Posted on 11/17/2004 10:59:58 AM PST by Howlin
Everything is biased.
So I listen to everything I can--however far right or far left--that the opposing biases might cancel each other out, leving me with some measure of truth.
"What, you mean like we tried to do during Operation Anaconda?
Wrong answer - the military started applying lessons learned during Anaconda. The point Scheuer made was that those lessons were already known.
If you've been following the battle of Fallujah, you'll have seen that it's American troops providing the security cordon, not locals. Different location, same lesson, right answer."
Nonsense. Operation Anaconda was the effort to get bin Laden in Tora Bora. We did not have the troops in Afghanistan and we had no way of getting them up into those mountains in time to catch bin Laden. Scheuer did not tell us anything we did not already know about the Afghans.
There is no comparison between Tora Bora and Fallujah. Tora Bora occurred shortly after the war began in Afghanistan and we never had the thousands and thousands of troops in Afghanistan that would have been needed to surround Tora Bora. It took us many many months to transfer our troops and equipment from the USA to Kuwait and then into Iraq for the war.
The ground around Fallujah is flat and open. The land in Tora Bora is very difficult mountainous terrain.
There is no comparison between Tora Bora and Fallujah, yet even though American troops were surrounding Fallujah, al-Zarqawi escaped from Fallujah just as surely as did bin Laden did from Tora Bora. American troops in Tora Bora would probably not have kept bin Laden from escaping from Tora Bora.
Scheuer is a loser blowhard. I will trust the judgement of General Franks before I will trust that sniveling appeaser.
I wouldn't believe that the CIA believes everything in this book. It may have some disinformation in it for the terrorists. WE may not be the real audience.
It has been some time since I looked at it so I forget the thread of the argument.
Read it as if you are a terrrorist and see what you think.
let's see. the article says the last time they could have gotten bin laden (out of at least 10 attempts) was during the clinton administration. cbs continues to blame bush for clinton's ineptness.
Excuse me?
I feel compelled to state that the vast majority of Jews and Arabs within 'greater' Israel live in peace with each other. The problem is with a minority of fanatics on both sides.
By the way, Osama Bin Laden's anger towards us was our presence in Saudi Arabia. It had nothing to do with our support of Israel.
My previous comments were not about Bin Laden, but are based on conversations I have had with friends from Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, and Oman.
Yes, this is exactly what needs to be done as well as the settlements in the west bank.
If your Muslim friends are unhappy with the United States because we support the Israelis right to defend themselves from the terrorism that the Palestinians inflict on Israel
That is not what I said. You are quite good at taking things completely out of context.
But the immediate fight of any revolutionaries would be against whoever is currently helping their government suppress the revolutionaries.
I seem to remember all but one of the 911 hijackers were from the same place--and it was not Palistine.
If the objective was to kill or capture Bin Laden or at least so disrupt his operations so that he could not launch any further terrorists attacks on the scale such as those perpetrated on 911, then we have succeeded very well. That was the reason for launching the attack on Afghanistan, not to overthrow the Taliban or to kill bin Laden.
"Scheuer's point is that we could have done better, and we could be doing better."
Scheuer is a Monday Morning Quarterback of the vilest sort. In a perfect world, everything would be perfect, but we do not live in a perfect world. The perfect is the enemy of the good enough.
If we would have waited to attack Afghanistan until after we had airlifted in the thousands of troops and tons of equipment needed to surround Tora Bora, then bin Laden may well have been long gone lone before we were ready to attack him.
If we had gone to the big footprint model of using all US troops to carry out the war in Afghanistan, we may well have provoked a negative response from the non-Taliban population of Afghanistan and become bogged down in a long war along the lines of that which did the Soviets in.
Excellent point.
"Since you don't appear to be willing to avail yourself of the actual material under discussion (Imperial Hubris), could you tell me why I'm obliged to devote a good portion of my time to elucidating the matter for you?"
I've read the transcripts of Scheuer's two interviews posted on this thread and Frum's article about Imperial Hubris. If you are not able to mount an intelligent defense of the appeaser, Scheuer, in your own words, admit defeat and wander off with your tail between your legs.
Unless perhaps it is misinformation for the American public, instead.
At the same time, the entire Middile East is not represented by the 911 hijackers. If it was, you and I would probably not be here now.
"I do know until this is solved, don't expect peace and expect anti-American feelings to continue if not grow."
And if Muslims keep committing terrorist acts against non-Muslims all around the world, like they are doing in Israel, Russia, Thailand, Holland, Iraq, and elsewhere, Muslims can expect anti-Muslim feeling to continue to grow.
I like the Monday morning quarter-back analogy, but think about it, he is Monday morning quarter-backing himself. lol.
But just think about how dumb his statement is about it being no problem taking out the United Arab Emirate princes along with OBL.
On one hand, he is saying we are pissing off the arabs so bad that they are attacking us now. On the next, he says we should have killed a bunch of arab princes from a state that has lots and lots of money with which to finance terrorism and to whip up anti-US support.
Sorry, no CIA agent in his right mind would kill UAE princes (who are on our side by the way) as collateral damage.
The guy is just way too dumb to be a CIA agent, let alone be the guy in charge of getting OBL. The CIA cannot have anywhere near the number of talented and intelligent people that are needed if this guy rose in the ranks at all.
Of course, but this is a tangent and not what we were talking about.
Fine - have it your way.
The battle of Tora Bora was in December of 2001.
Operation Anaconda was in March of 2002.
Scheuer's whole thesis, which you're illustrating beautifully here, is that we haven't used the information already available to the best effect, not that he's revealing some new information.
Now STFU or go bother someone else with your ignorant prattle.
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