Mission Not Accomplished

[Mavdog]

To all those out there who mistakenly believe the job was completed in Afganistan, it wasn't. We didn't finish. The bad guys are sill there, many of thise responsible for the 9/11 attack are still at large.
There's even a request by Karzai for more soldiers, but they're few left to send due to Iraq.
Yeah, way to take your eye off the ball Dubya!
No photo op with "Mission Accomplished" on this one.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Taliban Vow More Attacks, Say Not Behind Herat Bomb

Mon Jul 12, 3:36 AM ET By Saeed Ali Achakzai
SPIN BOLDAK, Afghanistan (Reuters) - Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s ousted Taliban Monday denied carrying out a weekend bomb attack in the western city of Herat that killed five people, but vowed to disrupt preparations for landmark elections.

Mullah Dadullah, a senior military commander for the Taliban, said local rivalries between commanders within President Hamid Karzai's government were behind Sunday's blast, in which 34 people were wounded.

The attack took place just hours before forces loyal to powerful western governor Ismail Khan began handing in weapons under a nationwide disarmament drive which Khan has criticized.

In an interview published Monday, Karzai told the New York Times that he viewed Afghanistan's private militias, like Khan's, as the greatest threat to stability in the country, not Islamic militants from the Taliban.

More than 800 people have been killed over the past year in a wave of violence mostly blamed on remnants of the Taliban, who are opposed to Karzai's U.S.-backed government and plans to hold elections in October and April.

Karzai said more forceful action was needed to deal with militias, which have often defied Kabul's orders and added to instability in the north and west.

"We tried to do it by persuasion," Karzai told the Times, referring to his style of governing through consensus more than force. "The stick has to be used, definitely," he added.

TALIBAN THREAT

Only about 10,000 of an estimated 50,000 militia fighters have been demobilized, one reason why parliamentary elections were postponed until next April.

The presidential election, which analysts say is less prone to interference from powerful factional leaders, is due to be held on October 9, after initially being planned for June. Karzai is widely expected to sweep to victory.

Dadullah, responsible for the Taliban's military operations in its former stronghold in southern Afghanistan, reiterated a warning for Afghans to stay away from polling stations.

"The people of Afghanistan should not go close to registration centers, because we have decided to step up attacks on them," he told Reuters by satellite telephone from an undisclosed location.

More than 6.3 million out of an estimated electorate of nearly 10 million have registered to vote so far, despite militant attacks and threats.

The Taliban have been blamed for a series of attacks on Afghans working to register voters as well as the electorate itself. In the worst single atrocity, 16 bus passengers with voter registration cards were shot dead in the southern province of Zabul in June.

Karzai has urged NATO (news - web sites) to contribute more troops to help stabilize the country ahead of what has been billed as the country's first ever direct vote, but member states have been slow to contribute forces.

Some 6,500 NATO-led peacekeepers patrol the streets of Kabul, while the U.S. military leads about 20,000 soldiers hunting Islamic militants including senior al Qaeda figures.

[kingrex]

It is a shame.

[FishForLunch]

We get it if the democrats were in the Whitehouse there would be peace and prosperity in the world. Why doesnt your loving cousins the French and Germans send troops to Afghanistan?

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: FishForLunch
We get it if the democrats were in the Whitehouse there would be peace and prosperity in the world. Why doesnt your loving cousins the French and Germans send troops to Afghanistan?

They have. both France and Germany sent armed forces to Afganistan.

[Mavdog]

Another article on Afganistan, how the job is not done.
why did we not complete our work?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
U.S. Seeks to Protect Afghan Elections

By STEPHEN GRAHAM, Associated Press Writer

KABUL, Afghanistan - Thousands of American troops have begun a new operation to prevent militants from derailing Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s first presidential election, the top U.S. commander here said Tuesday in an interview with The Associated Press.

Lt. Gen. David Barno insisted the switch does not blur the military's focus on catching Osama bin Laden (news - web sites) and other top fugitives. But he acknowledged he has no firm idea where the al-Qaida leader is hiding or what he might be planning.

Operation Lightning Resolve is "kicking off as we speak," Barno said at his headquarters in the Afghan capital.

He said the operation contains enough "offensive punch" to keep militants off balance and could see an increase in targeted, intelligence-driven raids. He gave no specifics.

A 2,000-member Marine force, which has hammered Taliban militants in a southern stronghold since it arrived in March, is in the process of leaving the country, Barno said.

The remaining force of 17,000 regular and special operations soldiers will try to fill the vacuum while intensifying its cooperation with the United Nations (news - web sites).

The world body has registered more than 7 million voters for the Oct. 9 election, seen by many war-weary Afghans as well as the United States as vital to Afghanistan's recovery.

Six election workers are among about 600 people killed in violence this year, victims of feuding warlords, as well as rebels and soldiers — a mix that raises fears the vote will be neither fair nor free.

Barno said the Marines, who have killed scores of suspected militants in intensive operations since May, have helped registration to be a success.

"Now we'll be shifting our efforts to helping to build the required security going into the election itself," Barno said. "We should expect that we have to fight to get to these elections."

U.S. forces are expected to provide a broad security blanket across the south and east during the election, leaving Afghan police and soldiers to protect polling stations.

NATO (news - web sites) has also begun topping up its 6,500-strong peacekeeping force focused on Kabul and sending detachments out across the relatively peaceful north in the run-up to the vote.

Incident-free elections would reflect well on the U.S. military and deflect criticism that it has failed to net bin Laden or Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar. The military is also dealing with a widening investigation into allegations that Afghan prisoners have been abused in American jails here.

Barno said the effort to track down top fugitives was "as robust as it's ever been." He wouldn't say whether elite troops who tracked former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) before his capture last December were now in Afghanistan.

There have been reports from Washington that bin Laden and his top aide, Ayman al-Zawahri, might be planning major new al-Qaida attacks to disrupt the upcoming U.S. elections.

Barno said the idea that they were plotting something from a hideout near the rugged Pakistan-Afghan border was "reasonable."

But he said there was "zero credibility" to speculation that the military was under political pressure to deliver bin Laden before President Bush (news - web sites) faces the electorate.

