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Ten years on in the war on terror: where do we stand?

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  • Ten years on in the war on terror: where do we stand?

    Britain has travelled steadily towards the edge of the cliff
    in the years since 9/11

    The tenth anniversary of 9/11 has been marked by a fresh outbreak in Britain of the political equivalent of auto-immune disease: treating the mortal enemies of the west as the victims of the west, while treating the west’s defenders as its mortal enemies.

    One thing al Qaeda got right about Britain and Europe (but not about the patriotic heartlands of the US) was that they no longer had the will to fight and die for their beliefs because they no longer knew what they were.

    Surely, however, even al Qaeda could not have envisaged quite how stunningly incapable the western intelligentsia and political class would be of grasping the difference between civilisation and its would-be destroyers, and how comprehensively they would therefore play into the Islamists’ hands – even now, ten years on.
    For the chattering classes seem determined to give al Qaeda a helping hand in reducing the west to a state of paralysis and impotence. According to liberal opinion, every single thing America did after 9/11 was wrong.
    Solemn: Prince Charles and the Duchess of Cornwall, Prime Minister David Cameron, Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg and London Mayor Boris Johnson pay their respects on the tenth anniversary of 9/11
    The strategy of pre-emptive war was wrong. Better, apparently, that Saddam should still be in power developing his nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programmes! Better that the Taliban were still in power training al Qaeda! Then we would all be so much safer!

    So the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were wrong. The security measures taken against Islamic terrorism at home were wrong. Indeed, opined a Times writer, how worse than useless was this ‘war on a medieval world view’ (which after all only killed a few thousand people) when the British and US government could have been doing something really useful, like fighting climate change – over whose course, as we all know, mankind has such purchase.
    In the Guardian the esteemed thinker Francis Fukuyama, whose earlier thesis that the global triumph of democracy had brought about the end of history was not altogether borne out by the events of 9/11, marked the anniversary by dismissing al Qaeda as ‘a mere blip or diversion’, with the US ‘overreaction’ to 9/11 turning anti-Americanism into ‘a self-fulfilling prophecy’ – the murder of almost 3000 Americans in the attacks on New York and Washington clearly being inspired by a ‘blip’ that had nothing to do with anti-Americanism.
    Proud flags: Soldiers honour the 9/11 victims at a special service at St Paul's Cathedral

    Also in the Guardian, Mehdi Hasan identified the ‘preachers of hate and division’ -- not as Islamist fanatics but as those who warn against them. The only victims mentioned in this article were not the murdered Americans on 9/11, nor the Muslim and other victims of Islamist terrorism across the world, but Muslims in Britain who were now apparently too terrified to speak in public for fear of being labelled an extremist (with the exception, it seems, of Mehdi Hasan).

    And last week on BBC News Hard Talk, former New York Mayor Rudi Giuliani repeatedly laughed incredulously at the assumptions of his interviewer, BBC correspondent Stephen Sackur. Wouldn’t you admit, said Sackur, that American policy after 9/11 in Afghanistan and Iraq was a mistake? Why should I admit that? said Giuliani when he had finished laughing; the US has foiled 42 separate terror attacks since then because of that security policy put in place by President Bush.
    Sackur tried again. But surely, he said, the police security strategy of targeting the Muslim community ‘gets in the way of the healing’. Giuliani laughed again even more incredulously. Well they would hardly target synagogues or churches he said. Of course the police targeted the mosques. It was from the mosques that the terror plots were coming. This is no more bad for Muslims than it was bad for Italian/Americans when I went after the Mafia in New York!

    No wonder Giuliani laughed – he must have thought he’d wandered onto the set of a BBC comedy show by mistake.
    Painful: Former New York City Mayor Rudolph Giuliani remembers the attacks

    Sackur prayed in aid the remarks made by the former head of MI5, Baroness Manningham-Buller, in her Reith Lecture when she attacked the war in Iraq. Leaving aside the fact that since she ran MI5 rather than MI6 she presumably has no special insight into foreign affairs; and leaving aside also the fact that she was in charge of the Security Service when it so spectacularly failed to grasp that Islamic radicalisation within the UK was such a terrible problem, her remarks helped illuminate why the British ruling class just doesn’t get it, even today.

