An Excellent Sign From Canada

This first story from Canada tells about the two pronged assault terrorists had planned. But the really good news comes all the way at the end of the second three page story linked below. And that is the statement by Liberal Leader Bill Graham: Canada must continue its military role in Afghanistan or risk more terrorist threats at home.

At first I was afraid it was a typo. It isn't. And the acknowledgement that success in Afghanistan is critical for domestic security is key to understanding the GWOT. While people may differ on Iraq, the principle is the very same. And in the US, Al Gore recently mentioned the need to see things through to stability in Iraq.

Bombings, an armed assault on Parliament and even the beheading of Prime Minister Stephen Harper were among a chilling miscellany of possible terrorist attacks that emerged Tuesday when the alleged architects of a massive terrorist plot made their second appearance in court.

While the Canadian arrests may not have been the turning point, my first reaction which I posted a day or two ago was that the Canadian situation would bolster support across the board for America's war effort. Excepting in some far Left corners of the pundit community, in which I include the NYTimes, hopefully we're going to be able to weather the onslaught of Haditha.

In a 15-minute telephone conversation Monday, U.S. President George W. Bush expressed his appreciation for Canada's efforts to Prime Minister Stephen Harper.

Liberal Leader Bill Graham, meanwhile, said Canada must continue its military role in Afghanistan or risk more terrorist threats at home.

Canada's troops are in Afghanistan precisely to bring peace to that country, he said, and ''we hope well succeed in that engagement, which is so important for Canada and the international community.''

''I'm afraid that if we don't succeed, the threats will get bigger. The success of our forces in Afghanistan are more and more important, as shown by what we happened this weekend.''

The London Times had a great editorial, as well.

Comments

[Lindata]

Unfortunately, stability is the goal and the military action cannot achieve that goal. Reducing the number of people who want to blow things up in the name of Islam requires political solutions.

[moptop]

"Reducing the number of people who want to blow things up in the name of Islam requires political solutions" --Neville Chamberlin Jr.

Exactly how many people do we have to sell out to achieve this "political solution?" Should we turn over the 80% of Iraq that is non-Sunni over to the tender mercies of the Sunni Minority because they are willing to kill indescriminately? Where does it stop? Legitimate govt cannot give special rights and concessions to a party because they are willing to kill fellow citizens.

Your little aphorism sounds great, if you don't think about it too hard.

[rwilymz]

"Reducing the number of people who want to blow things up in the name of Islam requires political solutions."

Right.

And guess what? the military is one of the tools of politics.

Always has been, always will be.

Chamberlain thought that containing Hitler required a "political solution" as well. So did Churchill. The difference being: Churchill's "political solution" involved military force.

Here's an immutable reality of interpersonal relationships: some people do not respond to cajoling and polite manipulations.

Here's an immutable reality of international relationships: some nations do not respond to cajoling and polite manipulations.

Diplomacy-only has a very limited effective range. Diplomacy with a military power to enforce it has a much broader effective range.

[moptop]

Negotiating with terrorists on your own soil is as anti-democratic as one can get. Do votes mean anything in your world?

"stability is the goal and the military action cannot achieve that goal" Sure didn't in Germany or Japan, did it? Military action has achieved stability plenty of times. This is another aphorism that doesn't stand a moments serious consideration.

Restrains on military action by the UN created North Korea and Saddam's blood stained genocidal post Gulf War I kakistocracy.

I am sure you get a little frisson of feelings of superiority when you repeat that meaningless pap, though.

[David Paglia]

"Reducing the number of people who want to blow things up in the name of Islam requires political solutions"

--which explains why teh European countres (like France and Denmark) that refused to aid America in the War on Terror are so safe from Islamic terror.

--and why, as long as we were using diplomatic and political solutions to terror and treating it as a crime to be handled with investigations and arrsts, America was safe from terror until our invasion of Iraq.

Oh wait...

[Tim Gannon]

As Al Capone said: It is much easier to get things done with a smile and a gun, rather that with a smile alone.

[John Gillnitz]

Ah, the illogical "we have to fight them there so we don't fight them here" argument. I have a magic rock for sale that keeps terrorists away. I've had it for years and haven't been killed by a terrorist yet! Only $19.95!

[Reg DC]

Actually both Denmark and France are helping in the War on Terror. France is helping quietly with intelligence while Denmark has sent military units to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Please check out this link http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ops/iraq_orbat_coalition.htm

[rwilymz]

Mr Gillnitz, thank you for your enlightening response. I have children who stick out their tongues and say "nuh UH" also.

[moptop]

"Ah, the illogical "we have to fight them there so we don't fight them here"

Ah the simple-minded potshot taken, unsupported by argument or evidence.

Oh, and by the way, how many counterexamples to the "Military force cannot bring stability, only negotiations" will be required before our first poster concedes that it is more of an unsupported opinion than a law of human relations.

[moptop]

France, in the thirties, chose not to fight the Germans over there, when France could have won, and enforced Germany's treaty obligations. Yet France chose not to. France then was forced to fight Germany on French soil.

