More Terrorists or Less Terrorists?

[akyron]

There are a little less. Ouch.

Tank vs Insurgent

 

[Simon W. Moon]

the Pentagon says more terrorists:

[font=&quot]Report of the Defense Science Board Task Force on Strategic Communication[/font]

[font=&quot] [/font]Worldwide anger and discontent are directed at America’s tarnished credibility[!] and ways the U.S. pursues its goals[!].

​

"The information campaign — or as some still would have it, “the war of ideas,” or the struggle for “hearts and minds” — is important to every war effort. In this war it is an essential objective ... But American efforts have not only failed in this respect: they may also have achieved the opposite of what they intended.
American direct intervention in the Muslim World has paradoxically elevated the stature of and support for radical Islamists ...
Furthermore, in the eyes of Muslims, American occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq has not led to democracy there, but only more chaos and suffering.

• Therefore, the dramatic narrative since 9/11 has essentially borne out the entire radical Islamist bill of particulars. American actions and the flow of events have elevated the authority of the Jihadi insurgents and tended to ratify their legitimacy among Muslims. Fighting groups portray themselves as the true defenders of an Ummah ... to broad public support.

• What was a marginal network is now an Ummah-wide movement of fighting groups. Not only has there been a proliferation of “terrorist” groups: the unifying context of a shared cause creates a sense of affiliation across the many cultural and sectarian boundaries that divide Islam.

​

 

[akyron]

Qur’an 8:39 “Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.”


Going to be awhile it looks like.

 

[teacher]

Less terrorists. They keep finding ways to get dead.

 

[teacher]

[

QUOTE=akyron]Qur’an 8:39 “Fight them until all opposition ends and all submit to Allah.”


Going to be awhile it looks like.

[/QUOTE]

Remember W. saying shortly after 9/11, "Stay the course", yea he knew it was going to be a while back then.

 

[akyron]

[

Remember W. saying shortly after 9/11, "Stay the course", yea he knew it was going to be a while back then.[/QUOTE]


I agree. People have a hard time finishing tasks. Pulling out now would have catastrophic consequences.

Experts: Iraq withdrawal now would be bad idea



"If the U.S. withdrew its troops too quickly, in all likelihood the Sunni Arab guerrillas would simply take the new government out and shoot it," said Juan Cole, a professor of Middle East history at the University of Michigan.
BY RICHARD WHITTLE
The Dallas Morning News

 

[26 X World Champs]

Remember W. saying shortly after 9/11, "Stay the course", yea he knew it was going to be a while back then.

That's true. He and his ghouls already had the entire Iraq war planned by 9-11. 9-11 just opened the door for them to implement the plan.

Problem is the plan sucked, and when you make a plan like that and you're wrong, it's not political capital getting wasted, it human capital. A damn shame, a damn shame.

 

[MSgt]

Where's the shame? We're killing the enemy whole sale. It's an enemy we should have started killing a long time ago, before 9/11. The spread of democracy in that region is the only thing that will quell the terrorist activity. Iraq was an easy enough place to start. It also drove a wedge between Syria and Iran. It was tactfully sound. Al Qaeda and its affiliates are rapidly using up the human capital they've accumulated over decades. The casualties in Iraq are overwhelmingly on the terrorist side. Extremist leaders have paid a particularly heavy price. They are wasting and sending all of their "martyrs" to their suicidal deaths. But they won't stop fighting because they can't. The terrorists have to win in Iraq. They have to defeat America. The terrorists aren't committing their shrinking reserves because the outcome's a trivial matter. They recognize the magnitude of what we're helping the Iraqi people achieve. It's amazing how many Americans just don't get it or have such a lack of vision.

If the U.S. has made any error, it has been in promising too much, not doing too little. Iraqis need to rebuild their own country, to work for their own future. We are not going to be there forever. In the end, they have to persevere.

