Does anyone believe we have the capability to eliminate or defeat al-Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan?

[bigtree]

I don't believe so, and I don't think the military or the WH believes that either.

There's been all sorts of talk from the new administration about 'scaling-back' our military goals in Afghanistan.

That would make sense, because there's little chance that the paltry NATO force will succeed in anything more than further aggravating and encouraging even more individuals to align with whatever resistance group offers them sanctuary from the military advance on their land.

A lot of the justifications used for continuing and escalating the militarism in Afghanistan insist that our forces should be 'fighting al-Qaeda' and killing or capturing the fugitive 9-11 suspects. But, it's just not credible to insist that all of those killed are al-Qaeda or responsible in some way for the 9-11 attacks.

The military almost always insists that the individuals they're targeting and killing in Afghanistan are al-Qaeda, until it's proved otherwise - and they've been proven false over and over, sometimes to a tragic degree with entire groups identified as civilian and unrelated to al-Qaeda or any other enemy of the U.S. or the Afghan state.

As far as I'm concerned, the military has no credibility at all in their directing of the force of our own nation's defenders. I wonder how anyone looking on with any attentiveness can reasonably expect that these blunt, marauding forces will eliminate al-Qaeda at a greater rate than our military forces' presence and actions are serving to increase the terrorists' ranks with resisters who opportunistically or necessarily identify their own cause against the U.S. occupation and aggression with our 7-year old nemesis.

[Taverner]

1. Well, we did

Not sure about now...

Honestly, we should pull out excepting maybe 10 Special Ops. Keep them there until we find Bin Laden. Take him out, and bring back his head for proof. I have no problem decapitating that sonofabitch.

But do it as a surgical strike, not a carpet bombing

[LakeSamish706]

7. I highly doubt that Bin Ladin had anything to do with 911. n/t

[Taverner]

13. Oh god, this crap again

Look, if we look at evidence - not speculation - we KNOW he (Bin Laden) organized it and perpetrated it. He said he would. He practically told the CIA what he was going to do.

Now there may be evidence that Condi and Co were complicit, and did nothing. Chances are, by incompetence or by choice they sat on their hands.

But all that "Loose Change" BS - try watching it with real scientists and engineers. They'll pick that movie apart like the complete fabrication it is.

Besides let me ask you this: The most incompetent Administration in history. They can't even steal oil from Iraq correctly! Haliburton and KBR LOST MONEY on IRAQ!!!!

So you're telling me that Bush was able to summon genius all of a sudden and pull off the greatest crime of our generation?

[LakeSamish706]

14. Theres absolutely no proof what so ever that Bin Laden had anything to do...

with 911 other than the Bush Administration telling us they were.

And incidently, we now all know what the Bush Administration was all about and how trustworthy those thugs are.

[Taverner]

19. Well Bin Laden himself claimed responsibility

And all of the hijackers all having been known associates of Al Queda

And all of the "chatter" leading up to 9/11 indicated that Al Queda had plans to hijack planes and fly them into NYC

And we have video of the terrorists getting on the plane

And we have several witnesses who place all of these folks in flight school

No - no proof at all :eyes:

Now, whether the Bush Admin knew something, and planted explosives in both the Pentagon and WTC towers to make sure they came down - that is possible. But I have a hard time believing a man who thinks the world was created in six days came up with such a plan.

[arcadian]

25. Why isn't Bin Laden wanted by the FBI for 9/11?

n/t

[Taverner]

36. FBI is only concerned with Domestic Criminals

My guess is he's on our CIA's most wanted list - - sort of

I will agree with you that Bin Laden and 9/11 were the best things that ever happened to the Bush administration.

[arcadian]

39. Bin Laden is actually wanted by the FBI

For Kenya and Tanzania embassy bombings.

[Taverner]

41. And you can't tell me he wasn't behind THOSE

And that's reason alone to behead the sonofabitch.

[4 t 4]

26. No Proof

only the tape of him in a cave saying how he had no idea the buildings would come down like that and that fast. don't you remember that

[LakeSamish706]

28. I remember the tapes, but who really knows where they came from....

Just like most recent tapes of Bin Laden, no one really knows if they are authentic or not.

[Taverner]

40. Bin Laden is dead

We killed him - or he died of kidney failure. Ask any doctor - he wasn't supposed to last this long.

The "Bin Laden" we love and know is either well done terrorist forgeries, or well done Bush Administration forgeries.

