Dick Cheney wags the dog.

[Wedgebuster]

Dick Cheney is more dangerous than aq.

Way to go, kalm! You've just dissipated whatever credibility you had on this site!

Not with me.

[Grizalltheway]

Sorry to poke fun at your 5 time draft dodging hero Cheney...
but he created Bin Laden - it's Bush #1 - The CIA & Cheney's frankenstien we're fighting today and anybody who cares to read (even a little bit) already acknowledges that fact...

Milt Bearden, the CIA's station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1990 fully admits to knowing exactly what Bin Laden and the mujaheddin were doing during that period and the CIA's military support and training...

The November 1, 1998, British Independent reported that one of those charged with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ali Mohammed, was personally involved with and trained with “bin Laden's operatives” in 1989

After the mujaheddin took Kabul in 1992 and appointed Hekmatyar as prime minister (or whatever he called himself) nobody even tried to hide that US-supplied missiles and rockets arrived in container loads
and everybody knew Osama bin Laden was a close associate of Hekmatyar and his faction... and this was OLD NEWS - we'd been overtly training and supplying those guys for over 5 years at that point...

Bin Laden has simply continued to do the job he was trained to do by us in Afghanistan during the 1980s which is fund, feed and train mercenaries.

The only thing that has changed is his primary customer - Then it was the ISI and the CIA - Today his services are utilized by the Taliban - Bin Laden only became a “terrorist” in US eyes when the power structure changed and the Russians went home... He's remained completely consistent - in fact remarkably consistent - compared to the U.S.A. and our fluctuating international behavior

Try to catch up on your homework native... everything I've said in this post isn't even denied by the CIA or Bush #1... it's old news

I am aware of the blowback caused by our support of the mujahideen in their war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

It's not the facts, but your overblown, personalized analysis that is bullshit.

But you already know that. Consider your bait to have been successful.

Nice edit job.

[CID1990]

What a useless crackpot analysis. You couldn't even use that **** for fertilizer.

The three who need each other are cleets, kalm and cap*.

*Pick any of a number of nut job screamers for the third co-dependent douche.

Sorry to poke fun at your 5 time draft dodging hero Cheney...
but he created Bin Laden - it's Bush #1 - The CIA & Cheney's frankenstien we're fighting today and anybody who cares to read (even a little bit) already acknowledges that fact...

Milt Bearden, the CIA's station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1990 fully admits to knowing exactly what Bin Laden and the mujaheddin were doing during that period and the CIA's military support and training...

The November 1, 1998, British Independent reported that one of those charged with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ali Mohammed, was personally involved with and trained with “bin Laden's operatives” in 1989

After the mujaheddin took Kabul in 1992 and appointed Hekmatyar as prime minister (or whatever he called himself) nobody even tried to hide that US-supplied missiles and rockets arrived in container loads
and everybody knew Osama bin Laden was a close associate of Hekmatyar and his faction... and this was OLD NEWS - we'd been overtly training and supplying those guys for over 5 years at that point...

Bin Laden has simply continued to do the job he was trained to do by us in Afghanistan during the 1980s which is fund, feed and train mercenaries.

The only thing that has changed is his primary customer - Then it was the ISI and the CIA - Today his services are utilized by the Taliban - Bin Laden only became a “terrorist” in US eyes when the power structure changed and the Russians went home... He's remained completely consistent - in fact remarkably consistent - compared to the U.S.A. and our fluctuating international behavior

Try to catch up on your homework native... everything I've said in this post isn't even denied by the CIA or Bush #1... it's old news

Chizz, I like your take on a lot of things, and I think that you carefully consider your positions, but you're out of the park on this one. Every now and then I have discussions with colleagues about the 1980's genesis of Al Qaeda and this topic invariably comes up. The problem with simply relying on the "we armed and trained them" argument is that it relies too much on the assumption that the benefits Al Qaeda derived from the 1980s translates to their terrorist successes of the 1990s and 2000s. There are a couple points to make here:

1. The vast majority of material support to the mujaheddin came in the form of small arms (read: Kalashnikovs), anti-armor weapons, and man-portable AA weapons. The only weapons supplied to the mujaheddin that are still serviceable from those days are the small arms, and the point is moot on that score anyway since the Afghans have been making carbon copy AK-47s as a cottage industry since the 1980s anyway. We just added to their numbers. AK-47s did not help the rise of Al Qaeda nor have they somehow tipped any kind of balance in Afghanistan today. The anti armor weapons were pretty much used up in the 1980s. Those things don't just hang around for reloads. Once you fire a Russian Sagger missle, it is done. The mujaheddin did not stockpile that stuff, they shot it at the Russians as fast as we could give them to them. The same goes for the man-portable AA. If the current mujaheddin (the Taliban) were still benefitting from our supply of Stinger missles, then they have forgotten their training because none of our aircraft have been shot down by those 25year old weapons.

