Afghanistan — A suicide bomber driving a truck attacked an advance NATO combat post in central Af

reply to post by ajniss


Right, if you look at the map Iraq/ other Persian Gulf US vassal states constitute the left flank, Afghanistan/Pakistan the right one.

The main reason that a war against Iran hasn´t been defrauded through yet is that neither flank is very secure and the supply lines to both are especially shaky. One is through the narrow Straits of Hormuz, which Iran could close fairly easily (leaving US forces in Iraq and other US vassal states at the Gulf in very difficult position) and the other runs through Pakistan.

Originally posted by NeverForget
.... Leave them to their own devices, that's the most humane thing to do.

Still taking up the white man's burden*, I see. How many times have you Brits been tossed out of Afghanistan? Jeez, and I thought we never learned our lessons on this side of the pond!


"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,

"And the women come out to cut up what remains,

"Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

"An' go to your Gawd like a soldier."

-------------------

*Name of famous poem by British imperialist poet Rudyard Kipling
www.fordham.edu...

Originally posted by MrWendal

Originally posted by hotbread


It shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone that it is on the 10 year anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks.
Bin Laden might be dead but terrorism is still thriving, and the war goes on...
My heart goes out to all the people affected by this attack. and I hope one day there won't be hate from either side.


[url=http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jLwr0cf4zpV-3SFMypu8bZdQsqqA?docId=CNG.da70d7dead7770eedf43101a078fc471.3e1]www.google.com[/ur l]
(visit the link for the full news article)

We have killed countless people in Afghanistan. Taliban, Al CIAduh, and innocent civilians. My question to you is, what makes you think this attack has anything to do with terrorism or 9/11? Is it not just as possible that this could simply be a revenge attack? One single lone person who maybe had his family killed in US airstrikes?

Because the suicide bomber would not have had a say in the timing of the attack.

Originally posted by galdur
1943: Nazis designate all resistance to their occupying forces as terrorism. War of aggression is illegal and based on fraudulent pretenses.

2011: U.S. designate all resistance to their occupying forces as terrorism. War of aggression is illegal and based on fraudulent pretenses.

Same shift, same mentality, different aholes.

What we've got here are a couple of catch-phrases that I've learned to look for over time to spot peculiar spins of opinion, attempting to spin opinions of others without bringing bothersome facts into the discussion.

First: "war of aggression". have you ever been involved in a war that wasn't aggressive?

Second: "war is illegal". Not so. No laws have been broken, and so the war itself is perfectly legal. So was World War II. Certain actions of individuals within the contexts of those wars may be determined to have broken the laws of war, and so be deemed illegal, but the war themselves are not.

based upon political philosophy as demonstrated by the peculiar catchphrases involved, Boris Spassky should be your avatar instead of Mr. Fischer.

reply to post by nenothtu


This infantile hair-splitting only points you your own inability to identify arguments.

Bush: God told me to invade Iraq

President 'revealed reasons for war in private meeting'

By Rupert Cornwell in Washington

Friday, 7 October 2005

President George Bush has claimed he was told by God to invade Iraq and attack Osama bin Laden's stronghold of Afghanistan as part of a divine mission to bring peace to the Middle East, security for Israel, and a state for the Palestinians.

The President made the assertion during his first meeting with Palestinian leaders in June 2003, according to a BBC series which will be broadcast this month.

The revelation comes after Mr Bush launched an impassioned attack yesterday in Washington on Islamic militants, likening their ideology to that of Communism, and accusing them of seeking to "enslave whole nations" and set up a radical Islamic empire "that spans from Spain to Indonesia". In the programmeElusive Peace: Israel and the Arabs, which starts on Monday, the former Palestinian foreign minister Nabil Shaath says Mr Bush told him and Mahmoud Abbas, former prime minister and now Palestinian President: "I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, 'George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan.' And I did, and then God would tell me, 'George go and end the tyranny in Iraq,' and I did."

And "now again", Mr Bush is quoted as telling the two, "I feel God's words coming to me: 'Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East.' And by God, I'm gonna do it."

Mr Abbas remembers how the US President told him he had a "moral and religious obligation" to act. The White House has refused to comment on what it terms a private conversation. But the BBC account is anything but implausible, given how throughout his presidency Mr Bush, a born-again Christian, has never hidden the importance of his faith.

