I’m not trying to be a RHINO, but having served in Iraq, and worked with and around the intelligence community one has to wonder why Afghanistan and Pakistan was still not the main effort for the WoT...
Because Iraq was the more dangerous.
To date, the Israeli intelligence community has no information suggesting Ron Arad is being held by Iran; nor has it been able to ascertain any information regarding Arad's whereabouts since May of 1988. They have no information suggesting he is alive, nor do they have any evidence to the contrary.
Unfortunately, said a senior intelligence officer, that could only mean one thing: "I'm afraid that the only way to explain the fact that we haven't been able to find him, is that he is no longer alive. If he were alive we would have gotten to him. A live prisoner eventually has a large circle of people around him; guards, people who bring him food, the drivers transporting him from one hideout to another.
"We would have found one of those people. If Ron Arad is dead, there are only a handful of people that really know what happened. They, I assure you, have taken the necessary steps so we will never find out."
Well the experience of the USSR in Afghanistan wasn’t a pretty one. W chose a different battlefield. BTW, we won!
It was.
I think we could throw 5 times as much $ into Afghanistan and we wouldnt see much results. I think this is a danger for Obama...talk about a quagmire
Also Pakistan is not a country to mess with as it has nukes
Thanks for your service.
First, thanks for your service.
“was still not the main effort for the WoT”
Just because we had more troops in Iraq doesn’t mean there wasn’t/isn’t a signigicant effort in Afghanistan. We have more troops in Iraq because there’s less support for the effort there from other countries; hence we have to bear more of the burden. Because Al Qeada said the central front in the WOT was Iraq and they sent most of their supporters there, we focused there.
“CLINTON: Good evening.
Earlier today, I ordered America’s armed forces to strike military and security targets in Iraq. They are joined by British forces. Their mission is to attack Iraq’s nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs and its military capacity to threaten its neighbors.
The hard fact is that so long as Saddam remains in power, he threatens the well-being of his people, the peace of his region, the security of the world.
The best way to end that threat once and for all is with a new Iraqi government — a government ready to live in peace with its neighbors, a government that respects the rights of its people.”
President Clinton
Oval Office Address to the American People
December 16, 1998
http://www.cnn.com/ALLPOLITICS/stories/1998/12/16/transcripts/clinton.html
Because Iraq would be the proper place, if your strategic goal was to deal with Iran...
could it be the country that has NUKES has immunity
The American officers in Afghanistan until recently said they had enough people and equipment to do what they needed to do there.
We can’t go into Pakistan until the leadership there is a LOT more stable. They have an Islamic Fundamentalist movement that is chomping at the bit to take over the country. If the current government allows us to invade, that will trigger the Islamics to launch a coup. The LAST thing we need is to have an Islamic nation with nukes.
[one has to wonder why Afghanistan and Pakistan was still not the main effort for the WoT...]
I don’t think any war has been prosecuted with 100% clear logic, so it may just be a screwup. My own feeling is that Iraq was used as a honeypot to attract AlQueda onto a killing field. So perhaps that explains some part of it.
One wonders indeed.
If you served in Iraq, you should know the answer to your wonderings.
We took out the Taliban first, and large forces weren't appropriate for a manhunt in those mountains. Pakistan is more our friend than not, and has nukes. Iraq, in constant violation of the cease-fire agreement and weapons inspections (and the whole oil for food scandal) led us to finally carry out the regime change called for by the previous administration.
Because Iraq was the more dangerous.
Well, we do know Saddam DID have Chemical Weapons, and we know he was working on Biologicals. We also took 500 tons of yellowcake out of Iraq even though some say it wasn't there. We also need a strategic ally in the ME that will allow us to be a burr in the saddle of Iran. Saddam was shooting at our pilots every day and breaking all the UN sanctions put on him. He threw out the UN inspectors and Clinton did nothing. There is not one world leader you can point to that didn't think Saddam was seeking a nuke. The main thing people seem to resist remembering was Bush 41 ended the hostilities in Desert Storm with a cease fire. We had the right to resume firing at anytime Saddam broke the cease fire rules HE AGREED TO!
Bush did everything right EXCEPT he help on to Rummy too long. If he had put a time limit on Rummy to produce and then fired him, Bush 43 would be a freaking hero by now.
Afghanistan, IMHO, will never be controlled. It serves as a shooting practice field and a bombing test ground now that Vieques is closed. The madrassa's send them and we shoot them. I think that will continue for some time now. We won't finish this until Pakistan will cooperate fully and even have joint exercises in the tribal areas. In fact, if some Delta Force killed Osama and brought his head out for proof, Pakistan would throw a fit and probably attack us in Afghanistan. They have internal political problems they will eventually have to deal with. The same idiots that want to kill us tend to plant bombs in Islamabad. If they intend to keep nukes, they will eventually have to fix this conflict. If Pakistan falls to the idiots, it will immediately be destroyed. The world won't allow the head choppers to posses nukes knowingly.
Strategic interests. Iraq is central to the whole ME and related oil security issues, the others are peripheral.
We should be in Iraq for the long haul, but Obamsey will have us out. Watch the Chicken $hit fly then. The Russians and the Persians will take over the entire ME, while we try to operate out of Israel.
What a joke.
Now, we have to go back to Afghanistan and clear out the cockroaches again. But with Obama in charge, I don't have a lot of confidence that it will be done right, and it may turn into a disaster.
Thank you for your service.
Seems pretty simple: after the invasion of Afganistan the roaches were run out of there and many went to NW Iraq where there was already an extensive al Queda network in place making war on the Kurds, Saddam’s enemies. Others were treated in Saddam’s hospitals including the one-legged A hole who led the terror for a while, Zaquari or something like that.
Pakistan was under the control of an ally and had nukes so keeping him in power with control over them was critical. While some of the enemy fled into NW Pakistan the area was not under government control and gave the central government difficulty. We could not act in a manner which could alienate the country against us. It is a very delicate balancing act which had to be carried out there. One false step and a nuclear war could erupt given its hostility to another nuclear power in the area.
Another reason Iraq was critical was that it had huge revenues which were being converted into trouble for us worldwide, the abu sayef group in the Philippines for example. It had cooperated for almost ten years with al Queda providing training, funds and personnel as appropriate to its ends. It was funding Palistinian terror as well. Recall the Sudanese plant bombed under Clinton for making chemical weapons was alledged by the SecDef to be a joint al Queda-Iraqi project.
Don’t forget the entire nuclear research facility secretly funder in Libya by Saddam and the tons of weapons forbidden him by the UN which were found. Libya turned over all CBN warfare programs after our invasion of Iraq. Our “Intelligence” agencies did not know a damned thing about this connection to Saddam. Caught totally blindsided in a colossal intelligence failure. One of the biggest in history in fact.
After the Afgani invasion al Queda even admitted the center of the War on Terror was Iraq.
Thanks for your service BTW.