[Taverner]

38. That doesn't prove he didn't do it

That just proved that he didn't know

There is, of course, still the possibility that the CIA knew about it (and who the fuck wouldn't? "Bin Laden Determined to Strike US") and rigged certain buildings with explosives, as to cause a lot of damage.

I just don't think this was some drone-plane fictitious attack. The problem with "Loose Change" is it takes a bunch of facts, and intersperses speculation in between them.

And again - tell me with a straight face that George Walker Bush was competent enough to pull this off...do it in a mirror, trust me - its giving the idiot son WAAAY too much credit.

[LakeSamish706]

45. GW Bush obviously would not have personally done it, but between he and...

Cheney, who knows?

[Taverner]

49. Every account of the Bush admin shows utter incompetence

Sure Cheney and Rummy weren't stupid. But come on - you tell me the early Bush appointees (who were chosen because of loyalty and not competence) could have thought up that shit?

[Prometheus Bound]

31. Indeed, bin Ladin clearly denied responsibility for 911

Decade worth of messages, interviews from bin Laden leaked to web

"Following the latest explosions in the United States, some Americans are pointing the finger at me, but I deny that because I have not done it. The United States has always accused me of these incidents which have been caused by its enemies. Reiterating once again, I say that I have not done it, and the perpetrators have carried this out because of their own interest," said bin Laden on September 16, 2001, just five days after the attacks.

...Bin Laden also states that he was living in Afghanistan at the time of the attacks and that "I have held talks with His Eminence Amir ol-Momenin , who does not allow such acts to be carried out from Afghanistan's territory." Again on September 28, 2001 in an interview with Karachi Ummat, bin Laden denies any involvement with the attacks and further denied that al-Qaeda had anything to do with plotting and carrying out the attacks.

http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Wikileaks_obtains_10_years_of_messages,_interviews_from_Osama_bin_Laden_translated_by_CIA

[Taverner]

42. And we know this is authentic....how???

[Prometheus Bound]

51. Because the reporter asked him.

However, I certainly wouldn't go bombing a country to smithereens based on such evidence. Would you?

page 178
https://secure.wikileaks.org/leak/cia-fbis-bin-laden-statments-1994-2004.pdf

[Taverner]

55. Well the bombing of Afghanistan has nothing to do with Bin Laden innocence or guilt

The Bush admin went nuts and took a cowboy approach. Look where that got him.

But Bin Laden did orchestrate 9/11, based on the EVIDENCE.

What you do, on the other hand, has nothing to do with guilt or innocence. It has to do with ethics. Arrest the guy who is "most guilty." That's Bin Laden. That's what you do.

[Prometheus Bound]

58. May I see that EVIDENCE?

I missed it. I thought it was planned in the US and Germany in Bin Laden's absence.

[Solon]

32. Do you understand how terrorist cells are organized, Bin Laden probably didn't have advance...

knowledge of the operation to bring down the WTC, much less ordered it. That's not necessary, and is far too risky because of the danger of being exposed and foiled in the process. At most Osama gave his blessing, after the fact, or soon before, we don't know which.

Osama Bin Laden isn't some movie villain.

[LakeSamish706]

34. I would say that I don't believe the current official version of 911 either....

There are to many unanswered questions about what really happened IMO.

[Solon]

43. I believe the Bush administration was, at most, LIHOP...

And again, just like why I think Osama Bin Laden isn't directly responsible for 9/11, I don't think Bush is directly responsible, too much risk of exposure, all it would have taken was one person with a conscience to blow the whole thing wide open. It is much easier to just let things happen by ignoring the threats, than directly involving yourself in it. You are more likely to get what you want, as Bush did, ultimately.

[Taverner]

46. At most, but there is a good enough case for incompetence

As in, "...that dumbass ignored EVERY FUCKING WARNING BECAUSE HE'S A FUCKING DUMBASS!!!"

[Taverner]

44. The official version is full of holes

But that doesn't mean Bin Laden wasn't behind 9/11

I vacillate between LIHOP and Incompetence

[Solon]

50. The reason to think Bin Laden wasn't behind the attacks is very simple...

common sense, the less people know, the better. It wasn't necessary to involve him in the first place, and while the attack was coordinated, you didn't need to risk international calls, nor contacting a highly valued intelligence target to plan the WTC attacks. This was most likely done independent of Osama's involvement, just so the hijackers wouldn't risk being caught, it really is that simple.

[Oregone]

22. We wouldn't have to defeat these Islamic extremists, if only we were still paying for them.

:bounce:

[shadowknows69]

66. That's how I figured we'd do it from the get go.

Silly me I thought we might have actually learned something from the Russian debacle there and our own in Vietnam.

