Terry Nichols was just convicted of 161 counts of murder, 1 count of conspiracy, and 1 count of Arson by an Oklahoma jury. He faces the possibility of the death penalty. I think he should have gotten it a while ago, but I know there are some who disagree with capital punishment.
I think Nichols was from Arkansas, though I could be wrong. I think that was what he was referring to.
God, I hope not. Ok, if Nichols has anything to do with Arkansas, call off Operation Freedom Arkansas, and enact Operation Freedom Hawaii!
Put it this way: Terrorist attack. We know the perpetrators were Suadi and Yemenese. Next step? Patch up ally status with Saudis, make sure anything relating to them is sanitized, and invade Iraq. Now do you get it? Didn't think it was all that nuanced...
Over my head too. Maybe 'Operation Arkansan Freedom' would have rung more bells than 'Operation Freedom Arkansas'.
Afghanistan made sense, hence the French didn't act 'jealous', the Germans weren't 'traitors', the Canadians weren't 'cowards', and the world in general wasn't just out to get the good ol' USA.... Something to think about.
Maybe. I was actually going to choose Hawaii, but envisioned people lecturing me on how Iraq and S.A. were both in the same general reason, as though that made more sense....
Afghanistan made perfect sense, as would have Yemen, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan. But even those others should have waited until we were finished taking out AQ in Afghanistan AND had rebuilt the country. As it is, we are going to see more recruits from Afghanistan as a result of our going there for military maneuvers and leaving after our selfish interests were served without rebuilding AGAIN. Iraq, however, was exactly the wrong move.
Yeah, we are soooo selfish for wanting to remove the terror camps that trained the 9-11 murderers. How selfish of us. What a disgusting representation of our military's efforts. This disgusts me.
A large part of the reason that the Afghan people have been anti-American since the 80s is a result of our going in while the Soviets were there and then cutting and running after they withdrew and our strategic interests were not being threatened there anymore. Despite repeated commitments for reconstruction by Reagan, we lit out of there like the country was on fire once the last Soviet tank left. Then, we came in and took out the Taliban (a good thing by anyone's measure) and then cut and ran so that Bush could push his agenda in Iraq. We have stopped looking for OBL with strong forces and have slowed the reconstruction efforts to a crawl. In effect, we have done the same thing to the Afghan people TWICE, which is not likely to engender positive feelings on the part of the populace. I remember seeing an interview on 60 Minutes where one of the people who was instrumental in making promises to the Afghan muhjadeen was talking about how we are doing exactly the same thing again. He was of the opinion that this will lead to heavy anti-American sentiments in Afghanistan as well as throughout the rest of the region.
When was the last time Afghanistan was built up necessitating a US-led REbuilding process? I get your point that we would have potentially inspired goodwill if we were to BUILD up the country, but it's not like we knocked the place to **** and walked away. And by the way, though our efforts may be limited, we are definitely helping. My friend's father is in Afghanistan right now working for a U.S. funded entity designing and building water systems to help aid the development of Afghanistan. And based on the stories I have heard from my buddy, the locals haven't exactly been grateful for his personal sacrifices.
i'm sorry, i must've missed it, but we had soldiers on the ground in afghanistan fighting the soviets? and after the soviets invaded and conducted an 8 year war, the afghans expected the U.S. to clean it up? that's why they welcomed OBL? my god andy, were stoned during the '80s?
I love it. It is so great to see how this thread changed from Nichols' inevitable conviction to the morals of the Iraq war. I just love it. Just made my day.
