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Iran

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Anonymous

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Joe Galloway Commentary: Inexorable march toward war with Iran?
By Joseph L. Galloway | McClatchy Newspapers
Posted on Wednesday, October 31, 2007 email | print tool nameclose
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There were some things far more frightening this week than Halloween's small ghouls and goblins — and the scariest of all is the Bush administration's seemingly inexorable march toward military confrontation with Iran.

What ARE they smoking back there at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue? The very idea is dumb as a fencepost and best left to the biggest pied piper of what passes for neo-conservative thought, Norman Podhoretz. Yet both President George W. Bush and his able assistant, Vice President Darth Cheney, are marching to that tune and humming along lustily.

There is no crisis here, and no earthly reason to manufacture one on short notice, except for the fact that in under 15 months the Bush administration will pass ignominiously into history. Then a new chief executive can begin dealing with two ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, a national debt nearing $10 trillion, a terrorist threat to America only made stronger by eight years of Bush and Cheney, and a national economy trembling on the brink of recession.

As though that weren't a big enough mess to leave behind, like so much trash in an abandoned trailer home, these brilliant thinkers want to bequeath a third and far more dangerous war to whoever is unlucky enough to win the ongoing tussle of midgets that passes for a presidential contest.

There are two questions here: Why? And, why now?

Yes, the centrifuges are whirling away in Iran's deeply buried and widely dispersed nuclear facilities, enriching uranium that can be used to power electric generation plants and, it's true, can also be used to build nuclear weapons.

But most analysts say that even if Iran's ultimate ambition is to build a nuclear weapon, it will take them another five or six years before they get there. Some say even longer.

How about we take a deep breath and — once we have an administration in power that believes that it is far better to talk, talk, talk than it is to war, war, war — negotiate with Iran without all those preconditions so beloved by Bush and Cheney.

How about we do all we can to support the International Atomic Energy Agency and its goal of inspecting facilities like those in Iran to ensure that the product is used only for peaceful purposes.

If none of that works, we can count on one final fallback position: If and when Iran and its illustrious leader, Ahmad Uglydinnerjacket, get within reach of building a nuke, Israel will take out crucial parts of that system.

All of this argues against Bush and Cheney doing anything more than running their mouths and pretending to still be relevant, studly and in charge as they stumble blindly toward the finish line and history's harsh judgment.

The more thoughtful military and civilian advisers can rattle off a dozen reasons why an American attack on Iran at this juncture would be foolish in the extreme and risk setting the Middle East afire.

Just some of those reasons would include:

— Shutting down not only Iran's oil production but Iraq's as well, and possibly triggering Iranian retaliation against the oil production and shipping in other nations around the Persian Gulf. Are we ready for $300 a barrel oil?

— Putting 160,000 American troops and another 125,000 American and foreign contractors in Iraq at much greater risk, as neighboring Iran signals Shiite allies there to begin all-out war against us and sends in its own well-armed guerrillas to lead the attack. Our 250-mile main supply lines in Iraq run through the heart of Shiite-controlled southern Iraq, and they would be cut. If we think we have troubles now with the shaky Iraq national government in Baghdad, which has already snuggled up to Tehran, what would war with Iran bring?

— Risking confrontation with the newly oil-rich and energized Russian Federation and President Bush's ex-KGB soul-mate Vladimir Putin. Since Putin has his hand on the natural gas and oil pipelines that keep our presumed allies in Europe from freezing to death, it is wise to assume that any support for an American attack on his ally Iran would be slim to none.

— Assuming that any U.S. air war against Iran would not be enough by itself — and such air campaigns seldom are definitive in modern history — where would we find the ground forces capable of doing the really hard part? Our Army and Marine Corps are stretched to the breaking point maintaining the force level in Iraq and Afghanistan. We have no strategic reserves available to help secure our allies in the Persian Gulf, much less to mount any offensive inside Iran.

When you add it all up, you have your answer: No one in their right mind would believe that attacking Iran now makes any sense at all.

But that doesn't mean that Bush and Cheney won't do it.

