wrong reasons..

(Why the hell don't we just buy the stuff off them - there is a desperate shortage of pharmaceutical opium because they can't get enough - the farmers need cash, there is a market, and we are spending a fortune in lives and $ to burn it in the fields!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

(Note also that Iraq never had anything to do with alQ or the Taleban under Hussein. Never wanted them, never tolerated either of them within their boundaries and never enlisted their help - until we marched in, toppled SH, and then the mujahedeen arrived (giving rise to fights such as Fallujah, the hostages). But not before)

[ncboman]

You read far too much in politicians' statements and use your belief/disbelieve of political blabber to the point of distorting the actual facts.

The facts are what they are. We have another large foothold in the center of the middle east and all countries in the region are very aware of our presence and enmity. Does this FORCE them to be very very careful?

Pakistan anyone?

further isolation?

of note, I haven't seen any jets flyin into tall buildings in a good while so either the war plan had/has nothing to do with it or it does. Which would be your pick?

ncboman

[Herne]

No , but they blew up hotels, set off bombs in London and Spain, and there have been plenty of other tricks that have failed. Indication that the war on terror is being fought by the spooks, (as everyone who has been involved in that sort of game knew it would) not by gung-ho with a rifle.

There has always been a fundamental problem with bombing an idea. Point one. Point 2 is if you want to go to war, it helps to have a target that is actually the bad guy. Not that I hold any brief for Saddam, but he wasn't the enemy. Point 3, this will go on forever until and unless you get yourselves sorted with Israel. Thats the (original) problem, though these things have a way of generating their own momentum). The inequality of US foreign policy in the Middle East, resulting in the inability of the Arabs to act WRT to Palestine, giving rise to frustration and the rest is history. You are trying to have your Israeli cake and eat it, and your allies are paying much of the price.

Not of course that most of us would follow the US anywhere again, despite the politicians smiles.

[frenchbuck]

After having read and attempted to understand all points of view, it is fair to say, On this Memorial Day, I still side with the Canadian woman. Short and Sweet!

[Herne]

Paradoxically I don't disagree with her in principle at all - and I am not really very fond of terrorists: having met one or two, in the line if business as it were, and seen the results of several. No I am not very fond of them at all. So, I'm not against fighting terrorists - far from it.

But for heavens sake, if we are to send this generation out to fight, let it be for a purpose, and above all let it make sense, especially to the families of those killed.

Sadly in this country most (all) of my military friends are dead against the thing, and I have met one or two US military, and military related, and they too could see that it was the wrong war in the wrong place. Actually it was more their suggestion. At the officer level its quite plain that's so. Since they have the rather unenviable task of being in a war they don't believe in, let us give them all the support we can, while kicking the arses of those like Blair who sent them there for no purpose.

At least when I had to do it, the place and the terrorists and the bad guys were directly connected. Here it don't take hte brains of an archbishop to work out htat the whole ting is a farce. Like going ot war over WMDs and just how many did we find? Any advances on not one, not even after years in the country. The whole thing was a "this guy shot my Daddy" scam, Bush wanted his war, Blair wanted to deliver Europe, no-one listened to the likes of Colin Powell who was about the only decent one out of the lot of them, and look where we are.

Thank god we are out of Iraq, with very little chance, like nil, of going back on this ticket.

[Dennis Keith]

Well, I guess we should agree to disagree on some of this, but Isreal wasn't the problem in spite of the hard time they gave you folks right to the point of blowing up the King David Hotel. Palestine was NEVER A COUNTRY. it was at the time of the Partition "Trans-Jordan." (So prehaps more A problem of Brittan's making than America?) Mark the lines a bit differently at the start and the problem in GAZA would have never existed. The Extreemist Muslims want to destroy Isreal. Isreal would not mind at all being left alone to fight amongst themselves if only the Mad Mullahs would allow them to.

Yes, the "Spooks" are indeed fighting this one, for now, but it won't be long before we are engaged with the Mad Mullahs directly. Either because the Obamanation finally sees his duty and does it, or the Isrealis Drag Us into the conflict. (Likely the latter in my opinion)

Saddam was financing the terrorists in their attempts to destroy Isreal, and also paying the families of those killed in the attempts. So Weapons of mass destruction were not found, even after your own Intelligence service and that of the French said that they did indeed exist. Could SH have been so sly as to outwit all three Intelligence Services? I think not. What I think is that those weapons do exist, and are somewhere in the Bekah Valley or burried in the sands of Iraq where we will find them, or they will eventually be used against one of us (Brittian, France, Isreal or the USA) eventually.

There were several tons of Yellow Cake found in Iraq, in spite of what that Democrat pinhead said after sipping tea in Africa with "his" Sources. So SH was looking to build a bomb capable of doing one or more of the afore mentioned countries Great Harm.

If you don't come along into Iran I guess there will be no one to barter with to obtain any decent Whiskey. Mores the pitty, but we will miss having you along. Don't worry about whether or not we have the money to do it, that consideration seems not to enter into any of the Obamanator's current plans either.

[GF.]

Not to dampen anybody's patriotic enthusiasm, but FWIW....

A good friend of mine was a White House aide under Reagan. He's also a West-Pointer, and a big part of his job was being on the NSC for more than a couple of years. I think Powell was his boss. I'm not 100% sure on that, but I do know that when my friend announced that he was ready to leave the USA, Powell was the guy they sent to take him out to lunch and ask him to stay in. And Abizaid was a good friend way back before either one of them held a commission.

