Kudos has to go to someone in DC.

[Tyjenks]

Does anyone else not find it amazing that there have been no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in 2 years? After 9/11, would you have put down $100 saying there would not be?

As much as I dislike Ashcroft, Ridge, et.al. and as shitty of a job as we do in protecting our Mexican and Canadian borders, someone is doing something right. We hear about a possible terrorist group captured or ferreted out now and again, but there must be a lot going on behind the scenes that we do not hear about. The CIA, FBI, or Special Task Force for Getting Baddies (STFGB) needs a little pat on the back, IMO.

[Machfive]

Truth be told, I think it's because we brought the fight to them. It's far easier to strike the soldiers in Afganistan and Iraq than it is to do it on US soil, even if the shock value of the latter is greater.

But that's my theory. Perhaps the intelligence agencies really have prevented some attacks, and it's one of those things that the general public will never know how close they got to. That is a possiibility too.

[Tyjenks]

I did not want another "The wars have helped/Yeah, but look at what cost" thread started, but hitting them at their origins has, obviously, disrupted their worldwide operations. That along with our operatives and those of other countries abroad. I still would have guessed something would have been pulled off or at least a failed attempt would have come to light by now.

[Machfive]

Well, there *was* the shoe-bomber...Can't write him off, can ya? ;)

[Robert Sharp]

Truth be told, I think it's because we brought the fight to them. It's far easier to strike the soldiers in Afganistan and Iraq than it is to do it on US soil, even if the shock value of the latter is greater.


I'm not convinced of this. The people we killed in Iraq were not terrorists. Despite what Bush would have you believe, there is a difference. While I do think that the Afghan and Iraqi regimes were helping to fund terrorism, they certainly aren't the only source. I'm sure there are still many terrorists still in the U.S., but the feds are doing a pretty good job so far to stop them. I honestly expected we start seeing car bombs and such and the U.S. would start looking somewhat like Israel. I'm very impressed by what the feds have done so far to keep this from happening.

Of course, your main point, which is that our soldiers are easier targets, is certainly correct. But I think you are also right that the shock value is greater if they attack here. I think a lot of people attacking those soldiers in Iraq are soldiers themselves, not terrorists. They are more interested in getting us out of their country than hurting the U.S. itself. If foreign soldiers were in the U.S. we could imagine our citizens doing similar things to them. That's just partisan forces.

There will still be more terrorists attacks on U.S. soil in the future, but I really expected to see them already.

[Jason McCullough]

We went 200 years without terrorist attacks in the US before 9/11; obviously they knew what they were doing!

Afghanistan obviously helped, but I'll be damned if I know how Iraq did.

[voltaic]

We went 200 years without terrorist attacks in the US before 9/11; obviously they knew what they were doing!
Except for Oklahoma City. And the WTC bombing.

[Jason McCullough]

Excuse me, 190 years. :D

[Matthew Gallant]

Does anyone else not find it amazing that there have been no terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in 2 years?
I guess the firebombing and vandalism of mosques and abortion clinics don't count.

[Machfive]

I'm not convinced of this. The people we killed in Iraq were not terrorists. Despite what Bush would have you believe...[snip]

D-d-d-d-dd-d-d-d! No partisan bullshit, let's keep this sane.

Yes, the soldiers and civilians that died in Iraq were not members of the same terrorist entity which has been waging war on the Infidel States of America for a decade.

However, now that there is a presence smack dab in the middle of a region full of young, malleable men raised on the lies of the "Arab Street," they are serving as a much more tempting target than embassies and home-soil targets. The terrorists and wannabes are staging their attacks and assisting the Iraqi guerilla movement, which will make their elimination proceed much quicker than if we were hunting them down out in BFE.

The blow against Saddam's regime itself sure as hell didnt effect terrorism one bit, but our very presence there WILL have an effect, and I believe it'll be a positive one.