There were a lot of reasons why a pre-emptive strike into Iraq based on flimsy and bogus intelligence and far too few troops made no sense, yet they did it anyway, with trademark arrogance and ignorance.

General H. Norman Schwarzkopf has called Joseph L. Galloway, a military columnist for McClatchy Newspapers, "The finest combat correspondent of our generation — a soldier's reporter and a soldier's friend."

Galloway is the co-author, with Lt. Gen. Hal Moore, of "We Were Soldiers Once ... and Young," a story of the first large-scale ground battle of the Vietnam War. The book was made into a movie of the same name. Galloway was portrayed in the movie by actor Barry Pepper.



http://www.mcclatchydc.com/galloway/story/21002.html

BTW, Norman Podhoretz is now affiliated with Rudy's campaign.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Texan said:
...a terrorist threat to America only made stronger by eight years of Bush and Cheney...

Is there any proof of this statement, ff? Or is it just more anecdotal BS?

Sure.

A stark assessment of terrorism trends by American intelligence agencies has found that the American invasion and occupation of Iraq has helped spawn a new generation of Islamic radicalism and that the overall terrorist threat has grown since the Sept. 11 attacks.

The classified National Intelligence Estimate attributes a more direct role to the Iraq war in fueling radicalism than that presented either in recent White House documents or in a report released Wednesday by the House Intelligence Committee, according to several officials in Washington involved in preparing the assessment or who have read the final document.

The intelligence estimate, completed in April, is the first formal appraisal of global terrorism by United States intelligence agencies since the Iraq war began, and represents a consensus view of the 16 disparate spy services inside government. Titled “Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States,’’ it asserts that Islamic radicalism, rather than being in retreat, has metastasized and spread across the globe.

An opening section of the report, “Indicators of the Spread of the Global Jihadist Movement,” cites the Iraq war as a reason for the diffusion of jihad ideology.

The report “says that the Iraq war has made the overall terrorism problem worse,” said one American intelligence official.

More than a dozen United States government officials and outside experts were interviewed for this article, and all spoke only on condition of anonymity because they were discussing a classified intelligence document. The officials included employees of several government agencies, and both supporters and critics of the Bush administration. All of those interviewed had either seen the final version of the document or participated in the creation of earlier drafts. These officials discussed some of the document’s general conclusions but not details, which remain highly classified.

Officials with knowledge of the intelligence estimate said it avoided specific judgments about the likelihood that terrorists would once again strike on United States soil. The relationship between the Iraq war and terrorism, and the question of whether the United States is safer, have been subjects of persistent debate since the war began in 2003.

National Intelligence Estimates are the most authoritative documents that the intelligence community produces on a specific national security issue, and are approved by John D. Negroponte, director of national intelligence. Their conclusions are based on analysis of raw intelligence collected by all of the spy agencies.

Analysts began working on the estimate in 2004, but it was not finalized until this year. Part of the reason was that some government officials were unhappy with the structure and focus of earlier versions of the document, according to officials involved in the discussion.

Previous drafts described actions by the United States government that were determined to have stoked the jihad movement, like the indefinite detention of prisoners at Guantánamo Bay and the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, and some policy makers argued that the intelligence estimate should be more focused on specific steps to mitigate the terror threat. It is unclear whether the final draft of the intelligence estimate criticizes individual policies of the United States, but intelligence officials involved in preparing the document said its conclusions were not softened or massaged for political purposes.

Frederick Jones, a White House spokesman, said the White House “played no role in drafting or reviewing the judgments expressed in the National Intelligence Estimate on terrorism.” The estimate’s judgments confirm some predictions of a National Intelligence Council report completed in January 2003, two months before the Iraq invasion. That report stated that the approaching war had the potential to increase support for political Islam worldwide and could increase support for some terrorist objectives.

Documents released by the White House timed to coincide with the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks emphasized the successes that the United States had made in dismantling the top tier of Al Qaeda.

