Thank you!

Even if they could win a temporary victory it might be enough to do some historic damage or some historic blackmail.

Because the Soviet empire fell, Bill Clinton decided it was time to party.

I agree completely bear, and I usually agree with you. But this time I can’t see siding with Musharraf ‘at all costs’ like you seem to want to.

If Musharraf wasn’t doing anything wrong, he would not have needed to censor the media. He censored ALL media except the media he controlled.

OK, you say well maybe he has to do important things and extreme things in order to put down the Islamic rebellion. (Of course I say it’s too late now and he should have gotten extreme last year in the NW provinces where he capitulated). BUT WHY did he feel the need to limit the media?

What purpose does that cause? If they are beating the Taliban and AQ, wouldn’t that be news he would WANT the world (especially the US) to hear? Censoring the press has nothing to do with ‘emergency’ or ‘overthrow of his powers’. Censoring the press is dictatorial meaning he is doing what he wants and he doesn’t want anyone to know what he is doing.

The Indians have shown great restraint in dealing with Pakistan. They have about 200 million muslims in India so siding with them is not a ‘war against Islam’. The Indian government showed AMAZING restraint when their parliament got bombed several years ago by Pakistani nationals. They did nothing because the US asked them to ’show restraint’.

It would be like someone detonating a bomb in DC in the Capital and Russia saying ’show restraint’ and the US does nothing. That was a significant moment and the Indians showed themselves to be trustworthy.

I don’t think we need to be in alliance with Pakistan. I just don’t see the benefit. If Islamists get control, is it worse that we are their ‘friends’ or their ‘enemies’? About 15% of Pakistanis like America so we wouldn’t be ‘losing support’ if we were to switch alliances.

Not only would we not lose support, but we would gain the support of a HUGE military with nuclear weapons in the subcontinent to do our bidding against the Islamists. The Indians hate the Islamists more that the Americans do. . . and CERTAINLY more than the Pakistanis do.

If we are going to fix the situation in Pakistan it is going to have to be through a change in course there. India would be a natural ally. Pakistan would be a natural enemy in the mold of Iran.

We should stop giving Pakistan money and concentrate on our relationship with India for the future. Pakistan is NOT a threat to the USA. They are NOT a threat to Israel because they need their defense to ward off an offensive from India.

Musharraf is a nothing who only cares about his own power. We don’t need to back him anymore. He made his own bed.

“One bright day in the middle of the night,
Two dead men got up to fight,
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other.”

“A deaf policeman heard the noise,
And shot both of those dead boys.
And if you don’t believe this lie is true,
Just ask the blind man, he saw it too.”

I find it hard to believe that keeping Afghanistan from the Soviets weakened them enough to justify the dominance of Bin Laden.

Granite, are you suggesting that the possibly of the Soviets becoming more powerful with the aquistition on Afghanistan is LESS of a threat than Al Qaida has become?

Al Qaeda became a force after Afghanistan. And it is specious to say that the result of us supporting the defeat of the Soviet in Afghanistan was “Al Qaeda” in its 9/11 potency.

The ten years of war in Afghanistan weakened the Soviet military and contributed to the collapse of the Soviet empire.

That was part of American geopolitical strategy under Breshinski/Carter. Nominal research on your part, mpChops, will reveal that.

As far as it making al Qaeda powerful, it was a drop in the bucket. It seasoned Bin Laden as a force among his terrorist peers in the Arab/Afghan world.

It put him in the supra-national security circuit as an asset who went rogue. And in a certain sense gave him street cred.

But al Qaeda didn’t emerge from the Soviet war in Afghanistan fully formed.

The Clinton years did a lot to nurture it onto its steroidal manifestations up to 9/11 and a little beyond.

Because the Soviet empire fell, Bill Clinton decided it was time to party.

Shame on Bill. On his watch, Al Qaeda became bolder and received more funding to the point of metastisizing out of control.

Did the war in Afghanistan create al Qaeda as the threat we have crushed in Iraq?

The better question is “To what extent did the Soviet war in Afghanistan contribute to the creation, formation, and inception of Al Qaeda as geopolitical player on the world stage?”

I agree with #133.
Good post!

I am also out.

But the point I am trying to emphasize is “What cost?” is this occuring. Are we, in fact, setting up the next Saddam regime. A regime that actually does have nuclear weapons. That’s a HUGE mess to clean up, given our inability to clean up our other messes.

