It worked fine until one important man decided to take a vacation instead of dealing with the intelligence of a forthcoming attack.
Not true at all. Russia's caucasian campaigns date back to the early 19th century. Iman Shamyl led a long guerilla rebellion in Chechnya in mid 19th C. (see this somewhat biased, though I believe accurate as far as people & dates go, article on that: http://www.naqshbandi.net/haqqani/Sufi/NaqshSufiWay/Imam_Shamil.html - note, it claims half a million Russian casualties in the rebellion but I'm sure that estimate is off by a few orders of magnitude, though it was still a lot) The Bolsheviks reconquered it again in 1921 after another invasion. Then after WWII, Stalin decided the Chechens, collectively, were Nazi collaborators and herded over half a million of them onto trains to Siberia for mass deportation - which was a lazy man's way of committing genocide. http://www.qantara.de/webcom/show_article.php/_c-476/_nr-89/_p-1/i.html http://slate.msn.com/id/2106287/ I'd say that's a lot more than just "a little ethnic strife" A famous cliche about the Soviet Union, while it still existed, that historians often used was that it was "a prisonhouse of nationalities". The trans-caucasus region is still that way. EDIT: I looked it up, it turns out that, though professors & such used that term, it was actually Lenin who first said that about Tzarist Russia, ironically enough.
Strange. You speak as if the world prefers an occasional slaughter of innocents instead of diplomacy. I guess you think that if you gave the president a choice and said, "Mr. President would you prefer to have many hundreds of civillians die in an explosion, or would prefer to solve problems diplomatically?".. that he'd choose the attack? Cut back on the crack, man. All those hostages and beheadings in Iraq.... think about what the terrorists said. They said things like "withdraw from here or there and release these political prisoners, or we'll cut this guy's head off." That, right there, is the precise moment when a man crosses the line from finding a diplomatic solution to violence. At that point, diplomacy is gone, and the gloves are off. Politically and diplomatically, the terrorists aren't getting their way. So they kill children. They take hostages and cut their heads off. There is no diplomatic way to deal with such animals. There is only force. And if such actions being them success, then every organization in the world will start taking hostages and cutting off heads in order to get their way. And do we really want to give such heartless people more power? -- droxford
Originally posted by GreenVegan76 Excellent question. Diplomacy, strong international relations, exceptional intelligence and global cooperation seemed to work pretty well over the last 30 years. So this would actually stop Osama from trying to kill Americans? **************** Well we did help create Osama by training him and his men to fight the Russians. So the slum dwellers of Sadr's Mehdi Army would be killing American soldiers if Bush didn't invade Iraq? This is so much like the drug war. Scare the folks into not thinking straight about a real problem and then pursue stupid policies that aren't effective.
Like I said Vegan you feel safer doing what you think is right. I feel safer taking the war to them. Again i don't know if anyone can prove either us are right/wrong but I feel safer when our tropps are chasing the terrorists rather than just counter punching when we are attacked.
4chuckie, The problem is that it should not be the army that is doing the chasing but rather a multi national hit squad. This should be a joint covert operation with all nations involved. There is no battlefield...... DD
How are they different? and what are the implications of those differences? Is force just potential strength? Or is it more complicated than that?
I disagree on Afghanistan. The Taliban were an active partner in providing al-Qaeda bases and freedom to operate in that country with impunity. They asked for what they recieved, and I'm glad they got it. If anything, I'm disappointed that we didn't use more force in Afghanistan and didn't put enough troops on the ground there to put paid to both the Taliban and al-Qaeda. And I'm angry that Bush chose to invade and occupy Iraq with unfinished business in Afghanistan. He took intelligence resources away from that fight to tackle Iraq. And he stretched our troops to the breaking point by invading Iraq. And he has spent billions, with billions more to come, on Iraq when we have Afghanistan not getting nearly as much from us as was promised and needed. Bush did most of what he should have in Afghanistan, and then made his disastrous decision to invade and occupy Iraq. So, in my opinion, GV, you are right on one country, and very wrong on the other.