“Since the Sept. 11 attacks, America and its allies are safer, but we are not yet safe,” concludes one, a report titled “9/11 Five Years Later: Success and Challenges.” “We have done much to degrade Al Qaeda and its affiliates and to undercut the perceived legitimacy of terrorism.”

That document makes only passing mention of the impact the Iraq war has had on the global jihad movement. “The ongoing fight for freedom in Iraq has been twisted by terrorist propaganda as a rallying cry,” it states.

The report mentions the possibility that Islamic militants who fought in Iraq could return to their home countries, “exacerbating domestic conflicts or fomenting radical ideologies.”

On Wednesday, the Republican-controlled House Intelligence Committee released a more ominous report about the terrorist threat. That assessment, based entirely on unclassified documents, details a growing jihad movement and says, “Al Qaeda leaders wait patiently for the right opportunity to attack.”

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The new National Intelligence Estimate was overseen by David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats, who commissioned it in 2004 after he took up his post at the National Intelligence Council. Mr. Low declined to be interviewed for this article.

The estimate concludes that the radical Islamic movement has expanded from a core of Qaeda operatives and affiliated groups to include a new class of “self-generating” cells inspired by Al Qaeda’s leadership but without any direct connection to Osama bin Laden or his top lieutenants.

It also examines how the Internet has helped spread jihadist ideology, and how cyberspace has become a haven for terrorist operatives who no longer have geographical refuges in countries like Afghanistan.

In early 2005, the National Intelligence Council released a study concluding that Iraq had become the primary training ground for the next generation of terrorists, and that veterans of the Iraq war might ultimately overtake Al Qaeda’s current leadership in the constellation of the global jihad leadership.

But the new intelligence estimate is the first report since the war began to present a comprehensive picture about the trends in global terrorism.

In recent months, some senior American intelligence officials have offered glimpses into the estimate’s conclusions in public speeches.

“New jihadist networks and cells, sometimes united by little more than their anti-Western agendas, are increasingly likely to emerge,” said Gen. Michael V. Hayden, during a speech in San Antonio in April, the month that the new estimate was completed. “If this trend continues, threats to the U.S. at home and abroad will become more diverse and that could lead to increasing attacks worldwide,” said the general, who was then Mr. Negroponte’s top deputy and is now director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

For more than two years, there has been tension between the Bush administration and American spy agencies over the violence in Iraq and the prospects for a stable democracy in the country. Some intelligence officials have said the White House has consistently presented a more optimistic picture of the situation in Iraq than justified by intelligence reports from the field.

Spy agencies usually produce several national intelligence estimates each year on a variety of subjects. The most controversial of these in recent years was an October 2002 document assessing Iraq’s illicit weapons programs. Several government investigations have discredited that report, and the intelligence community is overhauling how it analyzes data, largely as a result of those investigations.

The broad judgments of the new intelligence estimate are consistent with assessments of global terrorist threats by American allies and independent terrorism experts.

The panel investigating the London terrorist bombings of July 2005 reported in May that the leaders of Britain’s domestic and international intelligence services, MI5 and MI6, “emphasized to the committee the growing scale of the Islamist terrorist threat.”

More recently, the Council on Global Terrorism, an independent research group of respected terrorism experts, assigned a grade of “D+” to United States efforts over the past five years to combat Islamic extremism. The council concluded that “there is every sign that radicalization in the Muslim world is spreading rather than shrinking.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/24/world/middleeast/24terror.html
 

Texan

Well-known member
Try again, ff. I'll highlight the pertinent part for you:

...a terrorist threat to America only made stronger by eight years of Bush and Cheney...

All of those terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere in the world are terrorists that aren't HERE.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Texan said:
Try again, ff. I'll highlight the pertinent part for you:

...a terrorist threat to America only made stronger by eight years of Bush and Cheney...

All of those terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere in the world are terrorists that aren't HERE.

Osama Bin Laden wasn't in this country on September 11 either. That didn't stop him from killing thousands of Americans. Terrorists don't have to be in country to kill Americans. Bush has put thousands of them at risk in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now he apparently wants to send them to Iran, too.

