<p>“War is not particularly effective; police operations and strong border security are.”</p>
<p>Yeah right like the liberals are going to lert us tighten the borders up when one of their major voting blocks is illegal aliens. If we caught Ossama with dynamite inside Three Mile Island the liberals would make sure we would never get a conviction. Besides I don’t really want to live in a police state.</p>
<p>While I’m not a particular fan of Gore, he most likely would have sent the no. of forces we needed in Afghanistan to go after Bin Laden and the Taliban and he definitely would not have diverted American military assets to a fight that has NOTHING to do with radical Islamic fundamentalism.</p>
<p>The no.1 reason why Bin Laden was able to ESCAPE during the Battle of Tora Bora was that we didn’t have enough US troops on the ground (thanks to Bush and Rummy).</p>
<p>As for the US/NYC being safer due to Bush - I would think that any administration would have taken steps to tighten up security (plus, the ability of overseas terrorists to strike the US in such a manner as 9/11 is really, really remote).</p>
<p>However, it has been THIS administration which has fought battles to tighten security at our ports and chemical/nuclear facilities (thanks to the corporate interests/lobbying).</p>
<p>There are over 150 chemical/nuclear facilities where an attack would harm/threaten populations of over 1 million people.</p>
<p>The administration (and the previous Republican-led Congress) fought back all attempts to set standards and to require corporations to improve their security up to these standards (I have so much faith in these corporations voluntarily improving their security measures).</p>
<p>And btw, I second the motion that Prager doesn’t know what the hell he is talking about. The State Dept. had a thick manual prepared which set out the groundwork for the occupation of Iraq, which included counter-insurgency plans.</p>
<p>It’s no puzzle why Cheney, as a VP, “visited” CIA HQ nearly a dozen times - and when he and Rummy didn’t particularly like what some of the spooks had to say (despite heavy pressure from the 2 of them), Cheney and Rummy tried to circumvent the CIA by expanding and increasingly relying on military intelligence services.</p>
<p>“And presumably aside from Israel, you are worried about our oil supplies. Because beyond those factors, why should we really care if these countries and ethnic/religious groups want to fight?”</p>
<p>Islamofacism is aggressive and expansionist and poses an imminent threat to the security and stability of Western Europe, Southeast Asia, Russia, Africa, and the Indian sub-continent. Even the western regions of China are threatened.</p>
<p>Should we care if these countries want to fight? Fighting brings refugees and refugees bring instability. Where do you think they are going to go? How many are going to head as far as western Europe which is aleady being destabilized by a large and unassimilatable Islamic minority. Additionally one of the regional countries that will be involved is in NATO which means we are bound by treaty to come to their defense and yes oil still matters for another generation at least. Energy independence? Hell the environmentalists won’t let us tap known reserves in Alaska and Ted Kennedy doesn’t want to ruin the view from the manse by having to look at windmills.</p>
<p>Israel’s security matters because it is not gong to go quietely into the night. If Iran drops an egg on them all hell is going to break loose. The bottom line is there are not one or two or three reasons why we cannot allow the region to blow up but a whole raft of them.</p>
<p>Don’t make the same mistake W did by not listening to the experts. The scenario above is exactly what they are predicting if we pull out prematurely. Whatever W’s mistakes if any the genie is out of the bottle now and there is no going back to the status quo ante just because we don’t like the current situation.</p>
<p>“BTW, I wouldn’t get too excited about Iran’s nuclear program. Our own CIA National Intelligence Estimate predicts that the earliest Iran could have a nuclear weapon would be in the 2017 to 2020 time frame and that it probably would not be deliverable by missle. They are working with 60 year old Manhattan Project level technology and building nuclear weapons is not easy.”</p>
<p>Yeah it is tough as all heck. The Manhattan Project took 37 months from inception to incinerating two Japanese cities. Who did that estimate Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson?</p>
<p>For you folks who want to “track down Bin Laden” where and how are you going to do that? Are you advocating pulling out of Iraq so we can invade Pakistan? That ought to be interesting. If you think we are stretched controling the situation in Iraq just wait until you invade Pakistan - 5x the population, a real army, and nuclear weapons.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>A best-case scenario of ten years for Iran to have a functional nuclear weapons – assuming no major setbacks. The estimate is from the current head of the CIA in his testimony last month on the National Intelligence Estimate report.</p>
<p>Iran does not currently have production capacity for enriched uranium. The centrifuge technology they are pursuing only produces material for one weapon per year – after it is at full scale production (ten thousand centrifuges). Iran still only has prototype installations of 300 centrifuges and have encountered setbacks trying to ramp up from there. As I say, it’s difficult technology, even with the 1960s German/Russian Zuppe centrifuge blueprints that AQ Khan supplied them and the Russian blueprints for a crude nuclear weapon that the CIA provided to Iran as part of a covert recruitment effort.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>As an aside, higherlead, I like reading your posts even though I disagree with much, though not all, of what you have to say. You have an opinion and you put it out there plainly. You may not look at my posts or me the same way, but that’s alright.</p>
