"We do know Islamic fundamentalist terrorists don’t like the West’s influence and believe all infidels need killing. A group of them with connections managed to cross the Atlantic to deliver that message in person, leaving behind a much larger group of people with identical beliefs who couldn’t make the trip. After they attacked us, America went to war against the extremists in their backyard. Is it not reasonable to believe that increases in the number of terrorists seen ‘over there’ stems, not from disgruntled moderates, but rather from extremists left behind by the original attackers and who now have easier access to killing Americans?"What this made me think of, however, was a Liberal penchant for straw men. Effective control of the MSM, coupled with the "softer"/appealing position on most issues, enables Liberals to argue on their terms.
Hello world!
7 years ago
5 comments:
The quoted statement is absurd. A year and a half after 9/11, UN weapons inspectors roamed Iraq unarmed and unharmed. Where were those “terrorists left behind” for almost two years after 9/11? A year after the invasion, Americans were being beheaded and terrorist attacks have been escalating ever since.
Two assessments, titled “Principal Challenges in Post-Saddam Iraq” and “Regional Consequences of Regime Change in Iraq,” were produced by the National Intelligence Council as a major part of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence’s Phase II report on Iraq prewar intelligence assessments. These assessments were delivered to the White House before the war started.
The report warns that there was a significant chance that domestic groups would fight each other and that ex-regime military elements could merge with terrorist groups to battle any new government.
The second NIC assessment also discussed “political Islam being boosted and the war being exploited by terrorists and extremists elsewhere in the region”. It also suggested that fear of U.S. military dominance and occupation of a Middle East country — one sacred to Islam — would attract foreign Islamic fighters to the area.
A CIA report echoes this. Dated 8/13/02, it was titled, ‘The Perfect Storm: Planning for the Negative Consequences of Invading Iraq.’ It warned of “a surge of terrorism against US interests fueled by (militant) Islamism”
Since these predictions have clearly come to fruition, is it your authoritarian mission to absolve the Bush Administration from culpability in creating this situation - creating more terrorists and more disdain worldwide for the US? If so, your case is pathetically weak and not congruent with expert intelligence and polls.
A Harris research poll shows that our own European allies see the US as the most dangerous country in the world, ahead of China, Iran, Iraq and N Korea. If our allies opinions of America have changed so much since the invasion, just imagine how well America's reputation has suffered in the Arab world.
Thanks for the hat tip and link!.
William posted this same comment over at Blue Collar Muse and I thought to direct anyone wondering about my response to the comments section of my post.
Blessings,
BCM
Gee, what did Bill Clinton ever do to deserve Jihadists' wrath? But we just need to leave them alone, right William?
And the opinion of our intelligence community is irrefutable and ironclad for sure, (especially a raft of opinions coming out of the Democrat controlled Senate) . . . but I wonder why more Democrats didn't oppose the war . . . hmmmm?
"Authoritarian cultist"? Naahh, I just don't think Bush is evil for making the decision to fight Jihadists over there. I would posit that 9/11 is the fruit of an appeasement foreign policy . . . stupid? yes. Evil? no.
This is for "Blue collar muse" who deleted this reply to his comment-
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1) Military and diplomatic analysts say Bush exaggerates the threat that enemy forces in Iraq pose to the U.S. mainland. With 11 million illegals coming in on Bush's watch, if there was a terrorist threat from Iraq, what exactly is keeping them out? Surely not our border security.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/whitehouse/story/15934.html
2) Things are so dire in Iraq that 90% of Iraqi poll respondents says things were better under Saddam than they are now. 90%!! No ambiguity there.
http://www.angus-reid.com/polls/index.cfm/fuseaction/viewItem/itemID/14282
3) Colin Powell begged Bush not to invade. Said to him, "you break it, you own it." Powell said he walked Bush through the risks of becoming an occupying force in an Arab country. Powell said, "The sectarian violence in Iraq has escalated to the point of civil war, and one that US forces cannot resolve."
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article2042072.ece
The point is that Bush's Iraq policy allowed terrorism to flourish in Iraq. Bush has clearly lost control of Iraq. This has resulted in a holocaust far in excess of Saddam's evils. It is estimated that well over a half million Iraqis have been killed, 30,000 US have been maimed or killed, 4.2 million Iraqis have been displaced and rendered as homeless refugees. It took 24 years for Saddam to kill as many as have been killed in the 4 years since Bush lost control of Iraq.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/UNHCR/3600c843dbc8bc1408ddae9d73dd8cf2.htm
http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/10/11/iraq.deaths/
4) March 7, 2003 - In the final report from the UN weapons inspectors, chief weapons inspector, Hans Blix, reported to the Security Council that Iraq had accelerated its cooperation but that inspectors needed more time to verify the country's compliance. Hans Blix wrote: "It is obvious that, while the numerous initiatives, which are now taken by the Iraqi side with a view to resolving some long-standing open disarmament issues, can be seen as 'active', or even 'proactive.'"
On the same day, the head of the IAEA, Mohamed ElBaradei, reported that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein had any nuclear weapons or was in the process of acquiring them. The US invaded anyway.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2003/06/05/blix_report030605.html
There are numerous well publicized reports of how the 'facts were fixed around the policy' and if you don't think Bush was hell-bent on invading Iraq no matter what, you apparently are in denial. But that is a common facet of this administration.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15075326/site/newsweek/
(1)So can we count you in favor of doing whatever it take to secure America's border?
In any event, I think it is clear that the Administration's strategy for making America safe (a) is based more on intelligence and less on walls,and (b) has worked pretty effectively.
(2)I've said this somewhere else recently, but this war is not as much about Iraqis as it is about Americans.
(3)Powell was probably right; the Iraqis will need to secure representative gov't and stability. And they surely won't be able to do it without outside military assistance. Also, see reply under (2).
(4)Bush plainly wanted to invade Iraq, because he felt like it was the next step in the GWOT . . . it was unfinished business and couldn't be allowed to abscess. And the Middle East was never going to stabilize or stop being a threat if we didn't take the fight to our enemy and--ideally, help establish another democracy there. Wrong? Maybe. Evil or malevolent or greedy? Naaah.
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