9/11/01. Our nation was attacked by terrorists from Al Qaeda. The leader of this group is on video talking about how he planned the operation. That leader was being housed in Afghanistan with numerous terrorist training camps. The government of Afghanistan refuses to give over the Osama Bin Laden, close the terrorist training camps, etc. Our country decided to invade Afghanistan. The campaign involved getting help from local warlords opposed to the taliban and Bin Laden, as well as many of the European nations who were pledging to help us in our fight against against the terrorists. France flew the most combat air missions except for the U.S. That nation was largely unified and supportive, as was the world at large. The UN was behind the operation. The country managed to get a tenuous alliance between various ethnic groups and warlords to support President Karzai. President Bush cuts back resources being used in Afghanistan to use in Iraq. Neither the leader of the Taliban nor the leader of Al Qaeda was captured, and the country was far from under control. Things began getting worse in Afghanistan. Most of the nation is lawless, the President rarely travels outside of Kabul, and numerous attempts on his life has been made. It is three years later and Afghanistan is not under control. Our enemy's leaders are still on the loose. The country is still in ruins, and hasn't been rebuilt. Our support in the war on terror has deteriorated. We have been involved in human rights atrocities, and the reasons given for going into Iraq turned out to be worthless. More 1,000 U.S. troops have been killed and thousands of others seriously wounded. Let's flash back to our war in Afghanistan. Progress was being made. We had the support of countless allies willing to put lives on the line to help us. What could've been if we stayed and focused on Aghanistan. What if all the effort gone into getting IRaq on its feet was put into rebuilding Afghanistan, trying to locate the Osama Bin Laden, and the leaders of the Taliban. We would have had 3 years to help rebuild Afghanistan, showcase a democracy in the middle east, kept the good will of allies, and stayed focused on the war on terror. Instead we've spent $131,606,373,474 on Iraq. (http://costofwar.com/embed-slow.html) What if that money, time, diplomats, manpower, effort, focus, etc. had been invested in Afghanistan?
One of my biggest grudges against Bushy, is the fact that he started another war, when even teh first wasnt totally under control.
How is it liberal propaganda pointing out that the Admin relied on local Afghan warlords rather than US troops to try to capture Osama Bin Ladin or that we went into Iraq before Afghanistan was totally secured or that far fewer resources have been put into Afghanistan vs Iraq even though the countries are relatively similar in size and population?
I don't think it's Liberal propaganda either -- I am a conservative Republican (and so is my voting record all the way back to Ronnie) and I ask myself those same questions.
It's absolutely comical that any question of this Administration's policies is automatically categorized as liberal propaganda. It makes me wonder if certain people in this country have ever bothered to actually read the United States Constitution.
For Immediate Release Office of the Press Secretary March 19, 2004 11:02 A.M. EST President Bush Reaffirms Resolve to War on Terror, Iraq and Afghanistan Remarks by the President on Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation Enduring Freedom The East Room THE PRESIDENT: Good morning and thanks for coming. Laura and I are pleased to welcome you all to the White House. Mr. Secretary, thank you for being here. Members of my National Security Council are here, members of the administration, members of our armed forces, members of the United States Congress. Thank you for being here. Ladies and gentlemen. I particularly want to thank the members of the Diplomatic Corps who are here; thank the ambassadors for coming today. We are representing 84 countries united against a common danger, and joined in a common purpose. We are the nations that have recognized the threat of terrorism, and we are the nations that will defeat that threat. Each of us has pledged before the world: We will never bow to the violence of a few. We will face this mortal danger, and we will overcome it together. As we meet, violence and death at the hands of terrorists are still fresh in our memory. The people of Spain are burying their innocent dead. These men and women and children began their day in a great and peaceful city, yet lost their lives on a battlefield, murdered at random and without remorse. Americans saw the chaos and the grief, and the vigils and the funerals, and we have shared in the sorrow of the Spanish people. Ambassador Ruperez, please accept our deepest sympathy for the great loss that your country has suffered. The murders in Madrid are a reminder that the civilized world is at war. And in this new kind of war, civilians find themselves suddenly on the front lines. In recent years, terrorists have struck from Spain, to Russia, to Israel, to East Africa, to