"Those are, I think, the most difficult targets we have over here," Barno said. "Because of the lack of information we have on them, I think the inference is that they are well-protected."

He said U.S. intelligence-gatherers were hoping Pakistani military operations against al-Qaida suspects in a tribal region across the border would yield vital leads.

The U.S. military has praised Pakistan for a bloody crackdown on foreign fighters in its South Waziristan region to coincide with the last American operation, Mountain Storm, which began in March.

A top former Taliban commander was one of about 100 suspected militants and their tribal supporters killed in Waziristan last month.

But Barno said rebels are still slipping across the border into southern Afghanistan, despite heavy losses in clashes with Marines and the use of humanitarian aid to try to persuade villagers to provide intelligence.

With little sign the Afghan government is able to reassert control in remote border areas, U.S. troop strength would remain at about 17,000 "for an extended period," Barno said.

"A counterinsurgency strategy does not achieve success in three months or six months," he said. "These are longer-term, sustained strategies."

[MavKikiNYC]

Dog, this is both an aburd and a trivial complaint.

Afghanistan was a battle, not The War. Both Afghanistan and Iraq are battles in the greater global War on Terrorism. There may well be more to come.

What would have been your criteria for a 'completed work' in Afghanistan? How would that have been different from the situation today? And how can you assert that the Afghanistan 'job' would've been 'finished' with a Hussein-led terrorist state supporting Al-Quaeda in the region? The propostion is laughable.

The reality is that the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq and the deposal of Hussein have significantly altered the ability and ease of functioning of global terrorist networks. And though these networks continue to be able to conduct ambushes of coalition forces and murder of innocent civilians, and though they may frighten some ball-less Democrats and spineless Eurorpeans, the coalition forces have made the world safer.

Bush's administration deserves credit for this.

[Mavs_Rook]

They were with us in the right war, not in the wrong war.

And stop bashing people who are not with the agreement with us in th world issue, they have the same right to say anything as their mind speaks. USA is not the boss of anyone. We are the mos t powerful, but we better be humble to let them know we deserve respect.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: MavKikiNYC
Dog, this is both an aburd and a trivial complaint.

not in agreement with you kiki, IMHO this is a very important battle that has unfortunately been pushed to the back burner by our leaders.

Afghanistan was a battle, not The War. Both Afghanistan and Iraq are battles in the greater global War on Terrorism. There may well be more to come.

No, Iraq was a battle that should not have been waged until the battle with those in Afganistan had been completed. Is Iraq a part of the war on terror? clearly you and I disagree on that, Iraq has no evidence of being involved with any of the terrorist who struck our country. Afganistan tho is clearly involved.

What would have been your criteria for a 'completed work' in Afghanistan? How would that have been different from the situation today? And how can you assert that the Afghanistan 'job' would've been 'finished' with a Hussein-led terrorist state supporting Al-Quaeda in the region? The propostion is laughable.

The situation todayu has a central government who has limited control outside of the capital; private militias who control most of the country and are for purchase to the higher bidder; taliban fighters who still roam the country and fight battles against those who are allied with our efforts. Until these situations are corrected we have not done our job.

How can the Afganistan job be complete with Hussein still in control of Iraq? Please show me the connection between the taliban, al queda, the warlords and Hussein, otherwise it is accurate to say that there is no connection between Iraq and our mission in Afganistan, only an attempt by our current leadership to make an association to justify their opening a second conflict, and therefore if the above were accomplished in Afganistan with an Hussein still in power in Iraq we would have completed our job in Afganistan.

The reality is that the campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq and the deposal of Hussein have significantly altered the ability and ease of functioning of global terrorist networks. And though these networks continue to be able to conduct ambushes of coalition forces and murder of innocent civilians, and though they may frighten some ball-less Democrats and spineless Eurorpeans, the coalition forces have made the world safer.

Tell those in Madrid how the removal of Hussein has "altered the ability and ease of functioning of global terrorist networks". Tell that to those in Bali who were killed. No, the terrorist did not depend on Iraq for their support, and the removal of Hussein did not cause the terrorists to lose their ability to act, it did not make them suddenly impotent. Your assertion that the removal of Hussein has made the world safer isn't reflected in the number of terrorists acts, as there is an increase in the number of acts that have occured post Iraq invasion than the year before.

Bush's administration deserves credit for this.

"this" is no progress in the real war on terror IMHO.
Then likewise they deserve the blame for failing to finish the job in Afganistan prior to their rush to invade Iraq.

[MavericksfanDenton]

Originally posted by: Mavdog

They have. both France and Germany sent armed forces to Afganistan.

Sombody got owned!!!!!!! You are my hero Mavsdog!!!

[Drbio]

MavericksfanDenton- got banned and made another account huh?

[MavericksfanDenton]

Originally posted by: Drbio
MavericksfanDenton- got banned and made another account huh?

I'm on my best behavior, I promise.

[mavsman55]

MFD, having Mavdog as your hero will end up severely lowering your self-esteem. Pick a new hero.

[Drbio]

Originally posted by: MavericksfanDenton

I'm on my best behavior, I promise.

Cool.....good luck here.






mm- lol

[FishForLunch]

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by: FishForLunch
We get it if the democrats were in the Whitehouse there would be peace and prosperity in the world. Why doesnt your loving cousins the French and Germans send troops to Afghanistan?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



They have. both France and Germany sent armed forces to Afganistan.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



Sombody got owned!!!!!!! You are my hero Mavsdog!!!

We have 20000 troops in Afganistan and carry out most offensive operations, those Nato led forces have only 6500 troops why dont France and Germany up their troop strength, it not as if they are helping in Iraq. Your hero mavdog owns nobody, he is not the only one that can surf the web for stats.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: MavericksfanDenton

Sombody got owned!!!!!!! You are my hero Mavsdog!!!

uh, nobody "got owned", there was merely an incorrect statement that needed to be corrected. Any of us can make a mistake, and when we do I'm sure that it will be noticed and spoken of.
nobody gets "owned" and nobody should be embarrassed if a mistake is made IMHO.

it doesn't really mean squat, cept that we all should stay as accurate as we can.