    For the former head of the Security Service revealed a depth of ignorance which was truly terrifying. She insisted that 9/11 was merely a crime, not an act of war, and different only in scale from any other crime. But what made me fall off my chair was this passage:

    ‘There are a few Muslims who argue that democracy, the right to elect a secular government, does not accord with Islamic principles. ..It is perhaps worth noting that the modern Muslim Brotherhood does not subscribe to these non-democratic principles and actually condemned 9/11.

    But I still find it difficult to accept that the terror attacks were on ‘freedom’ or ‘democracy’ as some have claimed. The young men who committed the crime came from countries without democratic rights or freedoms, with no liberty to express their views in open debate, no easy way of changing their rulers, no opportunity for choice and well-aware that the west often supported these autocratic rulers, for them as for many others an external enemy was I believe a unifying way of expressing their own frustrations.’

    Strong views: Both Tony Blair and Baroness Manningham-Buller have expressed controversial opinions on Al Qaeda and the events of 9/11
    A few Muslims? It is a principle of Islam, common to all four schools of the religion, that there can be no secular authority that takes precedence over Islamic law. The Brotherhood most certainly adheres to this principle. Insofar as it condemns violence against the west, it makes clear that it does so for purely tactical reasons. Its supreme spiritual leader Sheikh Yusuf Qaradawi enjoins instead that Muslims should take over the west for Islam by flooding it with Muslims and infiltrating its institutions.

    As for al Qaeda being inspired by frustration with Arab rulers, has this woman never read the works of Osama bin Laden, as in his Letter to the American People where his first requirement is that America should become an Islamic state? How can the inspiration for those who turn themselves into human bombs be frustration at their lack of democratic freedom when so many Islamic terrorists have been highly educated within the west? If they are so frustrated by lack of democratic freedoms, who do they constantly declare their intention to snuff out those freedoms?

    And how does ‘taking out their frustration on the west’ explain this, the wholesale persecution of Christians by Islamists across the Third World? How does it explain the assassination of the Pakistani regional governor for his stance against Islamist extremism – and the quarter of a million who took to the streets in Pakistan in support of this murder?

    How does Manningham-Buller square her theory about ‘frustration’ or Palestinian ‘grievances’ with the sermon delivered by Qaradawi last January, when he called for the killing of every Jew in the world? Why does she ignore the hallucinatory levels of demented Jew-hatred and religious fanaticism that actually inspire Islamic terrorism? How can such a person ever have been appointed to run Britain’s Security Service?

    Late: The real problem with the US and UK reaction to 9/11, says Phillips, was that they did not follow throug
    The one person who does understand what is at stake here is Tony Blair – who is of course treated as if he is a war criminal or insane or both.

    In his interview on the BBC Radio Four Today Programme last Friday morning, Blair ran the gamut of the usual canards from interviewer John Humphrys: going to war in Iraq and Afghanistan was a disaster, this distracted the US and UK from catching bin Laden, the wars radicalised British Muslims, Saddam was no threat to the west, his removal had empowered Iran, and so on and on.

    Patiently, Blair tried again and again to return the conversation to reality. It was wrong, he said, to think of al Qaeda as just an isolated bunch of criminals; they were at the extreme end of a spectrum of Islamic thinking which was visible in attacks in Nigeria, Somalia, Sudan and across the world. No effect on Humphrys.

    It was absurd to say, said Blair, that the war in Iraq had radicalised British Muslims when the killings in Iraq were being perpetrated by other Muslims and what the UK and US were trying to bring them was democracy. No effect.

    Fallen: Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein were threats to our interests from their sponsorship of terror and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction which they intended to use against the west
    It was wrong, he said, to say that he way to deal with Iran should have been to keep Saddam in power; the way to deal with Iran was to stop it getting nuclear weapons, if necessary by force. No effect.

    After listening to this absurd farrago of illogicality, ignorance and false assumptions being hurled at Blair, I looked up my own Daily Mail column that was published on September 12 2002. I wrote then:

    'Any new regime in Iraq must fulfil only one criterion for us: that it will not pose a threat to the rest of the world. And the same goes for the other countries in Bush's axis of terror: Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. The US hopes that sorting Saddam will deliver to these other states the simple message: unless you desist from terror, you're next.

    If these states don't put their houses in order, then the west has a moral duty to act against them too if the world is not to be held to ransom forever. Those who say war with Iraq threatens the stability of the whole region need a reality check again. The whole point is to upset the stability of the region, because the region has bankrolled, armed and trained terrorists for decades.'