Morocco, to the Philippines, and to America. They've targeted Arab states such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and Yemen. They have attacked Muslims in Indonesia, Turkey, Pakistan, Iraq, and Afghanistan. No nation or region is exempt from the terrorists' campaign of violence. Each of these attacks on the innocent is a shock, and a tragedy, and a test of our will. Each attack is designed to demoralize our people and divide us from one another. And each attack must be answered, not only with sorrow, but with greater determination, deeper resolve, and bolder action against the killers. It is the interest of every country, and the duty of every government, to fight and destroy this threat to our people. There is no dividing line -- there is a dividing line in our world, not between nations, and not between religions or cultures, but a dividing line separating two visions of justice and the value of life. On a tape claiming responsibility for the atrocities in Madrid, a man is heard to say, "We choose death, while you choose life." We don't know if this is the voice of the actual killers, but we do know it expresses the creed of the enemy. It is a mind set that rejoices in suicide, incites murder, and celebrates every death we mourn. And we who stand on the other side of the line must be equally clear and certain of our convictions. We do love live, the life given to us and to all. We believe in the values that uphold the dignity of life, tolerance, and freedom, and the right of conscience. And we know that this way of life is worth defending. There is no neutral ground -- no neutral ground -- in the fight between civilization and terror, because there is no neutral ground between good and evil, freedom and slavery, and life and death. The war on terror is not a figure of speech. It is an inescapable calling of our generation. The terrorists are offended not merely by our policies -- they are offended by our existence as free nations. No concession will appease their hatred. No accommodation will satisfy their endless demands. Their ultimate ambitions are to control the peoples of the Middle East, and to blackmail the rest of the world with weapons of mass terror. There can be no separate peace with the terrorist enemy. Any sign of weakness or retreat simply validates terrorist violence, and invites more violence for all nations. The only certain way to protect our people is by early, united, and decisive action. In this contest of will and purpose, not every nation joins every mission, or participates in the same way. Yet, every nation makes a vital contribution, and America is proud to stand with all of you as we pursue a broad strategy in the war against terror. We are using every tool of finance, intelligence, law enforcement and military power to break terror networks, to deny them refuge, and to find their leaders. Over the past 30 months, we have frozen or seized nearly $200 million in assets of terror networks. We have captured or killed some two-thirds of al Qaeda's known leaders, as well as many of al Qaeda's associates countries like the United States, or Germany, or Pakistan, or Saudi Arabia, or Thailand. We are taking the fight to al Qaeda allies, such as Ansar-al-Islam in Iraq, Jemaah Islamiya in Indonesia, and Southeast Asia. Our coalition is sending an unmistakable message to the terrorists, including those who struck in Madrid: These killers will be tracked down and found, they will face their day of justice. Our coalition is taking urgent action to stop the transfer of deadly weapon and materials. America and the nations of Australia, and France, and Germany, and Italy, and Japan, and the Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, Canada, Singapore, and Norway have joined in the Proliferation Security Initiative all aimed to bind together, to interdict lethal materials transported by air or sea or land. Many governments have cooperated to expose and dismantle the network of A.Q. Khan, which sold nuclear secrets to Libya, Iran and North Korea. By all these efforts, we are determined to prevent catastrophic technologies from falling into the hands of an embittered few. Our coalition is also confronting the dangerous combination of outlaw states, terrorist groups, and weapons of mass destruction. For years, the Taliban made Afghanistan the home base of al Qaeda. And so we gave the Taliban a choice: to abandon forever their support for terror, or face the destruction of their regime. Because the Taliban chose defiance, our coalition acted to remove this threat. And now the terror camps are closed, and the government of a free Afghanistan is represented here today as an active partner in the war on terror. The people of Afghanistan are a world away from the nightmare of the Taliban. Citizens of Afghanistan have adopted a new constitution, guaranteeing free elections and full participation by women. The new Afghan army is becoming a vital force of stability in that country. Businesses are opening, health care centers are being established, and the children of Afghanistan are back in school, boys and girls. This progress is a tribute to the brave Afghan people, and