Obama: Taliban and al-Qaida must be stopped

[bullypulpit]

No, just true.

[bullypulpit]

really.....saddam was a "stabilizing" force in the middle east....hmmmm, i wonder how those who actually live in the ME and/or lived under saddam would take your statement....probably tell you to get off your ass and visit the ME and see how "stabilizing" saddam was. your statement is myopic.

Ummm...Yeah. He was an effective counter to Iran. Once he was gone, Iran had a free hand in the region. Why else did the Reagan and Bush the Elder's administrations throw their support to Saddam during the Iran-Iraq war? With Saddam out of the picture and with Iraq's government in a shambles, the Sunni leadership is cozying up to Sunni dominated Iran.

and while i think bush should have sent more troops to afghanistan, tell me this, has OBL or his cohorts been able to operate as freely in afghanistan as they did before we took them out of power? yes or no. did bush's command lesson or strengthen obl/aq/taliban?

A <a href=http://www.csmonitor.com/2007/0718/p99s01-duts.html>July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate</a> stated that:

<blockquote>... Al Qaeda has reorganized to pre-9/11 strength and is preparing for a major US strike has sparked debate among government officials and observers about the Bush administration's foreign policy and counterterrorism efforts. The National Intelligence Estimate assessment indicates that the Islamic terrorist organization's rise has been bolstered by the Iraq war and the failure to counter extremism in Pakistan's tribal areas.</blockquote>

As a result, Al Qaeda operates freely in the border regions between Afghanistan and Pakistan with the Taliban in resurgence as well...

<blockquote>The Taliban resurgence can be measured quantitatively or qualitatively.

With respect to the former:
-- Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified earlier this year that suicide bombings were up 27% in 2007 over 2006. He should have added that they are up 600% over 2005; and that all insurgent attacks are up 400% over 2005.
-- The UN Secretary General reported last month the looting of 40 convoys delivering food for the World Food Programme (WFP) in 2007, 130 attacks against humanitarian programs, 40 relief workers killed and another 89 abducted.
-- There were 8000 conflict-related deaths in 2007, 1500 of them civilian.

On the qualitative side, the Serena Hotel in the center of Kabul, where I stayed last fall, was the subject of a fierce attack with automatic weapons and explosives in mid-January during the stay there by the Norwegian Foreign Minister. The Afghan opposition spokesman with whom I met during my visit, Sayed Mustafa Kazemi, went to inaugurate a sugar factory in Northern Afghanistan a few days later and he and around 70 others were killed in a suicide bombing. Probably the single worst suicide bombing since 2001 occurred in February of this year with dozens killed and nearly a hundred wounded in the southern province of Kandahar.

The Taliban and associated groups are using terror tactics to spread fear far from their heartland in the southern and eastern provinces bordering Pakistan, where NATO and US forces battle them in nearly daily combat. - <a href=http://www.crisisgroup.org/home/index.cfm?id=5370>ICG</a></blockquote>

So, to answer your question...Yes, the Taliban and Al Qaeda operate very nearly as freely now as they did before the US invasion of Afghanistan, and yes, <a href=http://www.nsnetwork.org/node/1173>neglect of the situation in Afghanistan by the Bush administration</a> has strengthened the hand of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in the region.

[bullypulpit]

<center><h1>CORRECTION</h1></center>

<blockquote>the Sunni leadership is cozying up to Sunni dominated Iran</blockquote>

From the previous post should read as:

<blockquote>the Shi'a leadership is cozying up to Shi'a dominated Iran</blockquote>

[April15]

Thank you BP for explaining what should be common knowledge.

[bullypulpit]

Thank you BP for explaining what should be common knowledge.

The sad thing is that it IS common knowledge. The GOP, its apologists and slavish supporters prefer to ignore it as it doesn't fit their world view which, incidentally, has little to do with reality.

[moderate democrat]

typical republican responses to the fact that the Iraq war was a strategic mistake are really fairly predictable. Either they claim that invading Iraq was the absolute best thing America ever did, or they claim that yeah, it was a msitake but they couldn't have done it without democrat's support, or they just avoid threads discussing it... which seems to be the case here.

[PostmodernProphet]

are you folks seriously arguing that Pakistan and Afghanistan were not equally the focus of Muslim extremism before the Iraq war?.....are you saying they have not been driven BACK into their mountain strongholds over the last five years?......you make it sound as if the war in Iraq has created the problem instead of reduced it......

[moderate democrat]

are you folks seriously arguing that Pakistan and Afghanistan were not equally the focus of Muslim extremism before the Iraq war?.....are you saying they have not been driven BACK into their mountain strongholds over the last five years?......you make it sound as if the war in Iraq has created the problem instead of reduced it......

was Iraq a "focus of muslim extremism" before we invaded?

[PostmodernProphet]

was Iraq a "focus of muslim extremism" before we invaded?

no, it was a focus of Saddam's extremism......

[Nukeman]

no, it was a focus of Saddam's extremism......

PMP I have to go with the loones on this one for now. Saddam kept control of a VERY explosive country for years, I will admit it was through a IRON FIST, but that seems to be all some people understand. The more extreme the Muslims become the more it takes to keep them under control. When you have a culture that lives and thrives on "evil" acts than that is the only thing they understand.

don't get me wrong Saddam was a vile evil man but he didn't play this "politicle correctness" BS and kept the extremest down........ IMHO

[PostmodernProphet]

PMP I have to go with the loones on this one for now. Saddam kept control of a VERY explosive country for years, I will admit it was through a IRON FIST, but that seems to be all some people understand. The more extreme the Muslims become the more it takes to keep them under control. When you have a culture that lives and thrives on "evil" acts than that is the only thing they understand.

don't get me wrong Saddam was a vile evil man but he didn't play this "politicle correctness" BS and kept the extremest down........ IMHO

we would have had to deal with Saddaam in 2001 or in 2011 or in 2021....better it happened before he was able to rebuild his military operation.......

[Yurt]

The sad thing is that it IS common knowledge. The GOP, its apologists and slavish supporters prefer to ignore it as it doesn't fit their world view which, incidentally, has little to do with reality.

the lame thing is how many of you guys ignore all the people in your party who supported the effort to oust saddam and also said that saddam had wmd's. but it is all about blaming bush for everything, you guys found a scape goat and refuse to acknowledge any dem mistakes. unbelievably partisan and sadly not the truth.

[moderate democrat]

no, it was a focus of Saddam's extremism......

it was not the focus of the people who attacked us.

And Saddam was extreme only in his meanness.... ba'athists are pretty left of center moderate pan-arabists historically speaking. He was not a real and present danger to the United States.

[moderate democrat]

we would have had to deal with Saddaam in 2001 or in 2011 or in 2021....better it happened before he was able to rebuild his military operation.......

except it had nothing to do with confronting the forces who attacked us.

and even if he HAD rebuilt his military operation at some point in the future, we would have been capable of mowing it down in short order whenever we confronted it.

[moderate democrat]

the lame thing is how many of you guys ignore all the people in your party who supported the effort to oust saddam and also said that saddam had wmd's. but it is all about blaming bush for everything, you guys found a scape goat and refuse to acknowledge any dem mistakes. unbelievably partisan and sadly not the truth.

every dem who spoke about Saddam's WMD's was on my shitlist. NONE of them who voted FOR the use of force resolution have ever gotten my vote for anything and won't until they apologize for that vote - which many have.

Some Dems certainly blustered about Saddam, but NONE of them advocated invading, conquering and occupying Iraq as a solution to the annoyance.