The French are famous logicians, really they are, I didn't mean that as sarcasm, but somehow the logic of "we have to fight them there so we don't fight them here" escaped them to, at the cost to the world of scores of millions of lives.

[rwilymz]

"Yet France chose not to. France then was forced to fight Germany on French soil."

Well, uh, "mop", you could also argue that the French also chose not to fight the Germans on their own soil, as well. But that may be inordinately cynical for current purposes.

[moptop]

It was too easy.

[moptop]

You know why the left really hates Hitler? Because of the Jews? Not hardly. Look at them crawl into bed with the Jihadis. It is because Hitler, and his earstwhile buddy Stalin, demonstrated the hollowness of leftist beliefs on international relations and demonstrated to the world how easy such beliefs are to exploit for one's own gain.

Now the lefties are reduced to claims that the lessons of history somehow do not apply.

[mistercalm]

David Paglia... excellent comment!
John Gillnitz... may I suggest you read "The Appeasers" by Martin Gilbert and Richard Gott.

[M. Simon]

Nevile Chamberlain was a man of peace.

He had the papers to prove it.

[Brian]

"I have a magic rock for sale that keeps terrorists away. I've had it for years and haven't been killed by a terrorist yet! Only $19.95!"

I have to believe it is the crack that makes you feel like the terrorists have been kept at bay John. But where you really lose credibility is when you claim to have kept a rock for years when your post clearly indicates you smoked it. Well that and your sale price for the rock. It takes big stones to keep terrorists down and the price for those is bit higher.

[rwilymz]

Mr Gillnitz display the same superficial grasp of history and historical patterns that plagues almost everyone. The thing about Ward Churchill's pucillanimous paper is not that he was wrong about America's self-involved self-superior arrogance; it's that it wasn't historically grounded. Yes, America is arrogant; but so what? Everyone's arrogant, and America's arrogance is no more or less immoral than anyone else's. It's just that, with America being on top in so many ways right now, we become "the easy target" for the disgruntled thugs.

Greater Islamia -- the muslim world, as they call themselves -- have been at war with "the west" for 1,300 years, ever since the Arabs unified and invaded central Asia and the Turks from central Asia returned the complement and found the huge western Byzantine Empire in their way. Arab primacy burned itself out fairly quickly, and they, as Ottoman vassals, have been employing hit-n-run attacks, piracy, "terrorism", as their M.O. against "the West" for 1,100 years, more or less. Barbary piracy was 500 years of it. Post-Roman Rome was sacked dozens of times, driving the Pope out of town each time, centuries before Urban called for any Crusade.

Ward Churchill made the mistake of asserting that history began [variously] in 1948 or 1973, declaring that the source of Mideast frustration with American arrogance began with Israel, or with outward US support for Israel. The reality is, this is what the islamists do. Barbary piracy only formally ended in 1830, with the last dying gasps occuring in the early 20th century. See "The Wind and the Lion" for a fictionalized Hollywood version -- starring Sean Connery.

What we saw the islamists do with the WTC [twice], various embassies, US warships, barracks, hotels, nightclubs ... it's what they do. It's what they've done for hundreds of years. It's who they are. It's clearly not going to stop entirely, and the only time it took a powder was when we stood up to it and invaded them. Even then it took a 30 year war, and the threat of another.

Learn history.

[Lars Gruber]

How in the world did the Canadians catch terrorists without a Patriot Act or spying on all it's citizens?

That's right... they don't have the incompetent & corrupt Bush boy as president... who can't even catch a 6'5" Saudi dragging a dialysis machine.

[rwilymz]

Lars, are you seriously asking for an academic spanking? catching Osama baby would only serve the same purpose to stopping al Qaida as catching Al Capone's bookkeeper served to catching Al Capone: a tenuous victory at best.

Bin Laden is not the brains of the outfit -- that's al Zawahiri. Until Ayman joined up, Osama's attempts at anti-US terrorism were marked by raging ineptitude. ...as were US attempts to stop/eliminate him.

But that was before the "incompetent and corrupt Bush" so I guess that doesn't count.

[Rachel]

I was staying out of this until brillian-boy Lars came up with the typical Bush is incompetent theme. Tell me Lars, if Bush is so bad, where are all the smarter people and their solutions, hmmm. Do the Dems know where bin Laden is and why don't they try to capture him? And as far as Canada goes, how do you think they captures the boys, telepathy? The TAPPED THE PHONES AND INTERNET !!!
I'm a liberal, believe it or not. But I have to admit, my party is stuck with complaining about W. because
A) they have no ideas and
B) the ideas they have (like bringing back the Powell Doctrine of more troops) would actually lose them votes
C) we have idiot parrots like Lars who are soooo happy to complain but not bring up ideas OR deal with the consquences of them

[Mahu]

We fight them over there so we dont have to fight them over here is the neo conservative mark of cowardice. It proves once and for all neoconservatives are scared little children afraid of the boogey man in their closet.

