Ummm..... no. I did not attack anyone, so please apologize and admit your error. I asked some very valid questions that MacBeth refused to answer. He responded to my questions with questions of his own. When he answers my questions, which were asked first, then I will consider answering his questions, which were asked last. It is very simple. I really don't know what he is trying to hide here. I fear the worst.
wow T_J, you're digging yourself a hole here. If you read again what you just quoted me on, you will see that I wrote that you attacked his motivations, not him. So there was no error and there will be no apology, except perhaps from you, if you so choose. I still await your answer . . .
Totally agree. I've read the article twice and I fail to see proof that backs up the title of the article/thread.
No offense, but you responded to fact based accounts and reports with an editorial, an editorial which spouts garbage rumor after garbage rumor that has been debunked by intelligence officials worldwide (most of which were contained in the report "accidentally" leaked by Feith last fall and quickly disavowed by the Defense Department). This is just an example: this lists the many times over discredited story about Czech intelligence (Mere days AFTER bush admitted no 9-11 -iraq link) and tries to buttress it by stating this. "Despite repeated attempts to discredit the report of a meeting between the two, Czech officials at the cabinet level have stuck by the story" This argument is apparently canned language, somebody else tried to pull that on me last year on this board. Did Czech cabinet level officials retract the story? No, but Czech President Vaclav Havel did. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2002/10/21/MN193548.DTL As did the Czech intelligence service. http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20021020-092811-8185r But we should still believe it because no "cabinet level official" whoever that may be, has done the same thing? That is absurd. That's like saying "Well, President Bush admitted he hasn't found any WMD, and so did the CIA, but since Secretary of Transportation Norman Mineta hasn't issued a denial, it might still be true". That logic is so tortured as to be laughable. That's just one example, a lot of their other 'facts' can be traced back to Chalabi or other sources that have been openly questioned by US intelligence, such as the "liquid paper" documents, not found by American intelligence officials, yet "found" by the reporter for the Telegraph with a history of connections to similarly questionable "finds" Despite the recent failures of the CIA, the NSA, and the DIA, I'll take their intelligence analysis over that found in the Right wing editorial pages ten times out of ten, and I don't think there's a legitimate reason to do otherwise. My favorite part though is where the editorial basically blows up its own logic and invalidates the entire Iraq war and the Administration's failed approach to the war on terror in its conclusion: The pre-911 practice of not going after terrorism's state sponsors? What about the Bush Administration's post 9-11 practice of turning a blind eye (and in Saudi Arabia's case, actively trying to cover for) to Al Qaeda's biggest capital, spiritual, and labor donors: Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, and it's post 9-11 practice of letting Afghanistan slide back into the anarchic non-state that let Al Qaeda flourish in the first place? Whoopsy-daisy.
Sorry friend, what I quoted you on really doesn't matter. What matters is what you said. Friend, you must have forgotten that you posted this earlier: Obviously I did not attack anyone. Don't try to mix it up with the big boys anymore until you are much more seasoned. mmmkay? I await your apology. MacBeth, still waiting for you too.
MacBeth Senior Member Posts: 6907 Joined: Aug 2002 Member: #6694 05-25-2004 11:14 AM Quote: Originally posted by Trader_Jorge Hilarious! MacBeth, you just answered my question by answering my question with a question! Get it? Ho ho ho!! Once again I ask you MacBeth, what are your motivations for only posting negative news? What are your motivations, MacBeth, for attempting to display the work of the American troops in the worst possible light? MacBeth, surely you have motivations behind your actions, don't you? Yes, you do. So please share them, MacBeth. Many of us are interested. If you are the centrist that you claim you are, MacBeth, then something very fishy must be going on here. What are your motivations, MacBeth, for highlighting the successes of al Queda? Please share. "One who knows the enemy and knows himself will not be in danger in a hundred battles. One who does not know the enemy but knows himself will sometimes win, sometimes lose. One who does not know the enemy and does not know himself will be in danger in every battle." -Sun Tzu, Art of War Admitting your mistakes only makes things worse. Only focus on what you've done right, especially in war. That's the way to win. And by no means look at how you've helped the enemy, because that might mean you could correct your mistakes, which means admitting them." -Anon, Ostrich Survival Guide **************************************************** MacBeth Senior Member Posts: 6907 Joined: Aug 2002 Member: #6694 05-25-2004 11:47 AM Quote: Originally posted by Trader_Jorge But he titled the thread and made the decision to post it. MacBeth, we eagerly await your answer. T_J; asked and answered, but I'll answer it again, and then ask you a question: I am looking at their successes because we are at war with them, and any realist with their head out of the sand examines the gains of their enemy, particularly when our own actiuons have caused/helped same. If what you've done is wrong, you learn, but only if you look at it. If you refuse, you will continue doing whatever is helping your enemy, thus hurting yourself. As the invasion of Iraq is hurting our war on terror, and helping our enemy, I am trying to get as many people to look at it as I can, thus hoping to stop helping our enemy and hurting ourself. This will take repeated notices, because some refuse to look at what we're doing wrong if it means an admission that their particular political leader was wrong, and others simply never woant to admit that they were wrong about anything. Ok, so I answered your question...again. Now here's mine. I dount you'll answer it once. You'll probably straw man at most. You have called my pointing out that Al-Qaida has benefited from our invasion of Iraq a focus on their "success". Fair enough. But if they are our enemy, and this is a success of theirs...why do you support it, T_J.? Why do you support the successes of Al-Qaida? **************************************************** Still waiting on your asnwer, T_J, or are you going to continue to ask a question I've answered twice so as to avoid answering any? Again, they are: and
ok, so there's the headline and lede, and it's clear from this that the writers (of the report or the article?) think that al-queda's numbers are growing, due to the U.S. war in iRaq. waaaaaaaaiiiiiiiittttttt, just a doggone minute there, sparky! you're saying al queda's numbers have decreased by 2,000?!? due to the war??? and this is portrayed as an increase in strength? how, exactly???? LIBERAL MEDIA, EXPOSED
Good post, guess I'm always a day late. I guess what can be said is what has been said before, we did this with a lot of bad intelligence (the Chabali link). I don't know how much of that really could have been avoided though. CIA's powers have been taken away to a large extent. We didn't have any agents on the ground and relied on satellite images for a lot of our intell. After its all said and done though, I think we rushed, but I think it was a war we were going to have to fight at some point.