If this trend continues, threats to the U.S. at home and abroad will become more diverse....
 

Cal

Well-known member
ff said:
Texan said:
Try again, ff. I'll highlight the pertinent part for you:

...a terrorist threat to America only made stronger by eight years of Bush and Cheney...

All of those terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere in the world are terrorists that aren't HERE.

Osama Bin Laden wasn't in this country on September 11 either. That didn't stop him from killing thousands of Americans. Terrorists don't have to be in country to kill Americans. Bush has put thousands of them at risk in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now he apparently wants to send them to Iran, too.

If this trend continues, threats to the U.S. at home and abroad will become more diverse....
And here I thought that the left liked "diversity". So when can we expect these attacks? After Hillary gets elected?
 

Texan

Well-known member
ff said:
Osama Bin Laden wasn't in this country on September 11 either. That didn't stop him from killing thousands of Americans. Terrorists don't have to be in country to kill Americans. Bush has put thousands of them at risk in Afghanistan and Iraq. Now he apparently wants to send them to Iran, too.

If this trend continues, threats to the U.S. at home and abroad will become more diverse....
Threats to the U.S. at home and abroad will become more diverse no matter what we do, so we might as well be fighting them over there as to be fighting them here.

The do-nothing, ass-kissing appeasement offered by eight years of Clinton-Gore sure as hell didn't do much good, did it?
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
Texan said:
Try again, ff. I'll highlight the pertinent part for you:

...a terrorist threat to America only made stronger by eight years of Bush and Cheney...

All of those terrorists in Iraq and elsewhere in the world are terrorists that aren't HERE.


Man, :roll: :roll: :roll:

You swallowed that " marketing catch phrase" hook-line & sinker!!!!
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
Seems being in Iraq and Afghanistan has been successful. I believe there was more Terrorist attacks against the U.S. and our interest under Clinton than on Bush's watch since 911. Being in Iraq must be working!

Bush went and found a place for our soldiers to fight the terrorist, Clinton just sit back and let them pick us off one at a time.

Think of the Ratio of how many times we were attacked by Terrorist under Clinton to how many Terrorist Clinton was responsible for capturing and or Killing. He did not have a very good success ratio.
 

Goodpasture

Well-known member
aplusmnt said:
Think of the Ratio of how many times we were attacked by Terrorist under Clinton to how many Terrorist Clinton was responsible for capturing and or Killing. He did not have a very good success ratio.
Why should Al Qaeda bother sending terrorists to the US to kill Americans when we so obligingly send Americans to Iraq where they can be killed with virtual impunity?
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
aplusmnt said:
Seems being in Iraq and Afghanistan has been successful. I believe there was more Terrorist attacks against the U.S. and our interest under Clinton than on Bush's watch since 911. Being in Iraq must be working!

Bush went and found a place for our soldiers to fight the terrorist, Clinton just sit back and let them pick us off one at a time.

Think of the Ratio of how many times we were attacked by Terrorist under Clinton to how many Terrorist Clinton was responsible for capturing and or Killing. He did not have a very good success ratio.




....Bush does?

It's always the #2 man in AlQueda that's been caught...they're like bank VP's these #2 guys as there seems to be hundreds of'em. In 6 yrs time he can't track bin Laden with all these #2 guys to give them info? Doesn't that seem a bit odd ???

He's STILL hunting for bin Laden and has practically FORGOTTEN about the war in Afghanistan, which is where we should have stayed and finished the job.

But...noooooo...he had to go get the bad guy that insulted ' daddy'...and look where we are today!!!! :cry: :cry: :cry:
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
Goodpasture said:
aplusmnt said:
Think of the Ratio of how many times we were attacked by Terrorist under Clinton to how many Terrorist Clinton was responsible for capturing and or Killing. He did not have a very good success ratio.
Why should Al Qaeda bother sending terrorists to the US to kill Americans when we so obligingly send Americans to Iraq where they can be killed with virtual impunity?

