Lamh Foistenach Abu!
Posted on 05/08/2011 7:47:10 PM PDT by UniqueViews
Those who claim that we can disengage from Afghanistan now that the "emir" of al Qaeda is dead seem to assume the whole organization will disappear with him. It might, but it might not.
President Obama has repeatedly provided superficial support for this view by claiming that our "core goal" in Afghanistan is limited to "disrupting, dismantling and defeating al Qaeda." No doubt he put the emphasize on al Qaeda because it is the terrorist group that most Americans worry about the most. But since 2001 it has never had more than a few dozen fighters at a time inside Afghanistan.
It is immaterial whether or not the Taliban, the Haqqani network, Lashkar-e-Taiba and the others are currently targeting the American homeland. We cannot allow them to create a fundamentalist caliphate stretching from Kabul to Kashmir and beyond. Their takeover of Afghanistan - a first step toward this grandiose goal - would galvanize jihadists and could reverse the loss of momentum they have suffered because of the Arab Spring and bin Laden's death. It would also provide greater impetus to topple the nuclear-armed Pakistan next door.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
Lamh Foistenach Abu!
When a murderer is executed murders still happen, however justice has still been done.
You’re right. We should have just let him be. /s
The US will NEVER get out of Afghanistan. Max Boot should have to go fight there, though.
Thank you. Also, I think it makes a big difference for the bad guys to know that, however long it may take and however many blunders there may be along the way, eventually there will be a bullet with their name on it. Against people who only understand fear and machismo, this is an important lesson to deliver.
I suspect there are three significant changes that will occur. First, the recruiting ability will go down a notch. Talking a bunch of eighteen year-old Arab guys into joining with a dead man’s cause...just isn’t the same thing as what they had before.
Second, folks will now argue about who is really in charge. Weeks and months will pass as various number two players emerge and argue who must take charge.
Third...some folks will evaluate the help or lack of help from Pakistan...and finally cut the US funding going into the country. In the end...this might be the biggest plus of the whole episode.
Wrong. Bin Laden was still operationally involved. Killing him did a LOT.
Two terrabytes of intel. Dissention and a power struggle for who gets to “lead.” Remember, muslimes extremists over time have killed more muslime extremists than the US could without using nukes...
Not well said, but VERY well said!!!
Looks like the democrats are going to use Bin Laden’s death to rush the confirmation of the number 2 man at the DOJ and they’re talking about a no ride list for trains.
I suspect we’ll see a lot of attempts at freedom grabbing in coming days.
OBL should have been brought to justice a long time ago by either Clinton or W.
You think finding OBL wasn’t a top priority for the Bush White House, the CIA and our military? Finding a single person within thousands of miles of multiple countries is not an easy task. His effort took many years.
You think finding OBL wasn’t a top priority for the Bush White House, the CIA and our military? Finding a single person within thousands of miles of multiple countries is not an easy task. This effort took many years.
Agreed, not only that but the fact that this man has been run to ground and existing in close confinement, should send a message.
A determination to mark his successor and indeed the man after him, will send this message. Fatwa's are not a prerogative of Islam. Imagine the effect on these men, sending some fool out to blow him/her self up, as they sit back in safety. If they know this might be their fate, a constant fear of retribution and hiding out, we will see what kind of would be martyrs they are.
The strong horse wins every time.
Where’s the statements from W saying that capturing or killing OBL was a priority?
But we can passively abide Iran getting the bomb?
My impression is that the Obama administration is utterly indifferent or at least passive to this eventuality which is rapidly becoming an inevitability. Possession by Iran of the atomic bomb causes no end of problems for the United States and the Western world affecting the entire Gulf region. The balance of power changes completely. Other Arab nations will undoubtedly seek to arm themselves and proliferation will proceed unchecked. Iran will become more bellicose and our ability to deal with it will diminish. Our Arab Gulf "allies" will recognize this and move away from us and toward Iran. Our relative strength in the world will deteriorate. Our access to oil be put in jeopardy and with it our entire way of life.
My reaction to all of this is that we simply have no policy. What is the grave danger to America and how does fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan protect us against those dangers? Is the danger that 19 men with box cutters can commit some act of terrorism on American soil? How does our occupation of Afghanistan prevent that?
Is the risk that some terrorist band can acquire the atomic bomb and smuggle it across our Mexican border or send it on a ship into one of our ports and explode it killing hundreds of thousands of Americans? It seems to me this is the gravest risk. This is the risk which initially caused me to support the war in Iraq and which has prompted me to call for preemptive strikes against Iran.
Once Iran gets the bomb the risks of a handoff to terrorists who might import it into America compounds. Even if Iran does not get the bomb, recent events in Pakistan demonstrate that they are an unreliable ally at best and at worst an irresponsible guardian of their own nuclear arsenal.
But what is the connection between encouraging the Pakistanis to be responsible and fighting wars in Iraq and Afghanistan? How does aerial assassinations conducted by drones over Pakistan make us safer against this risk? I think it probably does, and it is probably a cost-effective countermeasure. But I simply do not know.
Do we have a policy which is calculated to make us safer against these risks?
At least with Bush/Cheney we had a policy. Now, it seems we have no policy at all except to get past the next election. We are waging wars in 3 places with no definition of victory and no assurance that after victory is achieved it can be permanent one day after we evacuate. Where are we going with this? Will Iran take over Iraq, will the Taliban takeover Afghanistan after we win?
In the wake of the assassination of Osama bin Laden, these questions are certainly not being asked but they must be. We must define victory and then we must say definitively whether we can afford not just in blood but also in treasure to obtain these "victories?"
A Navy veteran of the Korean war once said to me, "a multimillion dollar American jet, launched from a multibillion dollar aircraft carrier, fires a multithousand dollar bomb at an oxcart. The Korean driver (one generation later, a Vietnamese, and today an Afghan) crawls out of the ditch, gathers up the splintered wood from the cart, starts a fire, roasts the ox and eats it. Who won?"
We are running out of borrowed money with which to fight these wars.
It raises the harassment level of every day Americans trying to use public transportation to ridiculous levels.
Where’s the statements from W saying that capturing or killing OBL was a priority?
Don't be foolish. The priority was always to undermine the Al Queda network. As W said around 2002, and Obama reiterated years later (linked above), marginalizing and containing OBL was enough.
Of course it was a goal but never at the expense of distracting intelligence assets and personnel from the core problem of the disrupting the terror network.
Getting Osama was a symbolic victory and nothing more.
Bush understood that and clearly Obama did too until OBL become a political chip to play upon his discovery.
So we can take all the gathered intelligence and throw it in the dumpster?
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