[ydejin]

As Jason and others have pointed out, there is no doubt that our actions in Afghanistan have had a major impact. We destroyed Al Qaeda's infrastructure and captured or killed many of their leaders. I should also point out that I and many other "liberals" supported US actions in Afghanistan. Overall I think the administration did a good job there. We did make a few mistakes -- for example, our unwillingness to commit large numbers of ground troops and our dependence on our Afghan allies may have allowed Osama to escape. Nevertheless, I have no major complaints about the Afghan campaign. The Bush administration waited until intelligence properly confirmed the culpability of Al Qaeda in 9/11. They garnered international support and built an international coalition. They went in and did a good job.

The question isn't whether or not our attack on Afghanistan has made a difference in the war on terror. It has. The question is how much of what we gained in Afghanistan has been lost by our attack in Iraq.

The way the Bush administration has gone about the Iraq war has resulted in the loss of a tremendous amount of international goodwill. International support is critical in fighting terrorism, as terrorism has global scope. That loss of goodwill has reduced our overall ability to wage war against Al Qaeda and others. Countries which had begun to cooperate with us on the war on terror, such as Russia and China, are now far less likely to act on our behalf. Public opinion in even some of our traditional allies has radically shifted against us. Moreover, we shifted resources away from Afghanistan before the job was completed. The US has a very limited number of Arab-language Special Forces. These forces originally in Afghanistan were moved to Iraq -- in their place we've moved our Latin-American Special Forces to Afghanistan (hardly the most effective way of tracking down Osama). There are also a limited number of remote-control Predators available. Again these were moved from Afghanistan to Iraq. Here's a quote from Newsweek (www.msnbc.com/news/966399.asp?0dm=C408N)


some U.S. military officials trace the Taliban’s gradual resurgence to the abrupt diversion of so many resources to Iraq, including Predator aerial vehicles, in a critical period beginning in 2002. One example: in February and March of 2002, the Arabic-speaking Fifth Special Forces Group—the teams that were mostly credited with winning the Afghan war—were largely pulled out to be soon redeployed in the Mideast. They were replaced by other teams such as the Seventh Group, whose focus is Latin America. The result: a loss of good intelligence. “From the very beginning we f—ked it up,” said a Fifth Group officer who fought in Afghanistan. “The conventional Army came in and new teams... didn’t have the same relations. Continuity is everything. The trust you develop with another guy by fighting alongside him is everything. We did it wrong.”

We have opened up a new front against radical Islam in Iraq. If the number of militant radical Islamics was stable, we could argue that this has reduced the risks of an attack at home. However, I think it's self-evident that attacking Iraq has actually increased the number of potential terrorists (at least temporarily). Potential terrorists include the friends and relatives of everyone we've killed in Iraq (accidently or on purpose, justified or not). But it also includes lots of people in other Arab countries who see us as bullies, who are sick of the US' unqualified support of Israel, and see our attack on Iraq as the last straw.

If we actually manage to turn Iraq into a stable democracy, the attack Iraq may in the end reduce our overall risk of terrorist attack. However, if Al Qaeda is able to recover itself because of the resources we've moved away from Afghanistan to Iraq, we have made a huge mistake.

I think at this point it is very clear that Iraq posed no immediate and imminent danger to the United States. There was no need for us to attack Iraq beforing finishing up with Al Qaeda. There was no need for us to throw away the tremendous amount of international goodwill we had been granted after 9/11.

Edit: Added link and quote from Newsweek to support comment on Predators and Special Forces.

[XPav]

Well said.

[Lizard_King]

On a more domestic level, I think a lot can be said for Ashcroft and company paying only lip service to political correctness; despite all of the failures on a terms of structure, I believe it is this disregard for political propriety, that has been largely responsible for the defense against terrorism. Whether the price we are paying in the long run for this security is worth it, I don't know.


I guess the firebombing and vandalism of mosques and abortion clinics don't count.

I think there is a significant difference between the sort of international terrorism encountered in, say, WTC 1 & 2 and the bombing of abortion clinics. Your results may vary depending on how dire your need is to muddy the waters of any discussion with favoured liberal talking points.

[Brad Grenz]

Can we count the sniper?

