The Democrats need to hammer the Bush Administration over and over again with- Why didn't we do this 2 years ago? The only reasonable (and honest) answer is that the Administration was diverting resources to gear up for the Iraq war. The conclusions from this are obvious. The idea that the Bush administration is strong on Defense and National Security does not bear up to even minimal scrutiny. U.S. Launches New Afghan Push Against Bin Laden By David Brunnstrom KABUL (Reuters) - U.S.-led forces have launched a sweeping new offensive in Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s remote southeastern mountains aimed at crushing the Taliban and al Qaeda and snaring militant leaders including Osama bin Laden (news - web sites). Reuters Photo AFP Slideshow: Afghanistan The operation, codenamed "Mountain Storm," began on March 7 and involves troops from the 13,500-strong U.S.-led force backed by air support, U.S. military spokesman Lieutenant-Colonel Bryan Hilferty told a news briefing on Saturday. "We believe that this will help bring the heads of the terrorist organizations to justice by continuing to place pressure on them," he said. Asked whether the operation could lead to the arrest of al Qaeda leader bin Laden, Hilferty replied: "This operation is aimed like the rest at rebuilding and reconstructing and providing enduring security in Afghanistan, so it's certainly about more than one person. "We do have confidence though, and the leaders of al Qaeda and the leaders of the Taliban need to be brought to justice and they will be." Hilferty said "Mountain Storm" was a continuation of previous operations and was intended to "destroy terrorist organizations and their infrastructure." "We have air support, close-fire support from the air 24-hours a day, circling overhead ready to assist coalition forces. It is a continuing effort to keep pressure on the terrorist organizations and their infrastructure." The fresh campaign comes after a surge in militant attacks on aid workers and foreigners, as well as against Afghan and U.S.-led forces. U.S. defense officials in Washington on Friday said "Mountain Storm" as a broad spring offensive to hunt down al Qaeda fugitives, including bin Laden. The officials told Reuters it was timed to exploit improving weather in the region between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where bin Laden is believed to be. A Taliban spokesman said U.S. forces had launched offensive action from the Waza Khuwa region of Paktika province to the Yakubi region of neighboring Khost province. But he said the elusive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar, who headed its government that harbored the al Qaeda network, was safe. "Mullah Omar is in a very safe place. But we don't know about Osama bin Laden," Taliban official Abdul Latif Hakimi told Reuters by telephone. SECRET TASK FORCE U.S. officials said the secretive Task Force 121, a covert commando team of Special Operations troops and CIA (news - web sites) personnel involved in the capture of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in Iraq (news - web sites) in December, has relocated people and equipment to the border region to search for bin Laden and other al Qaeda and Taliban guerrillas. Pakistan has in recent weeks moved forces into the lawless tribal lands on its side of the Afghan border in the search for militants. Hilferty said the Pakistanis had done "a great job." Lieutenant-General David Barno, the top U.S. general in Afghanistan, said last month the United States and Pakistan were moving toward coordinated operations along the border -- "a hammer and anvil approach" -- to prevent fleeing guerrillas from escaping by crossing from one country to the other. Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan dismissed the suggestion Pakistan represented the "anvil" but said militants would not be able to cross the border. "We are doing the surveillance, we are carrying out regular patrolling to ensure that the border if effectively sealed off." In Pakistan's South Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan, tribal elders gave 24-hours to anyone harboring al Qaeda and other militants to surrender saying that if they failed to do so they would pursue them with a 600-man tribal militia. U.S.-led forces toppled the Taliban in late 2001, in an invasion launched in the wake of the September 11 attacks on U.S. cities, for which al Qaeda is blamed. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has declined to add his voice to predictions by some U.S. military officers in Afghanistan that bin Laden will be caught this year. "I'm not going to get into that," Rumsfeld told Reuters recently. "He's probably alive. And he's probably in Afghanistan or Pakistan. And we're probably going to catch him or kill him."
Too little too late! guess it's not so secret anymore I hope they get him, but the motivation seems to me a bit suspect. But you're right! It should have been done two years ago. gifford were born in 1967?
If we're relying on our Pakistani "allies" we may be waiting a long time. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/23/i...800&en=7d7222384bf3cd36&ei=5062&.. . . Developments in recent days indicate that Pakistan is finally willing to press its troops on the border to go after the foreigners, after two assassination attempts on President Pervez Musharraf by Islamic militants — but they also point out that it could have happened a lot sooner. The discovery of hundreds of foreign militants in South Waziristan, the focus of the current operation, also suggests that if there is a Qaeda stronghold where Mr. bin Laden is hiding, it may be there. But no concrete evidence has emerged to confirm Pakistani officials' suggestions that Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri, Al Qaeda's No. 2 leader, is trapped with the militants. It also appears that Pakistani troops sent to the fiercely independent tribal areas more than two years ago failed to find militants who might have been living on their doorstep. Pakistani officials say the current battle involves 400 to 500 militants who gathered in villages only 10 miles from a large military base in the town of Wana without Pakistani forces realizing it. "Yes, we must confess they were surprised," a Pakistani military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, said at a news conference on Monday, referring to the members of the raiding party that finally discovered the militants. "They had underestimated the strength of the miscreants there." Afghan and some American officials contend that Pakistani forces have simply not tried to find the militants, or in some cases overtly aided them. . . .
Hey if we capture Bin Laden, in Afghanistan or Pakistan then that will mean that we had to invade Iraq. I like when terrorusm official Clarke said the adminstration's logic is sort of like if Franklin Roosevelt had invaded Mexico after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor. Now I realize among neocns and Arab is an Arab is an Arab and why make distinctions. Hey is there still anyone who doesn't thing Iraq is a quagmire? I wish I could find the post by Treeman in which he said he would be against the Iraq War if we were still fighting one year later. I knew I should have saved it.
glynch -- to be fair, i'm certain that treeman meant combat operations. in addition...if vietnam = quagmire...than it does not necessarily follow that iraq = quagmire. the loss of life, american and otherwise, was staggeringly higher in the vietnam war.
A) Treeman's predictions were reasonably accurate about the timeframe for the initial invasion, but seriously lacking in almost all other respects, including post-invasion occupation, WMDs, 9-11 connections, et al that he said would be revealed by now. He said there would be a minor amount of resistance from Saddam's remaining men, but said that once they had petered out things would stabalize. He also said that the reistance to the US occupation wouldn't spread to non Sunni Iraqis. He did admit that if it did that would signal a disaster for us. B) Have you ever seen the casualty figures from the initial Nam years? Or Afghanistan? Take a look...they both start out pretty minor, with the invading superpower largley pretending to the role of liberators, and casualties are reasonably light compared with later.
i don't know treeman's predictions....but my point is simply that when he said the war would be over within a year, i'm certain he probably meant combat operations. but he should probably speak for himself on that. i don't think you can compare the early years of vietnam to this last year in iraq. we went in as advisors in the early years of the vietnam war...when went in with a full force offensive in the first year of iraq. no way those numbers will bear any rational relationship with one another. the major combat is over....lives continue to be lost, and that sucks...but i don't think we're going to see the piles and piles of bodybags over the dinner table as we did during the vietnam war, at this point.
I'll grant the differences with Nam, to a degree, although we'll have to agree to disagree on the effect of those differences. But the similarities to the USSR's invasion of Afghanistan are legion.