Wouldn't you prefer it that way? Under Clinton they sent terrorist here to kill civilians and at us around the world and we did not fight back.

Bush smokes them out in the open were our Soldiers can kill them.

Compare Clinton, how many times did the terrorist attack the U.S. under his rule? Numerous times. How many Terrorist did Clinton kill? Very Little!

Bush has crippled AL Qaeda he has captured numerous terrorist, his aggressive attack against AL Qaeda has resulted in numerous spoiled terrorist attacks on U.S. soil.

Under Clinton the terrorist escalated their attacks killing more and more each time until we had 911 with very little if any Terrorist dying for their actions.

Basically under Bush as a result of one attack Bush has killed thousands of Terrorist and crippled their leadership.

Sounds like Iraq is working to me!

I have no idea how you can say the Terrorist are killing Americans with out punishment. You have that backwards due to being in Iraq there is more punishment being brought to the terrorist then ever before :roll:
 

aplusmnt

Well-known member
kolanuraven said:
....Bush does?

It's always the #2 man in AlQueda that's been caught...they're like bank VP's these #2 guys as there seems to be hundreds of'em. In 6 yrs time he can't track bin Laden with all these #2 guys to give them info? Doesn't that seem a bit odd ???

He's STILL hunting for bin Laden and has practically FORGOTTEN about the war in Afghanistan, which is where we should have stayed and finished the job.

But...noooooo...he had to go get the bad guy that insulted ' daddy'...and look where we are today!!!! :cry: :cry: :cry:

Thousands of Al Qaeda have been killed or captured. More than one 2nd in charge have been killed or captured. Many of the top leaders of Al Qaeda have been captured or killed.

Remember when Al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center the first time? The U.S. Embassy bombings killing 225 in 1998 or the USS Cole?

After these attacks how many Terrorist did Clinton remove from the earth? How many second in charge did he kill? Why did he not kill Bin Laden, when he was out in the open?

Bush is a leader, he is killing Terrorist and making America Safer. I can not believe people like you want another Clinton in office to weaken us and hide our heads in the sand like the 8 years under the previous Clinton!

We were attacked once under Bush (as a result of Clinton) and he attacked. Clinton was attacked many times and he did nothing! Who is the real leader of the free world? Clinton was a joke as commander and chief of America no true Commander would allow his citizens to continuously be attacked like Clinton did.

I believe in 100 years Bush will be remembered as a strong leader that started and led the fight against Terrorist around the world and Clinton will be remembered for Monica and nothing else!
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
aplusmnt said:
kolanuraven said:
....Bush does?

It's always the #2 man in AlQueda that's been caught...they're like bank VP's these #2 guys as there seems to be hundreds of'em. In 6 yrs time he can't track bin Laden with all these #2 guys to give them info? Doesn't that seem a bit odd ???

He's STILL hunting for bin Laden and has practically FORGOTTEN about the war in Afghanistan, which is where we should have stayed and finished the job.

But...noooooo...he had to go get the bad guy that insulted ' daddy'...and look where we are today!!!! :cry: :cry: :cry:

Thousands of Al Qaeda have been killed or captured. More than one 2nd in charge have been killed or captured. Many of the top leaders of Al Qaeda have been captured or killed.

Remember when Al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center the first time? The U.S. Embassy bombings killing 225 in 1998 or the USS Cole?

After these attacks how many Terrorist did Clinton remove from the earth? How many second in charge did he kill? Why did he not kill Bin Laden, when he was out in the open?

Bush is a leader, he is killing Terrorist and making America Safer. I can not believe people like you want another Clinton in office to weaken us and hide our heads in the sand like the 8 years under the previous Clinton!

We were attacked once under Bush (as a result of Clinton) and he attacked. Clinton was attacked many times and he did nothing! Who is the real leader of the free world? Clinton was a joke as commander and chief of America no true Commander would allow his citizens to continuously be attacked like Clinton did.

I believe in 100 years Bush will be remembered as a strong leader that started and led the fight against Terrorist around the world and Clinton will be remembered for Monica and nothing else!




