US says Wikileaks could 'threaten national security'

Yes we should. Afgan is a huge waste of money. So is Iraq. I want to see what happens to both those countries when the US pulls out.

Afgan can not be conquered unless we want to go Genghis Khan on them.

 

We know what will happen. It will revert back to where it was in 2000. Do you really want that?

 

No, but Al Qaeda and the Taliban are 2 separate issues completely.

Al Qaeda we can keep in check by freezing their assets, attack them with special forces, and keep a good surveillance system on them. Right now a lot of those assets are tied up on the Taliban whose only concern is Afghanistan.

Our intelligence services had always known about those camps in Afghanistan, it just never saw it as much of a threat till 9/11. And I would think in a post 9/11 world it is almost impossible for Al Qaeda organize such a attack.

 

I could see the first part of your post, but absolutely disagree with the last sentence. We've been both good and lucky. I wouldn't discount AQ's ability to hurt us again. Having said that, with the top leaders dead, I'd be happy to declare victory, pull most of our people out, and leave it to intel and special forces. But not until the top leadership is dead. They ain't dead, yet.

 

But we are not fighting the warlords tho. What we have here is pure indifference when it comes to the Taliban, those warlords are only concerned with their individual power within their region, we have tried paying them already and so far they just took our money and carried on. To them the Taliban aren't a threat to their individual region.

Do I think we should just leave Afghanistan as is, no. That country is still important to the stability of the region, but not because of what could happen inside Afghanistan, but Pakistan. But I think we can control and clamp down on its influences internationally without getting mired in its domestic power struggles and waste valuable resources on keeping a incompetent government in power.

 

What I said was Al Qaeda can no longer organize and carryout an attack of the scale of 9/11. Will there still be attempted terrorist attacks? Yes, but those attacks are small in scale, and carried out by people who is incapable of carrying out for sophisticated more damaging attacks.

Right now the biggest threat is from domestic terrorists ( Ft Hood shooter, time square bomber, ect). But those needs to be solved through a better counter terrorism network, not with spending hundred billions on traditional military operations.

 

How can you make a statement like that without any basis at all? It is absurd, with all due respect. They couldn't do 9/11, either, until they did 9/11, for Christ's sake.

 

My basis is, reinforced cockpit doors, a much improved intelligence services, much stricter security screenings, more serious response to potential threats, a tighter background checking for potential terrorists, ect.

Is it perfect? No. Can it be improved more, absolutely. But I believe we have done a lot to prevent a terrorist attack on the scale of what happened on 9/11 from happening again. Why is that so absurd?

What is your basis?

 

I'll repeat the quote again:

"Al Qaeda can no longer organize and carryout an attack of the scale of 9/11."

You have no basis for making such a sweeping statement. Had you said that a similar attack would be very difficult post 9/11, I would said yes, it would be much more difficult, but that's not what you are saying.

 

how about you quit speculating randomly about Afghanistan and other things you have absolutely no special insight on and direct some of your powerful intellect on the topic at hand (wikileaks)

 

Not sure I really agree with that. Fundamentally, what the articles I have read tell me is that no one really knows what the **** we're doing over there anymore. All the reports of civilian death, either accidental or massacres (all without any form of accountability, mind you) are hardly surprising given the situation. And that situation is predicated on our lack of clear, definable, goals and objectives.

Give a whole lot of people guns and send them out into a hostile desert surrounded by folks who don't necessarily want them there. What could possibly go wrong?

 

And as I said a lot of what is coming out is corroborated by what we know already but at the same time we have to consider carefully the conditions these reports were written under. As noted most of this is raw reports in some cases written in the heat of battle and often as things are progressing things aren't always clear.

Consider that on 9/11 the major new services were reporting that hi jacked planes were on their way to LA and Chicago and that also that a truck bomb was in front of the State Department. Now if reports like that hadn't been widely reported and subsequently discredited if someone got hold of those now they could say that 9/11 was far more worse than what was reported considering this new info that has come to light. In fact we don't even need to set up a hypothetical considering there is a cottage industry based on that the WTC was brought down by explosives already based on unclear reports from the 9/11.