2. Traning. The mujaheddin were trained in a number of insurgent tactics. Sabotage and ambush were the bread and butter of the mujaheddin, and these were what they were trained on. They were also trained in the use of these tactics in conjunction with the use of those man-portable AA weapons to deny the Russians the use of their air support. None of the training involved the use of multinational contacts and moving assets and money in multinational theaters to conduct terrorist operations. Using truck bombs to destroy buildings, suicide boats to attack ships, and hijacking airliners to fly into buildings were not part of the syllabus. What we taught the mujaheddin and what Al Qaeda has used against us are two different things. Tom Clancy could be held as culpable for the 9-11 attacks as Dick Cheney under that calculus.

We did allow the Islamic fanatics to fester in Afghanistan. However, I would submit that even if we had not stepped in, the Islamic insurgency there would have still festered. The Soviet Union would have still bled itself dry there, because Pakistan would have found another wallet to pull from. China comes to mind. To me, Afghanistan was a done deal the moment the Soviets rolled across the border.

Bin Laden did not benefit from any US training when it comes to the international activities of Al Qaeda. He is independently wealthy, and his hatred for the US along with the 'apostate' governments of Saudi Arabia, et al are arrived at independently of anything the US has done in Afghanistan. Just read what he has written. If anything, nobody in our government has taken Bin Laden and his people at their word. His beef with us has to do more with the continued presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia than anything else. Al Qaeda has benefitted from a plethora of ex-mujaheddin with nothing to do, but those could have been found elsewhere.

I prefer to take Bin Laden and Al Qaeda at face value. They have been very clear about what their issues are. If there is any single action of the US that caused our problems with them, it was Desert Storm and the resulting military partnership with Saudi Arabia. If we want to lay blame at any one person's feet for the fertile fanatic birthing grounds, we can lay that at the feet of Yuri Andropov.


****Back on topic.... I still think it is funny how Dick Cheney still makes so many wheels turn in the White House. He is on the tips of a lot of tongues there for someone who is so irrelevant.

[Chizzang]

Sorry to poke fun at your 5 time draft dodging hero Cheney...
but he created Bin Laden - it's Bush #1 - The CIA & Cheney's frankenstien we're fighting today and anybody who cares to read (even a little bit) already acknowledges that fact...

Milt Bearden, the CIA's station chief in Pakistan from 1986 to 1990 fully admits to knowing exactly what Bin Laden and the mujaheddin were doing during that period and the CIA's military support and training...

The November 1, 1998, British Independent reported that one of those charged with the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, Ali Mohammed, was personally involved with and trained with “bin Laden's operatives” in 1989

After the mujaheddin took Kabul in 1992 and appointed Hekmatyar as prime minister (or whatever he called himself) nobody even tried to hide that US-supplied missiles and rockets arrived in container loads
and everybody knew Osama bin Laden was a close associate of Hekmatyar and his faction... and this was OLD NEWS - we'd been overtly training and supplying those guys for over 5 years at that point...

Bin Laden has simply continued to do the job he was trained to do by us in Afghanistan during the 1980s which is fund, feed and train mercenaries.

