The Great Game, another loss

[Strike For The South]

You're not getting my point. This is like arresting all the prostitutes and continuing to do business with the pimps. Or druggies and drug dealers. Whatever metaphor you'd like.

So we should've attacked SA instead of were AL Qedia was located and thriving in Afghanistan because in SA there may or may not be people funding AQ? Because Osama has allot of money due to oil? Because you dont like them?

[Koga No Goshi]

So we should've attacked SA instead of were AL Qedia was located and thriving in Afghanistan because in SA there may or may not be people funding AQ? Because Osama has allot of money due to oil? Because you dont like them?

Didn't say that. But you said that pointing out that the source of this problem, ultimately, goes back to Saudi Arabia and other places outside of Afghanistan. And you bolded it and said it was a lie. Carpet bomb Afghanistan if you like, if you think that will be the end of Middle Eastern terrorism against the U.S. you are pretty mistaken.

[Kadagar_AV]

saudis
trained in afghanistan...
... by saudis
funded by saudis

go figure

[Louis VI the Fat]

To quote Adrian:

Oh, cut the crap already.


If the Americans had gone after Saudi Arabia, we'd be sitting here listening to how it was all about oil and how America should've gone after Afghanistan since that is a rogue state where terrorists operate freely and that Bin Laden after all was chased out of Saudi Arabia by the Saudis themselves and the other 9-11 terrorists all got their education outside of SA etcetera.

And if the Americans had gone after both we'd be talking about Syria and Algeria and Pakistan etcetera and why the Americans didn't go after the terrorists there.

And if the Americans had gone after all of those too we'd be talking about how the Americans are warmongering imperialists and that this is what America gets 9-11's.

Can't win.

[Kadagar_AV]

Can't win.

QFT




However, if you would have gone after saudi arabia, at least the europeans wouldnt scratch their heads wondering "hmm... now why did they do that?"

[Fragony]

QFT




However, if you would have gone after saudi arabia, at least the europeans wouldnt scratch their heads wondering "hmm... now why did they do that?"

Oh common the same guys that are crying foul now are the same ones crying foul when supposedly a genocide was being conducted in our own backyard. What pacifist europeans think should never be taken into consideration just because of the very fact that they can't think, they want to be a paralel universe despite not being one.

[Koga No Goshi]

Oh common the same guys that are crying foul now are the same ones crying foul when supposedly a genocide was being conducted in our own backyard. What pacifist europeans think should never be taken into consideration just because of the very fact that they can't think, they want to be a paralel universe despite not being one.

Well hey you could spin that around, I find it annoying that so many European hawks disillusioned with their own governments use the internet to voice vehement support of anything reckless and aggressive the U.S. does. I don't think Europe's approval OR disapproval changes the fact that the way we're handling the war on terror is very bad, and bankrupting us for very little return.

[Fragony]

Well hey you could spin that around, I find it annoying that so many European hawks disillusioned with their own governments use the internet to voice vehement support of anything reckless and aggressive the U.S. does. I don't think Europe's approval OR disapproval changes the fact that the way we're handling the war on terror is very bad, and bankrupting us for very little return.

It is not spinning around it is accepting that there is a difference between what you want and what it is. Shooting bad guys, I can't think of a better way of dealing with terrorists really. AdrianII is hardly a hawk, you wondered if I was the most rightwing person in the netherlands, well there is my leftist non-hubris and much apreciated nemesis.

[Incongruous]

Oh common the same guys that are crying foul now are the same ones crying foul when supposedly a genocide was being conducted in our own backyard. What pacifist europeans think should never be taken into consideration just because of the very fact that they can't think, they want to be a paralel universe despite not being one.

I might do a Tribesman...



You mean that reality where Afghanistan was never planned properly and never conducted properly? Where the thing has been such a cock up that it is likely to re-create the conditions which leade to 9/11?

Yeah what a load of tossers they are!

[Fragony]

I might do a Tribesman...



You mean that reality where Afghanistan was never planned properly and never conducted properly? Where the thing has been such a cock up that it is likely to re-create the conditions which leade to 9/11?

Yeah what a load of tossers they are!

YEAH OMGWTFLOL

Make sure you look less rediculous when you do it, Tribesman has an excuse he is usually drunk and all the better for it, but what is your excuse, right now being this early in the morning?

Taliban bad = dead Taliban good,

capice?

[Sarmatian]

To quote Adrian:

Oh, cut the crap already.


If the Americans had gone after Saudi Arabia, we'd be sitting here listening to how it was all about oil and how America should've gone after Afghanistan since that is a rogue state where terrorists operate freely and that Bin Laden after all was chased out of Saudi Arabia by the Saudis themselves and the other 9-11 terrorists all got their education outside of SA etcetera.

And if the Americans had gone after both we'd be talking about Syria and Algeria and Pakistan etcetera and why the Americans didn't go after the terrorists there.

And if the Americans had gone after all of those too we'd be talking about how the Americans are warmongering imperialists and that this is what America gets 9-11's.

Can't win.

Exactly. Invading country by country is a pretty poor solution. What should have been done is to identify canals through which terrorist groups get funding and weapons and cut them, using invasion only as a last resort. IIRC, after 9-11, Russia was interested in combining forces against terrorism and helped initially with Afghanistan but cooled off after seeing that American vision of how it should be done is very different then theirs.

