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#2 |
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Hasn't this been repeated a thousand times? Who came first: the terrorist or the Americans? The chaos that ensued after the fall of Saddam gave the terrorist the oppertunity to go there and create mayhem in the first place.
Maybe if you didn't go there the terrorist would have come anyway. Small chance. Maybe if you didn't go there Saddam would have used his WMD's to threaten Israel, the US and the rest of the free world. Small chance. |
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#3 |
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The field of jihad (holy war) can satisfy your scientific ambitions, and the large American bases (in Iraq) are good places to test your unconventional weapons, whether biological or dirty, as they call them." Was this the classified they placed in the NYT?
34 words. How many weeks do they get to run it? |
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#4 |
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I felt that way about Gay at one time; but I never used the word gay anyway, so I quit caring about the word theft.
Arabic word that means "striving in the way of God." This striving can take a number of forms, including the daily inner struggle to be a better person. However, jihad is often used to refer to an armed struggle fought in defense of Islam. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl.../glossary.html |
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#5 |
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Why, no. There aren't any Iraqi terrorists. Strawman alert! Code Red! Code Red!
For the last fugging time, Sloww. There weren't a bunch of terrorists (Al Qaida or otherwise) in Iraq until we invaded the place and took out Saddam (Saddam was, of course, paying money to Palestinian suicide bomber's families and was himself a rat bastard, but that's another matter). There most certainly are terrorists, A-Q included, in Iraq NOW. Excellent work by the Lord Protector Bush! ![]() -Arrian |
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#6 |
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I say that this is a further justification for invading Iraq! Gathering all these terrorist in one place where the power of the US military can be brought to bear is a good thing imho.
Is there anyonw who would rather the terrorist be operating in a different country? Perhaps your own country? Not me! Get 'em all into Iraq and kill them. The moths to a flame argument. It's interesting, but only if you believe that you can realistically bleed the terrorists dry of manpower. I don't think you can. Their recruitment base is pretty much unlimited, and they've no shortage of recruitment tools (in part due to our blunders). edit: and DD is correct - Afganistan could (and does, to an extent) serve this purpose just fine. -Arrian |
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#7 |
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#8 |
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Originally posted by PLATO
If the US had not entered Iraq, are you suggesting that AQ's army would be peacefully sitting around sipping tea? No, but AQ's army would probably be lot weaker if we'd stuck to attacking them as opposed to creating a massive chaotic void for them to hide in/recruit from (where there used to be a barbaric dictator...who was their enemy too). I say that this is a further justification for invading Iraq! Gathering all these terrorist in one place where the power of the US military can be brought to bear is a good thing imho. Is there anyonw who would rather the terrorist be operating in a different country? Perhaps your own country? Not me! Get 'em all into Iraq and kill them. That's rather difficult to do. There are civilians in the way, you see. Lots of civilians. Should we behave like absolute monsters and kill the innocent along with the guilty (by nuking the place, for example), the rest of the Arab world will be quite justifiably outraged, leading to LOTS of new terrorist attacks. |
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#9 |
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#10 |
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Here. See? If we would just leave, they'd manage to kill each other off before the year was out.