    The real problem with the US and UK reaction to 9/11 was that they did not follow through. It was Iran which destabilised Iraq post Saddam, Iran which was killing coalition troops there just as it had attacked western interests ever since the Islamic Revolution of 1979. Saddam and the Taliban were threats to our interests from their sponsorship of terror and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction which they intended to use against the west (and contrary to received wisdom, WMD programmes were found in Iraq that had been in existence up to the start of the war). But we should have gone on to deal with Iran, Syria, Pakistan and Saudi as well.

    Instead, the US and UK have now reached the even more perverse situation where, having mucked up Iraq and Afghanistan by half-hearted or incompetently-prosecuted wars and giving the enemy the clear impression that the west is not prepared to stay the course, the US and UK have been busy helping topple regimes that were, to some extent at least, helpful to the west while failing to deal with the mortal threat posed by Iran and its ally, Syria.

    The jubilation at the fall of Gaddafi and Mubarak is, to say, the least, premature. Indeed, it is stupidity of the first order. As Conservative Home reported, David Cameron spoke optimistically about the ‘Arab Spring’ and described people in Egypt and Libya ‘seizing an alternative to the poisonous narrative of the extremists’ and that ‘the spread of democracy and rights’ was the trend rather than the ‘spread of extremism.’ Stating that al Qaeda was ‘politically defeated’, Cameron said: ‘Al Qaeda’s [has] had almost nothing to do with the Arab Spring. They’ve been irrelevant.’

    How can he possibly be so ill-informed? An al Qaeda commander is reportedly in charge of armed brigades in Tripoli, weapons caches have gone missing, weapons have reportedly been smuggled from Libya to Hamas, the rebels are being aided by Iran and other jihadists are in their ranks.

    In Egypt, the Muslim Brotherhood is poised to take a dominant position in the government, the mob almost lynched diplomats at the Israel embassy last week, Coptic Christians are being banned from public office and attacked.

    We don’t yet know what will happen in these countries; but the likelihood is currently very high that the UK, US and France will end up replacing tyrants and despots who were helpful to the west by tyrants and despots who intend to destroy the west.

    The former Bishop of Rochester, the Pakistan-born Michael Nazir-Ali -- who has said that al Qaeda has been in the forefront of the Libyan revolt -- has written of Islamic jihadi ideology on which he is an expert:

    Such an ideology expects Islam to dominate rather than to accept a subservient place in world affairs. It promotes pan-Islam and the ultimate rejection of nation-states, even Muslim ones...its ultimate aim is a single Islamic political, social, economic and spiritual entity.

    ...This is not to mention Shi’a radicalism which, in the form of Hizbollah, is now present on the borders of Israel. The radical Shi’a crescent is waxing all over the Middle-East and it has enormous security implications for states in the area and beyond.

    Back in the 1990s, Nazir-Ali warned the British government that large numbers of British Muslims were being dangerously radicalised. What’s the difference between his situation then and now? In the 1990s, ministers simply didn’t believe him when he told the truth about the Islamisation of Britain and the need to defend the west against a civilisational attack; his warnings were ignored. In 2009, he was effectively driven out of office in the Church of England because he told the truth about the Islamisation of Britain and the need to defend the west against a civilisational attack.

    That is how Britain has travelled in the past ten years since 9/11 – steadily towards the edge of the cliff. And Lemmingland is still travelling in exactly the same direction.
    In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

    Leibniz

  • #2
    Al Qaeda loses momentum in Obama era
    OPINION: It was, by any measure, a stunning blow for the world’s only superpower – the United States.

    On September 11, 2001, the most military capable state in the world was powerless to prevent attacks on its soil against the very symbols of US power and prestige by a transnational terrorist group, al-Qaeda.

    For the Bush administration, 9/11 was a transformative event that changed everything. The world on September 12 was deemed to be a very different place from what it had been on September 10.

    But this interpretation of 9/11 was profoundly mistaken, and the policy consequences proved to be disastrous.

    The global security environment had in fact been radically changing since the end of the Cold War.

    In many ways, the controversial US-UN humanitarian intervention in Somalia in the early part of the post-Cold War era was a defining moment for Washington and the beginning of a road that led to 9/11.

    The bloody battle in Mogadishu in October 1993, which took the lives of 18 US servicemen, taught the Clinton administration that failed or failing states were not vital to the national security interests of America.

    But al-Qaeda’s involvement in the episode known as Black Hawk Down convinced the bin Laden network that “the Americans will leave if they are attacked.”