I am not afraid of al quaida. They are nothing. They are weak and their attack on the trade centers was a failure on our part not a sucess on theirs. Anyone who is afraid to fight the terorists here on our soil risking our blood is a coward. Put up or shut up. fight them and risk your own blood or stay out of it.

[Bill]

> "We're fighting them there, so we don't have to fight them here"

That slogan is only going to fool people who can't think for themselves.
As far as I know, the terrorists have not signed a treaty promising to limit themselves to action in Iraq. So why do you think they will do so?

Our army of occupation in Iaq is only fuelling the insurgency. But Iraq is disintegrating into a failed state regardless of what we do. It will end with open civil war between rival militias and partition into 3 states, with massacres by the Turks against the Kurds.

It makes me unhappy when the simple-minded repeat trite and false slogans like "We're fighting them there, so we don't have to fight them here". How many more billions of dollars do we have to pour away in the sand of Iraq and how many more courageous American soldiers must be killed before the inevitable pull out?

Here's what our US Ambassador in Iraq reported recently to Condi Rice:
"Crime in Iraq is rated by the U.S. State Department as critical and will continue to get worse for the foreseeable future. ... Crime, terrorism, and warfare are a significant threat in all parts of Iraq. Active military operations are ongoing. The Department of State continues to strongly warn U.S. citizens against travel to Iraq, which remains very dangerous. Remnants of the former regime, transnational terrorists, criminal elements and numerous insurgent groups remain active.

"Attacks against military and civilian targets continue throughout the country, including inside the international zone. These attacks have resulted in deaths and injuries of American citizens. Planned and random killings are common as are kidnappings for ransom and political reasons."

"A stable government may be the first step in a reduction in political violence," the cable says. But, for now, "armed militia, loyal to various non-governmental entities, have limited to extensive control of parts of Baghdad and some cities in Iraq."

That's our own ambassador reporting by the way.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/06/AR2006060601293.html

[Odin]

"How in the world did the Canadians catch terrorists without a Patriot Act or spying on all it's citizens?"

That sure is a lot of wording to say "I'm a Bush hating idiot" First they watched their chat room activities, then tapped phones.

Mahu: You're another idiot. While we will never suppress muslim hatred for the west and bring any stabiltiy over there. Any military historian will say the best strategy is to carry the fight to the enemy. Not wait until there are sappers in the wire. I hope we never have to depend on the likes of you to defend anything.

[Bill]

> Tell me Lars, if Bush is so bad, where are all the smarter people and their solutions, hmmm.
> Do the Dems know where bin Laden is and why don't they try to capture him?

President Bush made a huge misjudgement, and took chose to take the US into war against Iraq - a country that had no WMDs, had no links to Al Qaeda, had no connection to 9/11, and posed us no threat. Due to this collossal misjudgement we are now in the third year of an occupation. It costs you and I $9 Billion each month - money which we borrow from China, and which has built up the largest deficit ever. We have lost thousands of servicemen. And there is no prospect of things improving, no matter how long we stay the course. On the contrary, all the signs are that things are worsening, including reports from our ambassador and from our military.

So what are the solutions? President Bush has unfortunately put the USA in a place where there are no easy, smart, palatable solutions. We have to choose the least bad among all the choices. My choice would be to pull the army out to regional bases "over the horizon" (Kuwait, Qatar, etc) and try to contain the resulting civil war within the boundaries of Iraq. A more ambitious person might try to actually do the partitioning of Iraq for it (to avoid civil war). That would mean sending 5 times as many troops, which would mean a draft would be needed here.

Bin Laden is in Pakistan, along the Afghan border. President Bush let him escape when he was holed up in Tora Bora. It would take an army to capture him. But if we withdraw our army of occupation from Iraq, gee, we will have a spare army doing nothing... D'ya think?

[rwilymz]

Bill, stick around tomorrow. I'm about ready to go home, but I'll point out why you're a superficial twit who should keep his mouth shut to avoid embarrassment on the morrow. 'kay?

And Mahu? for someone who complains about "neo-cons", you sure do talk like a chicken-hawk. You did everything but challenge "bring 'em on!"

Yikes. Is this the substance of our political criticism? Invention of wholesale reality and doppleganging the political enemy?

[Kaydee]

People, such as Bill, who bitch about the U.S. going into Iraq (the same people who've been bitching about it all along): What they really sound like to the rest of us = Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Blah, blah. Hello! It's not like anyone takes time to read or care about what you have to say. It's just the same old drivel, for over 3 yrs., and it it changes nothing. So, do yourself a favor, and don't waste your breath, unless you're in like company consisting solely of kooks such as yourself. It gets annoying to the rest of us to have to constantly scroll past these vapid, and unfailingly over-long, posts.

[Bill]

Kaydee -- you may well be bored (I suspect you have little use for thought), but others had asked "Now that the President has run us into a ditch, what are the smart ideas that will get us out?"

Thinking carefully about the challenges we face is hard work. Not every one wants to do it, I agree. It's a lot easier to indulge in name calling, baiting, flames etc. However, I try to give a thoughtful answer to people who say they want one. If you don't... I believe the kids are all playing in the garden, enjoy them there.