 

[MSgt]

No..no...no. We are not killing civillians. For every accidental death from us, there are 50 malicious murders committed by their own Muslims. The Iraqi people know the difference. The vast majority want us to stay there. Only parts of the Sunni want us gone. They are also the one's that had power under Saddam.

 

[26 X World Champs]

The terrorists have to win in Iraq. They have to defeat America.

I disagree. The terrorists do not have to win. All they have to do is keep fighting. They're also not concentrated in Iraq only, and to believe that would be making an inestimable mistake.

Terrorism is not about "winning or losing." It's about not allowing people to live their lives without fear.

Even Rumsfeld said yesterday that the insurgency can go on another dozen years or so. It seems to me that underestimating, again, the power of terrorism is what led to 9-11 to begin with.

A dozen years to me does not make me confident that we're wearing them down, does it make you feel that way? Even Cheney has gone into major damage control about his remark that the insurgency is "in its final throes."

 

[MSgt]

The Syrian and Iranian government cannot afford to have a successfully open democracy in Iraq next door for their people to watch. Cheney is a politician like everyone else. He's not there fighting them. You don't find it coincidental that he would say such a thing while the President is under heat to set a time table? I never take politics at face value. What Americans tend to do is confuse what used to be organized insurgency for what is actually happening right now. They have resorted to punishing their own Muslims for supporting their new government by murding them by the dozens. The insurgency was never in it's "final throes". Every mortar round is made to sound like the end of the world. They are weakened and will continue to have a sort of precense, but the Iraqi's and others in that region will have to deal with them. This is all their mess and the beginnings of their revolution. We just stirred it up and brought it out. The Two-thirds of Iraq's provinces are quiet. We never see any headlines about our Kurdish allies in northern Iraq — because they're building a successful modern society in the Middle East. We never hear anything about the Iraqi's in the South - because they are, for the first time, receiving water and power like their brothers in Tikrit did under their dictator protector. Good-news stories aren't welcome in our undeniably pro-Democratic media.

The truth about Iraq is that we remain colossally powerful. A failed Iraq would say less about the limits of U.S. might than about the lack of practical and moral potential in the Middle East. We could withstand the collapse of our current effort. But it's doubtful whether the Arab world could recover from Iraq's failure. This is why the isurgency has to win out in Iraq.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

Where's the shame? We're killing the enemy whole sale.

That's not enough. The struggle for “hearts and minds” is an essential objective in the GWoT. We must cut off the enemies' reinforcements. That means drying up the pool of potential recruits.

The spread of democracy in that region is the only thing that will quell the terrorist activity.

Of course, look at Ireland. Once they could vote no more terrorism. Oh, wait a minute...
Perhaps it takes something more.

Iraq was an easy enough place to start.

Yeah. Been real easy so far. According to our SECDEF there're only years to go now.

Al Qaeda and its affiliates are rapidly using up the human capital they've accumulated over decades.

Do you have source for this assertion or is this just a 'gut-feeling' sort of thing?

 

[MSgt]

Aren't you the smart-ass.

Well, cutting off the insurgency's reinforcements means attacking Syria. I'm all for it. If it wasn't for the American bleeding heart that shouldn't have anything to do with what is going on over there, we would.

Winning the hearts and minds has always been a chief objective in all of our military actions. We always achieve that. It's our own liberal America that never realizes it. The whole of Iraq and it's new military is on our side. There are over 8 million people there. Don't confuse that with the constant undermining of the media and their selected coverage.

Irish citizens not wanting British rule is something understood to Americans, although some of their IRA tactics were not. Muslim zealots and it's creations are a completely different thing. They are an entire region that has been bred to hate anything not Muslim and everything American and Israeli.

Iraq isn't as bad as people think. The media makes it look worse than it is. The insurgency is crumbled, but there will always be remnants that freed Muslims will have to deal with until it is gone or until they all decide that they deserve a better way of life than what their oppressors have always given them.