<p>Islamofascism is one of those elegant formulations that is actually not a useful realistic construct, insofar as it attempts to equate certain Islamic elements with the Nazi-led Axis of the late 30s and 40s. And insofar as it suggests that we should adopt the same martial attitude in response that we did to defeat the Axis powers.</p>
<p>Yes, there are madras that are funded by the Saudis and teachings of hatred are being spread through these in many countries. But unless a country has a substantial Islamic base to begin with, it’s not like we are revisiting the 1930s and a cloud of possible subjugation of the entire free world. The message is not one that will resonate widely. And we are vastly more powerful militarily.</p>
<p>Pan-Islamic Islamofascism is an idea like Pan-Arabism: it collapses under its own weight. The Sunnis and the Shi’ites are always going to have big differences. Indonesian Islamicists are going to be very different from the Arab ones, etc. Racial differences play large here, as do vast differences in the situations various people find themselves in economically, developmentally, etc.</p>
<p>And we will particularly help rob it of recruits if we don’t recklessly pick fights with countries in regions were Islamicists predominate. One result of the Iraq War will undoubtedly be a much reduced secular aspect of the society and a much increased religious aspect. On this religious side, there will undoubtedly be violent fundamentalist types, beyond the Sunni insurgents we’re already contending with. Good going, Iraq War planners.</p>
<p>The bigger concern regarding so-called Islamofascism should not be the expanionism of Islamic entities per se into our lands, as much as the terrorist activities they will inflict because they perceive themselves to be oppressed and unsuccessful. (For societies like Egypt and Jordan where there are large populations of underemployed young men, these perceptions are easy to feed and exploit.)</p>
<p>Our challenge is, when we can, to defuse this hatred. Or disentangle ourselves from this region as much as we can. Or both. And being strategically savvy when we decide to pick fights.</p>
<p>ID’s quote of Kurth about a Shi’ite/Sunni highlights a huge schism in I-fascism that could in fact benefit us, in a certain way.</p>
<p>What’s galling about the war on terrorism is that we diverted resources that could have been used on that effort and put them into Iraq, increasing instability, providing a lot of recruiting posters for terrorist organizations around the world, and have come precariously close to creating a failed nation state that will breed terrorism.</p>
<p>And then we’re asked to trust the people who got us into this situation to figure out how to get us out of it when they can’t even acknowledge they made a major mistake to begin with.</p>
<p>The constant implied equivalence of “war on terror” with “war in Iraq” is probably the most significant bit of dishonesty in the Bush position.</p>
<p>Did you all hear McCain claim that Baghdad is so safe these days, Petraeus is able to ride around outside the Green Zone in an unarmored Humvee?</p>
<p>Needless to say, Petraeus’ own people confirm he rides in an up-armored Humvee, with a phalanx of armored vehicles around him, as well as sniper and other support.</p>
<p>How on earth can someone so completely uninformed about Iraq be allowed in a policy-making role?</p>
<p>However it does explain why the administration wants to send our National Guard and Reserve units over their without adequate body armor, jammers, armored Humvees, training or rest. </p>
<p>If a general (who’s going to be a lightning rod for attacks) doesn’t need common sense precautions, why should the rank and file?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This is John McCain you’re talking about. The same guy that said he didn’t know if condom use helped reduce the spread of AIDS. Said that he’d have to send a staffer to see if they had a position paper on that.</p>
<p>He’s a few fries short of a happy meal.</p>
<p>Speaking of a few fries short:</p>
<p>Admiral Fallon, the new Navy “yes-man” Cheney put in charge of CentCom, said yesterday that Iraq is not in civil war.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That’s probably true, unfortunately, but what does it say about all the people who support his being in a decision-making capacity?:</p>
<p>In March, 2003, in his last pre-war news conference, President Bush interchanged Iraq with the attacks of 9/11 eight times, and eight times he was unchallenged. Our ignorance put us at the mercy of unscrupulous leaders and we can count on this happening again if we don’t take steps to become more informed.</p>
<p>“Our ignorance put us at the mercy of unscrupulous leaders”</p>
<p>Well, our ignorance plus the total dereliction of duty by the entire Washington press corps.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Amen to that. A casualty of this Administration in my view has been the reputation of the press. I used to view the press corps with more admiration. I don’t think skeptical, investigative, or analytical are adjectives I think apply to much of them anymore. Increasingly, the press corps as a whole seem like hacks incapable of important journalism. Maybe I had idealized them before inappropriately.</p>
<p>If you are all so ignorant, then what are you outraged about? If not through the Washington press, how is it you have knowledge of anything of which you might disapprove. Is it possible that you just can’t stand the fact that there haven’t been impeachment hearings? Perhaps there’s no reason to level charges toward impeachment – it’s certainly not for lack of effort.</p>
<p>You really can’t have it both ways.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Didn’t I see you complaiing in an earlier post about how mean-spirited people can be when they post? This is a rather silly post, and it’s not because I disagree with what you said. It’s just, ipso facto, silly.</p>
<p>sj</p>
<p>please don’t get taken in by the DU and kos folks here. Life is too short. These folks are nuts…and silly.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And that’s about all you got. Weak.</p>
<p>ten characters</p>