40 bodies found in Iraq; 21 others dead 1 hour, 45 minutes ago BAGHDAD, Iraq - The bodies of 40 men who been tortured were found in the capital in a span of 24 hours, police said Thursday. Bombings and shootings killed at least 21 people in and around Baghdad, including five people who died from a car-bomb explosion near a restaurant. Thirty-four people were wounded in the bombing. Many of them had serious burns, and some were not expected to survive, police Lt. Ali Mohsen said at the Kindi Hospital. Although the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan is under way, some Iraqis — including Christians — are not abstaining from eating meals during daytime hours. Two Iraqi soldiers were killed and 10 more injured when a suicide car bomb slammed into a checkpoint in northeast Baghdad, police said. The attack came in the Shaab neighborhood, one that just been cleared by U.S. and Iraqi troops as part of a security drive in the capital. The bodies of 40 men, more apparent victims of sectarian death squads, have been found dumped in eastern and western Baghdad in the past 24 hours, police said. All showed signs of torture, had been shot, and had their hands and feet bound, police Lt. Thayer Mahmoud said. Gunmen killed seven people, including five policemen and a woman, in different locations in the province of Diyala just north of Baghdad, police said. Six militants were killed in a shootout between Iraqi soldiers and a truckload of gunmen southwest of the capital, officials said. Iraq's government warned residents that it will soon restrict vehicle access into the capital as part of a security crackdown targeting militants and death squads. The violence also came amid reports from a number of senior coalition military officials that a large and powerful militia run by radical Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr has been breaking apart into freelance death squads and gangs — some of which are being influenced by Iran. Al-Sadr's Mahdi army is one of the largest and most powerful militias in Iraq, along with the Badr Brigades, which were once the military wing of Iraq's largest Shiite political group — the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq. "There are fractures politically inside Sadr's movement, many of whom don't find him to be sufficiently radical now that he has taken a political course of action," said a senior coalition intelligence official who spoke to reporters in Baghdad on condition of anonymity because he was not permitted to speak publicly on intelligence issues. The official added that "there have been elements. I can think of about at least six major players who have left his organization because he has been perhaps too accommodating to the coalition." On Sept. 22, al-Sadr urged his followers not use force against U.S. troops, saying "I want a peaceful war against them and not to shed a drop of blood. Al-Sadr's ability to control his militia is important both to the U.S. military and an Iraqi government seeking to control and disarm militias and death squads blamed for thousands of sectarian killings in recent months. Iran has also sought to influence rogue or splinter elements that have broken away from the Mahdi army while it is still able to, the senior intelligence official said. |
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#11 |
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Originally posted by Elok
Hm. Sloww, how do you know AQ didn't like us doing that? Because they said so? They could hardly admit to being overjoyed by our bombing tons of their fellow Muslims, even if it did open up a big pool to recruit from... If you know much about AQ, then you know they generally don't give a crap about their fellow muslim. Who do you think is killing the majority of the muslim civilians in Iraq right now? Yep...it would be good ole AQ. |
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#12 |
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Originally posted by SlowwHand
That's your opinion; but the point is, we had the right and obligation to initially go there and secure Hussein, due to his breaking the Cease FIre as written under 1441. For some reason, Al Qaida didn't like that. I know, they had no vested interest in Iraq, per you; but I find the coincidence amazing. Oh my. You ARE. Let's leave aside whether or not the invasion was justified. Lots of things can be justified, Sloww. That doesn't mean it was a good idea. Saddam was many things. What he wasn't was a friend to A-Q. He paid a certain amount of self-serving lipservice to Palestinians fighting Israelis and gave some cash to families of suicide bombers, which is bad but is not the same thing as hosting A-Q camps. Essentially Iraq pre-invasion =! Afganistan. Of course AQ has an interest in Iraq. AQ and those like them want hardcore Islamist governments across that region, which includes Iraq. Saddam wasn't their type, so they shed no tears for him. They have taken advantage of the power vaccum we created (combo of removing nasty dictator and godawful occupation planning and execution). A-Q's activity in Iraq is a direct result of our invasion. -Arrian |
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#13 |
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AQ sure does love how the US gave them plenty of recruitment boosts by invading a country just because we felt like it (since most of the stated reasons have been shown false).
