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| 7/29 |
| 2005/8/14-15 [Politics/Foreign/MiddleEast/Iraq] UID:39118 Activity:high |
8/14 "You get America out of Iraq and Israel out of Palestine and you'll
stop the terrorism," Sheehan declares.
Sheehan, who is asking for a second meeting with President Bush, says
defiantly: "My son was killed in 2004. I am not paying my taxes for
2004. You killed my son, George Bush, and I don't owe you a penny...you
give my son back and I'll pay my taxes. Come after me (for back taxes)
and we'll put this war on trial."
Who was it who was criticizing Bush for saying Sheehan wanted the
troops out of Iraq?
\_ Delusional. Terrorism will not end that way. In fact, you
will encourage terrorism by giving them quarter. They must
hunted down and destroyed like Black September was.
\_ Delusional. Hunting down terrorists and occupying Iraq are NOT
the same thing.
\_ So her son joins the military and dies. I don't think she has a
case.
\_ The president goes on a 5 week vacation, in the first week of
which he gives a speech saying that her son and the other troops
have died for a "noble cause". She wants to know what that noble
cause is. I do too.
\_ Fighting to defend your country, reason you signed up
should be good enough
\_ For Casey. But for Cindy, she has EVERY right to scream.
\_ I don't meet with any foreign presidents or sign legislation
on my vacations. Don't know about you.
\_ No, but I'm not president. I also don't take a vacation
in the middle of a large project I have the lead on. (Not
that I've bombed any defenseless countries lately, either)
\_ Defenseless? So there are no coalition casualties?
Funny that. You know he's been on this for 4 years,
right? And that he has the same operational
capabilities in Crawford, right? Moron.
\_ By defenseless (and you know this), I meant they had
no military to speak of and no way to threaten us or
their neighbors. To defeat a country is much easier
than to defeat its people.
\_ It's very telling that the Sheehan critics have no choice but to
attack the messenger instead of the message.
\_ What is her message? We pull out of Iraq and Palestine and
the terrorists go away? That won't work, just ask Chamberlain.
The only way this stops is when the terrorist realize that
we will never stop coming for them and give up.
BTW, she has no case re not paying taxes. Bush doesn't collect
taxes, the IRS does via authority invested in it by congress
which derives its power to tax from the constitution. Also,
when one joins the military one ASSUMES the risk that one may
die.
Personally, I think Bush ought to meet w/ her, just to talk.
She will probably yell and make a scene and all that. If he
just sits there and acts calm and rational she will look like
a total kook and people will stop paying attention to her.
\_ What did Iraq have to do with the War on Terror before we
invaded? Your argument is premised on a fiction. Anyway,
it doesn't matter - all signs point towards Bush cutting
and running from Iraq by spring '06 - just in time to save
the Republican's asses in the Senate.
\_ Iraq is related to the war on terror but not for any
publicly acknowledge reason. After the fall of the
Taliban, Iraq and perhaps Libya were the only countries
willing to accept AQ. Since the logistics of getting
to Libya were probably beyond AQ's capabilities, Iraq
was the likely destination.
Also that whole democracy thing might actually make
the world safer for us.
\_ You need to provide evidence before making the claim
that Iraq would accept AQ.
\_ Iraq would not need to accept AQ. It is a big place
and Saddam had little control outside of the main
cities, so AQ could have moved in and camped out.
The difference w/ Iran is that the gov. does control
much/all of the country quite effectively and there
are enough people who "like" the west in Iran that AQ
would probably get ratted out like in Pakistan.
\_ A-fucking-mazing. So, let me get this straight.
We had to go into Iraq because even though
Saddam was probably not working with AQ, they may
have been hiding out somewhere in poorly controlled
parts of the country, outside of his control. So
we invade Iraq and replace Saddam with a weak
provisional government that can't even keep
control of the major cities.
\_ I am not arguing that the operation has been
conducted well, I'm arguing that the operation
COULD have had legitimate military objectives
and MIGHT have achieved security for the US
if carried out properly.
IF carried out properly.
Regardless of how well the operation has been
conducted, this lady has no case in arguing
that Bush killed her kid. Her kid volunteered
for a job in which the possibility existed that
he would get killed. He got killed. If he didn't
want to get killed, he shouldn't have signed up.
\_ I agree that it people who sign up for the
army should be prepared to accecpt that
signing up may lead to death (just as
signing on as a fireman or fisherman can).
I do *not* agree that that is the same thing
as accepting getting killed for some
total clusterfuck run by arrogant civilians
who have demonstrably fucked up just about
everything they could fuck up from day one.
When a fireman dies in a collapsing building,
that's a hazard of the job. When he dies
because of shitty, broken equipment and
bad decisions by the town government, it's
a whole different thing. I also agree with
you that invading Iraq could have made
sense. I'd love to live in a world where
the neocon delusions could be made to come
true, but sadly we don't.