'03 7th Marines Regiment 5 months
'04 7th Marines Regiment 8 months
My first hand account on the pace of attacks from one month to the next and the weaponry captured from area to area is my source. The IED's continue to be thrown together rather than manufactured as they were. Their tactics are now in the form of car bombs and more suicide attacks against civillians rather than military targets. There is a great seperation in the rank structures in the insurgency. What we are seeing now are untrained and undisciplined fighters that have no idea what they are doing, Syria and Iran are hurling them to their deaths, because to them it is a desparate time. The only thing that will cause a failure for us will be if our government gives in to the "Mothers of America" and prematurely pull us out.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

Aren't you the smart-ass.

No matter how much you flatter me...

Well, cutting off the insurgency's reinforcements means attacking Syria.

I'm talking globally. Islamist terrorists' world wide pool of reinforcements

If it wasn't for the American bleeding heart that shouldn't have anything to do with what is going on over there, we would.

The same bleeding heart that wants to pretend that rescuing the Iraqi people is justification enough for our invasion of Iraq?

Winning the hearts and minds has always been a chief objective in all of our military actions.

From the previously cited DoD report:

"The information campaign — or as some still would have it, “the war of ideas,” or the struggle for “hearts and minds” — is important to every war effort. In this war it is an essential objective..."
​

The whole of Iraq and it's new military is on our side.

So we're only fighting non-Iraqis over there then is what you're saying?

There are over 8 million people there.

And eighteen million more. Iraq has a population of roughly 26mil.

Don't confuse that with the constant undermining of the media and their selected coverage.

Who exactly's undermining the media and their selective coverage?
And how are their efforts related to the DoD and CIA reports? Are you saying that the DoD and the CIA are undermining the media, or what?

They are an entire region that has been bred to hate anything not Muslim and everything American and Israeli.

Do you have any way of backing this up?
AFAICT, most American things are viewed favorably. It's American foreign policy that is the big stinker over there.

From the previously noted DoD report:

• Muslims do not “hate our freedom,” but rather, they hate our policies.
​

And from elsewhere:
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IMPRESSIONS OF AMERICA(pdf)
​

HOW ARABS VIEW AMERICA
HOW ARABS LEARN ABOUT AMERICA
A Six-Nation Survey​

Attitudes toward American values, people, and products remain mostly favorable, but have also declined in the past two years.
US policy is the major factor that accounts for the low US favorable ratings and the decline in these ratings.
These factors[values, people and products] have no impact on Arab attitudes toward US policy, which remains low and drives overall favorables down.
​

&
​

[size=+1]Poll Shows Growing Arab Rancor at U.S. [/size]

Those polled said their opinions were shaped by U.S. policies, rather than by values or culture. When asked: "What is the first thought when you hear 'America'?" respondents overwhelmingly said: "Unfair foreign policy."
And when asked what the United States could do to improve its image in the Arab world, the most frequently provided answers were "Stop supporting Israel" and "Change your Middle East policy."
​

The insurgency is crumbled...

Where on earth do you get your info?

"I believe there are more foreign fighters coming into Iraq than there were six months ago" and that "in terms of the overall strength of the insurgency, I'd say it was the same as it was" six months ago.
Gen. John Abizaid top U.S. commander in the Persian Gulf


"That insurgency [the Iraqi one] could go on for any number of years. Insurgencies tend to go on five, six, eight, 10, 12 years."
SECDEF Rumsfeld June 27, 2005
​

Are these folks mistaken? Are they merely exercising their liberal bias, or what?
Or are you using one of those unusual definitions of 'crumbled'? The traditional meanings of crumbled don't seem to encompass something that could go on for more than a decade.

So, what gives? Why do you say crumbled while the top general and the secdef say it ain't so? Do you know something that they don't? Maybe you should hire yourself out to the DoD and let them know what's really going on. Or at least share you sorces with them.

 

[MSgt]

Global Islamists are not the problem. The source is the Middle East and it has been mainly encouraged from Saudi Arabia. They are paying for their decades of orchestration now, though. With terrorist cells of their own to deal with within their borders, they are faced with what they themselves created.

