Looking back in hindsight, what would you have done after 9/11?

Bought a bunch of AAPL shares

 

I would not strip away every one single one of our civil liberties to protect us from "terror"

 

I'm not voting in the poll, because it isn't that simple. Bush was correct to invade Afghanistan with our allies, take out the Taiban government who gave AQ sanctuary and active support. It was wrong to eviscerate our civil liberties in the wake of 9/11. It was wrong to creat a gigantic bureaucracy and then call it "Homeland" Security. When has this country been called our "homeland?" I never heard that term used to describe the United States until some goofus in the West Wing decided that the term was perfect for yet another layer of security apparatus, as if we didn't have enough already. And I think Bush should have been impeached for lying to his people and the world about Iraq, and dragging the country into a second war we didn't need and couldn't afford, and then being insane enough to cut taxes several times while fighting those two wars, something never done before in our history, and running up a gigantic deficit, as if a child couldn't have predicted that it would be a result of Bush's "policies."

Yeah, it ain't that simple. Keep your poll.

 

Agree with Deckard, yes to Afganastan, no to Iraq.

DD

 

1. Do nothing militarily: in a country that had nothing to do with it
2. Do more militarily: to catch or kill the people that DID attack us
3. Not given up ANY civil liberties: First of all, it doesn't make us more secure. Second, if we do that, what exactly are we protecting?

And, by the way, "in hindsight?" Hardly. My positions on this issue haven't changed one single bit since the planes hit the buildings.

Nobody needs hindsight to know what ought to have been done. And the intelligence wasn't bad on Iraq; it was willfully cherry-picked and even manipulated.

If anyone has voted for the first option you listed of doing exactly what we did he is officially an idiot.

 

That was my response then and it's my response now. Yes to Afghanistan, no to pretty much everything else.

 

Bats and Deck ftw

simple poll my ass.

 

homeland = fatherland

i cant believe that term became popular after 9/11. you are right - it might have been used, but it was never part of the popular lexicon till herr bush started saying it.

 

Deckard wins the thread.

 

and

I'm Rashmon and I approve and support these posts.

 

Yeah, it's disingenuous to pretend that any sort of "hindsight" is required here.

Most people (most rational people) knew the best way to go about it, and knew that the Bush Administration's plan of attack had more to do with other considerations than it had to do with keeping us 'safe.'

 

my positions haven't changed either.

 

Disagree that we had to "take out the Taliban". As we see this is a whole different beast than taking out Al Qaeda. What do you think of spurned offers the Taliban made to turn over Bin Laden that we rejected?

How many years longer should we stay to insure that the one side in the civil war, the Taliban does not prevail over our favorites? Let's assume that the Taliban will still be in existence say 10 years from now.

You have kids. Would you still be willing to send them over now and in the future to fight the Taliban?

 

My position changed, but quickly. We needed an armed repsonse to 9/11, but massive bombing to kill ordinary members of the Taliban was uncalled for. Of course long term occupation to try to put in our guys will probably turn out to be about as useful as when we put our guy, the Shah, in Iran, our guy in Iraq or some of the r dictators we have backed in the past.

It is interesting to see how our poll shows a majority opposed to losing civil liberties and even Obama the alleged liberal continues the loss. I still think Obama, the purely electoral calculating machine with apparently no strong moral compass or beliefs, possibly does this because it helps stop the usual GOP attacks that Dems are soft on terrorism and not militaristic enough, but in the end does it really matter why he continues to strip us of civil liberties?

 

iow, the only reason to change the position in hindsight on afghanistan is because clowns were running the operation. if they didn't screw it up your position wouldn't be the same. no reason for long term occupation. no resason for reasonable troop rotation because there wouldn't be a clusterfu$k called iraq

 

Not American, but my response would have been very different. I think the initial attack against OBL should have been much larger, OBL slipped through the cracks because Bush didn't exactly go all out. Maybe he let the man go so he could fulfill the Iraq dream. Also, I don't get this whole Taliban thing, didn't they harbor a terrorist because he fought for their freedom against USSR? Why would they turn their back against him? These people are 100 years behind in everything from the rest of the world I hope they eventually see peace so they can move forward. The Iraq war, secret prisons, and drone bombings are a disaster.....

 

Not sure you and I are understanding each other. I was basically for trying to capture Bin Laden-- a police action. When I saw what Bush was up to in Afghanistan, I frankly thought it would have been better to just wait years if necessary for a chance to take out Bin Laden without killing tens of thousands of Afghans, the occupation and choosing sides in the Afghan civil war..

 

They never did that. At best, what the Taliban offered was to try Bin Laden, on their territory, under Islamic law. Needless to say, we rejected that.

As for what we should have done? The problem with Afghanistan is that our priorities were completely wrong. We were fighting for Afghanistan for one reason, and one reason only - finding and killing Bin Laden. Which horde of barbarians runs the pithole that is that area ( at least North Korea's an unified state) is irrelevant to me. Instead, we prioritize building a centralized state in a place which doesn't deserve one.

You go in with massive firepower, kill Bin Laden, maybe you prop up some thug to rule the place with an iron fist, maybe you don't. Then you leave and let them go back to kill each other like Afghanis have been doing since before Alexander.

 

For crying out loud. You'll really reaching again, glynch. This is what I said. Read it again.

"Bush was correct to invade Afghanistan with our allies, take out the Taiban government who gave AQ sanctuary and active support."

The Taliban government. Can't you read? I have no desire, have never had a desire, to "take out" the Taliban as a group, only their government, and those actively aiding and supporting AQ. The vast majority of "the Taliban" are small groups of men who support tribal leaders and the equivalent local Afghan warlords, of which there are probably hundreds, more for money and local loyalty (which can often be bought), than for some nebulous "Taliban" ideology. I have no problem with doing a deal with the Taliban that remain, as long as they back away from AQ. The only reason I have given here for staying in Afghanistan, and I've said it now for years, is to take out the AQ leadership, primarily bin Laden. Well, we've killed most of al-Qaeda's leadership, and killed that b*stard Osama. Since his death, I've stated that it's time to "declare victory" and pull out, soonest, and leave any further operations in Afghanistan to our superb special forces on the down low.

You may find something entirely unreasonable about my position, which is fine with me, but at least understand what my position is, and don't get me mixed up with someone else. Yes, early on, Bush did something right. I believe in giving credit where credit is due, even to Junior. Later, of course, he dropped the ball there, leaving surrogates to make the actual attack on bin Laden at Tora Bora, an act of incredible stupidity, considering that he was far and away the biggest target we were after. While it is possible bin Laden might have escaped regardless, what I've read is that those tactics insured that he would get away. I still don't know what Bush was thinking. I assume there was some thinking going on up there in that gray matter inside his head, but that could be a mistake on my part. You seem to think I'm simply loaded with mistakes. Did I hit your dog with my car when I was in Houston last? I don't remember hitting a dog, but anything is possible.