    Between 1993 and 2000, American personnel and interests were the target for violent terrorist attacks from al-Qaeda or its associates in places such as New York, Addis Ababa, Riyadh, Khobar, Nairobi, Dar es Salaam and Aden.

    So the 9/11 attacks did not come out of a clear blue sky, but they did provide an opportunity for policy makers in Washington to finally come to terms with a globalized security environment that generated threats from transnational terrorist groups like al-Qaeda.

    However, the Bush administration largely failed to take the chance to realign US national security policy.

    By claiming that 9/11 had suddenly changed the world, the Bush administration conveniently obscured the origins of the attacks and felt free to declare an all-out war on what was called global terrorism.

    The assumption that it was possible to wage war with terrorism led to almost exclusive military focus by the Bush administration in the conflict with al-Qaeda.

    Beginning with President Bush’s State of the Union in January 2002 in which Iraq, Iran and North Korea were labelled the “Axis of Evil”, the Bush administration emphasized the ideas of US global primacy and pre-emptive war.

    Ad Feedback In March 2003, the Bush administration bypassed the UN Security Council and launched a US-led invasion of Iraq, a country that had nothing to do with the 9/11 atrocity.

    Far from weakening global terrorism, the US invasion spawned a major insurgency in Iraq, provided a foothold for al Qaeda operatives in the country, fuelled anti-American sentiments in the Islamic world, and by 2006 directly contributed to a resurgence of Taliban and al- Qaeda forces in the Afghanistan area.

    In Iraq and elsewhere, the Bush team after 9/11 had few qualms about privileging America’s national security interests over concerns such as human rights and the rule of law.

    Yet these principles lie at the heart of the liberal democratic system and play a key role in challenging terrorist groups like al-Qaeda that are dedicated to destroying such norms.

    Allegations concerning US violation of human rights in Afghanistan, the almost indefinite detention of terrorist suspects at Guantanamo Bay, and shocking reports of abuse at the US-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq provided propaganda windfalls for al-Qaeda and seriously damaged America’s international image.

    But if President Bush was still reluctant after 9/11 to recognize the limitations of American power, the Obama administration felt it had little choice but to face this reality.

    America alone, President Obama argued, could not meet transnational security threats from al-Qaeda or elsewhere, and embarked upon a process of relationship rebuilding in the international arena to confront these dangers.

    In specific terms, the Obama administration jettisoned the ‘war on terror’ rhetoric, withdrew all US combat troops from Iraq, pursued a more even-handed stance on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, escalated the ideological battle against Islamic terrorism, and intensified the war against al-Qaeda and the Taliban in their strongholds of Afghanistan and Pakistan.

    While some strands of Obama’s national security policy have not lived up to expectations, the overall impact has been to squeeze al- Qaeda to its lowest level of operational capability since the late 1990s.

    First, on the ideological battlefront, Mr. Obama has proved a much tougher opponent for al-Qaeda than Mr Bush. Within 18 months of coming to office, President Obama made landmark speeches in Istanbul and Cairo in which he made it plain to enthusiastic audiences that it was al-Qaeda, not the US, that was the enemy of mainstream Islam.

    For Mr Obama and his team history offers a clear verdict for the likes of al-Qaeda. In an interconnected world, it is the ideas of democracy, not dictatorship and political fundamentalism, which have mass support. The recent uprisings in Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Libya seemed to confirm that al-Qaeda had been sidelined in the Middle East.

    Second, on the military battlefront, the Taliban and al-Qaeda have found themselves under greater and more sustained pressure in Afghanistan and Pakistan than at any time since late 2001.

    In 2009, the deployment of about 50,000 new US troops in Taliban-dominated areas like Kandahar and Helmand facilitated a much more aggressive counterinsurgency campaign in Afghanistan.

    The Taliban experienced displacement, and high levels of casualties and desertions.

    While observers worried that Obama’s Afghan approach had ensnared America in another Vietnam, the administration indicated the US-NATO operation would end in 2014 and that it was seeking the bargaining power to negotiate that would come from a demonstrated capacity to hurt the Taliban.

    Meanwhile, the Obama administration dramatically escalated the war against the al-Qaeda leadership in the region, especially through the use of drone attacks in Pakistan’s tribal lands.

    During the last 20 months, more than a third of al-Qaeda’s top leadership, including Osama bin Laden, have been killed or detained.

    Since 2009, the Obama leadership has realigned US national security policy to more effectively counter the terrorist threat from al-Qaeda.