As for Ashcroft, anyone else think it was funny how Librarians and the ACLU were throwing a hissy-fit over the section about gathering information from libraries and businesses, demanding the the DOJ disclose how many times it had been used, and it turned out it had never been used? Which was exactly what I figured would be the case, because let's face it, if the American Association of Librarians couldn't come up with any numbers on their own, it probably wasn't a common occurance.

I understand the concern over the thought police, but it's not like they set up an elaborate automated computer system seaching for people who checked out Mein Kapmf or the Qoran. But I think there is a legitimate application regarding suspected terrorists obtaining building records, blueprints and that kind of thing.

[Guido Jones]

Don't forget the unibomber.

[bmulligan]

The way the Bush administration has gone about the Iraq war has resulted in the loss of a tremendous amount of international goodwill.....But it also includes lots of people in other Arab countries who see us as bullies, who are sick of the US' unqualified support of Israel, and see our attack on Iraq as the last straw.



Yes, the mantra. The supposed 'goodwill' has been destroyed in the countries that hated us in the first place. Big loss there. And the arabs and Europeans who have always thought we were bullies, still do. And the terrorists who thought out last troop movement into Saudia Arabia was the last straw 12 years ago.

Using the invasion of Iraq as the 'last straw' for haterd of America is becoming tiresome. The imminent threat argument lends much more credence to the opposition instead of the 'now they really hate us' argument.

[Jason McCullough]

Can we count the sniper?

As for Ashcroft, anyone else think it was funny how Librarians and the ACLU were throwing a hissy-fit over the section about gathering information from libraries and businesses, demanding the the DOJ disclose how many times it had been used, and it turned out it had never been used? Which was exactly what I figured would be the case, because let's face it, if the American Association of Librarians couldn't come up with any numbers on their own, it probably wasn't a common occurance.

I understand the concern over the thought police, but it's not like they set up an elaborate automated computer system seaching for people who checked out Mein Kapmf or the Qoran. But I think there is a legitimate application regarding suspected terrorists obtaining building records, blueprints and that kind of thing.

http://www.talkleft.com/archives/004339.html#004339

Libraries report being asked for the records, so I'm not sure what's going on.

[Matthew Gallant]

You went back in time two weeks and jinxed it, Tyjenks...a terrorist attack caused $50 million worth of damage in San Diego (www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/news/archive/2003/08/18/state1954EDT0158.DTL).

[MarchHare]

Yes, the mantra. The supposed 'goodwill' has been destroyed in the countries that hated us in the first place. Big loss there.


Yeah, like Germany, France, Japan, Canada, the UK (the people, not the government), Turkey, India...

[Daniel Morris]

Nonsense -- thanks to short-sighted US policy, we have created hundreds of Bin Ladens, each of whom has conducted a catastrophic terrorist event on US soil; caused fundamentalists to violently overthrow the moderate governments of Egypt and Jordan; caused Musharraf to be deposed in Pakistan (and now that country is a nuclear-armed Islamist camp); and forced North Korea to start a nuclear war that devastated the Korean peninsula and the California coast.

[Jason McCullough]

Check back in ten years on that list, Daniel.

[Brad Grenz]

http://www.talkleft.com/archives/004339.html#004339

Libraries report being asked for the records, so I'm not sure what's going on.

"Update: Quark Soup wonders if the library records in the above article were obtained by criminal subpoena under pre-patriot act powers rather than under FISA powers granted by the Patriot Act."

[Jason McCullough]

(From Link)


That doesn't answer the question of what Howard means by the small percentage that have occurred under the FISA (which he implies isn't zero), but the vast majority of these searches came under pre-Patriot Act powers, he says.

Anyway, the library thing is exactly the sort of feel-good legislation that's not going to stop shit. They just do it because it's easy.

[theblackw0lf]

I don't think it was our policy in Iraq that has led to a loss of goodwill, it was the inability of our president to articulate that policy. In order to maintain goodwill Bush needed to convince people that we were justified in invading Iraq, and he failed to do so, even though there were many good reasons for doing so, that had been articulated much more eloquently by other members of the administration.

[Daniel Morris]

I don't think it was our policy in Iraq that has led to a loss of goodwill, it was the inability of our president to articulate that policy.