[Bill]

> I'll point out why you're a superficial twit who should keep his mouth shut
> to avoid embarrassment on the morrow. 'kay?

Bring it on! I think the likeliest result is that you will continue to resort to name calling, in which case I will ignore you. Or you will go away with tail between your legs, but considerably enlightened.

Be warned - I'm going to support my arguments with facts and I will ask the same from you.

[John Gillnitz]

may I suggest you read "The Appeasers" by Martin Gilbert and Richard Gott.
Posted by: mistercalm | Wednesday, June 07, 2006 at 01:07 PM

If al-Qaeda were a country that analogy would matter. Its funny seeing people who pride themselves on strength wet their pants and abandon the Constitution over a pathetic gang of zealots.

What we saw the islamists do with the WTC [twice], various embassies, US warships, barracks, hotels, nightclubs ... it's what they do.
Posted by: rwilymz | Wednesday, June 07, 2006 at 02:32 PM

What a marvelously one-sided account. Would it be fair to say that Hiroshima is what the West does?

I'm glad we caught these people, but it foolish to think that it justifies our occupation of Afghanistan or Iraq.

[Bill]

I agree with you John. Please stick around while I give Ross a spanking tomorrow.

[ATM]

Iraq has everything to do with 9/11. Al Qaeda attacked or attempted to attack every part of the containment operations for Iraq. Troops in Saudia Arabia participating in containment were bombed. The USS Cole which participated in the enforcement of sanctions was bombed. They wanted to attack the Turkish airbase that US and British aircraft that flew the northern no-flyzone used, but found the facility too secure, so they attacked some other British targets in Turkey. Al Qaeda used containment of Iraq as justification for attacking the US.

Maybe that is why just a short while after the USS Cole bombing, former Democratic Senator Bob Kerrey said that the response to the Cole bombing should be to remove Saddam Hussein from power.

We should be clear that al Qaeda for whatever reason wanted containment of Iraq to end. The attacks against the US were intended to force us to end containment. Saddam would be quite fortunate that al Qaeda is out there attacking the US and demanding among other things the end of containment. Or was it more than luck? Did he ever provide any covert aid to al Qaeda? If he could do it without detection I'm sure he would. The question is did he do it without our being able to detect it. Given the difficulties of tracing funds in the Middle East, I think it is quite possible he did providing funding to al Qaeda. That is the least traceable form of assistance.

[Bill]

I am so sorry, ATM. The bipartisan 9/11 Commission disagrees with your opinion. (Bipartisan means that it includes both Republicans and Democrats. This was the commission that President Bush worked so hard to prevent, until he flip-flopped and started supporting it).

The commission reported in June 2004 that it found "no collaborative relationship" between Iraq and al Qaeda.
See this news report: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A47812-2004Jun16.html

However, your opinion is clearly a strongly held belief. So please tell me what you are basing it on? Please provide links to non-crackpot sources that support your view. You won't, of course. You won't be able to, because it is not true.

[John Gillnitz]

Al Qaeda used containment of Iraq as justification for attacking the US.
Posted by: ATM | Wednesday, June 07, 2006 at 06:36 PM

Interesting theory, but factually challenged. Al Qaeda is theocratic. Saddam was a secular communist. They were enemies, not collaborators. The only reason our troops were attacked near Iraq is because that is where our troops happened to be. al Qaeda wants the same thing it wanted when the CIA helped create it: foreigners out of the Middle East. Only difference is that now it is us instead of the Soviets.

The truth is al Qaeda doesn't even exist as a coherent organization. Its not like they have membership cards and a newsletter. We just have a bunch of people pissed off at American imperialism who happen to be Muslim. I think eventually the people who were arrested in Canada will turn out to have no direct connection to a real terrorist organization and are just a bunch of dumb asses who got caught talking shit. I'm cool with that. Send the bastards to jail. If a dork like McVeigh can pull it off these guys can too.

[rwilymz]

"That slogan is only going to fool people who can't think for themselves. As far as I know, the terrorists have not signed a treaty promising to limit themselves to action in Iraq. So why do you think they will do so?"

The amazing thing about starting a war among people who have threatened you and started to enact those threats is that it acts as a lightning rod. It's a very disciplined military force that doesn't fall for the obvious trick, and Arabs [et al] do not have a disciplined military force.

"Our army of occupation in Iaq is only fuelling the insurgency."

The 'insurgency' was being fueled irrespective of the occupation.

"It will end with open civil war between rival militias and partition into 3 states, with massacres by the Turks against the Kurds."

And the problem with that would be ...? You have a great love for pan-islamist yahoos? The more they fight among themselves the less they fight us. Please don't dopplegang Murtha and claim that "The US has become the primary target in Iraq" when Iraqis killed by Iraqis outnumber Americans killed by Iraqis 10- or 15-to-1.

"President Bush made a huge misjudgement, and took chose to take the US into war against Iraq - a country that had no WMDs, had no links to Al Qaeda, had no connection to 9/11, and posed us no threat."