The only thing that has changed is his primary customer - Then it was the ISI and the CIA - Today his services are utilized by the Taliban - Bin Laden only became a “terrorist” in US eyes when the power structure changed and the Russians went home... He's remained completely consistent - in fact remarkably consistent - compared to the U.S.A. and our fluctuating international behavior

Try to catch up on your homework native... everything I've said in this post isn't even denied by the CIA or Bush #1... it's old news

Chizz, I like your take on a lot of things, and I think that you carefully consider your positions, but you're out of the park on this one. Every now and then I have discussions with colleagues about the 1980's genesis of Al Qaeda and this topic invariably comes up. The problem with simply relying on the "we armed and trained them" argument is that it relies too much on the assumption that the benefits Al Qaeda derived from the 1980s translates to their terrorist successes of the 1990s and 2000s. There are a couple points to make here:

1. The vast majority of material support to the mujaheddin came in the form of small arms (read: Kalashnikovs), anti-armor weapons, and man-portable AA weapons. The only weapons supplied to the mujaheddin that are still serviceable from those days are the small arms, and the point is moot on that score anyway since the Afghans have been making carbon copy AK-47s as a cottage industry since the 1980s anyway. We just added to their numbers. AK-47s did not help the rise of Al Qaeda nor have they somehow tipped any kind of balance in Afghanistan today. The anti armor weapons were pretty much used up in the 1980s. Those things don't just hang around for reloads. Once you fire a Russian Sagger missle, it is done. The mujaheddin did not stockpile that stuff, they shot it at the Russians as fast as we could give them to them. The same goes for the man-portable AA. If the current mujaheddin (the Taliban) were still benefitting from our supply of Stinger missles, then they have forgotten their training because none of our aircraft have been shot down by those 25year old weapons.

2. Traning. The mujaheddin were trained in a number of insurgent tactics. Sabotage and ambush were the bread and butter of the mujaheddin, and these were what they were trained on. They were also trained in the use of these tactics in conjunction with the use of those man-portable AA weapons to deny the Russians the use of their air support. None of the training involved the use of multinational contacts and moving assets and money in multinational theaters to conduct terrorist operations. Using truck bombs to destroy buildings, suicide boats to attack ships, and hijacking airliners to fly into buildings were not part of the syllabus. What we taught the mujaheddin and what Al Qaeda has used against us are two different things. Tom Clancy could be held as culpable for the 9-11 attacks as Dick Cheney under that calculus.

We did allow the Islamic fanatics to fester in Afghanistan. However, I would submit that even if we had not stepped in, the Islamic insurgency there would have still festered. The Soviet Union would have still bled itself dry there, because Pakistan would have found another wallet to pull from. China comes to mind. To me, Afghanistan was a done deal the moment the Soviets rolled across the border.

Bin Laden did not benefit from any US training when it comes to the international activities of Al Qaeda. He is independently wealthy, and his hatred for the US along with the 'apostate' governments of Saudi Arabia, et al are arrived at independently of anything the US has done in Afghanistan. Just read what he has written. If anything, nobody in our government has taken Bin Laden and his people at their word. His beef with us has to do more with the continued presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia than anything else. Al Qaeda has benefitted from a plethora of ex-mujaheddin with nothing to do, but those could have been found elsewhere.

I prefer to take Bin Laden and Al Qaeda at face value. They have been very clear about what their issues are. If there is any single action of the US that caused our problems with them, it was Desert Storm and the resulting military partnership with Saudi Arabia. If we want to lay blame at any one person's feet for the fertile fanatic birthing grounds, we can lay that at the feet of Yuri Andropov.


****Back on topic.... I still think it is funny how Dick Cheney still makes so many wheels turn in the White House. He is on the tips of a lot of tongues there for someone who is so irrelevant.

CID
I've heard that very same measured response from every military and former military person I've ever spoken with... and I think you absolutely believe what you believe - and I absolutely believe what I believe - and we can both do our own research...

In 1998
Senator Orrin Hatch (senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee) which by the way approved US dealings with the mujaheddin - said: He would make “the same call again”, even knowing what bin Laden would become...

Hatch:
“It was worth it. Those were very important, pivotal matters that played an important role in the downfall of the Soviet Union.” Only problem is Hatch only has one answer for every problem: More Military and more sideways involvement

Even with failure after failure - he has one response = More Military and more mercenaries

Vincent Cannistrano former CIA chief of counter-terrorism operations and great friend to Bush #1 and Cheney - Cannistrano claims to be an expert on terrorists like bin Laden, because he directed their “work”. He was also in charge of the CIA-backed Nicaraguan contras during the early 1980s - something most people would be embarrassed about (not Vince) and for all his hard work in Nicaragua his buddies (guess who) appointed him as the supervisor of covert aid to the Afghan mujaheddin for the US National Security Council... and he still to this day feels that secret backhanded moves are "just a byproduct of imperialism" and he points to Z. Brzezinski who quotes: “What was more important in the world view of history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? A few stirred up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”...

