Bush vs. Obama vs. Terrorism

Well put, Sachiko! Using 9/11 as a pretext for settling scores with Iraq was a completely misplaced priority–and quite unethical as well. Remember how several members of the Bush Administration put the words “Mushroom Cloud” in their messaging, to frighten the public into supporting their war? And then after their planned war removed Saddam, it was revealed that they had no plan for what came next! They foolishly allowed the museums to be ransacked, forced the army to be disbanded, and had no plan for the peace. And they allowed the Taliban time to regroup in Afghanistan—big mistake!

I think Obama’s plan is gutsy, although it may prove difficult to begin drawing down troops in just 18 months….

History may be repeating itself. The government knew in 1941 that Pearl Harbor was going to be attacked, but allowed it to happen in order to galvanize the American people. Ultimately, one has to suppose it was the right decision, because Europe could not have defeated Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo without our aid.
I can’t make up my mind about Afghanistan. Given the Russians’ signal failure there, I am not optimistic, but it would seem to be a better investment of military resources than Iraq.

Alas, there is data available to demonstrate (and considerably describe) a complicity of Bush-Cheney-British cartel connections and the then-ambassador from Saudi Arabia in enabling the 911 attacks. And, though publicly decried by Saudi reports to the media, it remains a solemn fact of history that Osama Bin Laden began his Jihad career as a wealthy Saudi national. And now President Obama is on the spot to “act right” as a worthy grantee of the same sponsorship. I would tend to look at Obama’s new Afghanistan adventure as one more skirmish in the great 150 Years’ Modern War that began with the British-perpetrated US Civil War. This war (read: mechanized carnage) then similarly sucked all sorts of young people into genocide against Native Americans, WW1, WW2, Truman’s spurious nuclear attack on Japan, then Korea, Vietnam, actions like Reagan’s sporting Greneda victory, then messy things like Mogodishu and Bosnia, George H.W. Bush’s first Gulf war, and then finally Iraq. And this is only a skeleton of the full listing of follies joined in this massive deception by a dynasty of warmonging and drug-running financial parasites. It is indeed a very bad parasite, in the Darwinian sense especially, that would so doggedly pursue the destruction of its great and humble host (read: the great body of workers and artists of the world). The parasite’s days are thusly numbered, one way or another.

I remember the early morning of 9/11 in Honolulu watching the disaster on TV and I wrote an opinion piece to the local newspaper. I said how the US govt. leaders would overreact with the massive military show. The elephant attacking scattering ants. It has been obvious from day one al-Queda will never function like a modern army, does not want to hold territory, govern people nor behave like rational humans. The correct reaction should have been like the Israel way, send in the Mossad agents, US Delta Team, CIA hit teams, pay people off, then find and exterminate the vermin. Sending hundreds of thousands of troops and civilians to hold ground is madness that wastes blood and treasure.

Now in Afghanistan, the Taliban wants to govern and hold land from poor, weak farmers and traders. Sounds like an internal civil war to me. Why are we there? Hey Obama, al-Queda leaders have been in Pakistan since 2004. al-Queda are in small group cells in Yeman, France, Saudi Arabia, even the USA.

The Mumbai killings were done by young men who had been sold by their fathers to a group who’s fight is about controlling the Kashmir territory. Nothing to do with al-Queda.
The point of course is superpower cannons won’t kill mosquitoes.
Bring home all the troops and if you want retrain them to speak multiple languages, deadly force and spy infiltration techniques. More over bring capitalism to the poor countries with schools, hospitals, infrastructures by loaning financial aid to the country you wish to help survive.
That’s how you defeat terrorists.

What created all this strife in the Middle and Near East? The forced creation of Israel in 1948 which pushed Palestinian Arabs into camps and bred new generations of terrorists that have spread to every country in the region. Since we can’t reverse that event, we move forward by creating a recognized political state for the Palestinians. That is the first step toward peace.

I think you’re right on the money with your analysis here. I also feel that Obama’s troop surge in Afghanistan is more about Pakistan than it is about Afghanistan. Pakistan is where Al Qaida is currently located. Pakistan is where widespread poverty meets religious extremism to produce a volatile mixture of unrest and instability. And Pakistan has the bomb. The U. S. has to convince Pakistan that it is as serious about closing a porous border between the two countries and denying Al Qaida a safe haven as it wants Pakistan to be.
Otherwise, this makes no sense. Afghanistan has a backward economy. Its two leading exports are opium and hashish. It has a corrupt central government with no popular support, which cannot provide security to its people outside of its central provinces, let alone any kind of government services. The real power in Afghanistan is not the government, nor the Taliban, nor any political party, but the tribal chieftains and the drug lords.
No amount of U. S. troops on the ground is likely to alter this in any significant way. Nation-building in Afghanistan is viewed as such a lost cause that nobody in Washington is even seriously discussing it.
What President Obama failed to do in his speech was to define our goals in Afghanistan, thus depriving us of any clear-cut idea of when or how they would be accomplished. In terms of the domestic political debate in the U. S. he accomplished very little. He just announced a policy which pleases neither his critics on the left nor the right. He took a very lonely stance here, and I don’t know if he can pull this off.
The last “outsider” to have any success in Afghanistan was Alexander the Great, “… and you could look it up,” as Casey Stengel used to say.

@Sachiko -

The symbiosis between George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden was always strange. Each used the other as his greatest recruiting and propaganda tools. It’s almost as if one could not have existed politically without the other.

30.000 more targets for the enemy

because Alexander the Great who came even to India…he had no success in this area,too
the greek build a modern town there but peace was only for short time
so its impossible for a longer time…in past and today

this country have no future
it never had one