From the outset he has couched the "global war on terror" in quasi-religious terms, as a struggle between good and evil. Al-Qa'ida terrorists are routinely described as evil-doers. For Mr Bush, the invasion of Iraq has always been part of the struggle against terrorism, and he appears to see himself as the executor of the divine will.

He told Bob Woodward - whose 2004 book, Plan of Attack, is the definitive account of the administration's road to war in Iraq - that after giving the order to invade in March 2003, he walked in the White House garden, praying "that our troops be safe, be protected by the Almighty". As he went into this critical period, he told Mr Woodward, "I was praying for strength to do the Lord's will.

"I'm surely not going to justify war based upon God. Understand that. Nevertheless, in my case, I pray that I will be as good a messenger of His will as possible. And then of course, I pray for forgiveness."

Another telling sign of Mr Bush's religion was his answer to Mr Woodward's question on whether he had asked his father - the former president who refused to launch a full-scale invasion of Iraq after driving Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1991 - for advice on what to do.

The current President replied that his earthly father was "the wrong father to appeal to for advice ... there is a higher father that I appeal to".

The same sense of mission permeated his speech at the National Endowment of Democracy yesterday. Its main news was Mr Bush's claim that Western security services had thwarted 10 planned attacks by al-Qa'ida since 11 September 2001, three of them against mainland US.

More striking though was his unrelenting portrayal of radical Islam as a global menace, which only the forces of freedom - led by the US - could repel. It was delivered at a moment when Mr Bush's domestic approval ratings are at their lowest ebb, in large part because of the war in Iraq, in which 1,950 US troops have died, with no end in sight.

It came amid continuing violence on the ground, nine days before the critical referendum on the new constitution that offers perhaps the last chance of securing a unitary and democratic Iraq. "The militants believe that controlling one country will rally the Muslim masses, enabling them to overthrow all moderate governments in the region" and set up a radical empire stretching from Spain to Indonesia, he said.

The insurgents' aim was to "enslave whole nations and intimidate the world". He portrayed Islamic radicals as a single global movement, from the Middle East to Chechnya and Bali and the jungles of the Philippines.

etc ..........

www.independent.co.uk...

reply to post by galdur


Iran really is not that important to the West, not as much as many here would love for you to believe. Simply put, Many love to fall all over themselves and fumble around in the dark grasping at straws. Let's face facts here If the West truly wanted Iran gone it would have happened a long time ago. Seriously. Think about it.

Like you've stated, they are surrounded and out numbered out gunned and generally all around outclassed in weapons, manpower and technology! Yet, even after years of hand wringing, lip flapping BS and overzealous baseless predictions here at ATS by an overwhelming number [all of whom] with their higher opinions of self and holier than thou pompous attitude have all pretty much regurgitated the same tired old worn out predication of the ultimate doom of Iran yet, it hasn't happened.

ETA: Nice cut and paste job....

Bush like Kissinger was an ASS

reply to post by SLAYER69


Yeah, it makes great strategic sense to go belly up holding those flanks forever (the Afghanistan war costs the U.S. $10 Billion per month).

The costs are going up, by 2020 only this war should have added at least $1-1.5 Trillion in costs.

reply to post by galdur


Have at it.

I'm done bouncing rubble on this thread.

Iraqi and Iranian Shiites have increasingly close ties.

------------------------------------------------------------------

Sadr: Any US Troops in Iraq After December Will Be Attacked
by Jason Ditz, September 11, 2011

Iraqi cleric Moqtada al-Sadr today admonished his followers not to launch any attacks against US forces in the nation, saying that he didn’t want to give the US any excuses to remain beyond the Status of Forces Agreement deadline, which would have US troops leaving at the end of December. This came with a corollary warning, as Sadr added that any troops remaining after December would be attacked.

news.antiwar.com...

Originally posted by galdur
Iraqi and Iranian Shiites have increasingly close ties.

You have to be joking right?

What are you?

Twelfth man out, last to know?

Iran has been arming, funding and training the Shiite insurgents in Iraq for that past 7 or 8 years..

reply to post by SLAYER69


I guess you´ll neverget promoted from potato-peeling duties there in the army.