I know it makes every Republicans skin crawl to see it come back like it has - and I'm just not buying the whole: We were only marginally involved bit... not when every single high ranking official involved still believes that "The fall of the Soviet Empire" was at stake... and they still act like Bin Laden was a small price to pay

The mountains of evidence are piled too high for me to think we were bit players - we're dealing with demons of our own construction... and some of them reside inside our political system

[CID1990]

Chizz, I like your take on a lot of things, and I think that you carefully consider your positions, but you're out of the park on this one. Every now and then I have discussions with colleagues about the 1980's genesis of Al Qaeda and this topic invariably comes up. The problem with simply relying on the "we armed and trained them" argument is that it relies too much on the assumption that the benefits Al Qaeda derived from the 1980s translates to their terrorist successes of the 1990s and 2000s. There are a couple points to make here:

1. The vast majority of material support to the mujaheddin came in the form of small arms (read: Kalashnikovs), anti-armor weapons, and man-portable AA weapons. The only weapons supplied to the mujaheddin that are still serviceable from those days are the small arms, and the point is moot on that score anyway since the Afghans have been making carbon copy AK-47s as a cottage industry since the 1980s anyway. We just added to their numbers. AK-47s did not help the rise of Al Qaeda nor have they somehow tipped any kind of balance in Afghanistan today. The anti armor weapons were pretty much used up in the 1980s. Those things don't just hang around for reloads. Once you fire a Russian Sagger missle, it is done. The mujaheddin did not stockpile that stuff, they shot it at the Russians as fast as we could give them to them. The same goes for the man-portable AA. If the current mujaheddin (the Taliban) were still benefitting from our supply of Stinger missles, then they have forgotten their training because none of our aircraft have been shot down by those 25year old weapons.

2. Traning. The mujaheddin were trained in a number of insurgent tactics. Sabotage and ambush were the bread and butter of the mujaheddin, and these were what they were trained on. They were also trained in the use of these tactics in conjunction with the use of those man-portable AA weapons to deny the Russians the use of their air support. None of the training involved the use of multinational contacts and moving assets and money in multinational theaters to conduct terrorist operations. Using truck bombs to destroy buildings, suicide boats to attack ships, and hijacking airliners to fly into buildings were not part of the syllabus. What we taught the mujaheddin and what Al Qaeda has used against us are two different things. Tom Clancy could be held as culpable for the 9-11 attacks as Dick Cheney under that calculus.

We did allow the Islamic fanatics to fester in Afghanistan. However, I would submit that even if we had not stepped in, the Islamic insurgency there would have still festered. The Soviet Union would have still bled itself dry there, because Pakistan would have found another wallet to pull from. China comes to mind. To me, Afghanistan was a done deal the moment the Soviets rolled across the border.

Bin Laden did not benefit from any US training when it comes to the international activities of Al Qaeda. He is independently wealthy, and his hatred for the US along with the 'apostate' governments of Saudi Arabia, et al are arrived at independently of anything the US has done in Afghanistan. Just read what he has written. If anything, nobody in our government has taken Bin Laden and his people at their word. His beef with us has to do more with the continued presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia than anything else. Al Qaeda has benefitted from a plethora of ex-mujaheddin with nothing to do, but those could have been found elsewhere.

I prefer to take Bin Laden and Al Qaeda at face value. They have been very clear about what their issues are. If there is any single action of the US that caused our problems with them, it was Desert Storm and the resulting military partnership with Saudi Arabia. If we want to lay blame at any one person's feet for the fertile fanatic birthing grounds, we can lay that at the feet of Yuri Andropov.


****Back on topic.... I still think it is funny how Dick Cheney still makes so many wheels turn in the White House. He is on the tips of a lot of tongues there for someone who is so irrelevant.

CID
I've heard that very same measured response from every military and former military person I've ever spoken with... and I think you absolutely believe what you believe - and I absolutely believe what I believe - and we can both do our own research...

In 1998
Senator Orrin Hatch (senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee) which by the way approved US dealings with the mujaheddin - said: He would make “the same call again”, even knowing what bin Laden would become...