Liberation and the defense of weaker people because they can't defend themselves are always a good enough reason to act. The bleeding heart is the one that selectively picks out the tragedy and publicizes it in an attempt to undermine.

As I stated before, Hearts and minds is always an objective in military operations. There is nothing different except that someone put it in a report for you to read. It might be new to you, but it is old hat for us. Most of our intel comes form the local communitites.

There are a large number of Sunni that would rather be ruled by the favorability given to them by Saddam. They have joined up with the insurgency. Out of 26 million (I don't know why I keep saying 8) people and almost a 500,000 strong army, the overwhelming and vast majority of Iraq supports their new government and is fighting beside us or is relying on our protection.

If you line up 50,000 Iraqi's the media will ask which one has suffered tragedy and single that person out. This is media undermining for the sake of a story. You see it in the States too. How many great things occur in your city? How much of it is "news" worthy? What you hear from CIA or the DoD comes from suits, Air Force Generals and eveyone else that isn't on the ground and looking at it. Reports from that high are always old and outdated. We normally laugh at these, because when they are publicised, the facts are always different.

I have fifty years of terrosist attacks to back it up. I have first hand knowledge of these people. Their religious leaders teach hate. This is a fact. The world isn't a sweet smelling rose and the Middle East is ruled by tyrants. Iran's new leader was a student that was involved with the embassy attack and the hostage taking of Americans for over a year. This is the leadership of Islam in the Middle East. Do you have to see a persuaded report based on selected facts to reveal the obvious to you? As I stated plenty of times in the past, it is not the peaceful Muslim in the Middle East that hate us. It is the militant Islamists and their clereks that preach it and the many that fall into it.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

Liberation and the defense of weaker people because they can't defend themselves are always a good enough reason to act.

Not according to the old-school, greybeards of war like Sun-Tzu, Clausewitz et al. But, perhaps you know better. Perhaps the warm fuzzy feelings of being worldcop are worth risking the health of a nation for.

There is nothing different...

Actually, the report says that there is a difference.
It says that while it is indeed a component of all wars, it's an even more important part of the GWoT than it has been in other wars.

If you line up 50,000 Iraqi's the media will ask which one has suffered tragedy and single that person out.

That shouldn't be to hard. IIRC the stats a couple of years back were that 1 in 4 had one that was the result of the invasion.

What you hear from CIA or the DoD comes from suits, Air Force Generals and eveyone else that isn't on the ground and looking at it. Reports from that high are always old and outdated. We normally laugh at these, because when they are publicised, the facts are always different.

So, I suppose you have no wonder that Team Bush has made bad decisions while prosecuting the war- they have no idea what's really going on.
Since you know better than the DoD and the CIA, how 'bout you share your better source of info with us?

... it is not the peaceful Muslim in the Middle East that hate us.

While that may have been true in the fifty years of the past, the invasion of Iraq has turned even some of our erstwhile friends against us. Examine these examples from Turkey:

In Many Turks' Eyes, U.S. Remains the Enemy
Hostility Bodes Ill For Efforts to Boost Americans' Image

The latest survey, gathered in February by the private Metropoll organization, found that four in 10 Turks regard the United States as their country's "biggest enemy." That is more than double the number who named Greece, the ancient rival Turkey has come to the brink of war with three times in the last half-century.
​

Extreme Anti-Americanism in Turkey

"It is difficult to detect the difference between what Osama bin Laden said in his 19 audio and videotapes since September 11, 2001, and what some Turkish journalists write. If anything, the Turks outvenom bin Laden.
This would be hilarious if not for the incontrovertible fact that it is believed not only by Islamist extremists but by countless millions of Muslim fundamentalists ...
Anti-Americanism is a relatively new phenomenon in Turkey. Throughout the 1990s in Turkey, 60 percent of the people had favorable views about the U.S. and its policies. The 2003 Iraq war closed many minds.
​

We're ******* off the moderates and friendlies. All of the hand-waving dismissal you could ever care to do doesn't change the facts you seem so uncomfortable with. Sometimes, the facts aren't what we would like them to be; however, we still have to deal with them.

