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View Full Version : Bin Laden’s war against the U.S. economy



DragonStryk72
05-03-2011, 02:06 PM
By Ezra Klein

Did Osama bin Laden win? No. Did he succeed? Well, America is still standing, and he isn’t. So why, when I called Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a counterterrorism expert who specializes in al-Qaeda, did he tell me that “bin Laden has been enormously successful”? There’s no caliphate. There’s no sweeping sharia law. Didn’t we win this one in a clean knockout?

Apparently not. Bin Laden, according to Gartenstein-Ross, had a strategy that we never bothered to understand, and thus that we never bothered to defend against. What he really wanted to do — and, more to the point, what he thought he could do — was bankrupt the United States of America. After all, he’d done the bankrupt-a-superpower thing before. And though it didn’t quite work out this time, it worked a lot better than most of us, in this exultant moment, are willing to admit.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/bin-ladens-war-against-the-us-economy/2011/04/27/AFDOPjfF_blog.html

holy fuck. Okay, he was a sadistic murdering bastard who needed to be taken out, but seriously, that is mad genius kind of planning. It basically goes like this: He moves enough to agitate us, get us so pissed we can't see straight, and we launch everything we've got at him, while he continues to provoke from various positions to make us keep swing even as we push over our limits. Granted, he lost, and we have the playbook, but god damn, that is a scary amount to which he got into our heads.

DragonStryk72
05-03-2011, 02:30 PM
If you follow that thinking through, that means that he knew, without a doubt, that the U.S. would jump up and kick the shit out of Afghanistan, and knew we would take down the Taliban with little real effort. He let all those people, even a good portion of his own people die, because was a part of his master plan.

He likely helped prop up event in Iraq, knowing Saddam would do his whole, "I'm a badass" thing with U.N. inspectors like he'd done so many times before, but with only clear difference: We were still seeing red at that point, and the game was on. Hell, through around a little of WMD rumor and such, and off we jump again. Rumsfeld even put to words the feeling that OBL was banking on- We were so big, and so powerful, that we could "break the rules", which of course we can't. Bend them, but not break them.

A resurgence of violence in Afghanistan right when we're starting to clean things up in Iraq? So we send in the troops of course.

Heck, even his declaring war on Pakistan was probably a part of the run to get us into another war with a Muslim country by 2020. Think about it- What would we have done if we had gotten word that AQ was about to launch a coup on the Pakistani government? We would've attacked with as much force as we could to crush it. We knew OBL was in the country, we just didn't know where, so the idea that he would decide to take it and make a new home base wasn't that far fetched.

Kathianne
05-03-2011, 02:42 PM
Is this the first you've heard of this? Let's see. Targets US financial center: WTC; Pentagon: US Military; The only unknown: PA Flight.

red states rule
05-03-2011, 05:33 PM
holy fuck. Okay, he was a sadistic murdering bastard who needed to be taken out, but seriously, that is mad genius kind of planning. It basically goes like this: He moves enough to agitate us, get us so pissed we can't see straight, and we launch everything we've got at him, while he continues to provoke from various positions to make us keep swing even as we push over our limits. Granted, he lost, and we have the playbook, but god damn, that is a scary amount to which he got into our heads.

You are in the minority on this. The rest of us are enjoying his death

http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/175281.jpg

DragonStryk72
05-03-2011, 06:09 PM
You are in the minority on this. The rest of us are enjoying his death

http://www.strangepolitics.com/images/content/175281.jpg

Oh well, sucks to be you then.

red states rule
05-03-2011, 06:15 PM
Oh well, sucks to be you then.

I am not the mamby pamby who cowers in fear of the terrorists, and wants to bow down to them as not to offend them

Go to bed and pull the covers over your head

DragonStryk72
05-03-2011, 06:16 PM
Is this the first you've heard of this? Let's see. Targets US financial center: WTC; Pentagon: US Military; The only unknown: PA Flight.

I heard they were aiming that one for the capitol building. Congress had alreadt been evaced, but it would've been a devestating morale hit for us. I mean, I understood the idea of the iconography of the targets, but I think he was actually trying to provoke almost exactly what we did. A global War on Terror is completely unwinnable, and the costs of it can only go up, really.

