Who trained the terrorists? (Iraq did it)

President Bush's words to the American people Tuesday night contained a warning to countries which serve as staging areas for terrorists. He said that America "will make no distinction between the terrorists who committed these acts and those who harbored them." Mr. Bush's warning was incomplete because it omitted an important third party: How about the country which first supplies the essential knowledge and training of future terrorists against the West and against the United States? Harboring and training go together but they need not necessarily be in the same territory or sovereign nation-state.

How could the Florida pilot trainer be so blind?

Greed, gullible? Wouldn't his actions be considered
harboring and abetting terrorists?

How could you live in proximity to this man?

Shoudln't he be an example to others who want to hide behind willful ignorance?
You prolly know my answer by now.

The truth is, whether or not Saddam had a hand in this specific plot (my guess is, he did), we may never have a better opportunity to wack him. Currently, the scenario I have in mind is to get as many countries as practical to sign off on a wave of retaliatory attacks against designated "terrorist states" (pick the easy ones that everyone can agree on, including Afghanistan and Iraq), then use tactical nukes to take out all known terrorist training camps, the Taliban, Saddam's bunker, and all his C&C and military assets. Do it all in a single night. Sound good?

"Saddam did it folks. No doubt about it. Brace yourselves. War is coming."

I completely agree. The terrorists all leaving obvious signs pointing to Bin Laden is too transparent. The execution was 100% professional; why wouldn't they make any effort to cover their tracks unless it was to set up Bin Laden as the fall guy for Saddam?

This is how it probably happened:

Saddam calls Bin Laden and says "how 'bout we attack the US with hijacked jets? You can help, and you can take all the credit, as I prefer to remain anonymous on this one."

Bin Laden says, "Sounds good to me. I'm all for it and could never carry it out by myself. The great Satan already is after to me, so this won't change anything much as far as that goes. Plus, I love being the hero. Let's go for it"

They were both involved, but Saddam expects to skate . . .

use tactical nukes to take out all known terrorist training camps, the Taliban, Saddam's bunker, and all his C&C and military assets. Do it all in a single night. Sound good? Won't work. "Terrorist training camps" don't really exist. Not in the sense that they're perched out on some ledge out in the desert where no kindergardeners are going to get hurt. Besides, if you were a terrorist, would you be sitting out there in camp when you know the Americans are ready to bomb the living shit out of anything that moves? The safest place to be would be in a big city in some quiet suburb with lots of kids around for protection. No, 'hit-and-run' is not going to do the job. I'm afraid we're going to need a good old-fashioned war with troops, tanks and conventional destruction. Or as Ann Coulter said, we need to invade them, kill their leaders and convert them all to Christianity. Call it "Desert Storm II:This time we're not stopping at the border." Nukes are out, definately. If we do that, we'll be condemned even though they deserve it. Besides, we don't need 100 million angry arabs volunteering to be the first to detonate a nuke in Madison Square Garden. As it stands now most of the Arab world would understand and probably support us if we invade Iraq and kill Saddam and his running dogs. War is not the same as mass-murder because it's clear we're defending ourselves. Even Arafat understands that.

Ground invasion of these countries is simply a fantasy. Seriously, are we going to storm Iraq's borders? What if we did invade Afghanistan (like the, er, Soviets)? Would that make it less likely that we will see one million Americans dead in a suitcase nuke attack five years from now? That's crazy. We need to kill the leadership. And we're not going to do that without taking out some innocent people. We won't and shouldn't directly target civilians, but you are not going to get to these people without some collateral damage, I'm afraid. Compared to the blood that has already been shed in the Arab-Israeli conflict, with the several hundred thousand conscript troops we killed during Desert Storm with the approval and financial support of the moderate Arab States, or the 5-30,000 US civilians killed yesterday, it's going to be small potatoes. But our attack, when it comes, must be swift, efficient, and implacable.

Ground invasion of these countries is simply a fantasy. I'm not a military person so I can't really debate the point. You're right, the Russians got clobbered in Afghanistan. However, during the Gulf War, the US and allies defeated Saddam's army and there was nothing to stop a column of tanks from driving straight into Baghdad or for our forces to decimate the Republican Guard. We held off in large part thanks to our current Sec. of State. Look where that got us. Still, I think nukes are a bad idea. Lobbing missiles from offshore didn't do much good when Clinton tried it. Other options? Bomb the living bee-jesus out of 'em till we catch or kill their leaders? We dropped quite a bit of ordinance on them during GW I and they've recovered pretty quick. Commando raids? I really don't know and happily, I don't have to decide. Experienced military on this forum might propose more likely scenarios. I expect we'll see what Bush does real soon and I also expect lots of bad guys are gonna die.

Lobbing missiles from offshore didn't do much good when Clinton tried it.

You have to consider the nature of the target, and the extent to which it is surrounded by human shields. A ton of high explosive delivered with cruise missile precision isn't going to be useful for taking out a head of state like Saddam, or a terrorist leader like Bin Laden. They are equipped to dodge those bullets. Carpet bombing isn't going to be much good for that job either: the civilian casualties would be huge, and you still wouldn't get the leadership. Think of the most devastating conventional bombings ever carried out, the firestorms of Dresden and Tokyo. Seventy thousand killed per raid but, by the same token, millions not killed.

The closest thing we've seen to a decapitation strike that I can think of was our use of a stealth bomber to take out a bunker used by the families of the Iraqi leadership during the Gulf War. I can still remember the pictures: the Iraqis laid out the 400 charred bodies for the world media. I've read, but cannot confirm, that that attack was quite important in bringing about Iraq's surrender. In any case, even with the precision of a low-flying, manned bomber, that was the best that could be achieved in terms of targeting the leadership, using only conventional weapons. Keep the precision, but up the blast energy 10,000-fold, and I suspect you could take out Saddam with a single shot.

Keep the precision, but up the blast energy 10,000-fold, and I suspect you could take out Saddam with a single shot. Ok. I'm sold. Let's just not CALL them nuclear weapons. "The Air Force today unveiled it's new top secret bio-degradation accellerator believed to pack as much wallop as 10,000,000 pounds of TNT. Just in time for the raid on Afghanistan, Air Force representatives state categorically that 'This is an entirely NON-nuclear device capable of massive amounts of clean, organic destruction.'" 2:48am Napa.

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.