\_ Uh no, history has proven that joining up
with the military has always had the
hazard of dying at the whims of
incompetant leaders. There's no news
here.
\_ So you don't mind continuing with
incompetent leaders? I do.
\_ In your fantasy dreamworld, there wouldn't
be any terrorism in the first place. The
facts are: before invasion: No or
insignificant AQ. After invasion: Country
filled with AQ. Also, over 1800 Americans
now killed in Iraq ... That is on track to
overtake the death toll from 9/11, so a
decision made by the neocons & Bush will
most likely result in MORE Americans dying
than the 9/11 attacks in the first place.
\_ No one is "ratting out" AQ in Pakistan. In fact,
if appears that they have set up their HQ in
Baluchistan.
Waziristan.
\_ Have you ever been to Pakistan? The
fact that ANY AQ members have been
caught there is REMARKABLE. Unlike
in Afghanistan where they walked
around in the open, their movement
in Pakistan is getting more and more
restricted every day.
\_ No, I have not been to Pakistan, have you?
The truth is that the Baluchistan region
The truth is that the Waziristan region
is growing more independent, not less and
that AQ operations in the country appear
to be totally unrestricted. What is your
source for the opposite claim?
http://csua.org/u/d19 (NYT)
\_ Meeting with her can only cause problems: the media would eat
it up showing Bush as weak, plus it would set a precedent that
any crazy with a cause can camp out and get the President's
personal audience.
\_ "Crazy?" "Nutjob?" Any evidence of this, besides the fact
that she changed her mind? Normal humans are allowed to
change their minds, you know.
\_ She's camped out, on a road, demanding to see the
president. That pretty much identifies her as a crazy
nutjob.
\_ Her fucking son got killed. Ask your mom how she
would react if her (I'm assuming) son was dead
because of an incompetent boss endangering him on a
{dishonest,wrong,stupid} precept and not being held
accountable at all. -John
\_ She's still off her fucking rocker. Having a son
die fighting for a cause you don't believe in
doesn't make you immune to being a nutjob.
\_ She disagrees with The Holy Imperial Bush, so she
is by definition a wingnut moonbat crazy.
\_ Anyone OUGHT to be able to get an auidence w/ the
President. Its not like he's some king anointed by
god to rule over use peons. In the old days, people
god to rule over us peons. In the old days, people
could walk right into the WH and talk to the president
w/o any sort of restrictions.
\_ I'm attacking her because she's a nutjob. I'm happy to discuss
her 'message' with non-nutjobs.
\_ How about this: no Gorelick/Clinton "wall" to block
Chinagate investigations, Clinton actually actively
pursuing terrorists after WTC1, Kenya, Saudia Arabia,
Cole, millenium, etc., no 9/11, no GW2. I think her
anger may be misplaced.
Of course this scenario is also possible: Carter doesn't
abandon the Shah to the Soviet backed Islamicists in
Iran, militant Islam never takes off. |
| 7/29 |
|
| csua.org/u/d19 -> www.pakistan-facts.com/article.php?story=20050805213505814 Pakistan Terrorism David Rohde and Somini Sengupta President Pervez Musharraf has declared that his forces have smashed sanc tuaries of Al Qaeda and have its last remnants "on the run" in his count ry's remote tribal reaches. "They are in penny pockets in the mountains, " he said in an interview on Friday of last week in his official militar y office. "We have severed their vertical and horizontal communication l ines." Yet with less than two months before parliamentary elections in A fghanistan, Al Qaeda, the Taliban and their assorted allies appear to be regrouping in the rugged tribal redoubts in this country's northwest an d unleashing ever more frequent attacks on both sides of the border, Afg han and Pakistani officials say. Attacks in Afghanistan's south and east have grown in number, ruthlessness and sophistication. Meanwhile, Pakis tan's tribal areas, particularly North and South Waziristan, have been e ngulfed in fresh violence: in the last two months, Pakistani government installations have increasingly come under fire, and tribal leaders seen to be colluding with the authorities have become ripe assassination tar gets. United States intelligence officials have repeatedly said that Osa ma bin Laden is likely to be holed up in the Hindu Kush mountains along the frontier. Lately, Afghan and Pakistani officials have traded barbs a bout who is harboring whom, and who has failed to find them. In Afghanis tan, aides to President Hamid Karzai have grown increasingly vocal about what they call Pakistan's accommodation of pro-Taliban forces. The Afghan government had believed that Pakistan was cooperating in stemm ing the Taliban insurgency after presidential elections passed peacefull y last October, said Javed Ludin, chief of staff to President Karzai. "We were mistaken, an d in fact they were preparing," Mr Ludin said of the Taliban. General M usharraf's strategy against militants hiding in Pakistan's lawless mount ains, as well as its urban swamps, has once more come under sharp scruti ny. Investigators looking into the July 7 London bombings are still tryi ng to determine what two of the four bombers did, and whom they met, whe n they arrived in the Pakistani port city of Karachi last winter. At the same time, though American officials are unbowed in