Originally posted by galdur
reply to post by nenothtu

 

This infantile hair-splitting only points you your own inability to identify arguments.

I identified the argument very clearly. You are employing propagandistic catchphrases in lieu of facts. I note further that you utterly failed to formulate a response to the points brought up, which only serves to further validate that assessment.

Instead of responding to those points, you elected instead to further muddy the waters with further inapplicable perjoratives like "infantile", and claim that I have somehow failed to see through your lack of fact.

I have not. the Emperor has no clothes on. Deal with it.

You all should be happy after all.

For once the Taliban hit a legitimate target. A military target. Which is fair game.

Go to war, you think it's gonna be all fluffy unicorns and candies like the recruiting officer told you and you were too much of an idiot, even after all the war movies you watched and all the call of duty to played to signed up?

Well get your Darwin Award, sign up in America's foreign legions!

reply to post by NeverForget


you state you do not support facism, but you also state you know what is best for people in other countries in regard to education etc....

yes you do bomb people. you do so by supporting the war machine that does..
.
You would rather see people getting the government they want... Are you happy that in Palestine they voted for hamas..? What about the western nations that have been overtaken by corporatism, do you suport the taking up of arms against these nations as you do third world nations..

How can you support a war but not against the unarmed civilians. That sounds like a paradox to me. More civilians die in war than combatives... that is a fact. You either support it or you dont...


and dang there was evidence for WMD.. we sold them to him... and we have them too. What right have we got to invade a country for these wepons when we sold them to them in the first place..

I still dont get you one bit... I will ask you again.. How did we help the people of those two countries by killing over 600,000 of them.... You did not answer it in the first post and you will not answer it now...

ps i have a cup with your avatar logo on it...

reply to post by NeverForget

Because you know the time it takes to defeat an army of guerilla fighters....You don't know anything really, you're just spewing nonsense.

History has shown that guerilla forces popular with the local population cannot be defeated... ESPECIALLY in the case of Afghanistan.
Either you are blissfully ignorant of Afghan history or you expect that things will miraculously turn out to be different this time around. Good luck with that.

reply to post by SLAYER69


Next time, try and make an attempt to address whats being discussed. Cheers.

reply to post by nenothtu

If they are Jihadists, I want them dead - too dead to stink. I don't care, not even a little bit, where they are from, or where they are at right now. I only care what they are doing or planning to do.

US presence in Afghanistan = More people turn into Jihadis.
This can only lead to perpetual conflict with no end in sight.

If thats what you want, then well... a former US president also had the same way of looking at things.

Alexander won in Afghanistan. Genghis won in Afghanistan. Afghans are not "undefeatable", and neither is the US. It's all in the approach.

Alexander, Genghis Khan, the British and the Soviets all effortlessly stormed into Afghanistan. Yes.
The problems showed up AFTER they set foot on Afghan soil... and they had to leave in the end.
Not... very different from the US' situation there.

Originally posted by sk0rpi0n
reply to post by SLAYER69

 

Next time, try and make an attempt to address whats being discussed. Cheers.

OK Sweetheart..

I'll type this really slow for you.

You, me and about a dozen others who have thus far contributed have created the "Discussion" "WE" bring our various topic related opinions, theories and [some of us even bring and post] verifiable "facts" here to be "Discussed" and debated in a thread [hopefully in a civil manner] Now which part of that is really all the difficult to understand?

Originally posted by starviego

Originally posted by NeverForget
.... Leave them to their own devices, that's the most humane thing to do.

Still taking up the white man's burden*, I see. How many times have you Brits been tossed out of Afghanistan? Jeez, and I thought we never learned our lessons on this side of the pond!


"When you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,

"And the women come out to cut up what remains,

"Just roll to your rifle and blow out your brains

"An' go to your Gawd like a soldier."

-------------------

*Name of famous poem by British imperialist poet Rudyard Kipling
www.fordham.edu...

yes, i think they killed 20,000 men, women and children.

the women did the last butchering.

the brits were trying to leave.

that's what i heard.


eta; not trying to repeat you.

kipling was cool, one of my fav movies is "the man who would be king"