[MavKikiNYC]

Is Iraq a part of the war on terror? clearly you and I disagree on that, Iraq has no evidence of being involved with any of the terrorist who struck our country. Afganistan tho is clearly involved.

Dog, I understand how people who want to criticize the legitimacy of the Bush administration's initiatives against global terrorism (including the campaign in Iraq) persist in the (largely irrelevant) distinction that the terrorists who flew airplanes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center did not do so having had their lunches packed and their underwear pressed by Saddam Hussein.....probably.

But the far more important point that Democrats and Republicans, Americans and Europeans (and others) have agreed upon is that there were longstanding links and collaboration between Al Quaeda/Al Quaeda affiliates and Hussein's government (and other governments).

Given Hussein's record, the evidence made him a natural, logical, and critical target for removal. One can argue that coalition forces should still be in Afghanistan crushing rocks into ever finer particles and chasing the roach-like terrorists further into the heap of rubble.

But it made an infinitely larger difference to take out a terrorist-supporting state like Iraq, and simultaneously establish an military presence in the region, not coincientally, the two countries in question being on either side of Iran.

It's a shame that this approach didn't conform to a (non-existent) universally accepted aesthetic of war--or even the one you propose--completing the job in one theater before moving on to another of greater strategic importance.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that neither of us are experts in geo-warfare, but I'm pretty comfortable in relying on common sense and powers of observation to conclude that Hussein's government was a force and a threat that had to be eliminated.

And now it has been.

The magnitude of the Bush administration's achivement in spearheading this change will be clear, indeed undeniable, when viewed from a historical perspective, as opposed to the wilfully perverse distortions spewed by political opponents such as Kerry, corrupt European governments, and pathological liar-idiots like Michael Moore.

Surely your intellect is capable of seeing beyond the short-term distortions.

Knight Ridder Gets It Wrong
The news service giant puts words in the president's mouth and then looks the other way on connections between Iraq and al Qaeda.
by Stephen F. Hayes
07/14/2004 10:30:00 AM


President Bush continued to insist Monday that there was an operational link between former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and al-Qaida despite reports by the Senate Intelligence Committee and the commission that's investigating the Sept. 11 attacks that there was no evidence that Saddam and Islamic terrorists collaborated to kill Americans.

(Jonathan Landay and William Douglas, Knight Ridder Newspapers, July 12, 2004) [Emphasis added]


THAT SENTENCE IS FALSE. It was the lead passage in a story about President Bush's speech Monday at the Oak Ridge National Laboratories in Tennessee. Bush did not claim an "operational link" between Saddam Hussein and al Qaeda. He could not have "continued to insist" on such an "operational link" because he has never done so before. And, finally, neither the September 11 Commission nor the Senate Intelligence Committee reported that there was "no evidence that Saddam and Islamic terrorists collaborated to kill Americans."

Other than that, the sentence was accurate. The complete text of Bush's speech is here.

By Wednesday, Knight Ridder had posted a correction. "President Bush's comments about terrorism were incorrectly reported in that saying the president insisted there was an operational link between al Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. The president suggested that such a link existed, but didn't explicitly make that connection."

The correction is incorrect. The president never even "suggested that such a link"--the referent is an "operational link"--existed.

The sentence was hardly the only problem with the story, which ran under the headline "Bush Again Tries to Link Saddam, al Qaeda." Knight Ridder is the second largest newspaper chain in the United States. Its stories run in major metropolitan daily newspapers such as the Miami Herald, the Charlotte Observer and the Philadelphia Inquirer. According to a company press release from May 5, 2004, Knight Ridder "publishes 31 daily newspapers in 28 U.S. markets, with a readership of 8.7 million daily and 12.6 million Sunday."

The authors continue:


In its report, the Senate Intelligence Committee affirmed CIA analyses that found that while there had been contacts between al-Qaida and Iraqi intelligence officials during the 1990s, "these contacts did not add up to an established relationship."

Again, not true. The report is misquoted. According to Conclusion 93 of the Senate Intelligence Committee report the "contacts did not add up to an established formal relationship." [emphasis added] How many terrorist groups have "established formal relationships" with their state sponsors? State sponsors often--but not always--prefer to keep their terrorist connections loose and informal so that they might avoid detection, deniability being a major goal of states that use terrorists to do their dirty work.

The Senate Intelligence Committee language is important for another reason: Documents from the Iraqi Intelligence service do suggest an "established relationship," just not "an established formal relationship." A report in the June 25, 2004, New York Times, was based on an internal Iraqi Intelligence document: When bin Laden left the Sudan in 1996, according to the Iraqi Intelligence document, Iraqi Intelligence began "seeking other channels through which to handle the relationship, in light of [bin Laden's] current location." The report also indicates that bin Laden "had some reservations about being labeled an Iraqi operative" and that "cooperation between the two organizations should be allowed to develop freely through discussion and agreement."

The Iraqis themselves, then, talked about the connection with al Qaeda in terms of the "relationship" and "cooperation." At the same time, bin Laden was reluctant to formalize the relationship.

Does the lack of an "established formal relationship" preclude cooperation? Not according to bin Laden. The same internal Iraqi Intelligence document reports that bin Laden "requested joint operations against foreign forces" based in Saudi Arabia.


THE KNIGHT RIDDER STORY also questions Bush administration claims on Abu Musab al Zarqawi. But rather than refer to the report prepared by the Senate Intelligence Committee to discuss Zarqawi's activities, the authors turn to anonymous "U.S. intelligence officials":


U.S. intelligence officials consider Zarqawi an associate of the terrorist network, not a member sworn to obey Osama bin Laden. Zarqawi, they think, is an independent operator who has an agenda similar to bin Laden's and cooperates with al Qaeda when it's convenient. He and some followers found sanctuary in an enclave in northern Iraq run by armed Kurdish Islamic extremists that was outside Saddam's control.

In 2002, Zarqawi reportedly received medical treatment in Baghdad and set up cells in the city, leading Bush administration officials to view his presence there are proof that Saddam was collaborating with al Qaeda.

U.S. Intelligence officials think it just as likely that Iraqi officials, who were hostile to Islamic extremists, gave him medical care and refuge because it was easier to monitor his activities in Baghdad than in northern Iraq.