So he pretty much has the inside scoop on the whole works. And last fall, when a couple of mutual friends were getting pretty irate over the whole election deal and what was really in the best interests of the country, he had finally had enough, and he sent out an open letter in which--depending on how you read it-- he either stopped a half a breath short of very politely declaring that GWB, Cheney and their assorted toadies are guilty of flat-out treason by willfully and knowingly dragging the US back into Iraq under false pretenses... or maybe it didn't actually stop short. Like I said, it kinda depends on how you read it...

None of that questions the motivations, the intentions, the courage, compassion or integrity of the folks who are there on the ground. I know several people who've spent time over there in leadership positinos... One ran a hospital where we taught the locals 'state of the art' first-aid for the battlefield. Complicated stuff like the use of tourniquets.... :rolleyes: Poor bastards didn't even know how to keep their buddies from bleeding out....

And my bro-in-law, the electronic warfare pilot, who went over for a year with the army to teach our guys how to defeat radio/cell phone-triggered IEDs (and reduced the casualties due to those devices by 80 or 90% in the first coupl of months). I don't know if that's why the Army gave a Squid bomber pilot a bronze star or not. He doesn't talk about it.

But he saw the good that our guys are doing over there, and he took tremendous satisfaction in knowing that he was bringing his skills down from the sky and using them to place a protective shield around the Good Guys on the ground. And he'd be the first to say they're making us proud.

But that doesn't mean that we've sent them over there for any morally or ethically justifiable reason. It sure as hell doesn't make the conflict somehow 'winnable', and it doesn't provide a compelling reason for our country to lower itself to the same, sub-human standards of conduct as the bastards we're fighting against.

Me? Never been there, never done that... But I'll say this. If your enemy believes that surrender would mean falling into the hands of some people who are not planning to keep on beating, shocking, or waterboarding you until you guess correctly what they've decided that you 'know' and you make up a convincing lie that 'tells' them what they wanted to believe in the first place; and if you have good reason to believe that they're instead going to provide with your own copy of the Koran, 3 hots & a cot, and maybe even a chance to return to your family when it's all over, then your willingness to leave it all out there on the field is probably not what it would be if you knew you were going to facea certain and grisly death such as being beheaded on videotape so your dear sweet ol' mama can watch you die on YouTube.. And that's going to play on the mind of any mortal, no matter how great his religious conviction or how thorough the brainwashing he's received. And I'm thinkin' that most likely keeps our guys safer.

Never gamble against a man with nothing to lose.

[Herne]

Matt - well put.

Dennis - its not about the Brits in Israel or about the blowing up of the King David.

The point is that its about Arab and Palestinaian frustration because the US has never been seen to put pressure on the Israelis to even the balance. (and the way the Israelis have used that to their considerable advantage)

Now it doesn't matter about whether the Palestinians are a nation, have a country were a country or whatever. US foreign policy has ensured that a very large bunch of people have no rights, are disenfranchised and or live in poverty in refugee camps. Then they got pissed with that, and the road to 9/11 follows.

I didn't say they were right to do that either. I'm just saying that that is the unvarnished truth - what is more it was foreseeable, since half the Brit newspapers at least were indicating that something was going to blow. (Once Egypt settled for peace it was clear the Arabs could not act, and the Palestinians were alone, second class citizens in their own land, trapped on hte West Bank under a racist and oppressive regime, or holed up in refugee camps, facing an enemy whose top politicians had, some of them, been involved in the massacres at Sabra and Shatila. ) And had done so for years. So it wasn't exactly old news. Hell it wasn't even the first time that the WTC was attacked.

The truth is that the US failed to understand the iron resolve their actions had generated, and sadly paid the price.

As for WMDs and yellowcake. Who are you fooling Denis? If they had found anything that even faintly matched the claim, it would have been world headlines, and we'd have known about it in spades, twice.

Look at Colin Powell in the UN. There was a man who knew he had been sent in to bat on a shitty pitch, and was doing his loyalty bit. At least he had the integrity to resign - the remainder have stuck to it because they had to to maintain their position: easy when its youngsters in the Services who pay the price.

A case of follow me boys, I'm right behind you.

Don't get me wrong, I'm no supporter of the Palestinians, nor of the Israelis for that matter, nor God forbid of AlQ or OBL or the attacks on 9/11. But again, unless one makes some attempt to analyse the problem with an open mind you end up making the wrong calls. And that, between Bush and Blair, is what has happened here.

[T2133]

Just finished reading: Learning to Eat Soup With a Knife: Counter Insurgency Lessons from Malaya and Vietnam, John A. Nagl, U. of Chicago Press. Interesting study in military culture, doctrine and organizational learning.

[ncboman]

Sad day in Iraq today.

[Altjaeger]

Sad day in Iraq today.

Yes and tough day coming for Afghanistan.

[Smokey]

Swamp, I liked the letter. Thanks.

[Wismon]

If the campaigns in Iraq and Afganistan are the result of some right wing conspiracy - as GF's brother's childhood treehouse buddy's all-knowing cousin declares - then the Prophet Obama can pull us out of both countries any time he chooses. Which, incidently, the Obaminable One claimed he would do, as one of his many campaign promises, along with changing the weather, curing cancer, and slowing the passage of time.

Somehow though I think the world might appear a tad differently once one is privy to the president's daily briefing, which contains information that maybe even GF's chum doesn't know.