Wait!! Wasn't it you who just said "It makes me unhappy when the simple-minded repeat trite and false slogans"? Why... yes it was. You are your own worst enemy here, Mr Trite Simple-Minded.

Here are some realities for you:

1] Iraq had chemical weapons found by the boatload between 1992 and 1998 during the first UN inspection regime; some were destroyed, many were locked in warehouses in Iraq with the UN holding the keys. When Iraq kicked the UN out in '98 [and Clinton used that Cease Fire violation to do Desert Fox -- remember?] the "WMD that didn't exist" were left in Iraq. When the UN went back in 2002 Iraq was violating the Cease Fire again by refusing immediate compliance with inspection requests to determine that the chems were where the UN left them 4 years before. The speculation is that Iraq broke in and handed out a lot of them, and trucked others around to back-fill the warehouses before the UN got there.

2] you are making serious "misjudgements" [sic] yourself to think that al Qaida is rationally separable from any other terrorist organization. These organizations are fluid in both structure and membership, freely borrowing from each other when it is expedient to do so, and likely always will be.

3] Iraq attacked us a half a hundred times between 1991 and 2002. No threat?

More reality for you, buckwheat: a nation's military forces, no matter where they are on the planet, are an extention of that nation's sovereignty, and an attack on them is an attack on the nation. Iraq fired on US aircraft, and locked onto US aircraft with their integrated targeting radar an average of 5 times a year for 12 years. Acts of war, skeezix. The US could respond at any time to acts of war with ... like ... war.

Even more reality for you, buckwheat: a Cease Fire is a specific type of international treaty which sets out allowable actions for one [or more] sides in an unended war; a violation of the terms of a cease fire constitutes, in international law, an act of war. Acts of war are respondable to by military action, "in severality". Which means that if countries A, B and C signed a cease fire with country Z and country Z violated it, country B can go to war against country Z without countries A and C participating, or even having their permission.

Iraq was in violation of the cease fire on a daily basis.

Now, I'll grant you some wiggle room here, and allow as how the terms of the Cease Fire were Versaillean in their short-sighted punitivity. That the UN, in 1991, virtually guaranteed that Iraq would be in violation of the Cease Fire and thus inspire a second war; and that for all practical purposes the UN and all nations in its Security Council -- including Russia and China -- conspired to create a future war out of the dust of Iraq/'91.

But your trite and cliched wet-panty yammering is irrelevant where it isn't outright ignorant.

"On the contrary, all the signs are that things are worsening, including reports from our ambassador and from our military."

Um, bucko, I work with the military every day, and have for the last 25 years, part of which I was IN the military. The "reports from the military" are nearly uniform in their puzzlement over why we in the US don't hear what's going on in Iraq.

"My choice would be to pull the army out to regional bases "over the horizon" (Kuwait, Qatar, etc) and try to contain the resulting civil war within the boundaries of Iraq."

That's one of the valid options. But here's the thing: it's not the ONLY valid option. Many quibbledicks who come up with a valid option think that because their option isn't chosen that the "wrong" option is being used, or that everything else is invalid. That's not the case. It's valid for me and my wife to go on a cruise for vacation, and it's also valid for us to go to Las Vegas. We only have one vacation, so we can't do both ... we choose one ... does that make the one we chose "wrong"? is the one we didn't choose "wrong"? Of course not.

The downside of pulling out and redeploying in the region is that we had our war, we came in,killed people, broke things, and now we're leaving and essentially telling them, "You clean up our mess." You wanna talk about "fueling the insurgency", start right there.

"A more ambitious person might try to actually do the partitioning of Iraq for it (to avoid civil war)."

Ahhh. The post-colonial European model of creating peace in the third world: define their borders and create their territories for them. We see how well that has worked in Africa and central Asia... even Wilson's "Yugoslavia" has been a model of congomerate stability over the years.

"President Bush let him escape when he was holed up in Tora Bora. It would take an army to capture him."

I don't recall Bush being there, but, okay, this must be one of those things you're going to supply me with factual support on.

Bill, buddy, the reason Osama-dude got off Tora Bora is that the US didn't have a blocking force on the east side of the mountain -- which was not entirely in Pakistan, to forestall any irrelevant quibbling about soveraignty issues. The standard declarations of blame for Tora Bora has been
1] lack of P'stani participation [nonsense]
2] lack of enough SpecForces [more nonsense]

You don't need P'stani help if you have a blocking force; you don't need more Rangers if you have a blocking force. So why didn't we have a blocking force? A group of armed soldiers halfway up the mountain shooting everything that moves in their direction. Where were they?

They were doing UN babysitting duty around Iraq. Remember?

"Bring it on!"

Oh, it's on. It's so on.

"I think the likeliest result is that you will continue to resort to name calling, in which case I will ignore you."

You'd better start ignoring me, then, skeezix, because I do not suffer ignorance politely, nor do I believe I'm obliged to. This is what I do for a living, and have for a quarter century, and it pisses me off no end to listen to ignorant fucks who have never been in the military, who have never studied military beyond what it took to pass high school history tests, couldn't tactically maneuver their way out of a simple frontal assault, but dammit! they have a vote! and they don't like this or that or something else, and by dint of owning a vote they become an expert!