to the efforts of many nations. NATO -- including forces from Canada, France, Germany, and other nations -- is leading the effort to provide security. Japan and Saudi Arabia have helped to complete the highway from Kabul to Kandahar, which is furthering commerce and unifying the country. Italy is working with Afghans to reform their legal system, and strengthening an independent judiciary. Three years ago, the people of Afghanistan were oppressed and isolated from the world by a terrorist regime. Today, that nation has a democratic government and many allies -- and all of us are proud to be friends of the Afghan people. Many countries represented here today also acted to liberate the people of Iraq. One year ago, military forces of a strong coalition entered Iraq to enforce United Nations demands, to defend our security, and to liberate that country from the rule of a tyrant. For Iraq, it was a day of deliverance. For the nations of our coalition, it was the moment when years of demands and pledges turned to decisive action. Today, as Iraqis join the free peoples of the world, we mark a turning point for the Middle East, and a crucial advance for human liberty. There have been disagreements in this matter, among old and valued friends. Those differences belong to the past. All of us can now agree that the fall of the Iraqi dictator has removed a source of violence, aggression, and instability in the Middle East. It's a good thing that the demands of the United Nations were enforced, not ignored with impunity. It is a good thing that years of illicit weapons development by the dictator have come to the end. It is a good thing that the Iraqi people are now receiving aid, instead of suffering under sanctions. And it is a good thing that the men and women across the Middle East, looking to Iraq, are getting a glimpse of what life in a free country can be like. There are still violent thugs and murderers in Iraq, and we're dealing with them. But no one can argue that the Iraqi people would be better off with the thugs and murderers back in the palaces. Who would prefer that Saddam's torture chambers still be open? Who would wish that more mass graves were still being filled? Who would begrudge the Iraqi people their long-awaited liberation? On year after the armies of liberation arrived, every soldier who has fought, every aid worker who has served, every Iraqi who has joined in their country's defense can look with pride on a brave and historic achievement. They've served freedom's cause, and that is a privilege. Today in Iraq, a British-led division is securing the southern city of Basra. Poland continues to lead a multinational division in south-central Iraq. Japan and the Republic of Korea -- of South Korea have made historic commitments of troops to help bring peace to Iraq. Special forces from El Salvador, Macedonia, and other nations are helping to find and defeat Baathist and terrorist killers. Military engineers from Kazakhstan have cleared more than a half a million explosive devices from Iraq. Turkey is helping to resupply coalition forces. All of these nations, and many others, are meeting their responsibilities to the people of Iraq. Whatever their past views, every nation now has an interest in a free, successful, stable Iraq. And the terrorists understand their own interest in the fate of that country. For them, the connection between Iraq's future and the course of the war on terror is very clear. They understand that a free Iraq will be a devastating setback to their ambitions of tyranny over the Middle East. And they have made the failure of democracy in Iraq one of their primary objectives. By attacking coalition forces -- by targeting innocent Iraqis and foreign civilians for murder -- the terrorists are trying to weaken our will. Instead of weakness, they're finding resolve. Not long ago, we intercepted a planning document being sent to leaders of al Qaeda by one of their associates, a man named Zarqawi. Along with the usual threats, he had a complaint: "Our enemy," said Zarqawi, "is growing stronger and his intelligence data are increasing day by day -- this is suffocation." Zarqawi is getting the idea. We will never turn over Iraq to terrorists who intend our own destruction. We will not fail the Iraqi people, who have placed their trust in us. Whatever it takes, we will fight and work to assure the success of freedom in Iraq. Many coalition countries have sacrificed in both Iraq and Afghanistan. Among the fallen soldiers and civilians are sons and daughters of Australia, Bulgaria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, France, Germany, India, Italy, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the Netherlands, Poland, Romania, Spain, Switzerland, Thailand, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, the United Kingdom, and the United States. We honor their courage, we pray for the comfort of their families. We will uphold the cause they served. The rise of democratic institutions in Afghanistan and Iraq is a great step toward a goal of lasting importance to the world. We have set out to encourage reform and democracy in the greater Middle East