Tony Blair articulated our aims in Iraq quite brilliantly on numerous occasions, most forcefully in his speech to the House of Commons. It hasn't made a dent.

No amount of articulation will ever make a dent -- not until the history books are written, anyway. For now, opponents of the US action in Iraq have dug their heels in deeply for a brave stand against what Jacques Chirac calls "a unipolar world."

[Jason McCullough]

Daniel, this may be hard to grasp, but people in the US didn't oppose the war because we want France to be a superpower.

[Daniel Morris]

I'm just tired of hearing about how the war was supposedly only ever justified with monosyllabic Bushisms. Tony Blair's speech to the House of Commons in on the Web in its entirety --- http://politics.guardian.co.uk/iraq/story/0,12956,916790,00.html -- so there is no excuse for carping about an inarticulately justified war.

[Jason McCullough]

So a US-led war was justified to US citizens by.....the British PM?

[Lizard_King]

Daniel, this may be hard to grasp, but people in the US didn't oppose the war because we want France to be a superpower.

No. But you certainly don't want the US running things. Ergo, your goals are very similiar to the French.

[Jason McCullough]

I'm not opposed to a unipolar world with the US in charge. I'm opposed to one with a *stupid* US in charge, which is what we're getting right now; I have no idea how it benefits the US to tell the rest of the world to go fuck itself. It's a loser strictly in cost-benefit terms.

[Doug Erickson]

Really; I didn't know the US was such an advocate of imperialistic behavior. Color me confused as to our national attitude -- maybe it's all this, I dunno, DEMOCRACY going on.

Consistency: ever the hobgoblin of little minds.

[Anders Hallin]

You don't have to advocate it to be doing it.
The other way around, North Korea seems a great advocate of being a peace-loving democracy.

[Ben]

Doug, uh, you don't know what that consistency quote means, do you?

[Giles]

Doug, uh, you don't know what that consistency quote means, do you?

He also cut an important part of the quote. Somehow, I doubt Thoreau had a problem with consistency per se, which is why he wrote that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

[bmulligan]

I'm not opposed to a unipolar world with the US in charge. I'm opposed to one with a *stupid* US in charge, which is what we're getting right now; I have no idea how it benefits the US to tell the rest of the world to go fuck itself. It's a loser strictly in cost-benefit terms.

I can't wait to hear these words from our next president:

"It's ok, you can take our money and shit on us. We want you to like us. Do what ever you want and that's ok, just show us some love when we roll over for you."

Jason would vote for that guy.

[TimElhajj]

Doug, uh, you don't know what that consistency quote means, do you?

He also cut an important part of the quote. Somehow, I doubt Thoreau had a problem with consistency per se, which is why he wrote that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

My god. The irony. The foolish irony.

[bmulligan]

I have no idea how it benefits the US to tell the rest of the world to go fuck itself. It's a loser strictly in cost-benefit terms.

No one has told the rest of the world to go fuck itself. If stupidity now means forcing the worlds gangsters to honor their commitments, then I guess you're right. We've had to coerce the UN to administer their resolutions on Iraq since they started making them. Apparantly the UN lacks the fortitude to do so on it's own. Perhaps we should remain complacent in fruitless diplomacy until we see the smoking gun after being fired.

I'll take your definition of 'stupid leadership' over 'gutless second guessing' any day of the week.

[Doug Erickson]

I'm well aware of the source of that quote and what it means when complete. I was being tongue-in-cheek, implying that ANY consistency is apparently considered a foolish endeavor. Sheesh.

[Jason McCullough]

You people have a really fucking strange definition of diplomacy. "Either you agree to everything we say at every point, or we're call you names! Then look shocked and hurt when you don't come groveling back later!"

[Kyle Wilson]

He also cut an important part of the quote. Somehow, I doubt Thoreau had a problem with consistency per se, which is why he wrote that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Emerson.

[Daniel Morris]

You people have a really fucking strange definition of diplomacy.