Newsflash: you aren't.

[rwilymz]

"Al Qaeda is theocratic. Saddam was a secular communist."

You say that as if it means something. It doesn't. With respect to islamists relationship to The West, there is only "us" and "them". These are their delineations, and we would be foolish to refuse to understand that the world they see is black and white.

"They were enemies, not collaborators."

You'd be right if you were talking about some purely Mideastern jockeying. But with respect to their relationship to the West, ...

"The only reason our troops were attacked near Iraq is because that is where our troops happened to be."

Right. Which is not exactly a counterpoint to the original assertion, but it's striking that you acknowledge what Bill Trite Simple-Minded refused to concede earlier: the concept of drawing the line in the sand ... THEIR sand ... in the THEIR deserts and not our sand on our beaches. It's an exceptionally valid and workable solution so long as you are fighting a group of elementarily reactive, undisciplined paramilitary twits.

Y'see, binky, if we were fighting, say, Rommel or Patton or R.E.Lee, and we invaded some remote outpost on their line of defense, a tactician worth a damn wouldn't descend on that remote outpost if he was already outnumbered and outgunned -- which you'd do well to acknowledge the various terrorist groups are. What a tactician would do is say, "fine, you wanna play war in Iraq, we wanna play war in ... Philadelphia, or DC, or Atlanta. See ya there..." and they'd write off Iraq. "Necessary loss".

But they aren't, are they? No.

Why not? Because they are simple-minded twits. Much like Bill and yourself. None of the lot of you know thing-one about military or what's involved. But darn if the pan-islamists aren't devout!

"al Qaeda wants the same thing it wanted when the CIA helped create it:"

BZZZZZZZT!!!

The CIA did not create al Qaida. Al Qaida was create in 1992 in response to the US deployment of troops to Saudi after even the Gulf War was over. The Saudis promised Osama-dude that the foreigners would leave, and they didn't. Hence al Qaida.

"Only difference is that now it is us instead of the Soviets."

And yet again ... this goes back to the claim that there is a fundamental difference between terrorist organizations, that there is no connection between al Qaida and Iraq -- al Qaida was specifically created because Iraq required UN babysitting troops -- and that, in general, the pan-islamists the Middle East over are not one big wiggly mass of simmering anti-Western violence waiting for the fuse to be lit.

OF COURSE it is now "us instead of the Soviets" -- except in Chechnya where it's the Ex-Soviets. That's the thing. It's always something.

READ HISTORY.

That was why I responded to you before: you're historically illiterate. This is what they do, and have for 1,300 years ... under the rubric of islam. They've been doing this since before recorded history began under various other names. Persian conquests of the entire area and invasions of Greece... Assyrian conquests of everyone... Babylonian ditto... Turk/Mongol yadda yadda. They have thought East versus West cage grudge match since forever.

When we, or those portions of "we" who don't know what they're talking about, continually describe al Qaida as if it were reasonably seperable from Hamas or Islamic Jihad, as if the national funding schemes for Hamas don't also filter back into al Qaida, we are creating a false reality that they don't even acknowledge. If we don't know our enemy we can't win.

"The truth is al Qaeda doesn't even exist as a coherent organization."

Hey!! You're right!!

But again, you say that as if it's relevant. It's not.

"Its not like they have membership cards and a newsletter. We just have a bunch of people pissed off at American imperialism who happen to be Muslim."

Which "American imperialism" is this? "Hegemonic" imperialism, perhaps? The same type of imperialism the Turks foisted upon them for 1,200 years? the form of imperialism that exists when a bunch of people are administratively incompetent to run their own affairs and they themselves default to people who know how to get things done, and then resent them because they can't do it themselves?

Izzat the type of imperialism you're talking about? Cuz I wanna be clear on that.

"What a marvelously one-sided account. Would it be fair to say that Hiroshima is what the West does?"

Not unless the West does Hiroshima for 1,300 years straight.

READ HISTORY.

[Rick]

rwilymz: Dude you're the best! I personally prefer just being a smart ass with the "historically illiterate". But you're impeccable facts are much more fun.

[bill]

Ross,

I am afraid your rant of unsupported opinions doesn't pass muster as rational discourse.
Do you have an actual point in among all that "skeezix" and "Buckwheat" and "quibbledick"?

Because you are going to need an actual point and an actual argument (in the sense of logic, not contradiction) to make the grade here. I'm not one of your dimwit barroom friends, that you can impress by 25 years as the storeroom clerk for the 101st deskborne backroom cavaliers.

Try again, Ross. What are you trying to say about Iraq?

[rwilymz]

What were you saying about mere contradiction, slappy? What constitutes "fact" in your world with the green sky with pink florets?

If you want a "rational discourse" then you address the points made, and not simply dismiss it as "opinion" or gainsay it while asserting "contradiction".

You are, rhetorically, your own worst enemy here.