It is the militant Islamists and their clereks that preach it and the many that fall into it.

Jftr, it's clerics.

 

[MikeyC]

I think the Muslim leaders who follow the perverse version of Islam are exploiting this war to gain recruits for the terrorist organizations.

 

[WiseRufus]

Iraqi resistance? Only from the leftovers from the Saddam Hussein regime who realize that there is no place for them in the new Iraq, except in prison. So, true to their code, they will die and take as many Iraqis with them as they can.

Right On Man! Absolutely true, 100%. Fox News also told me to jump off the Empire State building. So I did. Then I died, so that sucked.

 

[MSgt]

Since you seem to want to argue this, let me rephrase.....winning the "Hearts and Minds" may be more important now, but our tactics to do it have not changed from one conflict to the next. It is abstract to those of that have built schools and provided security. Nothing has changed for us, because it is something that we have always seen as important.

I have shared. First hand accounts don't seem to matter much here. If it hasn't been scrutinized, shaped, or made to fit one's agenda in a report, it doesn't seem to hold weight. Government reports always reflect generic and general information. The facts are never accurate.

None of us really care about the rest of the world's toleration of these fanatics. Militant Islamists have always been the enemy and we are killing them until we are pulled back. The rest of the world can stand on the side line and benefit from it's security.

WiseRufus thinks terrorism is only the act of a few individuals.

Clerics...Thanks for the spelling lesson.

 

[Simon W. Moon]

Since you seem to want to argue this, let me rephrase.....winning the "Hearts and Minds" may be more important now, but our tactics to do it have not changed from one conflict to the next.

Perhaps that's the problem. The GWoT isn't like many other conflicts.

If it hasn't been scrutinized, shaped, or made to fit one's agenda in a report, it doesn't seem to hold weight.

What agenda are you suggesting that the CIA and the DOD reports have been shaped to fit?
The issue is the difference between anecdotes and data.

Government reports always reflect generic and general information. The facts are never accurate.

So, you're saying that the Bush Admin's basically flying blind in their prosecution of the GWoT? Or what?

 

[teacher]

Liberation and the defense of weaker people because they can't defend themselves are always a good enough reason to act.

Since you libs are so compassionate and well meaning. How do you deal with that statement on it's own? I'd venture that if Clinton had done the same as W. you'd be all for war. But that is the nature of you libs. March lock step with your party rhetoric. I fully supported Clinton's military actions. How could Kosovo be so right and Iraq be so wrong. We were defending the defenseless in both cases. How can you libs sit there and say we have no right to invade a "sovereign nation" just because its leaders are brutes? I say with Americas power it is our MORAL OBLIGATION to right wrong. Don't come back with "who are we to enforce our moral beliefs on another culture"? That is just weak. We all know the difference between right and wrong. Rape rooms are wrong. Mass graves are wrong. Debate that. Maybe an analogy. Your walking down the street and come across a 14 year old boy beating a 10 year old boy. The 10 year old boy is yelling I've had enough, help. Is it not your MORAL OBLIGATION to put a stop to this. Of course it is. What difference then does an international border make? Maybe another analogy? The Republicans gain so much power that they can enforce their religious beliefs on us all. Church becomes mandatory. Public prayer 5 times a day facing Jerusalem. Women must wear unrevealing high necked pant suits. All men in pin stripe suits. All TV and movies are rated G. Noncompliance results in imprisonment or death. Basically a religious state. I bet if Europe came to your rescue to cram freedom down our throu ts you wouldn't cry "but we are a sovereign nation, you have no right". When the followers of Oral Roberts car bomb children you would call them "terrorists" and not "insurgents". Set aside political bickering for a moment and address these points of right and wrong. Then maybe a logical political debate can ensue. And no BS about putting our sons and daughters in harms way. They knew the stakes when they raised their right hand and said the oath. The military is not a jobs program or a slick way to get college money. It's the friggin military. The ones joining now know what they're getting into. And join they do. Are you going to tell them how they should act with their own lives?