    But the process of adjusting policy is incomplete and the threat from transnational terrorism remains.

    In the Middle East, President Obama’s efforts to advance the establishment of a Palestinian state – a move considered vital to stem the hatred that fuels Islamist terrorism – have faltered after Israel’s Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, expressed reservations about the idea in the US.

    It will take leadership skill and political courage for the Obama administration to overcome such constraints and ensure that America lives in a more secure world.

    * Robert G. Patman is a Professor of International Relations at the University of Otago. He is delivering a Fulbright Alumni Public Lecture to mark the 10th anniversary of 9/11. The lecture is called “The Somalia Syndrome and the March to 9/11” and will be delivered at Rutherford House, Victoria University of Wellington, tomorrow
    In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

    Leibniz

    Comment


    • #3
      US nervous as ties fray between Israel, neighbors

      WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration is watching warily as relations among its allies Israel, Egypt and Turkey deteriorate, threatening Mideast stability and U.S. goals for the region.

      The simultaneous trouble between the Jewish state and two Muslim nations that have been a security and diplomatic bulwark for Israel comes as the Palestinians prepare to seek statehood recognition at the United Nations this month. The U.N. action, which the U.S. has fought without success, is likely to further complicate peace efforts, leave Israel even more isolated and force the Obama administration into the uncomfortable position of appearing to side with Israel over other allies and partners.

      A flurry of weekend phone calls among President Barack Obama, his top national security aides and their Israeli, Egyptian and regional counterparts over Friday's assault on the Israeli Embassy in Cairo underscored U.S. concerns about developments. The attack could have jeopardized the Egyptian-Israeli peace deal, which has been a bedrock of Mideast stability for three decades. Along with the Egypt-Israel concerns, U.S. officials worry about recent tough talk from Turkey about the slide in its relations with Israel.

      Obama personally reassured Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of U.S. support in a Friday phone as Egyptian protesters sacked Israel's embassy. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke twice to Egyptian Foreign Minister Muhammed Amr to remind him of Egypt's obligation to protect diplomatic property and personnel as well as to emphasize the importance the United States places on Egyptian-Israeli peace.

      The State Department said the administration was "gratified" by statements from both Israeli and Egyptian officials seeking to ease tensions. But officials left no doubt as to the seriousness of the matter and its implications, particularly given the already precarious nature of the Israel's relationship with Turkey and the impending Palestinian bid at the U.N.

      Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland called the embassy attack an "extreme" and "very serious incident" that prompted grave concern at the highest levels of the administration.

      "It's not simply about this isolated incident; it's about the importance of maintaining stability and peace across the region not only day to day, week to week, but month to month, which takes us back to the messages that we've been sending on the way to the meetings in New York next week," she told reporters, referring to the annual U.N. General Assembly session that begins Sept. 20.

      In addition to Obama's call to Netanyahu on Friday and Clinton's calls to Amr, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta spoke to Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Egyptian military leader Field Marshal Mohammed Hussein Tantawi on Friday, the Pentagon said. Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke with his Israeli counterpart on Friday and his Egyptian counterpart on Sunday.

      As those calls progressed, the top U.S. diplomat for the Middle East, Jeffrey Feltman, spoke with the head of the Gulf Cooperation Council and senior officials from Egypt, Jordan, Qatar, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

      "Our hope is to avoid any spillover into the larger region," Nuland said. "The fact that both the Egyptian and the Israeli governments spoke strongly about the importance of bringing this situation under control and the fact that it has now been brought under control gives us some hope going forward. But, obviously, we all need to be vigilant."

      Feltman urged each official to counsel calm and encourage a return to a situation "where Egypt and Israel could be confident in their relationship (and) could be confident in the agreements that they have with each other," Nuland said.

      It is "important not simply to settle the immediate problem of security around the Israeli mission in Cairo but also with regard to the region as a whole as we move into a very complicated period heading towards the meetings in New York."

      The administration has threatened to veto a Palestinian statehood resolution at the U.N. Security Council but it cannot kill the move in the larger General Assembly, where passage is all but assured. Approval of Palestinian statehood by the General Assembly would be largely symbolic, but it would validate the Palestinian argument that it must go ahead on its own rather than wait for Israel to strike a deal over borders and other issues that have held up statehood for years. Israel and the U.S. maintain that Palestinian statehood is their goal but that it must be reached through negotiation.