I've addressed the bulk of your nonsense -- the part that was worth addressing. Rational discourse requires you do the same.

Quote me from the Treaty of Westphalia, or the Treaty of the Pyrenees for that matter, where my synopsis of international law is fundamentally flawed.

How is it my "opinion" that Iraq fired on US aircraft?

The only measure of my "opinion" comes in declaring that the Gulf War Cease Fire was "Versaillean". It is not my opinion that Iraq was in violation of it.

You know, **discourse**, not peevish tongue-wagging. I've got kids who say "nuh UH". grow up. Or try.

C'mon, pickles, I'm waiting for the spanking you promised.

[bill]

Alright, Ross.

Please tell me which part of this you think is false and why:
"President Bush made a huge misjudgement, and took chose to take the US into war against Iraq - a country that had no WMDs, had no links to Al Qaeda, had no connection to 9/11, and posed us no threat."

Just pick one of the parts. Try to come up with a link to a non-crackpot site to support your view. Good luck. Hint: I relish seeing someone swagger and brag about how smart they are, the way you do.

[rwilymz]

"Just pick one of the parts."

I addressed all of them, squirt.

You either failed to read what I wrote, refused to read what I wrote, failed to comprehend what I wrote, or dismissed what I wrote because it isn't in line with your [ahem] analytic position.

Iraq attacked us, outright ATTACKED us, an average of 5 times a year between 1991 and 2002. These are belligerent acts of war. To thereupon claim that "Iraq was no threat" fails the sniff test.

You may validly claim that the Cease Fire which prohibited such things, or subsequent UN decisions which carved "no-flys" out of Iraqi airspace were violations-in-waiting, but the FACT of the matter is, Iraq attacked us repeatedly.

You may further trivialize the episodes and declare that, "oh, well, it was only Iraq ... what actual harm could result", and thereupon dismiss the "threat" of actual attacks, but again ... reality ...

The Iraqi "WMD" is a matter of record. At this late date it's only the desperate, grasping anti-intellectual who claims that Iraq had "none". In case you hadn't heard, the consensus of the ankle-biters is now that "Iraq wasn't creating *new*" -- which is accurate as far as it goes.

Two down.

"Links to al Qaida" and "connection to 9-11" are problematic, devolve upon knowledge of the Middle East, its culture and history, and a whole bunch of as-yet classified information that you are not in a position to knowledgeably discuss.

The fact that you are discussing it means, therefore, that your discussion is unknowledgeable.

Again, the fact that you have a vote and get to add your two cents to the national referendum on whether we should have this war, or that war, or no wars at all, doesn't imbue you with any expertise on the tactics of war in general, or of any war in specific.

Al Qaida in not rationally separable from any other terrorist organization. Doesn't get simpler than that. They themselves, when discussing their relationship to the West, refer to themselves as a unitary whole, transcending national boundaries. As Globnitz [or whomever] alluded to earlier and which you don't have the honesty to acknowledge, the pan-islamists are viewing their world as us/them, either/or, black/white.

Well, frankly, duh. It's their worldview. I'm not going to hold your hand through the history classes you failed to take and/or comprehend. Do that on your own time. When Hussein gave tens of millions of dollars to Hamas weenies, do you honestly think that this money stayed in Palestine? built schools? hospitals? roads? parks? Do you honestly think it stayed in Palestine and bought C4 and kalishnikovs with every penny to use solely on the IDF? If you do you're a certifiable idiot. People in these places who have money pass it around and take it with them when they temporarily switch from Hamas to Islamic Jihad to al Qaida. You throw money at one terrorist organization, it pops up in all of them.

Try reading the 9-11 commission report a little closer, and not simply pull out the convenient nuggets.

[Bill]

I see, Ross.

When you say:
> The Iraqi "WMD" is a matter of record. At this late date it's only the
> desperate, grasping anti-intellectual who claims that Iraq had "none".

... do you include the CIA in that group of "desperate, grasping anti-intellectuals"?

Because a CIA report from 2004 gives the unqualified rock-solid conclusion that Iraq's WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended Iraq's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War.

See: http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/10/06/iraq.wmd.report/

That was easy. What else you got, Ross?

[rwilymz]

What's easy about shooting yourself in the foot, slappy?

You are guilty of equivocation, and what's more, you either:
a] know it and are dancing, or
2] don't know it and will slap yourself in the forehead in about two paragraphs.

If you lose your job and can't earn any more money, does that mean the money in your bank account magically goos **poof**? Or does it mean that you simply can't *earn* more to deposit?

If the Gulf War "virtually" destroys Iraq's capacity to make chemical weapons [you have to say "virtually" because the event that inspired Iraq to kick the UN out of the country in '98 was that the keystone cops in the UN stumbled across the ricin-making facility...] does that mean that all the chemical weapons they had suddenly stop existing? Or that they can't [easily] get more?

You'd better be arguing the latter, because the fact that the UN found oodles after the Gulf War says they didn't stop existing. But that puts you in a precarious position, dunnit, buckwheat?