as the alternatives to fanaticism, resentment, and terror. We've set out to break the cycle of bitterness and radicalism that has brought stagnation to a vital region, and destruction to cities in America and Europe and around the world. This task is historic, and difficult; this task is necessary and worthy of our efforts. In the 1970s, the advance of democracy in Lisbon and Madrid inspired democratic change in Latin America. In the 1980s, the example of Poland ignited a fire of freedom in all of Eastern Europe. With Afghanistan and Iraq showing the way, we are confident that freedom will lift the sights and hopes of millions in the greater Middle East. One man who believed in our cause was a Japanese diplomat named Katsuhiko Oku. He worked for the Coalition Provision Authority in Iraq. Mr. Oku was killed when his car was ambushed. In his diary he described his pride in the cause he had joined. "The free people of Iraq," he wrote, "are now making steady progress in reconstructing their country -- while also fighting against the threat of terrorism. We must join hands with the Iraqi people in their effort to prevent Iraq from falling into the hands of terrorists." This good, decent man concluded, "This is also our fight to defend freedom." Ladies and gentlemen, this good man from Japan was right. The establishment of a free Iraq is our fight. The success of a free Afghanistan is our fight. The war on terror is our fight. All of us are called to share the blessings of liberty, and to be strong and steady in freedom's defense. It will surely be said of our times that we lived with great challenges. Let it also be said of our times that we understood our great duties, and met them in full. May God bless our efforts. http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/03/20040319-3.html
You do realize that nothing in here addressed even a single point that FB made, don't you? Bush may pay lip service to Afghanistan, but that is all it is...lip service.
Sorry homeslice. How about this one? Does this work for you? __________________________________________________ Taliban Billy The Kid Killed Wednesday, 01-Sept-2004 KABUL, September 1 (CBS News) -- CBS News Correspondent Lara Logan has been traveling with U.S. Special Operations soldiers fighting in Afghanistan. Below is her eyewitness account of the death of a top Taliban commander. Roze Khan. His name means nothing to most Americans who have never heard it mentioned. But thousands of miles away from the United States, in the dry south of Afghanistan, it is a name that resonated across dirty brown mountains and remote, dusty villages, sometimes in fear, sometimes in awe. And when he was killed by U.S. Special Operations forces last week, it was news that spread like wildfire, across the mountains and arid plains and over the Afghan border into Pakistan where it was surely greeted with dismay among the communities of Taliban members and supporters who continue to base themselves in that country’s semi-autonomous tribal areas. “He was like Billy the Kid in these parts,” one American soldier told me, “We’ve been after him for more than two years and he’s escaped twice before so this feels really good.” And it should. Roze Khan was the top Taliban commander based in southern Afghanistan, and the American forces here believe he recruited and organized both Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters, financing them from Pakistan. In fact, almost $10,000 in U.S. currency and a huge wad of Pakistani rupees was found on his body to support that belief. They also believe Khan was responsible for laying of mines, kidnapping aid workers and road workers, as well as attacks on American, Afghan and coalition soldiers. There is certainly no doubt about Roze Khan’s intentions on the day he was shot dead. As Coalition Special Operations Forces approached the village where he was on a hot, dry Friday morning, Khan picked up an AK-47 rifle, six magazines, six grenades, a pistol and all that money and began to saunter casually up the mountainside behind the village. But the soldiers had already anticipated his possible movements and it took no time for two assault teams to corner him on the mountain. Khan opened fire first, emptying his magazine before he was shot multiple times and fell bleeding onto the rocky, unforgiving ground. His body was immediately checked for known identifying marks and it was apparent from the very outset that this was the high-value target the soldiers were after, although they would wait for absolute confirmation before announcing his death to the world. There was no further resistance from the village, and curiously, in this tiny place that could have housed no more than about a hundred people, not a single man asked to identify the body admitted knowing Roze Khan or ever having seen him before. The coalition soldiers came in with overwhelming force, but they used it sparingly. Because there were shots fired, they handcuffed some 22 men in the village of fighting age and above. Then they were searched and questioned. But contrary to popular perceptions, soldiers here operate with very strict rules, and unless they find