There are no doubt U.S. intelligence officials who have provided this assessment. Their views, however, were not included in the Senate Intelligence Committee's report. That report quotes a finished CIA report from January 2003 called Iraqi Support for Terrorism on the question of Zarqawi:


A variety of reporting indicates that senior al Qaeda terrorist planner al Zarqawi was in Baghdad [redacted]. A foreign government service asserted that the IIS [Iraqi Intelligence Service] knew where al Zarqawi was located despite Baghdad's claims that it could not find him.

The CIA calls Zarqawi a "senior al Qaeda terrorist planner" and adds the detail that the Iraqi regime claimed it could not find him. The Senate report concludes:


Al Zarqawi and his network were operating both in Baghdad and in the Kurdish-controlled region of Iraq. The HUMINT reporting indicated that the Iraqi regime certainly knew that al Zarqawi was in Baghdad because a foreign government service gave that information to Iraq.[emphasis added]

So the Senate Intelligence Committee report, based on CIA findings, concludes not only that the Iraqi regime "certainly" knew of Zarqawi's presence in Baghdad, but also that Zarqawi and his network were "operating" in the Iraqi capital and in northern Iraq.These facts were left out of the Knight Ridder story, too.

There is much we all have to learn about Iraq's relationship with al Qaeda. As the Senate report makes clear, what knowledge we currently possess is based on inadequate intelligence collection from the U.S. intelligence community. What we are learning now--whether from detainees or captured Iraqi documents--reinforces one central fact: Iraq and al Qaeda had a relationship.

And as the CIA's Counterterrorism Center--and this, too, was included in the Senate Intelligence Committee report--said in describing its aggressive analysis of the Iraq-al Qaeda connection: "Any indication of a relationship between these two hostile elements could carry great dangers to the United States."

Any indication. That wasn't in the Knight Ridder story, either.

[MavKikiNYC]

Saddam Hussein had link with Al Qaeda’

LONDON: Saddam Hussein had links with terrorists like Carlos the Jackal and Abu Nidal and groups connected to Al Qaeda, Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on Wednesday.

“The record of Saddam shows very well his connections to international terrorists, like Carlos and Abu Nidal,” Allawi told BBC radio. “We know for sure that he had established links with chieftains in Sudan, to work closely with Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda style organisations,” he said.

Allawi also defended the US-led coalition’s move to go to war against Saddam, describing it as “a moral decision taken on ethical grounds.” Speaking on the day an inquiry is due to report on the use of Britain’s intelligence to justify the invasion, Allawi thanked British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush.

“The Iraqi people, we are deeply appreciative of both the role of Tony Blair and President Bush in helping Iraq to liberate itself,” he said.

[madape]

Originally posted by: MavKikiNYC
Saddam Hussein had link with Al Qaeda’

LONDON: Saddam Hussein had links with terrorists like Carlos the Jackal and Abu Nidal and groups connected to Al Qaeda, Iraqi Prime Minister Iyad Allawi said on Wednesday.

“The record of Saddam shows very well his connections to international terrorists, like Carlos and Abu Nidal,” Allawi told BBC radio. “We know for sure that he had established links with chieftains in Sudan, to work closely with Al Qaeda and Al Qaeda style organisations,” he said.

Allawi also defended the US-led coalition’s move to go to war against Saddam, describing it as “a moral decision taken on ethical grounds.” Speaking on the day an inquiry is due to report on the use of Britain’s intelligence to justify the invasion, Allawi thanked British Prime Minister Tony Blair and US President George W Bush.

“The Iraqi people, we are deeply appreciative of both the role of Tony Blair and President Bush in helping Iraq to liberate itself,” he said.

Mavdog YOU GOT SERVED!

[FishForLunch]

According to the Johns and the democrats the coalition will always be illegitimate because it did not include, France and Germany. What do the Iraqi people know they are bunch of third worlders who dont deserve freedom from tryanny.

[Chiwas]

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: MavKikiNYC

Dog, I understand how people who want to criticize the legitimacy of the Bush administration's initiatives against global terrorism (including the campaign in Iraq) persist in the (largely irrelevant) distinction that the terrorists who flew airplanes into the Pentagon and the World Trade Center did not do so having had their lunches packed and their underwear pressed by Saddam Hussein.....probably.

But the far more important point that Democrats and Republicans, Americans and Europeans (and others) have agreed upon is that there were longstanding links and collaboration between Al Quaeda/Al Quaeda affiliates and Hussein's government (and other governments).

Given Hussein's record, the evidence made him a natural, logical, and critical target for removal. One can argue that coalition forces should still be in Afghanistan crushing rocks into ever finer particles and chasing the roach-like terrorists further into the heap of rubble.

But it made an infinitely larger difference to take out a terrorist-supporting state like Iraq, and simultaneously establish an military presence in the region, not coincientally, the two countries in question being on either side of Iran.

It's a shame that this approach didn't conform to a (non-existent) universally accepted aesthetic of war--or even the one you propose--completing the job in one theater before moving on to another of greater strategic importance.

I'm going to go out on a limb and suggest that neither of us are experts in geo-warfare, but I'm pretty comfortable in relying on common sense and powers of observation to conclude that Hussein's government was a force and a threat that had to be eliminated.

And now it has been.

The magnitude of the Bush administration's achivement in spearheading this change will be clear, indeed undeniable, when viewed from a historical perspective, as opposed to the wilfully perverse distortions spewed by political opponents such as Kerry, corrupt European governments, and pathological liar-idiots like Michael Moore.

Surely your intellect is capable of seeing beyond the short-term distortions.

Kiki, it is not so much a question of the “legitimacy” of GWBush’s initiatives against terrorism, it is a criticism of the follow through and focus of the administration's efforts to combat the scourge of terrorism. We took the battle to them in Afghanistan but didn’t complete the mission. The administration justified the invasion of Iraq as a part of that war on terror, but yet the terrorists remain active with attacks on western targets unimpeded. The rationale of going to war, and attacking as quickly as we did rather than wait (as the preponderance of our allies voiced was their desired strategy) has been proven to be a ruse. Hussein was not a threat, had no means to be a threat, and Iraq was impotent as a military force.