      "A unilateral Palestinian effort to achieve statehood at the U.N. would be counterproductive," White House spokesman Jay Carney said Monday. "Even if these actions are well-intentioned, they will not achieve statehood."

      Direct negotiations, Carney said, are "the only path to the kind of solution that the Palestinians rightfully want and that the Israelis rightfully want. You have to do it through direct negotiations. You won't get it through the U.N."

      Both Egypt and Turkey are likely to side with the Palestinians, leaving the U.S. and only a handful of other nations taking Israel's side.

      Administration officials continue to press the Palestinians to drop their U.N. aspirations for an alternative, possibly a statement of support from the international diplomatic quartet of Mideast peacemakers — the U.S., the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. However, in a blow to quartet unity, Russia said Monday it would support any Palestinian effort at the United Nations. Further complicating matters, an influential former Saudi diplomat said his country's relations with the U.S. would suffer if Washington vetoed a Security Council resolution.

      Into this mix, Israeli-Turkish relations have plummeted in recent weeks as Israel has refused Turkish demands for an apology over its raid on a Gaza-bound flotilla last year that killed eight Turks and a Turkish American on board a Turkish ship trying to break Israel's naval blockade of Gaza.

      Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday that the raid was "cause for war" but added that his country showed "patience" and refrained from taking any action.

      But this month, Turkey suspended its military ties with Israel, expelled top Israeli diplomats, pledged to campaign in support of the Palestinians' statehood bid and vowed to send the Turkish navy to escort Gaza-bound aid ships in the future.
      In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

      Leibniz

      Comment


      • #4
        Pakistan must do more in al Qaeda fight, Biden says
        (CNN) -- Pakistan has been an unreliable ally of the United States in the war against al Qaeda and other extremist organizations, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden told CNN in an interview set to air in full Monday night.

        Biden, who spoke to CNN's John King on the eve of the 10th anniversary of the 9/11 terror attacks, said Pakistan has failed "on occasion" when forced to choose between the United States and al Qaeda.

        The price of Pakistan's choices has been the "loss of life of American soldiers in Afghanistan," the vice president said. Islamabad has "been very helpful in other times," he added. "But it's not sufficient. They have to get better. We need a relationship that is born out of mutual interest. And it's in their interest that they be more cooperative with us."

        "We are demanding it," he said.

        Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was killed by U.S. forces in a compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May. Pakistan's government -- which has struggled with significant pro-al Qaeda sentiment within its borders -- was not informed of the attack beforehand.

        Pakistani authorities insist they did not know bin Laden's location.

        Despite troubles in Pakistan and elsewhere, the United States is "getting close" to bringing about an end to organized, legitimized terrorist activities, Biden said.



        Biden: What the Shanksville site means RELATED TOPICS
        Joe Biden
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        "We have done great damage to ... al Qaeda," he said. "Satellite organizations" have emerged in Somalia and elsewhere, he said, but "they are less coordinated" and "less capable."

        "And we're relentless in pursuing them," he added.

        As a result, Americans are safer today than they were a decade ago, Biden asserted.

        Regardless, the vice president cautioned that "there is always a possibility of a lone wolf" attack within the United States or elsewhere.

        "There's always a possibility of an incident occurring, but I do not believe there's anyone right now capable of putting together the kind of extremely complicated planned operation that took place on 9/11," he said.

        Biden said he believes that in 25 years, Americans will "read about this period of terror as ... a part of a chapter in the history of this country."

        The vice president denied former Vice President Dick Cheney's assertion that controversial interrogation techniques such as waterboarding -- stopped by the Obama administration -- would help generate useful intelligence in the war against al Qaeda and other organizations.

        "I've seen zero evidence that it works, and I think there's abundant evidence that it hurts us internationally. It hurts our security," Biden said. It does so, he said, "by making a mockery of who we say we are and giving rationale for those who want to do us harm to recruit people."
        In the realm of spirit, seek clarity; in the material world, seek utility.

        Leibniz

        Comment


        • #5
          One thing I would applaud Obama is his expanded drone assassination program. Hunt down the terrorists wherever they are with missiles fired from miles away by hard to spot drones. This "death from above" must put a lot of the terrorists on edge.

          Obama also deserves credit for ordering the hit on bin Laden. It's a "kill" mission rather than a "capture" mission.

          Then again, he was from Chicago...
          "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

          Comment


          • #6
            Snippet from a Rummie chat..