their public suppor t of the general, the increased attacks on Pakistani, Afghan and America n forces along the border have raised fresh questions about his ability to neutralize militant groups operating there. In the interview and at a n earlier news conference for foreign journalists last Friday, General M usharraf made it clear that he had chosen to act cautiously against mili tancy for fear of inciting a popular uprising against his government. "I don't bluff, but I do act with realism," he said at the news conference . Those gray areas have to be addressed with a lot of prudence and a lot of understanding." Critics question the intentions and effectiveness of his three-and-a-half -year-old counterinsurgency strategy. Some wonder whether the general's foot soldiers, namely in the army and intelligence services, fully buy i nto his American-backed agenda, particularly as American policy on every thing from Iraq to Israel to Guantnamo Bay feeds anti-American fire in this country. General Musharraf, as a result, finds himself having to tr ead carefully to not be seen as an American stooge. Others point out tha t General Musharraf's drive to quash militancy comes in the face of a qu arter-century-long practice of using many of those same Islamic guerrill as as part of Pakistani foreign policy. General Musharraf himself acknow ledged on Friday that Pakistani soldiers and intelligence agents trained , armed and dispatched up to 30,000 mujahedeen fighters, Pakistanis and foreigners, to topple the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980's. The trib al areas were the birthplace of that movement, which at the time had the support of the United States. In his nation's defense, General Musharra f also angrily points out that Pakistan, for the first time, has dispatc hed troops to the lawless, semiautonomous tribal areas in an attempt to flush out Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. Today, nearly 75,000 are said t o patrol the border, and 250 have been killed. The resurgent Taliban, th e Pakistanis insist, are blossoming inside Afghanistan. Whatever the cas e, violence on Pakistan's side of the border has taken a vicious turn up ward. In recent weeks, at least one intelligence official and two tribal leader s known for helping government authorities against militants operating i n their areas have been killed. Ten days ago, in a series of coordinated attacks, 40 rockets were fired in the direction of army and paramilitar y posts across North Waziristan. On Thursday, five Pakistani soldiers we re killed in a land mine blast in North Waziristan. Asad Munir, the Pesh awar-based secretary to the governor responsible for the tribal regions, said last week that he suspected fighters loyal to the Taliban, Al Qaed a and the renegade Afghan mujahedeen leader Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Mr Mun ir said he believed the attacks were most likely being directed by comma nders operating on both sides of the border. North Waziristan alone, he said, sheltered roughly 150 such commanders. "The chilling effect is bas ically your informers, your sources dry up," he said. "Locally, people w ould be reluctant to meet an army officer or someone from intelligence a gencies out of sheer fear." In a telephone interview last week from an u nnamed location in South Waziristan, a militant commander who refused to be identified for fear of undermining his group's operations boasted th at his fighters were indeed crossing into Afghanistan, using routes beyo nd the two Waziristans. "We are better organized and better skilled to fight an enemy that is high-tech and sophisticated. To fight a snake you have to come down to t he level of a snake." The current setbacks come after years of warnings that senior Al Qaeda le aders, including possibly Mr bin Laden, are using the tribal areas as a safe haven. In 2002, a senior Pakistani official described South Waziri stan as the hub of Al Qaeda operations worldwide. In 2004 Pakistani inve stigators said a Pakistani computer engineer confessed to receiving mess ages by courier from Al Qaeda leaders hiding in South Waziristan, and re laying them to operatives via the Internet. After a military offensive i n South Waziristan in 2004, Pakistani officials boasted that they had cl eaned up the area. A year later, even Pakistan's staunchest backers say they are no longer sure of Pakistan's control over South Waziristan. The re are also new questions about whether militant operations are now bein g guided from inside North Waziristan. Several infiltrations into Afghan istan have originated from around Miram Shah there. United States forces , who roam inside Afghanistan, are prohibited from operating on the grou nd on the Pakistani side of the border. Still, Pakistani officials said this month that 24 suspected fighters killed by American forces were fou nd on the Pakistani side of the border; whether American troops chased t hem in "hot pursuit" remains unclear. In the southern Afghan province of Zabul, a former Taliban field commander who identified himself as Mulla h Said Mir said Wednesday that he was among a group of fighters who cros sed back and forth from the Pakistani city of Quetta. At a militant trai ning camp in Quetta, he said, he had witnessed, as recently as a month a go, Taliban fighters training young Afghans with remote control bombs. |