The answer is that Hussein was not involved with these al queda islamist nor did they rely upon his support. Were there contacts? Certainly, they operate in the same area of the world and had the same enemies. However they were also competing interests, with the secular regime of Hussein never willing to support islamist radicals as they are a threat to his regime; likewise the islamist goals of a theocratic non-secular government was in direct opposition to the regime in Iraq

Carlos the Jackal and Adu Nidal were not al Queda participants. They were indeed terrorists, they were certainly murderers. They were not culpable in the attack on 9-11 and they are not evidence of a connection between al Queda and Hussein. Not all terrorists are al queda. Hezbollah is a collection of terrorists; they are not connected to 9-11. HAMAS likewise, and so too are these two you mention.

That is our goal is it not, to respond to the attacks of 9-11 and to punish, bring to justice as it were, the conspirators? Has our goal changed to where we are not focusing on those responsible for 9-11 but are on a mission to rid the world of all the “evil doers” as GW says? No, it is the former goal of locating those responsible for 9-11 that we should complete. Hussein had nothing to do with that goal and this current conflict only takes our focus away from that goal.

Was Hussein a terrible, evil force? Certainly. Was it in our country’s best interest long term to be rid of him? Certainly. Did the US have the international support, the evidence of Hussein’s threat to other countries, and a clear linkage of Saddam’s attempts to work with such terrorists to harm the US? Certainly not. The UN sanctions have been shown effective in limiting the ability of Hussein to develop WMD, as well as his ability to get armaments to wage war. The Bush administration was eager to attack, went out of their way to focus on the flimsiest of intelligence to justify that attack, and suppressed evidence that conflicted with their goal of an atttack.

The situation in Afghanistan is not stable; the government that we installed is not in control, and the primary targets- the leadership of al Queda- remain out of our grasp. That is the direct result of the invasion of Iraq and the distraction it has become IMHO.

I am troubled by the military presence in western Asia and the apparent eagerness of our leaders to wage war, especially with a member of the famous “Axis of Evil” being right next door. The most disturbing situation is that Bush Doctrine could be used to attack Iran soon, and with this group of hawks in office that might very well come to pass. What a mistake that will be. Iran is not a threat to the US.

The US did not need to invade Iraq in the fall of 2002, we are not more secure because of that invasion, and we have lost the support of our allies by acting like the Lone Ranger. It will take years to repair our relations with our allies, it will take generations to repair our relations with the average Muslim.

[madape]

Iran is not a threat to the US.

!?!?!?!?!?!?

Dude, pass the peace pipe. It must feel great to be so out of touch with reality.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: madape
originally posted by mavdog

!?!?!?!?!?!?

Dude, pass the peace pipe. It must feel great to be so out of touch with reality.

ok, (puff puff) educate us, show how Iran is a threat to the US....

[FishForLunch]

I know you Mavdog you need absolute iron clad proof before you decide it is reasonable to take action. Did some Iranian agents photograph some newyork tunnels and landmarks and were expelled. The iranian people are not a threat but the religious dictators are up to no good. All I am saying is the Iranian dictators are not to be trusted.

[Fidel]

Originally posted by: FishForLunch
We get it if the democrats were in the Whitehouse there would be peace and prosperity in the world. Why doesnt your loving cousins the French and Germans send troops to Afghanistan?

LOL what a blunder.

[madape]

shit. this is insanity. The Iranians are sending agents to Iraq to kill American soldiers as we speak. They are sending agents to survey new York city tunnels in order to form a plan on how to bomb them, maximizing American death and teror. I read today that the Ayatolla just accused the Jews and American Zionists of being the party behing all the beheadings in Iraq. THey are spinning it as some bizarre scheme to undermine Islam. What kind of philosophy exists in which the leader of a country would spout such vile, violent hatred?

Iran is developing nuclear weapons that most people think they will use to either terrorize Israel, or even to launch a pre-emptive strike in an attempt to kill every Jew in Tel-Aviv. They also wouldn't mind dropping a nuke on American targets in Iraq, or New York city for that matter. They are a rogue state which has a violent, religously based fundamentalist hatred of western culture. They are particularly interested in exterminating Jews. They are also very interested in purging Western influence from the middle east. What about this bunch of militaristic, jihadistic fucks makes you think they aren't a threat? Do you suggest that America just sit back and wait for them to develop nukes so they can use them to threaten and blackmail the entire world? Do you think we should take your pussy-ass strategy a step further and actually help them develop the technology to build ICBMS capable of reaching US soil? The Iranians are not our friend. They want every and American and every Jew out of the middle east, and they don't mind killing us all by the millions in order to achieve thier sick, twisted goal. Which fucking side are you on?

[MavKikiNYC]

Whoa.....neither Iraq NOR Iran were a threat to the U.S.?

[madape]

I'd like to know exactly what it takes for Democrats to feel that a country is a threat to the United States. Apparently hating us, attacking us, and building up a nuclear arsenal to use against us isn't enough.

[Chiwas]

Iran isn't the main threat for the western world. Neither Iraq nor Afghanistan.

China and North Korea are, maybe followed by...Saudi Arabia, the very US "partner"!

China is doing more harm to the citizens of our countries that thousands of terrorism attacks.

And the nukes of North Korea are not a joke, as Saddam's were.

[Mavdog]

I asked a pretty straightforward question of how Iran is a threat to the US. I had hoped to receive a response that discussed the military capability of Iran, their ability to send an armed force or weapons at us. Perhaps some sabre rattling on their part of how they will take the battle to the unbelievers, they will avenge or something like that. Even a point of fact that they were in a process of building up their military power, adding state of the art armaments or missile systems. Have they increased their army size since the Americans went on both their borders? Were they testing any delivery systems that would hurl weapons outside their borders?

No, none of the above.

What I get back is that they hate us. That they hate our allies. How they speak of us in terms we would use for the lowest of the low.

What a criteria to use to determine who is a real threat to our country, and justification for us to attack and wage war.
They hate us.
Insanity indeed.