Funding, training, planning. Only one of these. I don't know why you are lumping Afghanistan in with Iraq GreenVegan. The Taliban have aided protected Osama for a long time and wouldn't give him up after 9/11. If we weren't in Iraq, I think Afghanistan would be in much better shape than it is now.
So much to respond to...please look for your quote so I don't double post. Of course TV news reports over the weekend stated that amongst the hostage takers were a few of Middle Eastern descent. Whether we like it or not, we have to be willing to accept that their bretheren, al-Qaeda, were likely involved in the training if nothing else. Yep. If we can beat them at chess and the academic decathlon, they'll stop blowing things up. I have heard a lot of good reasons for altering our policies, but this is just stupid. Apparently not. Whether you like it or not, you have to understand that these guys aren't jumpers on a bridge that you can talk down. It is not really possible to reason with a fanatic who believes they are waging a holy war. Nice dig, but irrelevant. His "vacation" did not cause the attack. Perhaps we could have done something about it, but it isn't the failure in policy to curtail acts of terrorism that you so desparately crave. The issue at hand is not what we do with information...it is how to extinguish the attempts altogether. So this somehow gives him a free pass? If the Marines taught a guy how to shoot a rifle, should we then claim that it is our fault when he climbs to the top of the tower at UT and starts picking people off? How are you 100% sure they wouldn't? Bingo.
So if he would have created the Terror Alert System and issued a Terror Warning preventing 9/11...what then? All you'd hear is how he created it to distract attention from his domestic policies or some other issue. It's a no win situation even now. If the terror alert prevents something from happening, the public never knows and it seems like paranoia.
Sometimes you have to look further than TV News reports. The instances of foreign fighters apparently of middle eastern origin amongst the Chechens is not a new phenomenon. Many have theorized that these individuals are ethnic chechens who fled during Stalin's mass deportation & exile of the entire chechen populace during the 1940's who migrated to middle eastern countries. It is not entirely known at this time who these individuals were, or are in this instance. Second, the idea of Al Qaeda "training" the Chechens is like your local high school football coach "training" the New England patriots. They are amateur hour compared to the Chechens.
That is a win win situation for the PUBLIC, we would be 3000 (in the attacks) + 1000 (soldiers) stronger right now. We wouldn't be involved in 2 wars, and best of all, 2 of our towers would still be standing. How does the public lose at all in any of this.
I don't understand this statement, and I'm sure you won't understand mine also. I say give the women and children 48 hours to relocate from the middle east, if they can't do this in time, then I say too bad so sad your **** out of luck. It's time to put the hammer down on these unwavering a$$wipes. I'am sick and tired of this $hit.
What is the middle road between waging endless global war and giving the terrorists a bug hug and bowing to their demands? Waging war against terrorist organizations is nothing like waging war in the traditional sense. You don't have a single country with borders and the bad bad leader holed up in the headquarters, and then you kill the leader and defeat the enemy army and viola, it's over. It's not a video game. Terrorist organizations are defined by their ideology, not by the borders of any nation they stay in. They don't have any particular leader that you can just kill, and then they're defeated. Look how many major enemy leaders Israel has killed/assassinated over the years. At best, it slows them down, but they swear revenge and eventually they get it. When we finally do capture or kill Bin Laden (I pray that we do), terrorist activity will only increase, decrease. The past century has seen tons of geurilla/terrorist insurgencies in nations all over the world, on every continent. You have some group of guys who believe fanatically in an idea and are willing to fight and kill and murder and die for it. You have some nation that is much bigger and much better armed, which is why the terrorists use the tactics that they do; it's all that will work with the resources they've got. The bigger, better armed army does everything it can to hunt them all down and kill them and crush them- rewarding informants, torture, killing all their family members, extermination of entire regions of the country, etc. But these tactics only fan the flames of the ideology that fuels the nutcases. It romanticizes it, it only increases the 'glory' of the 'warriors' carrying out the battle against unbeatable odds. Each death only leaves behind other friends and brothers and fathers and children who swear revenge. Look at the hard-line tactics of Israel vs. Palestine and Russia vs. Chechnya. Targeted killings. Massive incursions into enemy terrotory with far superior firepower- tanks, helicopters, missles. Endless security