 

[Fantasea]

Since you seem to want to argue this, let me rephrase.....winning the "Hearts and Minds" may be more important now, but our tactics to do it have not changed from one conflict to the next. It is abstract to those of that have built schools and provided security. Nothing has changed for us, because it is something that we have always seen as important.

I have shared. First hand accounts don't seem to matter much here. If it hasn't been scrutinized, shaped, or made to fit one's agenda in a report, it doesn't seem to hold weight. Government reports always reflect generic and general information. The facts are never accurate.

None of us really care about the rest of the world's toleration of these fanatics. Militant Islamists have always been the enemy and we are killing them until we are pulled back. The rest of the world can stand on the side line and benefit from it's security.

WiseRufus thinks terrorism is only the act of a few individuals.

Clerics...Thanks for the spelling lesson.

The first thing to understand is that in this forum, you are offering an elixir composed of the essence of truth to those who reject anything but Kool-Aid, laced with hate for the Administration, which they ladle freely to each other.

 

[MSgt]

Simon...you act like a child that is hell bent on picking fragments of a sentence apart for the sake of arguing.

Teach.....words right out of my mouth. Liberals are the biggest hypocrits on the planet. They have always been. I think that is why I shy away from them as a political party. They are very self-serving as our self appointed voices of conscious. Never a voice for truth or justice until a rival party get's there first. Then it's all about how America is to blame.

Right or wrong is a hypocritical tool they use depending on what kind of President sits in the White House.

 

[teacher]

The spread of democracy in that region is the only thing that will quell the terrorist activity.

And now another part of the equation. They bombed the WTC before Iraq. So no weak argument about we bring this on ourselves. Or do you contend they're still mad about the Shah? Or maybe it's because we give them lots of money for their oil. The only thing that would pacify the fanatics would be if we nuked Israel. And that's about the only way to defeat that bunch.

If the Islamic fanatics had had a nuke instead of hijacking planes Manhattan would be glass. Don't even bother debating that point. We can never foreign policy our way out of this. We must spread freedom on their turf. Then, as now recently, the free there will deal with this problem. Iran and Syria want no part of freedom in that region. That plants ideas in the heads of the oppressed in those countries. The leadership of Iran and Syria have a tenuous hold in those places. Hope of the oppressed is a real danger to their control. Information even now spreads to those who previously only got news from the likes of AlJezera. This is for the betterment of the world. And it takes America to do it. Unfortunately it took 9/11 to give our leaders the support to do what should have been done a long time ago. If Bush had not done this and there was a nuke in this country you libs would be screaming why didn't you do what your doing now. But W. did win the election and is doing what needs to be done. This is EXACTLY why W. won the election. Not gay rights or moral values. You libs got your head in the sand on that one.

We are now in the middle east to keep a nuke from going off in our country in the future. That is it. End of story. Argue and whine all you want about politics. It has nothing to do with the real reason. So we have Condelezas reasons for going to war. Powell sitting at the UN with a vial of anthrax. The Downing street memo. So what. Our leaders knew they could never sell this war to people about a future nuke. To long term. Requires thought and vision. Sadly lacking in America. Who will win American idol is what the US cares about. The ends justifies the means on this one? You betchya. It's what I would have done. And W. will never get credit for a nuke NOT going off in this country. You know what? He could care less. Do the right thing.

 

[MikeyC]

Why not go after the obvious nuclear threats first? Or since I supported the war in 2003, why not reform our intelligence so that we can better assess nuclear threats? We obviously acted on faulty intelligence. May not be Bush's fault, but we certainly should be worrying more about our own intelligence failures.