Hatch:
“It was worth it. Those were very important, pivotal matters that played an important role in the downfall of the Soviet Union.” Only problem is Hatch only has one answer for every problem: More Military and more sideways involvement

Even with failure after failure - he has one response = More Military and more mercenaries

Vincent Cannistrano former CIA chief of counter-terrorism operations and great friend to Bush #1 and Cheney - Cannistrano claims to be an expert on terrorists like bin Laden, because he directed their “work”. He was also in charge of the CIA-backed Nicaraguan contras during the early 1980s - something most people would be embarrassed about (not Vince) and for all his hard work in Nicaragua his buddies (guess who) appointed him as the supervisor of covert aid to the Afghan mujaheddin for the US National Security Council... and he still to this day feels that secret backhanded moves are "just a byproduct of imperialism" and he points to Z. Brzezinski who quotes: “What was more important in the world view of history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? A few stirred up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”...

I know it makes every Republicans skin crawl to see it come back like it has - and I'm just not buying the whole: We were only marginally involved bit... not when every single high ranking official involved still believes that "The fall of the Soviet Empire" was at stake... and they still act like Bin Laden was a small price to pay

The mountains of evidence are piled too high for me to think we were bit players - we're dealing with demons of our own construction... and some of them reside inside our political system

I am not saying that we were bit players. We were in Afghanistan with both feet.

What I AM saying is that our participation in Afghanistan in the 1980s does not immediately translate into the Al Qaeda of Dar Es Salaam/Nairobi/Port of Aden/9-11. The mujaheddin turned into fodder for Al Qaeda because they had nothing left to do once the Soviets left, but they were anything but dispositioned to hate America.

The real genesis of Al Qaeda as an anti-American organization was Desert Storm. They were around before that, but not in their current incarnation under Bin Laden. The foot soldiers, manipulated by Al Qaeda, come from the ranks of the old mujaheddin. My argument is that the mujaheddin would have been there regardless of our intervention in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion.

If I were in the position to do so and given the chance, I do not know whether an intervention in Afghanistan would be the way to go. As it was, it was another proxy war against the Soviets. It was a chance to pinch them and return the favor of Vietnam. They were a large, aggressive nation that openly invaded a smaller neighbor with the intention of annexation. The only reason it did not cause a war with NATO was because thhe Russians had the ability to incinerate everybody, and conventional wisdom was that they would do it. The only other option was a proxy war. Given the notion that the USSR was on its way into the sh!tter anyway, I'm not sure that allowing them to bleed even more slowly in Afghanistan would not have been the way to go. That's hindsight.

When it was over, there still would have been a fertile recruiting ground for Islamic fanatics, and Bin Laden would still hate us, because, as I said, his beef with us had nothing to do with Afghanistan.

Bruce Catton used to have a great quote about the cause of the Civil War. He said that there were MANY causes for the US Civil War, but there was only one cause, where if it was absent, the war would not have happened, and that cause was chattel slavery.

There were many causes for the genesis of Al Qaeda under the anti-American leadership of Bin Laden, but the one cause, if absent, would have prevented the present day Al Qaeda of 9-11 fame, it was the presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia during and after Desert Storm.

We can blame ourselves for training insurgent fighters in Afghanistan, but that is nothing more than smoke and chaff. It is irrelevant. Al Qaeda could have found bases and fighters in a number of places. Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Sudan, and Yemen to name a few. You can have all the fanatics you want, but they mean nothing without motivation. Helping the mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the 1980s did not provide motivation for later attacking America.

[Chizzang]

Now we've got this dick-head to deal with... Anwar Al-Awlaki

[AZGrizFan]

Hey, myron, this isn't about THAT. There's already a thread about that topic. This is about the current occupant of the White House's unhealthy obsession with Dick Cheney.

Try to stay on topic.

I think we should start a thread about YOUR obsession with the current occupant of the White House, that way we don't have to listen to you bitch about him in every damn thread on the board.

Should we go back to our AGS days and count the # of threads obsessing about GW?
10-1 in favor of GW.
Fuckin' hypocrite.

[Grizalltheway]

I think we should start a thread about YOUR obsession with the current occupant of the White House, that way we don't have to listen to you bitch about him in every damn thread on the board.

Should we go back to our AGS days and count the # of threads obsessing about GW?
10-1 in favor of GW.
Fuckin' hypocrite.