weapons or other evidence on someone, they cannot be detained, which is similar to how the police operate in the U.S. So after several hours, only two men were detained while the rest had their plastic cuffs cut free and were left to ponder the American soldiers actions, that seemed to have taken them completely by surprise. Even without detainees, operations like this are never a wasted exercise because fingerprints are taken from all the men and entered into a massive database that is designed to prevent people making their way into the U.S. to carry out terror attacks the way the Sept.11 hijackers did. For the men who found Roze Khan, this was a huge morale boost. A textbook operation, executed almost to perfection. This particular team has captured or killed five Taliban commanders, more than any other single team since this war began over two years ago. They don’t want any credit for it, they tell me, because that’s not why there are here, doing this very difficult and dangerous job. But it is gratifying to know that back home in the U.S., thousands of miles and several world away, people remember an important war is still being fought. http://www.afghanistan.org/news_detail.asp?17124
And yet none of this has kept the Taliban from continuing to control large swaths of Afghanistan, nor has it netted us OBL unless Bush has him on ice for November 1. We left Afghanistan, went back on our promise to rebuild them a second time, and ignored the man who planned and executed the 9/11 attacks so that we could prosecute an elective war based on "intelligence" provided by a hostile government. You may like that kind of "leadership," but I call it horrible, shortsighted, and stupid leadership.
The "leadership" GWB has shown in Afghanistan has led poppy production in that country to an all-time high. If he wins another term, do you think GWB will lift a finger to do anything about the heroin epidemic that will hit American cities in two years....an epidemic that will be a direct result of his policy regarding Afghanistan??
To be fair, virtually none of the Afghan poppy crop is destined for the US. Most of our heroin comes from South America and east Asia. Afghan heroin goes almost exclusively to Europe.
Thanks for the intelligent and excellent post, FB. I have posted much the same thing here many times, but, of course, not as well as you. Great job, and one of my biggest foreign policy beefs with Bush, and one of the least defensible things he's done in that area.
At the rate we are killing rebels ( one high profile target in a year ) they are making em faster than we are killing them. The only saving grace is we aren't dying at the rate the Soviets did during their occupation.
(Edited from an article by Rall...) A better question might be, was Osama in Afganistan? Afghan witnesses told reporters they saw bin Laden and his entourage leave the country shortly before 9/11. CBS News places him in a military hospital in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, where he received treatment for a bum kidney on the day of the attacks. This much is certain: when the U.S. went to war on October 6, 2001, U.S. officials knew that Afghanistan was the one nation on earth where Osama was not. (http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO311A.html) Was Al Qaeda in Afghanistan? Steve Coll notes in "Ghost Wars," his comprehensive study of the covert struggles in Afghanistan, Al Qaeda's core group of anti-Soviet mujahedeen veterans came together around Osama in Peshawar in western Pakistan. Arms and fighters were funneled through western Pakistan and Pakistani Kashmir, financed by Saudi money routed through Pakistani banks and protected by the ISI, the Pakistani intelligence agency. The US went after Afghanistan while leaving Pakistan, the center of south Asian jihadiism and then as now the site of most of Al Qaeda's training facilities, intact. Afghanistan should have been a secondary rather than a primary target of retaliation. Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, on the other hand... Heck, are we sure Osama was involved? In late September 2001, Secretary of State Colin Powell promised to "put out a paper...that will describe clearly the evidence that we have linking" Al Qaeda to 9/11. We're still waiting. Osama bin Laden, who claimed credit for the East Africa embassy bombings and other terrorist acts, denied involvement in 9/11. "I have already said that I am not involved in the 11 September attacks in the United States," bin Laden told a Pakistani newspaper. "As a Muslim, I try my best to avoid telling a lie." (http://www.public-action.com/911/oblintrv.html) And the famous Osama "confession video," proven by European media outlets to have been overdubbed and intentionally mistranslated by U.S. officials, is nothing of the sort. (http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/articlesosama.html) However, it is known that all 19 hijackers belonged to Islamic Jihad, based in Egypt. But we never insisted that Egyptian dictator Hosni Mubarek turn over the group's leaders for questioning. Islamic Jihad remains free to attack us again... Interesting to say the least.