Is the Iranian government docile and passive?
No, not in the least.
Have they engaged in activities that are illegal and even immoral?
Yes, they certainly have.
They have murdered.
They will do almost anything to destroy Israel.
They do not want to have the US successful in Iraq.
That does not make them a threat to the security of the US.
That does not in the least justify an attack by the US.

Making a nuclear weapon and delivering it to its target isn’t done on the back of a napkin.
Here’s how the world is dealing (without aggression) with issues like Iran’s (and Israel BTW) nuclear plans:

ElBaradei pushes vision of non-nuclear Mideast

Security comes through peace, not through nuclear weapons, International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief Mohammed ElBaradei said Wednesday, adding that he hopes someday to see a nuclear free Middle East.
ElBaradei made his comments following a meeting in Jerusalem with Health Minister Dan Naveh, during which an agreement was reached to establish a program for nuclear medicine in Israel that will be funded by the IAEA.
ElBaradei said he realizes a non-nuclear Middle East is not something that will happen overnight, but that even discussing the issue represents progress.
ElBaradei, in the country for some 48-hours, is slated to meet Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom on Thursday, before returning to Vienna. He is also slated to give an address at Hebrew University.
His brief visit does not include a visit to the nuclear reactor in Dimona, but ElBaradei said he would be "happy to visit" there any time.
Since Israel is not a signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty, the IAEA has no access to the Dimona reactor, a sore point in the Arab world, which sees a double standard in the treatment of Israel and Iran, which has signed the NPT.
Prior to meeting Naveh, ElBaradei met with Gideon Frank, head of the Israel Atomic Energy Commission, and other top Commission officials.
Speaking to reporters before that meeting, ElBaradei alluded to the perceived double standard, saying "The majority of the countries in the Middle East feel that there is this security imbalance in the Middle East, this double standard. Here the Israelis are saying you cannot even discuss that because we cannot lower our security threshold before we have a comprehensive peace where we are fully accepted as part and parcel of the region."
ElBaradei said he has no illusions about changing Israel's policy of nuclear ambiguity. "Building security in this troubled area will take time," he said.
After the meeting, ElBaradei Israeli expressed concern about Iran, and that his attempts to push forward the idea of a Middle East nuclear free zone were answered by Israeli concerns about Iran's nuclear ambitions.
ElBaradei dismissed the notion that Iran is making a mockery of his agency, saying that there is cooperation with Teheran and that "our work there is not done yet."

[MavKikiNYC]

Mixed bag---commission seems to link Al Quaeda more closely to Iran than to Iraq.

Friends of Al Qaeda


The 9/11 commission’s findings about Osama bin Laden’s foreign allies could have significant implications for U.S. diplomacy as well as the race for the White House

WEB EXCLUSIVE
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 7:34 p.m. ET June 16, 2004

June 16 - While rejecting claims that Al Qaeda had collaborated with Saddam Hussein’s regime on strikes against the United States, the federal panel investigating the September 11 attacks today disclosed intriguing new evidence that Osama bin Laden’s organization may have cooperated with Iraq’s volatile next door neighbor: Iran.

A commission report released at a public hearing Wednesday suggests for the first time that bin Laden played a behind-the-scenes role in the deadly 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers U.S. military compound in Saudi Arabia—an attack that the FBI, after an agonizing investigation that created tensions with the Clinton White House, later concluded was planned and funded by Iranian intelligence agents.

While the link to Iran has been publicly known for some time, the 9/11 commission has uncovered evidence that in the mid-1990s Osama bin Laden cast aside religious differences with the Iranians and arranged to have his terror operatives conduct training in explosives and security at Iranian-backed camps run by Hizbullah in Lebanon.

“We have seen strong but indirect evidence that [bin Laden’s] organization did in fact play some as yet unknown role in the Khobar attack,” the commission report states.

The panel’s suggestion of an Al Qaeda-Iran link is far more than a historical footnote. Together with a rash of other new details about the rise of Al Qaeda and the origins of the September 11 plot, the commission’s findings have potentially significant implications—both for U.S. diplomacy and presidential politics.

The commission found that throughout the decade prior to the September 11 attacks, bin Laden’s organization forged alliances with officials in a number of foreign governments, including Iran, Sudan and Pakistan.

Indeed, the commission said there are “strong indications” that “elements of both the Pakistani and Iranian governments frequently turned a blind eye” to a flow of recruiters, travel facilitators, and document forgers who flew in and out of bin Laden’s training camps in Afghanistan throughout the late 1990s.

By contrast, the commission found little evidence of any collaborative relationship with Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq—which the Bush administration chose to invade last year at least in part because of claimed links to Al Qaeda.

With its justification for war under continued scrutiny, the White House has been loath to give any ground. Only this week, in a campaign speech, Vice President Dick Cheney asserted that Saddam Hussein had “long established ties with Al Qaeda.” President Bush yesterday asserted that the apparent activities in Iraq of Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi—a sometime ally of bin Laden—was “the best evidence of connection to Al Qaeda.”

But the commission portrays a far more tenuous link to Al Qaeda—and a much more complex picture of bin Laden’s organization—than has been publicly presented by the administration.

While there were indeed contacts between bin Laden and Saddam’s regime in the early 1990s—the staff report says an Iraqi intelligence officer made three visits to Sudan and met with bin Laden there in 1994—the attempts to forge an operational alliance apparently failed.

“Bin Laden is said to have requested space to establish training camps [in Iraq], as well as assistance in procuring weapons, but Iraq apparently never responded,” the staff report states.

While there have been reports of contacts between Iraq and Al Qaeda after bin Laden returned to Afghanistan in May 1996, “they did not appear to have resulted in a collaborative relationship,” the report states. The report notes that two senior bin Laden associates adamantly denied any ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda and then concludes: “We have no credible evidence that Iraq and Al Qaeda cooperated on attacks against the United States.”

In a separate report on the 9/11 plot, the commission also seemed to shoot down conclusively a persistent claim made by some proponents of an Iraq-Al Qaeda connection: that lead 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta flew to Prague to meet with an Iraqi intelligence agent on April 9, 2001. The staff report notes Atta’s cell phone was used repeatedly in Florida the week in question and there is no evidence that he left the country during this period. “We do not believe such a meeting occurred,” the staff report states.