looks like somebody is confusing Afghanistan and Iraq again...I guess it's not difficult given the chaotic state that we have left each country in.
Invasion of Iraq Has Helped Al-Qaida Absolutely. 1. The US invasion of Iraq has solidified opinion in the Muslim world that we are only after global domination. 2. Comments by US military leaders have created the impression that we are fighting a holy war. 3. The substantial US troop presence has allowed Al Qaeda to strike Americans in their own region. 4. There was no Al Qaeda presence in Iraq before the invasion. 5. The massive Iraqi death toll has been used to flame hatred of America. 6. Focusing the majority of our resources on the Iraqi invasion has hampered our ability to track down and destroy Al Qaeda cells around the world. 7. Alienating our allies has decreased our intelligence network and manpower to eliminate the Al Qaeda terror threat. The reasons above (there are several more i'm sure) have increased Al Qaeda’s ability to recruit new members. Increased membership along with lack of American focus on eliminating the terrorist cells has allowed Al Qaeda to continue striking American citizens (particularly in Iraq) and our allies around the world.
Cohen and basso: You are confusing two seperate points of the piece; the 18, 000 and growing numbers due to Iraq. The 18,000 pre-date the invasion of Afghanistan. That's one point the I.I.S.S. is making. The secod is that their findings show that since the invasion of Iraq, AQ has gained. Try to remember that this is a summary of an extensive report dealing with global concerns, only one of which is Iraq. The article didn't make the link between the 18,000 and Iraq, but I can see how you thought it did. The I.I.S.S. is an extremely well respected organization without any known bias, and the summary of it's report, as written by it's director, is 5 pages long. This article was merely highlighting relevent points. If you want to look at their findings about how Iraq has stimulated AQ recruitment, the link o the summary is unstable, but here's their home site; http://www.iiss.org/
The CIA and the entire national security apparatus' personnel problems won't be sorted out until it's staffed with a generation's worth of Arabists and Arabologists and CT people ; right now we've still got Cold Warriors (Rummy) and sovietologists (condi) ttrying to run the show....but that approach simply doesn't work. However, I don't know if that will happen. The compensation etc. for government work is so far out of line with the private sector now as to make it almost impossible to attract young, bright individuals to the CIA, DIA, State etc (example, I thought about working for state and still do, but my salary practicing law is about xxx times the highest government pay grade...I'm no Pat Tillman in that regard I'm ashamed to admit) ...and the current state of chaos in the muslim world makes it an unattractive thing to want to study or specialize in.
What about the glamour of being a spy? Shoot, that what almost made me try out for it after college; but alas the lure of a family life was too great. Would reversing some of the damage that this man Church did to the CIA help?
18,000 a year after the iRaq invasion, is not greater than 18,000 before the invasion. it's the same, last time i checked, although admittedly math is not my strong suit. but let's look at this another way. while al queda trained 20,000 holy warriors in afghanistan the clinton administration did nothing. the bush administrqation kills 2,000 of said warriors and is blamed for increasing the threat? it's just aptently ridiculous, and has no basis in fact.
according to the article, the 18,000 are current numbers, derived by taking the 20,000 bin laden trained before the invasion, and subtracting the 2,000 killed to date inthe WOT, in iraq and afghanistan. the numbers do not equal the headline or the spin.
The glamour of being a spy fades when you go from schmoozing Soviet defectors at a cocktail party at the embassy in Zurich to trying to monitor a madrassah in Peshawar. As far as Church, I know he's the standard right wing bogeyman, but those arguments are a red herring. The CIA, NSA, DIA didn't have the manpower to deal with Arab countries because it was priority number two; the USSR and the cold war was priority number one and that is where the human intelligence resources went even though it was becoming deemphasized, and that is why we became reliant on satellites, etc...we needed to count tanks, not tents....and it was cheaper and more efficient to do that from space than the ground.
Basso: again, you are confusing two issues: Look again: It's saying: A) There are 18, 000 trained AQ operatives out there, the remnants of the 20, 000 AQ trained prior to the invasion of Afghanistan. and B) AQ ranks ( in addition to the 18,000) are growing due to recruitment generated by the invasion of Iraq. These are people recruited who will now be trained, not already trained operatives as the group from Afghanistan. I tried to be diplomatic before, but this is a pretty obvious distinction. For you to beleve that a neutral extremely respected organization would make the kind of blunder you thought you'd spotted, or that due to same and your view of how well Bush has done vs. Clinton their findings were " ... just aptently ridiculous, and (have) no basis in fact." is pretty sophomoric, IMO.
ok, apart fom the number of 18,000 terrorists, what evidence is presented to support the claim that their numberss are growing? none, other than that same number, which as the report itself confirms is derived by subtracting the number of terrorists killed from the number of terrorists OBL trained. the conclusion that "numbers are growing" is not supported by the evidence presented in the report, and is just spin.