But he had to have known we'd take down Afghanistan, and rip apart the Taliban, just like he knew he could get Bush riled enough to go at Saddam ( I mean, not exactly hard betting that he could get a Texan to go after the guy who tried to have his dad killed), so he threw away control of a country, all the support structures therein, sacrficed countless lives, all in an attempt to make us kick our own ass by breaking our economy.

I doubt he thought around the two bullets to the head, though. That one's sorta hard to come up with a strategy for.

red states rule
05-03-2011, 06:19 PM
I heard they were aiming that one for the capitol building. Congress had alreadt been evaced, but it would've been a devestating morale hit for us. I mean, I understood the idea of the iconography of the targets, but I think he was actually trying to provoke almost exactly what we did. A global War on Terror is completely unwinnable, and the costs of it can only go up, really.

But he had to have known we'd take down Afghanistan, and rip apart the Taliban, just like he knew he could get Bush riled enough to go at Saddam ( I mean, not exactly hard betting that he could get a Texan to go after the guy who tried to have his dad killed), so he threw away control of a country, all the support structures therein, sacrficed countless lives, all in an attempt to make us kick our own ass by breaking our economy.

I doubt he thought around the two bullets to the head, though. That one's sorta hard to come up with a strategy for.

This from the guy who was offended over the 9/11 Remembrance Events.

Thnak God you are in the minority who wants to wave the white flag in the face of terrorists

DragonStryk72
05-04-2011, 02:28 PM
I am not the mamby pamby who cowers in fear of the terrorists, and wants to bow down to them as not to offend them

Go to bed and pull the covers over your head

I suppose I'd need to take my Navy ballcap off before I do that. Oh right, I signed up to fight for my country. You didn't. I never said he didn't need to be taken down, in fact, I dare you to find a point where I said any such thing. In fact, I said exactly the opposite at the beginning of this thread. But there is a difference between doing justice, and reveling in death. You need to learn it, RSR.

DragonStryk72
05-04-2011, 02:33 PM
This from the guy who was offended over the 9/11 Remembrance Events.

Thnak God you are in the minority who wants to wave the white flag in the face of terrorists

Really? Stating that I'm sick of the false cumbaya moment every single September? Hey, more people because of Pearly Harbor, but we're not all have mass prayer every year on that day, anymore. We used to have the balls to move on in the country. you know what more than any idiotic politician wringing his hands about 9/11? For those morons to put the damn towers back up so we can move on with our lives and people can get back to work. The original design worked quite well for decades, so I see no reason not to put them right back where they were.

I am sick beyond belief of coming out of the PATH station to a giant gaping hole every time I go to visit my family. Yes, bad shit happened. Now, let's show the same strength our forefathers did, get it fixed up, and soldier on.

red states rule
05-04-2011, 03:51 PM
I suppose I'd need to take my Navy ballcap off before I do that. Oh right, I signed up to fight for my country. You didn't. I never said he didn't need to be taken down, in fact, I dare you to find a point where I said any such thing. In fact, I said exactly the opposite at the beginning of this thread. But there is a difference between doing justice, and reveling in death. You need to learn it, RSR.

To show you there are no hard feeling allow me to buy you a drink DS. The first round of Bin Laden's is on me

It is a drink made up of two bloody shots and a splash of water

Bring Rev with youi as well

jimnyc
05-04-2011, 04:17 PM
Oh well, sucks to be you then.

I guess that would be "sucks to be MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF US". Seems to me it would only suck if someone were upset about his death, or like you, upset that millions are celebrating.

red states rule
05-04-2011, 04:18 PM
I guess that would be "sucks to be MILLIONS AND MILLIONS OF US". Seems to me it would only suck if someone were upset about his death, or like you, upset that millions are celebrating.

or attending 9/11 memorial ceremonies

logroller
05-05-2011, 02:11 AM
I'm with stryker. The scars from the attacks aren't being helped by probing a gaping wound; rebuild, put up that memorial and show those who oppose us our lives are better now than ever; because we've shown them and ourselves even their best attempts cannot defeat us.

red states rule
05-05-2011, 03:09 AM
I'm with stryker. The scars from the attacks aren't being helped by probing a gaping wound; rebuild, put up that memorial and show those who oppose us our lives are better now than ever; because we've shown them and ourselves even their best attempts cannot defeat us.

I'll drink to that LR

Waiter, another Bid Laden please and make it a double