Five years later: what's the answer?
 

Originally posted by Elok
What should we have done... Not widened the issue by declaring war on a tactic and settled for destroying al-Qaeda and capturing/killing thier members.

http://www.fahad.com/pics/ny_new_wtc.jpg

Spec.

Well if you insist on declaring war on a tactic, Elok. How do you propose we deal with the world's leader in suicide bombing, the Tamil Tigers?

Okay then, why do these particular poor and oppressed people become suicide bombers? Are OBL and company just really, really persuasive speakers, or do the people in question have a high Evilness ratio in their personality, or what? Or do they "hate our freedom?" I thought one of the first rules of war was to know your enemy, and that includes your enemy's motivations.

And the Tamil Tigers, AFAIK, have little to do with the conflict between the western world and fundie Islamists. They are the result of a totally different neverending and pointless conflict, found in the Indian subcontinent (I think; I don't know the details because all I've heard about them are in Aneeshm's Hindu Culturegasm threads). Just because I don't think the conflict is restricted to al-Qaeda itself (there's also Hezbollah, the PLA or whatever acronym is in charge of harrassing Israel from that particular direction, etc.), doesn't mean I want to declare a "War on Terror" and take on the Tigers, the IRA, and every other group of nuts that conducts assassinations and bombings to prove a point.

No matter how big and phallic we make our towers, it won't solve the problem of our insecurity. We here in America have to come to terms with the fact that we have an erectile dysfunction. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...es/doitnow.gif

42

Originally posted by Kidicious
Ever here of Viagra? And how is building taller buildings being insecure? It shows that we are secure in our confidence that we will always have tall buildings. It was a compound pun:

Security in the sense of national security and sexual insecurity, and
Erectile in the sense of genitals and buildings.

Maybe you already got it and I wasn't getting your reaction, but I just thought I'd make sure it was clear.

Has anyone watched Syriana?

JM

Wow. Total agreement with DinoDoc. Simply put, straight to the point, and correct, IMO.

-Arrian

Originally posted by DinoDoc
Not widened the issue by declaring war on a tactic and settled for destroying al-Qaeda and capturing/killing thier members. QFT http://www.discussworldissues.com/im...ons/icon14.gif

It wasn't mindless entertainment like so many are..

It took me a bit to decide that I liked it.

The same is true for some good comedies. Hoodwinked was that way, as was Napolean Dynamite.

JM

Who's to say that AQ hasn't already largely been rolled up?

Originally posted by Whoha

There are plenty of poor oppressed people in the world who don't suicide bomb anyone. I suspect most of them don't come from oil-rich countries that can subsidize terrorism.

And who's basically controlling southern Afghanistan? Basque seperatists?

Originally posted by Whoha
The 9/11 hijackers were neither poor nor oppressed, and generally poor and oppressed people don't have the wealth needed to make an effective threat to us.

There are enough people that buy into the death to the infidels spiel that they've been hearing their entire life in schools,mosques, and what have you. I believe you're the one who brought the words "poor and oppressed" into this argument. I just went along. Anyway, plenty of the suicide bombers who annoy Israel on occasion aren't dripping cash.

And by "social, political, economic," etc., I wasn't just referring to the bombers themselves. They can recruit plenty of cheap manpower from poorer neighborhoods, and they do a terrific job of hiding there too. It worked in Lebanon recently. They can get money from elsewhere and play this same game for a good while.

And STFU, Drose. If we keep calling them Basque separatists we might be able to sucker Spain into sending troops again. You're compromising national interests.

Originally posted by notyoueither
Surprised? The body count mounts. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/09/07/ap/world/mainD8K041Q80.shtml

Originally posted by DinoDoc
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2006/...8K041Q80.shtml Jimminy cricket!

What kind of reporting are you relying on?

The majority of losses have been to an aircrash and US 'freindly' fire.

If we didn't have your trigger happy fly boys to contentd with, we'd be a hundred miles ahead on the ground. http://www.discussworldissues.com/fo...ies/tongue.gif

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5334082.stm
Nato claims more Taleban losses

Correspondents say the fighting is the heaviest since Nato's formation
Nato officials in Afghanistan say that air and artillery strikes have killed a further 92 Taleban fighters in Kandahar province on Sunday.
The reported casualties are in addition to 94 Taleban fighters which Nato says were killed earlier over the week-end in the Operation Medusa offensive.

There has been no independent verification of the Nato figures.

The reports come five years after the 9/11 attacks in the US that resulted in the US-led invasion of Afghanistan.

The latest violence coincides with the death on Sunday of the governor of eastern Afghanistan's Paktia province by a suicide bomber.

Abdul Hakim Taniwal was the highest-ranking official to die in the insurgency.

The academic - who campaigned against Afghan gun culture - was killed outside his office. The Taleban said it was responsible.

Counterattack

The BBC's Damian Grammaticus has visited the frontline of the latest clashes and says that Nato forces are engaged in the biggest battle sine the US invasion of Afghanistan.

Our correspondent says that five years after the World Trade Centre attack, the Taleban have had time to regroup in the huge Panwaj dessert in the south.

It is an area with perfect defensive positions, criss-crossed by drainage ditches and low mud walls.

Nato says the Taleban sustained its most recent casualties when insurgents staged a counterattack in Kandahar province on Sunday.

Mr Taniwal was an academic with Australian citizenship

It says that the insurgents were killed in Zari and Panjwai districts of the southern province of Kandahar.

"Further analysis of yesterday's battle damage assessment reports that 92 insurgents were killed. This figure is separate from the 94 insurgents killed in the other incident earlier Sunday," a Nato spokesman said.

But there has been no independent confirmation of the number of Taleban casualties as a result Operation Medusa, which began on 2 September and which Nato says has now killed over 500 insurgents.

The Taleban have disputed the high figures and said the alliance should display bodies as proof. Reports from Canucks mention a deathly stench in captured positions, but few bodies, and that they are now marching through formally enemy held positions.

I wonder what's happening?

Originally posted by Jon Miller
Has anyone watched Syriana?

JM A snooze fest with nothing to say. If they wanted to say something meaningful they should have depicted real events. But no real events conformed to their idea, so they made up some sh!t. The point ended up being, wouldn't this have been bad if it had happened? Yea, and so what. It didn't.

Originally posted by notyoueither
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/5334082.stm

Reports from Canucks mention a deathly stench in captured positions, but few bodies, and that they are now marching through formally enemy held positions.

I wonder what's happening? Where are these reports from Canucks coming from?