US/UK: "Guys, it's pretty obvious that in the post-9/11 world, with ample evidence that terrorists would love to hit major Western cities with weapons of mass destruction, that we ought to start holding unaccountable regimes accountable now. We've been on borrowed time, and that time is clearly up. Whaddya say we make an example of the most glaring offender, Saddam, whom we've all allowed to piss in the UN's eye since at least 1998."


UN: "Hmm. Nah."


US/UK: "Oy vey. Okay, we'll do it ourselves then."


UN: "Yankee imperialists. You are an unrestrained hyperpower."


Jason McCullough: "Jesus Christ! We are an unrestrained hyperpower! Did you hear they called us imperialists!?"


World Leaders Amongst Themselves: "What a giant hassle. As if any of this changes anything at all about the relationships between the major Western powers. Oh well, that's diplomacy for you -- same shit, different day."

http://i.cnn.net/cnn/2003/WORLD/meast/09/24/sprj.irq.main/vert.schroeder.bush.ap.jpg

[Jason McCullough]

Now, you're thinking of Europe as Germany and France. I don't. I think that's old Europe. If you look at the entire NATO Europe today, the center of gravity is shifting to the east. And there are a lot of new members. And if you just take the list of all the members of NATO and all of those who have been invited in recently -- what is it? Twenty-six, something like that? -- you're right. Germany has been a problem, and France has been a problem.


Referring to the US role in defeating Hitler, post-war reconstruction and finally German reunification, Richard Perle said "the chancellor has thrown it all out the window".

"I have never before seen such a close relationship so quickly and so heavily damaged as through Schroeder's election campaign," Mr Perle told the Handelsblatt newspaper.

"The best thing would be for him to resign. But he obviously won't do that," he said.


In an unusual move, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz earlier this year asked the CIA to investigate the performance of Swedish diplomat Hans Blix, chairman of the new United Nations team that was formed to carry out inspections of Iraq's weapons programs.


Iraq recruited U.N. inspectors as informants and learns in advance which facilities will be searched, giving Saddam advance warning that enables him to play "rope-a-dope in the desert," according to Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz.


"And then there are three or four countries that have said they won't do anything. I believe Libya, Cuba and Germany are the ones that I have indicated won't help in any respect," Rumsfeld said.

[bmulligan]

I'm well aware of the source of that quote and what it means when complete. I was being tongue-in-cheek, implying that ANY consistency is apparently considered a foolish endeavor. Sheesh.

wrong, only conservative consistency is foolish to the QT3 social order. Or at least anyone who agrees with Bush on anything, regardless if they are a conservative or not.

[Kyle Wilson]

He also cut an important part of the quote. Somehow, I doubt Thoreau had a problem with consistency per se, which is why he wrote that a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds.

Emerson.

[bmulligan]

Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, and all governments are sometimes, inexpedient.

-Henry David Thoreau

[Anders Hallin]

US: As God is our witness, we're going to invade Iraq!

(most of) Europe: Umm. We wouldn't.

US: Well, we don't care what you pathetic old-worlders think. And here's a bunch of reasons why you should agree with us.

Europe: Did you just call us pathetic old-worlders after making it abundantly clear that you're going to invade Iraq, no matter what?

[Tyjenks]

Is this the thread I started regarding the lack of overseas terrorists striking on U.S. soil in the last 2 years? I ask because it seems remarkably close to the other ninety-seven threads which include the phrase "The US had no right and are fuckers for invading." or "We hate Bush and he is a big, stupid head."

[Jason McCullough]

What did you expect? :D

[TimElhajj]

Is this the thread I started regarding the lack of overseas terrorists striking on U.S. soil in the last 2 years? I ask because it seems remarkably close to the other ninety-seven threads which include the phrase "The US had no right and are fuckers for invading." or "We hate Bush and he is a big, stupid head."

Pray tell what does this post have to do with the unjust invasion of Iraq and that poopy head Bush?

[Rollory]

You people have a really fucking strange definition of diplomacy. "Either you agree to everything we say at every point, or we're call you names! Then look shocked and hurt when you don't come groveling back later!"

I didn't know we were talking about the French ... but yeah, you're absolutely right about them.