And Sloww, as for violating a cease fire... that was with the United Nations and as such only the UN should be able to enforce a breach of the treaty. If North Korea violates the cease fire with South Korea, should Iran be able to enforce it and invade North Korea? |
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#14 |
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#15 |
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#16 |
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Originally posted by SlowwHand
Did the U.N. make an attempt to dissuade this? No, because they knew full well the cease fire was broken. It's not just U.S. and Brit forces in on this. It's U.N. members. Well, not France. Since the cease fire was with the U.N., only THEY get to decide when it is broken by Iraq. Sorry, Slow, the US can't interpret UN resolutions, especially when it doesn't follow them with respect to how we treat our prisoners. |
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#17 |
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Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui
Since the cease fire was with the U.N., only THEY get to decide when it is broken by Iraq. Sorry, Slow, the US can't interpret UN resolutions, especially when it doesn't follow them with respect to how we treat our prisoners. The point being the ceasefire was not with the UN as it was not the UN initiating hositilities in Desert Storm. How could the UN agree to a ceasefire if they were not one of the combatants. The UN was the agency that brokered a ceasefire settlement that was never honored. |
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#18 |
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Here. Have some more damned if we do, damned if we don't.
NATO agrees fast takeover for Afghan peacekeeping By Mark John and Kristin Roberts 1 hour, 8 minutes ago PORTOROZ, Slovenia (Reuters) - NATO agreed on Thursday to take command of peacekeeping across all of insurgency-hit Afghanistan next month after the United States pledged to transfer an extra 12,000 troops to its force. Pentagon officials said the transfer of troops currently in Afghanistan's eastern region would entail the biggest deployment of U.S. troops under foreign command since World War Two. The accord came as European nations failed to plug all troop shortfalls identified by commanders battling a fierce Taliban insurgency, and will mean the United States providing 14,000 of some 32,000 NATO troops that will be under British command. "I am grateful that the United States has decided to bring its forces under ISAF," Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer told reporters after a NATO meeting in Slovenia, referring to NATO's International Security Assistance Force. "It should not be used as an argument that we can now rest on our laurels," he added, urging other allies to come forward with extra troops for the more dangerous south. U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said it was "perfectly understandable" if other NATO allies restricted where their troops could operate, but added it undermined NATO's flexibility on the ground. "The aggregation of that is the situation that's really not acceptable," he told a news conference. "I believe a little more progress was made today and we'll just have to keep working on it." CREDIBILITY AT STAKE The U.S. troop transfer had been expected later in the year, but alliance officials said battles with resurgent guerrillas in the south showed the urgent need to pool British, Dutch and Canadian troops under NATO with separate U.S. forces. Afghanistan is experiencing the most serious violence since hardline Taliban Islamists were removed in 2001, and NATO knows its credibility as a genuine fighting force is at stake in the toughest combat in its 57-year history. Nearly 140 foreign troops, most of them American, British and Canadian, have been killed in fighting or accidents during operations since January, and NATO has acknowledged it underestimated the scale of Taliban resistance. ISAF currently has just over 20,000 troops from 37 countries operating in the capital Kabul and the north, west and south. The bulk of them are European. The U.S.-led Operation Enduring Freedom coalition has a similar number. Some U.S. forces will remain outside ISAF command to mount search-and-destroy missions against major Taliban and al Qaeda targets. De Hoop Scheffer said the alliance made some progress at the talks in the coastal resort of Portoroz in raising 2,500 extra troops requested by commanders to reinforce operations in the south, but acknowledged there were still shortages. Germany, whose parliament on Thursday agreed to extend for another year the mandate of its 3,000-strong mission in the relatively calm north of Afghanistan, once again declined at the talks to send any troops to the south. Other large western European nations including France, Italy and Spain have all refused to send troops to the region, saying their armed forces are at full stretch elsewhere. Poland has offered 1,000 troops to be deployed by next February, and Romania is expected to offer a similar number. Bulgarian Defense Minister Veselin Bliznakov told Reuters it could take a decision to send more troops in October. Alliance sources said Canada, Denmark, the Czech Republic and Slovakia declared intentions to commit extra forces at some point but did not say how many more troops such offers would add. |
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#19 |
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What do you mean by "damned if you do, damned if you don't" with regard to that article, Sloww?
Afganistan we're not arguing, except to point out that we would have far more resources available for Afganistan had we made the more prudent (a nod to GB the elder) choice and had not invaded Iraq. -Arrian |
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#20 |
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