The difference is, you feel the need to bring up your dissatisfaction with him in threads where it's completely irrelevant. See: D1B's abortion thread.

[AZGrizFan]

Should we go back to our AGS days and count the # of threads obsessing about GW?
10-1 in favor of GW.
Fuckin' hypocrite.

The difference is, you feel the need to bring up your dissatisfaction with him in threads where it's completely irrelevant. See: D1B's abortion thread.

Again, should we go back to AGS (and here over the past 2 years) and recall the THOUSANDS of threads which were turned political by a Bush-bashing leftie?

Jesus, at LEAST don't be a hypocrite.

And, for the record, at least the abortion thread was a POLITCAL thread.

[Chizzang]

Can you two girls have your little cat fight elsewhere...

[AZGrizFan]

Can you two girls have your little cat fight elsewhere...

Fuck off.

[Chizzang]

Can you two girls have your little cat fight elsewhere...

Fuck off.

Just remember: No pulling hair and no scratching or biting... okay

[AZGrizFan]

Fuck off.

Just remember: No pulling hair and no scratching or biting... okay

Well then, what's the point.

[native]

CID
I've heard that very same measured response from every military and former military person I've ever spoken with... and I think you absolutely believe what you believe - and I absolutely believe what I believe - and we can both do our own research...

In 1998
Senator Orrin Hatch (senior member of the Senate Intelligence Committee) which by the way approved US dealings with the mujaheddin - said: He would make “the same call again”, even knowing what bin Laden would become...

Hatch:
“It was worth it. Those were very important, pivotal matters that played an important role in the downfall of the Soviet Union.” Only problem is Hatch only has one answer for every problem: More Military and more sideways involvement

Even with failure after failure - he has one response = More Military and more mercenaries

Vincent Cannistrano former CIA chief of counter-terrorism operations and great friend to Bush #1 and Cheney - Cannistrano claims to be an expert on terrorists like bin Laden, because he directed their “work”. He was also in charge of the CIA-backed Nicaraguan contras during the early 1980s - something most people would be embarrassed about (not Vince) and for all his hard work in Nicaragua his buddies (guess who) appointed him as the supervisor of covert aid to the Afghan mujaheddin for the US National Security Council... and he still to this day feels that secret backhanded moves are "just a byproduct of imperialism" and he points to Z. Brzezinski who quotes: “What was more important in the world view of history? The Taliban or the fall of the Soviet Empire? A few stirred up Muslims or the liberation of Central Europe and the end of the Cold War?”...

I know it makes every Republicans skin crawl to see it come back like it has - and I'm just not buying the whole: We were only marginally involved bit... not when every single high ranking official involved still believes that "The fall of the Soviet Empire" was at stake... and they still act like Bin Laden was a small price to pay

The mountains of evidence are piled too high for me to think we were bit players - we're dealing with demons of our own construction... and some of them reside inside our political system

I am not saying that we were bit players. We were in Afghanistan with both feet.

What I AM saying is that our participation in Afghanistan in the 1980s does not immediately translate into the Al Qaeda of Dar Es Salaam/Nairobi/Port of Aden/9-11. The mujaheddin turned into fodder for Al Qaeda because they had nothing left to do once the Soviets left, but they were anything but dispositioned to hate America.

The real genesis of Al Qaeda as an anti-American organization was Desert Storm. They were around before that, but not in their current incarnation under Bin Laden. The foot soldiers, manipulated by Al Qaeda, come from the ranks of the old mujaheddin. My argument is that the mujaheddin would have been there regardless of our intervention in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion.

If I were in the position to do so and given the chance, I do not know whether an intervention in Afghanistan would be the way to go. As it was, it was another proxy war against the Soviets. It was a chance to pinch them and return the favor of Vietnam. They were a large, aggressive nation that openly invaded a smaller neighbor with the intention of annexation. The only reason it did not cause a war with NATO was because thhe Russians had the ability to incinerate everybody, and conventional wisdom was that they would do it. The only other option was a proxy war. Given the notion that the USSR was on its way into the sh!tter anyway, I'm not sure that allowing them to bleed even more slowly in Afghanistan would not have been the way to go. That's hindsight.

When it was over, there still would have been a fertile recruiting ground for Islamic fanatics, and Bin Laden would still hate us, because, as I said, his beef with us had nothing to do with Afghanistan.