checkpoints. Thousands and thousands and thousands of arrests and killings. How successful have they been? If you judge success by how safe their country is, they haven't been successful. There have been times over the last year where Israel might have one or maybe even two consecutive months without a suicide bomb killing innocents. If that is success, if that's safety, then thanks but no thanks. I'm going to be redundant and repeat myself: no matter how hard-line a stance you take, no matter how far you go to exterminate your enemies, no matter how creative and nasty your tactics are, you will never extinguish the ideology that fuels the bloodlust of these guys, always bringing more and more to the cause. The case could be made that the more cruel and harsh tactics you take, the more people flock to their cause. History has borne this out again and again and again. And we have plenty of examples of it right now. So how can we ever possibly defeat the terrorists? How can we ever win the war? Peace. Our president was right last week when he said this war could never really be won in the traditional sense of the word. Of course Kerry jumped on that, and Bush had to rescind it the next day, but he was right. At last he's showing a little wisdom on the issue. Rumsfeld, to, not long ago in a briefing at the white house was admitting that this cannot be won with military force alone. We must win hearts and minds. Look, let's get to the heart of this, and it's not pretty. Terrorism works. It's effective. It's an excellent method for a group to wage war and make demands on an enemy that is far bigger, greater, and better armed. Let's face another fact: terrorism and terrorist groups can't be defeated in any traditional sense of warfare. You can't have our two opposing armies meet in some great battlefield to decide victory once and for all. Look, what do these guys want? Not just Al-Queda, but most Muslim terrorist groups? Most of them want Israel extinguished. That's reson number one why America is hated over there: support for Israel. Negotiating peace in Israel/Palestine is the number one thing America can do to stem the tide of terrorism and anti-Amrican hatred in the middle east. The number two thing we can do is stop f*cking around in the political affairs of middle eastern nations so that we get a steady flow of oil. Becoming self-reliant for our own energy needs would be a good start, for instance. Why this is overlooked and isn't the single most talked about issue regarding terrorism, I don't know. The fact is, like it or not, Russia, India, Israel, all these nations- if they really want lasting peace, they'll have to negotiate and make concessions. That DOESNT MEAN you bend over and say "I'm sorry, here, take whatever you want." You maintain a strong military campaign, carry a big stick, and when you come to the negotiating table, you can offer some concessions for peace- or continued death and warfare. Each side decides how much they're willing to give up, for how much they want. And how badly they and their families want peace. That's the only way these things will be won. You may not like it, but if you want to deny it, fine, keep your head in the sand.
Sam, this tangent is probably not pertinent to the thread at all anymore, but since Soviet history was my fixation during college, I just can't resist. 1. I'll concede the tsarist wars in the Caucauses of the 19th century. At that time, the region was in no way Russian, and the Empire was in an expansionist period. 2. The reconquest in 1921 did not have ethnic strife as a major factor at all. The south was one of the strongholds for the tsarist Whites. It was a good base of support because it was more conservative and intolerant of Communists. They also produced many and the best of the tsar's cavalry (the Cossacks) who were loyal to the Tsar. The Whites were also forced to the peripheries in the south and east simply because the Reds controlled the cities in the heart of Russia. What the Reds ultimately defeated were not Caucasian seperatists but tsarist reactionaries who fought hard to return the monarchy to Russia. I wrote a long term paper on just this subject; unfortunately, I don't have a computer copy anymore. 3. Stalin's relocation programs were carried out there and many other parts of the USSR to break ethnic unity. However, his main objective here was to break the resistance to Collectivization (and, to a lesser extent, dekulakization) of agriculture. During the early Soviet period, ethnic-national sentiment was somewhat low, but was strong enough to unit people who were under severe oppression. 4. Since you referred me an article, I'll refer you a book written by my professor (it's actually pretty short so you could read it quickly). It's called Revenge of the Past: Nationalism, Revolution, and the Collapse of the Soviet Union by Ronald Suny. His thesis is that the USSR's network of republics created by Stalin ultimately led to the development of nationalist sentiment that tore the empire to pieces in the 1990s. But, in his argument, he describes how these ethnic divisions were actually very weak in the beginning and were (ironically) strengthened by the way Stalin chose to dole out power.