I agree overall that we have problems in Afghanistan but we have known that already which is why there has been a strategy change. At the moment though I wouldn't take these leaked reports automatically as painting a far more dire picture than what we know of already. Reports like these are called "raw" for a reason.

 

Another thing regarding this leaked material. I haven't seen these first hand and without going through them I can't say for sure this is the case but I think leaking battlefield reports like this is very irresponsible if it contains information regarding troop deployments, supply lines and other information that could aid the Taliban directly on the battlefield.

It is one thing to argue against the war and for withdrawl and another to provide tactical information to the enemy.

I can't say for sure this is the case with this link but Adrian Lamo, the hacker who turned in the soldier who leaked the documents, clearly felt that what Spc. Manning was leaking could put US troops in danger.

 

I'm for the continuation of the war and marked, phased withdrawals, if only because I don't like the idea of leaving messes (and the Taliban are genocidal sons of b****es)

But let this be yet another lesson that war solves no one's problem and isn't to be trifled with.

Ironic how relatively well off Vietnam is doing now isn't it? Too bad you can't say the same thing about Cambodia, the same nation the United States bombed half to hell to stop the spread of Vietnamese "madness". Oh well.

 

And many times not as well. There are several clear cases of murder without even a modicum of punishment, accountability, or effort to resolve/correct.

Comparisons to much of the failing in Vietnam are more and more accurate, as the truth seeps out.

 

I fully agree but at the same time the nature of these reports still warrants caution. These reports are compelling but I think they need far more context to determine how damning, or redeeming they are.

There are certainly some apt comparisons to Vietnam but I think the big difference is whether we are willing to learn the lesson of Vietnam and change our strategy. With the latest plan developed to place a priority on protecting civilians it seems like we are. How successful though that will be I don't know.

 

Well put and I will add that getting out of a war is often as dangerous as getting into one. I don't think a precipitous withdrawl from Afghanistan will help anyone, outside of the Taliban, AQ and the ISI, either.

 

Not sure if this is discussed already, but: http://www.cnn.com/2010/TECH/web/07/27/afghanistan.wikilinks.drones/index.html?hpt=C2

Could we be funding the IED's that we run into all over the place with crashed drones? Why are drones with maintenance issues even leaving the base?

 

Adrian Lamo is the worst type of trash. He's an attention seeker who ruined someone's life for another 15 minutes of fame.

http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/glenn_greenwald/2010/06/18/wikileaks

 

Because there is nothing surprising in the wikileaks documents.

War is an ugly affair, and this one is especially so considering the split alliances. We can't look at Pakistan as this monolithic homogeneous entity. There are different groups vying for different goals.

I think the pentagon is not equiped for this kind of warfare - one in which there is not just an armed enemy, but a political one as well. The U.S. has to use diplomacy more effectively to win this war. They have to tilt the upper hand to the Pakistanis who want to not only defeat the Taliban, but the more extremist elements in their own country.


The Afgan war is not about conquest, morality, nor democracy. It's about modernity - about bringing parts of this world into what Bush I described as a new world order. But it's not really new, it's kinda what happened after world war two - the nation-state post-industrial world.

Before it didn't matter to us, until we realized that our enemies can use lawless lands as safe havens.

I agree conquering Afganistan means nothing. But what we need to do is find a way to empower our allies there to fend for themselves and prevent the country for falling into anarchy or worse - into the hands of the Taliban.

And I'm not talking about Taliban warlords who give little care to blowing up all things infidel, I'm talking about the extremists - the ones willing to tear down buddhist historical statues and kill young men in soccor fields during half-time.

You let these people get into power, and we have failed humanity and all that we stand for. This isn't like vietnam. This is world war 3. It's akin to throwing in the towel against Japan becuase it was getting too tough.

9/11 was our Pearl Harbor. Our goal isn't to defeat the Taliban or crush extremism, it's to give the side that supports being part of the rest of the world's future a fighting chance. IT's about preventing the extremists of the extremist from being able to take root.

These wikileaks stuff is nothing. It's a joke - it's everything everyone should have already known. But it's dangerous - because it makes it appear that we are fighting for nothing.

And that's the furthest thing from the truth.