[LakeSamish706]

2. I guess we can always ask the Russians that question, and they will...

certainly tell you, No.... with a capital N.

[grannie4peace]

3. i think that could happen

[daninthemoon]

4. defeat/kill al quaida? absolutely. build a democratic state like dumbass

thought he could in iraq? hell no. i don't think that is what President Obama has in mind.

[spanone]

5. i think President Obama is still evaluating his military options and all the repercussions

[Windy]

27. Obama has never had a military option in a vaccum. He wants diplomatic means

used as well as assistance of other nations, including muslim nations, hence his interview on Al Arabia.

If you help the Afghans to rebuild their country and not try to convert them or force our way of life on them, you may make some progress.

[sandnsea]

6. We have the ability to contain them

until our foreign policy begins to shift the tide and makes terrorism unattractive and unnecessary.

[KG]

8. no.

[tekisui]

9. Is it al-Qaeda or the Taliban that we are really going after?

I think al-qaeda can be marginalized, their current PR campaigning is evidence that they are hurting. The Taliban can wait us out, regroup and rearm in the mountains and outlast. No matter how long we are willing to stay.

I just don't understand those who think we can win anything there.

[bigtree]

16. It looks like our forces are mostly arrayed against resistance to the government we helped install

Even in the south our forces are in place to stem the tide of combatants they're certain are bent on disrupting the rule in Kabul.

Many of those our forces engage in battle with are identified as Taliban, rather than al-Qaeda. Mostly, the military conflates the two when describing who's attacking them and who they're killing.

I don't know how they expect to sort out al-Qaeda from the predictable resistance to their occupation (or if they even care to).

[Zywiec]

10. Do we have the capability?

Of course we do.

However, there is now a "Law of War" and the news media that prevents armies from ever winning again.

[Oregone]

20. There has always been a "law of war"

Large conventional armies of above-mediocre societies have always produced and attempted to implement a "law of war". The point was to give them an advantage in conventional style warfare. Only a fool on a losing side would follow a "law" imposed upon him by a superior conventional force.

[bigtree]

23. you mean if we just avert our eyes

. . . the military would clean it all up for us, doing what the military does best?

How do you influence a region to establish and maintain Nations of Laws by disregarding the Rule of Law as we 'build' those nations behind the suppressive force of our military? The contradictions are self-defeating.

[PDJane]

11. No.

Because al Quaeda is a myth. There is no huge, shadowy, unified terrorist network to fight. It's bogus.

Terrorism is something that can be deafeted only one case at a time.

[Stinky The Clown]

12. We did. I have no idea - all these years hence - if we still do.

[Oregone]

15. Bombing Afghanistan back to the stone-age...

which we have been involved in since the late 70's, only creates a stone-aged country that produces stone-aged men that run their stone-aged 'government'. Isn't insanity doing the same thing over and over, and expecting a different result?

[G_j]

17. we create al-Qaeda in Afghanistan & Pakistan

every time we traumatize people with violence.
I suppose if your only tool is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.
Let's lay down the hammer and put a moratorium on violence as a problem solver.

[Solon]

18. No, its like trying to eliminate the Mafia with the Military, ask Mussolini how that worked out...

al-Qaeda is a criminal organization, no more, no less, we need to treat them as such, there is no military solution here.

[FiveGoodMen]

29. Agreed.

And so what if we got rid of every current member -- all the while making more and more of the world hate us?

Would it really help that the next set of terrorists used a different name?

[Solon]

47. Hell, most likely they would use the al-Qaeda name...

in honor of Osama Bin Laden.

[Solon]

48. Dupe

[arcadian]

21. High altitude mountain warfare is unwinnable for the agressor.

Ask Switzerland.

[Winterblues]

24. We will Defeat Evil, I know this because our Government says we can do it.

Evil will no longer ever exist on this planet...The mighty US army will make it so..Terror will cease to exist...Republicans will vote in unison for National Health Care and we will make the sun come up in the West..All will be good.

[Name removed]

30. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[4 t 4]

33. No I guess I really don't

but I do think we have a chance to change the hate and the dialog which I think is much more important that any military op.

[Mari333]

35. no. bring the troops home. n/t

[The Stranger]

37. Didn't the CIA CREATE al-Qaeda in Afghanistan/Pakistan -- to fight the Soviets?

Has that been sorted out yet, or are we just supposed to forget about it?