The commission staff report also pours cold water on another alleged foreign link to the attacks—a claim by the House-Senate Intelligence Committee last year suggesting there may have been some form of Saudi government sponsorship of the hijackers, especially two, Khalid Almihdhar and Nawaf Alhazmi, who had settled in San Diego. The House-Senate inquiry had focused on an apparent money trail that went from the Saudi Embassy in Washington to an associate of the hijackers in San Diego, another Saudi student named Omar al-Bayoumi. But while finding evidence that Bayoumi did in fact help the 9/11 hijackers settle in San Diego, the commission said it had not uncovered any evidence that he did so “knowing that they were terrorists” and there was no evidence that the hijackers received any funding from Bayoumi, an associate named Osama Bassnan or any Saudi government officials.

But the commission’s suggestion of a link to the Khobar Towers attack and, by implication, the government of Iran may prove far more politically volatile. The Justice Department, in June 21, 2001, announced it had indicted 14 members of what an FBI press release described as the pro-Iran Saudi Hizbullah group for carrying out the Khobar attack, which killed 19 Americans. The indictment alleged that the plot which led to the bombing was in the works for years and involved elaborate surveillance of Americans in Saudi Arabia; reports of the results of this surveillance, the FBI said at the time, were supplied to "officials in Iran."

According to an article last year for The Wall Street Journal by Louis Freeh, the former FBI director who clashed repeatedly with the Clinton White House over his conduct of the probe, the “entire operation was planned, funded and coordinated by Iran's security services … acting on orders from the highest levels of the regime in Tehran."

According to 9/11 commission investigators, the initial belief of U.S. investigators was that because of historical animosity between the Shia and Sunni sects of Islam, the confirmation that a branch of the Iranian-supported Hizbullah was behind the Khobar bombing tended to rule out the likelihood that the Sunni-dominated Al Qaeda would have also been involved. However, according to the commission, later intelligence showed "far greater potential for collaboration between Hizbullah and Al Qaeda than many had previously thought."

According to the commission, a few years before the Khobar attack, bin Laden's representatives and Iranian officials discussed putting aside theological disputes to cooperate in their campaign against Westerners. It was then that bin Laden dispatched his operatives to Iranian-backed Hizbullah camps in Lebanon. One particular attraction for him, the commission said, was his interest in the truck-bombing tactics perfected by Hizbullah when 241 American soldiers were killed in a 1983 attack on a U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut. Within months of that attack, President Reagan began to withdraw U.S. peacekeepers from war-torn Lebanon.

The alleged connection to Tehran is especially notable in light of intelligence last year suggesting that some Al Qaeda militants, who have been linked to more recent attacks in Saudi Arabia, may have received orders from high-ranking bin Laden lieutenants who have taken refuge in Iran. U.S. intelligence officials believe that among the top Al Qaeda operatives hiding out in Iran are senior bin Laden lieutenant Saif Al-Adel and Saad bin Laden, one of Osama’s elder sons. The Iranian government has frequently asserted in recent years that it has arrested numerous Al Qaeda militants and that it has no ties to the bin Laden organization.

[MavKikiNYC]

I asked a pretty straightforward question of how Iran is a threat to the US. I had hoped to receive a response that discussed the military capability of Iran, their ability to send an armed force or weapons at us. Perhaps some sabre rattling on their part of how they will take the battle to the unbelievers, they will avenge or something like that. Even a point of fact that they were in a process of building up their military power, adding state of the art armaments or missile systems. Have they increased their army size since the Americans went on both their borders? Were they testing any delivery systems that would hurl weapons outside their borders?

Looks like you asked the question hoping for/expecting the wrong answers, although there is that pesky nuclear program question looming.

The gap between what you expected the response to be and the reality of the Islamic/Iraqi/Iranian threat is the gap between a traditional war fought with armies, and the campaign of terror fought by Islamic fundamentalists; the weapons of choice not being guns and missiles directed at soliders, but airplanes flown into buildings full of civilians, bombs in backpacks activated by cellphone killing and injuring hundreds of innocent civilian commuters, truck bombs driven into the parking garage of skyscrapers, kidnapped civilians being beheaded before a worldwide audience on the internet. None of these threats is merely potential, they have all been actualized.

There remains the possibility of a chemical or biological or small-scale nuclear attack, but the terrorists have been as patient as they have been opportunistic, suported by networks of like-minded murderers spread across several nations, harbored, protected, hosted and finanaced in part by nation-states like Iraq and Iran.

So while the question you ask is easily answerable, you can still claim that it wasn't answered in the terms you were expecting. But then you're acknowledging a blind-spot to the different nature of the Islamist threat. Such a stance would make Kerry and other Dims proud.

[PlanoJ]

I like how anyone who we don't like that is developing Nukes is a rogue state and would be very dangerous if they had nukes. We sold weapons to both Iraq and Iran in the not too distant past. We knew that Iraq had large stockpiles of chemical weapons because during Reagan's presidancy, we sold them large amounts of chemcial weapons. We're fine with the fact that Israel has nukes pointed at just about every other nation in the area, but we are outraged at the fact that Iran would have the presumption to try to develop nukes to point back. We have the most Nukes in the world and George W was the one that decided to cancel the long standing limitations that we had with Russia on developing new technologies on them.

[Mavdog]

We have a very different opinion of how to confront the situation like Iran's. Is Iran actively sponsoring acts of terror? To point to Zaqawi is quite a stretch in associating the two, and you even included Madrid. I'm not denying their support for Hezbollah, but to categorize them as the same as Osama is adsurd

We all know how accurate the last time we acted based on the threat of "the possibility of chemical or biological or small scale nuclear attack" proved to be. Not very, in fact non existant. It is inconceiveable that anybody would say that Iraq was truly a threat to the US with what has been uncovered post invasion. Iran is not undeer sanctions, but Iran is also working with the world community.

Some of the Iranian government are murderers. The blood of Buenos Aires is on their hands.

Iran certainly is an adversary. Iran is clearly a troublemaker.