You're back to missing the point and arguing at cross-purposes... and my estimation is that you're doing it deliberately.

Iraq had chemical weapons. Period. You cannot deny it, and the "evidence" you claimed supports you does not.

You're right; that *was* easy.

[rwilymz]

Here's the thing, Bill, you can add your vote to the gaggle of anklebiters who do not like the war in Iraq, and I frankly have no problem with that. If I was in charge we wouldn't have this war either.

But that doesn't make everything that's happened, and every position taken pursuant to same, a fraud upon the American people [or the world]. Some things simply are the way they are; arguing that reality is wrong, as you are taking great effort to do, isn't a winning position.

You'd be better off arguing that the existence of chemical weapons in Iraq was not a good enough reason for a full-scale invasion, which virtually required the conquest and open-ended occupation. Because -- sorry -- Iraq had chemical weapons.

You'd be better off arguing that the limited threat that Iraq *was*, the UN's estimation that they still comprised a regional threat was not a good enough reason for a full-scale invasion etc.

You'd be much better off arguing that the realities which -- again, sorry -- are as accurately depicted as anything else coming from the US government at any other point in history from either major party would have been better resolved using a lesser military response.

THAT is an argument which is supportible using
1] the facts as they were known
2] the facts as they are known now, and
3] the textbook concept of military as an arm of diplomacy.

[Rick]

Ross, You're either wasting time or just having fun trying to throw facts at Bill. It was painfully obvious when he threw the "even CIA says there were no WMDs" argument into the mix. When someone gets all thier information from Al Franken, there is no educating them. To these people WMD means big ole SS-22s with "Amerika or burst" written on the nose. Personally though, I've really enjoyed your posts and had a gap or two filled in myself. I noted too that you did a better job than I backing my own argument from containment.

[Bill]

Ross -- what part of the CIA 2004 report are you trying to refute?

Please can you provide a link that supports your claim, whatever it is? Thanks, because otherwise I'm going to believe that Charles Duelfer, who advises the director of central intelligence on Iraqi weapons, in preference to you. And he says Iraq's WMD program was essentially destroyed in 1991 and Saddam ended Iraq's nuclear program after the 1991 Gulf War.

I hope you don't think it is rude of me to prefer someone who led the post-war Iraq survey group charged with finding WMD, over a guy who free associates and thinks it is logic.

Bill

[Mahu]

Watching you argue the minutae while you live in fear, you who are so afraid to risk your own blood, arguing over how to best risk the lives of others to protect your frightened selves. You are terrified of Al qaeda. They own you. They have frightened you into starting a ridiculous useless war, they have driven you into trillion dollar debts, You've given the president the power of a king, you question nothing and bow down to your fear. They own you. You are too afraid to fight them where you live so you pretend you fight them in an Iraqi civil war. You stay at home typing and pretending while Iraqis pay the price for your fear. Al qaeda has beaten you. You stand for nothing and demand everyone be as scared as you are while defending your right to be frightened of the mighty jihadists. 20 men with razor blades have brought you to your knees.

[Bill]

Yeah, Mahu called it exactly right.

I'm sorry Ross. I'm just not as scared of Al Qeada as you are.

I'm not scared enough to accept the government spying on my phone calls. I'm not scared enough to accept the government keeping my ISP records. I am not scared enough to accept the government blowing the cover of a CIA agent.

It's OK for you to be frightened enough to accept all those things though. It's your choice. I won't make it for you.

[rwilymz]

Jesus, Bill. You're still not done whining and mewling?

"what part of the CIA 2004 report are you trying to refute?"

None, actually. I'm trying to tell you what it says.

The CIA reported -- and it's accurate for all practical purposes -- that Iraq's ability to make chemical weapons was obliterated in the Gulf War. But pay attention to the words here, Bill; words are not simply random sounds that come out of your mouth or keyboard -- they actually mean something tangible and concrete.

Iraq lost the ability to CREATE shemical weapons. They didn't lose the chemical weapons they already had.

Those who argue "Iraq had no chemical weapons" are arguing something else entirely from what the CIA reported. You were arguing "Iraq had no chemical weapons" and then citing the CIA's report that Iraq had no capacity to CREATE chemcial weapons as support.

It's not support; it is irrelevant to your argument, and you are being disingenuous -- I believe deliberately -- to continue maintaining the farce.

Like I said... aren't you done *yet*?

"I'm going to believe that Charles Duelfer, who advises the director of central intelligence on Iraqi weapons, in preference to you"

Good. Deulfer's a good source, and doesn't subscribe to your superficial understanding.

"I'm sorry Ross"

Yes, you are. You got that one right.

But please don't waste your further energy defining my existence for me. Chances are very very good that you'd be wrong, and, in fact, with the qualitative assessments you've levied, you are so far.

Best of luck with your budding psychic business, though.

[rwilymz]

Mahu, bud, if I were a psychiatrist I'd ask you who you were trying to convince: us or yourself.

But I'm not. So I'll just laugh quietly to myself.

Just remember: at you, not with you.

Ditto, billyboy