[H2O Man]

52. I think that the Obama administration

can make progress in marginalizing al Qaeda. But not by military means. Of course, I do not have the access to the military intelligence reports that President Obama has, and so that is not an area that I am as likely to try to lobby the administration on; however, because I do have a grasp of some of the other issues involved, I do plan to continue to lobby on the need for non-military actions. Our goal should not be to tell the people of that culture what they "need," for that always results in our attempting to recreate them in our image. There are other alternatives, and I think that the grass roots needs to pressure our government to explore them.

[bigtree]

53. I heard the president remark yesterday

. . . that al-Qaeda wasn't offering the younger generation education or anything to enhance their future - just fomenting destruction, instead of building anything to sustain their followers.

Gates sounded realistic in his expectations for Afghanistan today, as well. I have my doubts, though, that he'll be able to restrain the military from acting in ways which threaten to cause Afghans to reject the diplomatic goals that he considers vital to our 'success' there.

[deaniac21]

54. This thread is entertaining!!!

[OwnedByFerrets]

56. One word answer. NO

[Adsos Letter]

57. Honest question here...What about India?

From what I understand there isn't much chance of defeating al-Qaeda as long as the Pakistai tribal areas remain under Taleban control. With the split in loyalties in the Pakistani defense forces (within the Military and ISI)it is difficult to imagine doing anything militarily effective without sparking some kind of civil war within Pakistan.

How is India likely to respond to a scenario like that, given they are still out for payback on the Mumbai bombings?

[bigtree]

59. no one really wants to contemplate that

. . . but you're right. Pakistan has traditionally enlisted 'jihadist' groups in the tribal region to confront India in Kashmir. Pakistan is back to calling for them to stand down from that border confrontation.

I imagine India would be fine with a campaign against them as they believe they are implicated in terrorism against them and their interests. Whether these forces are aligned closer to al-Qaeda or the Taliban probably doesn't mean as much to India as it does to our own antipathies. Maybe Pakistan is ready to step away from their opportunistic protection of these elements they've been reluctant to pressure militarily in the past.

[Adsos Letter]

62. Perhaps if the ISI and the military were convinced that the ...

convinced that the hammer was about to come down very, very hard on the Taleban in the Tribal Areas they might back away from their support...I just wonder about the level of violence within Pakistan that might accompany that decision, and how it would play out.

I wonder if India would be careless enough to attempt to secure Kashmir if Pakistan descends into civil war. And how would China respond to that?

[bigtree]

67. the Pakistani president is so new

It's easy to see him falling to a less 'friendly' leadership in the face of blowback against his supporting of the U.S. in that kind of dubious campaign. That's where the doogie hits the fan, I think.

[Adsos Letter]

69. Indeed...

and in that case I think all bets would be off.

[annabanana]

60. Military solutions to social, financial & cultural problems on foreign

soil don't work. Occupying armies never win in the long run. If we want to eliminate the danger of radical Islamic jihadism, we are going to have to work smarter.

[Taverner]

64. Exactly

9/11 was a police job. A job for our FBI, not the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines...

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

61. Is the Democratic motto now, "We have to fight them there so we don't have to fight them here?"

Or, is it "falling dominoes" as spawned by another Democratic administration trying to prove how tough it was in another failed war?

[bigtree]

63. unclench your fist and they'll extend their hand

. . . 'show me what's in your hand and I'll show you mine'

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

68. The "land of the free and home of the brave" is too frightened to unclench it's fist.

Who knows what might happen if we stop bullying the world?

Peace and rationality perhaps?

[MellowDem]

65. We definitely have the capability...

We've always had the capability. The question is whether we have the will? And given how much it will cost, I'm not so sure. We might just have to leave it half-done and see if it can right itself.

[JCMach1]

70. No outside power has won a war in Afghanistan since Alexander the Great and that's because

he married into the tribe (Roxanna). Even the Greeks didn't last long there.

All of the conquerors failed in time.

[kwassa]

71. We can't do it with current strategy, and/or without the help of Pakistan

The solution really lies with the Pakistanis, who are all over the map themselves on how they feel about the jihadists, and the Taliban. There is much support within the various parts of the government, including the intelligence services, for the Taliban.

I think that the strategy that seems to be working in Iraq is to find something that is in the interest of the tribal leaders want, or give them something that they want more than an alliance with the Taliban. There are some lessons to be learned from Iraq. Once some tribal leaders on our side, we have a much better chance of getting good intelligence on the ground in the Pakistan/Afghanistan area. In Iraq this has enabled us to find and take out more of the Al Queda leadership.