            ZAKARIA: So, what I'm asking you is about regrets. We all have grief about the loss of these brave people. But I'm saying what do you look back on your -- you know, on your tenure and tenure and say I would have done it differently.

            RUMSFELD: I'll give you one example. I think we've done a not very good job of -- we've put a lot of pressure on terrorist networks, but for whatever reason, Americans are very reluctant to talk about radical Islamism and Islamists. We don't want to be seen as against a religion.

            And so, the Bush administration didn't do a good job. We were careful and words were always sensitive. And we never -- you can't win a battle of ideas, a competition of ideas unless you describe the enemy, say who it is, say what's wrong with it, say what we do and why that's what's right.

            We did that in the Cold War. We defeated communism. And we were tongue tied over this.

            And the Obama administration is much worse. They won't even use the word in their hearings. The attorney general doesn't want to even discuss it.

            Comment


            • #7
              Originally posted by gunnut View Post
              One thing I would applaud Obama is his expanded drone assassination program. Hunt down the terrorists wherever they are with missiles fired from miles away by hard to spot drones. This "death from above" must put a lot of the terrorists on edge.

              Obama also deserves credit for ordering the hit on bin Laden. It's a "kill" mission rather than a "capture" mission.

              Then again, he was from Chicago...
              Obama would look fine in an old style 20s-30s suit and a tommy gun ...

              Comment


              • #8
                lol, time for the obama version of the Putin Has a More Fun Life than You thread.
                There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                Comment


                • #9
                  Originally posted by RollingWave View Post
                  Obama would look fine in an old style 20s-30s suit and a tommy gun ...
                  I have to admit, Obama wearing a suit, a fedora, smoking a cigarette, and holding a tommy gun, would look quite cool.
                  "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                  Comment


                  • #10
                    -Mrs- Obama doing the same would be cooler.
                    There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                    Comment


                    • #11
                      Originally posted by astralis View Post
                      lol, time for the obama version of the Putin Has a More Fun Life than You thread.
                      I doubt it will get the same traction as Vlad's thread.To put it delicately(he's your boss afterall),he's light weight,even with suits and Tommy guns.
                      However if I won't dare say about Ms Obama she's NOT a light weight.She might send the men in black after me
                      Those who know don't speak
                      He said to them, "But now if you have a purse, take it, and also a bag; and if you don't have a sword, sell your cloak and buy one. Luke 22:36

                      Comment


                      • #12
                        mihais,

                        To put it delicately(he's your boss afterall),he's light weight,even with suits and Tommy guns.
                        are you kidding me, prof obama can easily lecture putin under the table!
                        There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

                        Comment


                        • #13
                          Originally posted by astralis View Post
                          -Mrs- Obama doing the same would be cooler.
                          She does look a lot meaner...:scared:
                          "Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

                          Comment


                          • #14
                            Originally posted by gunnut View Post
                            One thing I would applaud Obama is his expanded drone assassination program. Hunt down the terrorists wherever they are with missiles fired from miles away by hard to spot drones. This "death from above" must put a lot of the terrorists on edge.

                            Obama also deserves credit for ordering the hit on bin Laden. It's a "kill" mission rather than a "capture" mission.

                            Then again, he was from Chicago...
                            Being from FATA, the most drone-targeted area, I acknowledge this biggest favour of Obama with heartfelt gratitude, indeed! FATAville welcomes more drones to exterminate Taliban and Haqani Group.
                            Peace, Peace, Peace

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                            • #15
                              I think the label "war on terror" makes it as unwinnable as a war on gravity. The war on al queda on the other hand has gone very well. It imo is a credit shared with Bush but Obama's ramping up of drone attacks despite a lot of domestic pushback has diminished al queda from the weakened state Bush let themin to a state of almost irrelevance where they post announcements about credit for the arab spring in a desperate attempt to be relevant. Al queda isnt even in the top 3 of groups with the operational capacity to attack us here imo. God willing we can come to terms with the Taliban because i and I think most folks could care how afganis treat each other as long as they no longer wish to or support those who wish to facilitate attacks on US soil. Hopefully we can get out of there and leave some kind of weak federal system behind that prevents a haven for groups bent on exporting terror to develop again. IMO that's victory in ou war on terror. The troops come home and we are reasonably sure Afganistan wont revert to a terror supporting state.
                              Where free unions and collective bargaining are forbidden, freedom is lost.”
                              ~Ronald Reagan

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