This is not about hand-made guns, hand grenades or molotov coctails. In the case of 9-11, several planes were hijacked simultaneously. Now, you can't bring an AK-47 on a plane. You need a bit more sophisticated and expensive weapons. How did those weapons get on a plane? How did they get in the US? Were they made in the US? Who can make them? Those people who flew those planes had to be trained. Where were they trained? Who trained them? Most important of all questions is, of course, who provided the money for all that. That was extremely complicated, expensive and time consuming process, preparing for that attack.

Further, stop funding potential terrorist havens. Although it was known for some time that Mujahedeens and various terrorist groups fought together with Bosnian muslims, US continued to support Izetbegovic with money and weapons. It pretty much handed out visas to Bosnian citizens, with little control. Then what happens is that some guy from middle east gets to Sarajevo, gets a new passport and hits America without any control. It took a decade before someone finally got it in the US and stopped handing out visas to Bosnian citizens without control. Don't tell me no one in the US knew that middle eastern fundamentalists are involved in Bosnia. Same goes for Saudi Arabia and Kosovo, and many other potential terrorist havens. You try to fight terrorism and then support Kosovo as an independent country, through which a large portion of drugs grown in Afghanistan is pushed into Europe and America and money made from that is used by Afghans to buy weapons. That doesn't make sense, it's absurd. Your right hand is doing the total opposite of your left hand and it's no wonder you're not getting anywhere...

So, setting up a consistent policy and cutting of funding and hurting logistics is much more effective than invading countries in which a certain terrorist leader happened to be in that particular time of the year.

[Koga No Goshi]

Exactly. Invading country by country is a pretty poor solution. What should have been done is to identify canals through which terrorist groups get funding and weapons and cut them, using invasion only as a last resort. IIRC, after 9-11, Russia was interested in combining forces against terrorism and helped initially with Afghanistan but cooled off after seeing that American vision of how it should be done is very different then theirs.

This is not about hand-made guns, hand grenades or molotov coctails. In the case of 9-11, several planes were hijacked simultaneously. Now, you can't bring an AK-47 on a plane. You need a bit more sophisticated and expensive weapons. How did those weapons get on a plane? How did they get in the US? Were they made in the US? Who can make them? Those people who flew those planes had to be trained. Where were they trained? Who trained them? Most important of all questions is, of course, who provided the money for all that. That was extremely complicated, expensive and time consuming process, preparing for that attack.

Further, stop funding potential terrorist havens. Although it was known for some time that Mujahedeens and various terrorist groups fought together with Bosnian muslims, US continued to support Izetbegovic with money and weapons. It pretty much handed out visas to Bosnian citizens, with little control. Then what happens is that some guy from middle east gets to Sarajevo, gets a new passport and hits America without any control. It took a decade before someone finally got it in the US and stopped handing out visas to Bosnian citizens without control. Don't tell me no one in the US knew that middle eastern fundamentalists are involved in Bosnia. Same goes for Saudi Arabia and Kosovo, and many other potential terrorist havens. You try to fight terrorism and then support Kosovo as an independent country, through which a large portion of drugs grown in Afghanistan is pushed into Europe and America and money made from that is used by Afghans to buy weapons. That doesn't make sense, it's absurd. Your right hand is doing the total opposite of your left hand and it's no wonder you're not getting anywhere...

So, setting up a consistent policy and cutting of funding and hurting logistics is much more effective than invading countries in which a certain terrorist leader happened to be in that particular time of the year.

Precisely how I feel. Arguing that Afghanistan has gone into the toilet and it's the Afghanis' fault is not only bullheaded but misses the entire point. We aren't safer from terrorism, if anything, the root causes of it have been exacerbated. The "cause" of terrorism was not a camp in Afghanistan. The cause was foreign policy, a variety of socioeconomic and geopolitical causes, the history of the U.S. in the Middle East, and, Saudi and UAE money (among others) funding it. The Saudis in particular use extremism and some subtly nurtured resentment of the west as a release valve for the problems and frustration within its own population under its abusive regime and extreme inequalities of wealth.

THe point was not that we should invade Saudi Arabia and leave Afghanistan. The point was that coming in with a bunch of snazzy pinache about how Americans shouldn't feel a lick of responsibility for Afghanistan is, from the point of view of why we went in and what we are trying to accomplish, and irrelevant sidetrack.

[Incongruous]

To quote Adrian:

Oh, cut the crap already.


If the Americans had gone after Saudi Arabia, we'd be sitting here listening to how it was all about oil and how America should've gone after Afghanistan since that is a rogue state where terrorists operate freely and that Bin Laden after all was chased out of Saudi Arabia by the Saudis themselves and the other 9-11 terrorists all got their education outside of SA etcetera.

And if the Americans had gone after both we'd be talking about Syria and Algeria and Pakistan etcetera and why the Americans didn't go after the terrorists there.

And if the Americans had gone after all of those too we'd be talking about how the Americans are warmongering imperialists and that this is what America gets 9-11's.

Can't win.

Well Louis, since when has America done anything in respect of Saudi Arabia that was not about oil? I don't need another stupid invasion to realise that one.
Afghanistan is a failure because the U.S & Co. have done almost nothing about the problem and in many cases have made it worse.

Bin-Laden and the Taliban got their know how from the U.S. So perhaps the U.S should rethink its idiotic game plan which it has been following for the past half century?

Syria and Algeria? No lets talk about the French!