Iran is not a case to apply the ill conceived Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive attack.

Iran is cooperating with the world as it relates to their nuclear program. Are they doing enough? No, not in my opinion, but they are working with intl orgs, european countries are making progress. I posted earlier the article of ElBarberi's efforts to work with Iran and the nuclear plants they are building. Here is an interesting article about the Iranians working wirth the Saudis on al Queda:
----------------------------
Iran extradites Al Qaeda men to Saudi Arabia

* Declines to give names, number or extradition dates

LONDON: Iran has extradited a number of Saudi members of Al Qaeda to Saudi Arabia, the official Iranian news agency IRNA, monitored in London by the BBC, reported on Saturday.

IRNA quoted Tehran’s ambassador to Riyadh as saying the Al Qaeda members had been arrested in Iran after the US-led war on Afghanistan, but did not name them, or say how many had been extradited or when they had been handed over to Saudi Arabia.

The envoy, speaking to IRNA on the sidelines of a conference in Tehran, said Iran and Saudi Arabia, leading oil producers and both Muslim nations, had signed a security pact and “have shown a firm resolve to improve ties in all areas”, the BBC said.

Last Sunday IRNA quoted Hassan Rohani, secretary-general of the Supreme National Security Council, as saying that Iran had foiled a number of attacks Al Qaeda had been planning to carry out on its soil.

“Their (Al Qaeda ’s) plans for a wide range of terrorist acts inside Iran were neutralised by our intelligence organisations,” IRNA quoted Rohani as saying, though he gave no details.

Although a staunch political enemy of Washington, Iran condemned the September 11 attacks on the United States which were blamed on Al Qaeda and was fiercely opposed to the rule of Al Qaeda ’s former sponsors, the Taliban, in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Tehran has said previously that it has arrested a number of Al Qaeda members, including some senior figures in Osama bin Laden’s organisation. But it has declined to name them and has refused to hand them over to US officials for questioning.

The Islamic Republic has also acknowledged that its extensive eastern border with Afghanistan is hard to police and some fleeing Al Qaeda members may have been able to slip into the country undetected.

Intelligence sources and media reports suggest Iran may be holding Saad bin Laden, a son of the Al Qaeda leader, Al Qaeda ’s security chief Egyptian Saif al Adel and its Kuwaiti-born spokesman Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, among others.

Washington has in the past accused Iran of sheltering Al Qaeda and said members of bin Laden’s network in Iran may have planned the May 12 bombings in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, which killed 35 people.

Fifteen of the 19 men who carried out the September 11 suicide hijackings in the United States were Saudi citizens, and Riyadh, under pressure from Washington, has launched a crackdown that has involved bloody clashes between security forces and militants.

Iran says that in the past year it has arrested and deported around 500 Al Qaeda suspects who fled across its borders from Afghanistan and Pakistan. —Reuters

[MavKikiNYC]

Iran is far from unimplicated in Al Quaeda acitivities, including perhaps at least a peripheral involvement with the 9/11 attackers.

Bush Says U.S. Will Look Into Possible Iranian Ties to 9/11
By DAVID STOUT

Published: July 19, 2004

WASHINGTON, July 19 — President Bush said today that the United States would continue to investigate whether Iran, one of the three countries he has said compose an "axis of evil," had any role in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.

"As to direct connections with Sept. 11," Mr. Bush said at the White House, "we're digging into the facts to determine if there was one." The president spoke as official Washington was eagerly awaiting the report by the independent commission investigating the attacks, which is scheduled for release on Thursday.

From the tone of Mr. Bush's remarks, delivered in response to a question, it did not appear that he was hinting at any startling new intelligence about Iran. He seemed, rather, to be expressing determination to get to the bottom of new reports that as many as 10 of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers passed through Iran before the attacks.

"Of course, we want to know all the facts," Mr. Bush said. Noting that Thomas McLaughlin, the acting Director of Central Intelligence, has said there appeared to be no direct connection between Iran and the Sept. 11 attacks, the president said, "We will continue to look and see if, see if the Iranians were involved."

Early in his presidency, Mr. Bush described Iran, Iraq and North Korea as an "axis of evil." He initially argued that the military campaign to topple Iraq's Saddam Hussein was necessary because his regime was thought to possess deadly unconventional weapons.

With the failure so far to find any such weapons, Mr. Bush has insisted that the military campaign was still the right thing to do, because it removed an evil dictator from the Middle East. He and Vice President Dick Cheney have characterized the campaign as part of the war on terror that began on Sept. 11, 2001, even though the 9/11 commission said in an interim report last month that there had been no "collaborative relationship" between Iraq and Al Qaeda terrorists.

Critics of the Bush administration say it made no sense to go to war with Iraq if the United States' most dangerous enemy was Al Qaeda. With new reports that Iran enabled some hijackers to travel more easily, the critics may have fresh grist to use against the White House.

The United States has no diplomatic relations with Iran and has long accused the Iranian intelligence services of cooperating with terrorist networks, including Al Qaeda. There were reports over the weekend that the 9/11 commission had uncovered evidence that as many as 10 of the hijackers had traveled through <u>IRAN</u> after training in Afghanistan, and that they had been allowed to do so without Iranian stamps on their passports — thus enabling them to enter the United States without special scrutiny.

"I have long expressed my concerns about Iran," Mr. Bush said during a White House appearance with President Ricardo Lagos of Chile.

[Mavdog]

Originally posted by: MavKikiNYC
Iran is far from unimplicated in Al Quaeda acitivities, including perhaps at least a peripheral involvement with the 9/11 attackers.

yeah, they haven't found one yet, but give them time spent on "digging into the facts to determine if there was one" and they'll come up with something doggonit!

can you hear those drums beating? it's faint right now, but give 'em time and their cacophony will be ear splitting.

[MavKikiNYC]

Originally posted by: Mavdog

ok, (puff puff) educate us, show how Iran is a threat to the US....

Interestingly, John Kerry himself tonight in an interview with NBC's Tom Brokaw asserted that Iran was a bigger threat to the United States prior to the launch of the coalition war in Iraq than Iraq itself, and that there were growing indications that Iraq was 'meddling' in Iraq.