I feel that we simply do not have the luxary of worrying about these things later.

There are two costs to consider: the direct cost of US lives, materiele, and
capital; and, the opportunity cost of not having the resources spent on the other cost to do something different.

Having said that, smashing al Qaeda in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan has had a cost attached to the following benefits in our favor

1) it has embroiled AQ in Iraq (their own little vietnam, not ours);

2) we have established a permanent base presence on the Asian subcontinent (a first);

3) we have strengthened our control of the Indian Ocean sea lanes (which indirectly controls China);

4) we have helped Iraq produce more oil than it ever did under Saddam;

5) we have intimidated Iran to the point that it has to import its gasoline;

6) we have set the stage for the Sunni and Shi’a in the region to bloodlet against each other while eliminating the proxy force (Al Qaeda);

7) we have forced both hands of Iran and Syria to reveal themselves as the major mischief makers in the region, leaving them to make the next move– which, if the Israel/US bombing of the Syrian nuke facility is any indication, they have both underestimated the resolve of the Joint Chiefs under Bush’s command to respond militarily.

I reject the notion of any “cost” being assigned to “our standing in the world” because the only people who speak of that are Europhiles who believe Europeans are intelligent about world affairs, despite their record of ethnic cleansing, fighting wars they cannot finish, and cleaving their colonial relationships with African and Asian nations to leave them to fight each other.

Then there is the matter of the $4 trillion payday from Caspian Oil fields.

The US is in a position to run the table in the Middle East, plus wipe out Hamas and Hezbollah. The military is ready to do the necessary killing and alliance building to get it done.

To whom will the nation listen: Code Stink or The Commander In Chief under advice of the new CENTCOM commander?

My money rides on the latter because the people with property and capital invested from this country are on board.
They aren’t currency focused surrender monkies like Soros. They make stuff and bring stuff out of the ground. That is what this war is about.

The key is ROI vs. risk. IslamoFascism is ill equipped to sustain a war of attrition. They resemble the Confederacy in that way. Our strategy then like now is simple: turn the war into a mathematical equation by forcing the enemy to fight on ground of our choosing.

A river of blood? For us, so far, no.
No one has addressed that. As far as dollar cost? Chicken feed compared to the spoils.

Out.

Uhhhh….

Is this an update of (paraphrase), “The Russians aren’t a threat; the cold war is as much, maybe more, our fault as it is theirs” that we used to hear back in the 60s through the 80s?

And, would that the rest of us were able to foresee exactly the consequences of each choice in each particular, necessary decision that has to be made at each particular juncture in history;

…and that we had the luxury of being allowed to foresee them in hindsight!

Yep. I know – foreseeing with the crutch of hindsight makes about as much sense as the ditty:

“One bright day in the middle of the night,
Two dead men got up to fight,
Back to back they faced each other,
Drew their swords and shot each other.”

(I think there may be additional verses, but I don’t remember if my mother [English teacher] would recite them ~40-45 years ago.
They are likely findable on Google.)

Preview’s working now.
Thanks!

Al Qaida may be being reduced to irrelevant. I support that 100%. But the point I am trying to emphasize is “What cost?” is this occuring. Are we, in fact, setting up the next Saddam regime. A regime that actually does have nuclear weapons. That’s a HUGE mess to clean up, given our inability to clean up our other messes.

I feel that we simply do not have the luxary of worrying about these things later.

Keep your commands to yourself.

Fair enough Beark, i guess i was being a bit, er, tyrannical…

just was trying to make the point that that a “tyrant” can be anybody that lords it over someone else, by def. not necessarily a leader of a country, i think the Dahmer analogy is apt… anyway, it’s no biggie and i don’t want to distract from the seriousness of this thread…

on that note, I haven’t heard much of a peep out of any news story I’ve seen about how India is responding to the situation… seems like that is a key element of the story…

Granite, are you suggesting that the possibly of the Soviets becoming more powerful with the aquistition on Afghanistan is LESS of a threat than Al Qaida has become?

I completely disagree!

Firstly, unless we come to a consensus that our actions to thwart the Soviet Union empowered what is now known to be Al Qaida, as tired a mantra as it may be, there really can be no debate about this. The starting points will just be way too far.