Bruce Catton used to have a great quote about the cause of the Civil War. He said that there were MANY causes for the US Civil War, but there was only one cause, where if it was absent, the war would not have happened, and that cause was chattel slavery.

There were many causes for the genesis of Al Qaeda under the anti-American leadership of Bin Laden, but the one cause, if absent, would have prevented the present day Al Qaeda of 9-11 fame, it was the presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia during and after Desert Storm.

We can blame ourselves for training insurgent fighters in Afghanistan, but that is nothing more than smoke and chaff. It is irrelevant. Al Qaeda could have found bases and fighters in a number of places. Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Sudan, and Yemen to name a few. You can have all the fanatics you want, but they mean nothing without motivation. Helping the mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the 1980s did not provide motivation for later attacking America.

Cleets is very bright, provides some interesting and valid insights, and is often entertaining, but he routinely draws grandiose conclusions not justified by his facts or analysis and invariably fails to knit his keen insights into an integrated and logical big picture.

[Chizzang]

Cleets is very bright, provides some interesting and valid insights, and is often entertaining, but he routinely draws grandiose conclusions not justified by his facts or analysis and invariably fails to knit his keen insights into an integrated and logical big picture.

Coming from a fundamentalist Christian Infantry man...
That grain of salt won't require much examination

[kalm]

I am not saying that we were bit players. We were in Afghanistan with both feet.

What I AM saying is that our participation in Afghanistan in the 1980s does not immediately translate into the Al Qaeda of Dar Es Salaam/Nairobi/Port of Aden/9-11. The mujaheddin turned into fodder for Al Qaeda because they had nothing left to do once the Soviets left, but they were anything but dispositioned to hate America.

The real genesis of Al Qaeda as an anti-American organization was Desert Storm. They were around before that, but not in their current incarnation under Bin Laden. The foot soldiers, manipulated by Al Qaeda, come from the ranks of the old mujaheddin. My argument is that the mujaheddin would have been there regardless of our intervention in Afghanistan during the Soviet invasion.

If I were in the position to do so and given the chance, I do not know whether an intervention in Afghanistan would be the way to go. As it was, it was another proxy war against the Soviets. It was a chance to pinch them and return the favor of Vietnam. They were a large, aggressive nation that openly invaded a smaller neighbor with the intention of annexation. The only reason it did not cause a war with NATO was because thhe Russians had the ability to incinerate everybody, and conventional wisdom was that they would do it. The only other option was a proxy war. Given the notion that the USSR was on its way into the sh!tter anyway, I'm not sure that allowing them to bleed even more slowly in Afghanistan would not have been the way to go. That's hindsight.

When it was over, there still would have been a fertile recruiting ground for Islamic fanatics, and Bin Laden would still hate us, because, as I said, his beef with us had nothing to do with Afghanistan.

Bruce Catton used to have a great quote about the cause of the Civil War. He said that there were MANY causes for the US Civil War, but there was only one cause, where if it was absent, the war would not have happened, and that cause was chattel slavery.

There were many causes for the genesis of Al Qaeda under the anti-American leadership of Bin Laden, but the one cause, if absent, would have prevented the present day Al Qaeda of 9-11 fame, it was the presence of US forces in Saudi Arabia during and after Desert Storm.

We can blame ourselves for training insurgent fighters in Afghanistan, but that is nothing more than smoke and chaff. It is irrelevant. Al Qaeda could have found bases and fighters in a number of places. Libya, Syria, Pakistan, Sudan, and Yemen to name a few. You can have all the fanatics you want, but they mean nothing without motivation. Helping the mujaheddin in Afghanistan in the 1980s did not provide motivation for later attacking America.

Cleets is very bright, provides some interesting and valid insights, and is often entertaining, but he routinely draws grandiose conclusions not justified by his facts or analysis and invariably fails to knit his keen insights into an integrated and logical big picture.

In other words:


Kettle.

[native]

Cleets is very bright, provides some interesting and valid insights, and is often entertaining, but he routinely draws grandiose conclusions not justified by his facts or analysis and invariably fails to knit his keen insights into an integrated and logical big picture.

In other words:

Kettle.

Maybe not, but I will take your post as a compliment.

[kalm]

In other words:

Kettle.

Maybe not, but I will take your post as a compliment.