Maybe in your eyes only!!!!

If you're gonna use another president to justify the stupidity of another...you might as well start with Washington !

What Clinton did or did not do has NOTHING to do with GW.

It's not like GW just got in office last week....he's been there soon to be 8 years. Time to quit crying like little kids, " It was all HIS ( the previous president) fault" and grow up!
 

backhoeboogie

Well-known member
kolanuraven said:
It's not like GW just got in office last week....he's been there soon to be 8 years. Time to quit crying like little kids, " It was all HIS ( the previous president) fault" and grow up!

You're absolutely right. Clinton would still be saying, "we're gonna do something about this 911 thing." Not his fault at all. He never did anything, except the interns and he is in denial about that.
 

passin thru

Well-known member
What Clinton did or did not do has NOTHING to do with GW.

It most certainly does.................his inactions led us to where we are today.

Not once do you hear a left wing liberal tout what Clinton did to stop terrorism................there answer is"he is not the President now".
Which only further substantiates the conservatives point.
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
aplusmnt said:
Thousands of Al Qaeda have been killed or captured. More than one 2nd in charge have been killed or captured. Many of the top leaders of Al Qaeda have been captured or killed.

Remember when Al Qaeda attacked the World Trade Center the first time? The U.S. Embassy bombings killing 225 in 1998 or the USS Cole?

Yes, I remember the WTC attack. Do you know where the people are who attacked? They're dead or in jail. Unlike Osma Bin Laden who is still making tapes, laughing at us and inciting hatred against us, they were tracked down, tried in a public court of law and put in jail. That's what we used to do to criminals in this country.

Clinton ordered missle attacks on suspected terrorist sites in Afghanistan and Sudan after the Embassy bombing in 1998. Again, it was not so cut and dried as to who was responsible at the time.

The intelligence and military communities were not so quick on placing blame for the Cole incident. It was not long before Clinton left office that they gave the official word. Not wanting to tie the hands of the next president, he passed all that information on to the next administration to do what they felt best. What has Bush done about it? The last thing I heard about the mastermind of the attack against the Cole, he was under house arrest in Yemen.

After these attacks how many Terrorist did Clinton remove from the earth? How many second in charge did he kill? Why did he not kill Bin Laden, when he was out in the open?

I'll ask you the same thing: why didn't Bush kill Bin Laden in Tora Bora? He had him cold, after he had killed thousands of Americans on 9/11. Clinton didn't have the difinitive proof that Bush did.

Bush is a leader, he is killing Terrorist and making America Safer. I can not believe people like you want another Clinton in office to weaken us and hide our heads in the sand like the 8 years under the previous Clinton!

Killing people doesn't necessarily make us safer. We can't kill everyone who hates us. Bush's attacks on a Muslim country that did not attack us has angred much of the Muslim world, just as you would be angred if a Muslim country attacked a Christain nation without cause, declaring a "Crusade."

We were attacked once under Bush (as a result of Clinton) and he attacked. Clinton was attacked many times and he did nothing! Who is the real leader of the free world? Clinton was a joke as commander and chief of America no true Commander would allow his citizens to continuously be attacked like Clinton did.

Clinton won two wars during his administration. How many has Bush won?

I believe in 100 years Bush will be remembered as a strong leader that started and led the fight against Terrorist around the world and Clinton will be remembered for Monica and nothing else!

In 100 years Bush will still be looked at as one of the worst presidents in history.
 

kolanuraven

Well-known member
passin thru said:
What Clinton did or did not do has NOTHING to do with GW.

It most certainly does.................his inactions led us to where we are today.

Not once do you hear a left wing liberal tout what Clinton did to stop terrorism................there answer is"he is not the President now".
Which only further substantiates the conservatives point.


So the OVER REACTIONS of Bush have led us to where we are today....hip deep in a civil war in a country that was NO THREAT to us at all.....and halfway dealing with the correct country that held the terrorists.


So when it takes us 3 generations to regain our standing in the eyes of the world....do you mean we can't blame Bush??
 
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