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Photos show U.S. GIs posing with dead Afghans[W:1146]

The Taliban supported, and hid a man responsible for a substantial attack on this country killing 3000 of your fellow countrymen...


j-mac

Supported? OBL was a visitor. He got suppert from all kinds of place. The 9/11 money coming from SA and Pakistan as I understnad it. Again, your emotionalism ignores the issue before you.
 
Yep, you're too damned smart for me dude.....:roll: Look, I am not going to play your usual game of vague statements from you, then me taking the bait and giving response after response only to have you endlessly shift around and tell me that isn't what you were saying....So tell ya what....Why don't you make it crystal clear, and give a direct answer to a simple question, I asked it long ago, and every time I bring it up, or ask it again, you run.....or dance....so here it is, and now the fine people of this board can see you revealed....

Hypothetical: Joe, if your daughter was one killed in the towers on 9/11, and there was direct reason to believe that others in your family would die if the US didn't go into Afghanistan, would you have approved of the war?


j-mac

J, it has ebcome aparent you don't knwo the meaning of the word vague. Detailed answers are not vague. You just have to ingest it all and try to understand.

Here's the thing with your hypothetical. It isn't real. If my daughter was killed, I'd would support getting those responsible (simple direct statement). By all means, get al Qaeda. Afghanistan is not al Qaeda. Defeating them does nothing to stop any attack. Both wars did nothing to stop any future attacks. In fact, they led to a greater likelihood of more attacks. There was and is no nation we can invade to prevent this. Until you understnad what is being argued, you will always see everything that doesn't give you the answer you want as a dance. I challenge you to read and try ot understand what is being said for a change. Who knows, you might enjoy the new view as it would elevate the discussion.
 
Supported? OBL was a visitor. He got suppert from all kinds of place. The 9/11 money coming from SA and Pakistan as I understnad it. Again, your emotionalism ignores the issue before you.

"Harbored" would be more the word. People who harbor criminals are guilty in most of the world's courts.

But here we go again with this separation. Do we really think that the Taliban didn't know the hearts of the Al-Queda organization in their midst? The fact that their beliefs were so alike is precisely why Osama Bin Laden found a gracious host. Before this he found comfort under Bashir's roof in Sudan. The reason he and his type organization found grace under a oppressive dictator (that slaughtered non-Arab Muslims) and an oppressive religious government (that abused and tortured Muslims) was that his kind can't can't exist in an environment where people have the choice. Since they exist and flourish within these types of environments even as they protest against oppressive existing secular governments, they hardly seek the freedom of Muslims. They merely seek their brand of power in the eyes of God or the mirror. They too, would conduct business with the West.

The entire region is saturated with oppression and religious brutality and breeds our enemies. There is only one acceptable way to manage it. The Dictator will no longer do. Obliterating them or "turning the sand to glass" as we have heard will not do. Passing power from the devils we know to the devils we don't, as they preach absolute hatred towards us, will not do. There's only one thing that hasn't been tried. And so far, Iraq's "purple finger" has been seen in Libya, Egypt, and Syria. Instability is the only way to true stability. "Peace in the Middle East" is going to take more than a diplomats microphone and a Western check book.
 
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J, it has ebcome aparent you don't knwo the meaning of the word vague. Detailed answers are not vague. You just have to ingest it all and try to understand.

Here's the thing with your hypothetical. It isn't real. If my daughter was killed, I'd would support getting those responsible (simple direct statement). By all means, get al Qaeda. Afghanistan is not al Qaeda. Defeating them does nothing to stop any attack. Both wars did nothing to stop any future attacks. In fact, they led to a greater likelihood of more attacks. There was and is no nation we can invade to prevent this. Until you understnad what is being argued, you will always see everything that doesn't give you the answer you want as a dance. I challenge you to read and try ot understand what is being said for a change. Who knows, you might enjoy the new view as it would elevate the discussion.

AQ was sheltered by the Taliban in power in A-stan, and allowed to freely train, and form their plots in return for a force of fighters to act as a pseudo protection force for the Taliban. After the attacks of 9/11 the US pressed the Taliban to turn over OBL, and they refused under UN sanctioned threat of attack. Why are trying to re write history Joe?


j-mac
 
Supported? OBL was a visitor. He got suppert from all kinds of place. The 9/11 money coming from SA and Pakistan as I understnad it. Again, your emotionalism ignores the issue before you.


Support comes in forms other than monetary.

j-mac
 
Support comes in forms other than monetary.

j-mac

Sure, but you have to be more specific. The lsit of support for our enemies is large, and in the big picture, even comes from the home front. Afghanistan was far and away the least of our problems, and became a larger problme the second we invaded.
 
AQ was sheltered by the Taliban in power in A-stan, and allowed to freely train, and form their plots in return for a force of fighters to act as a pseudo protection force for the Taliban. After the attacks of 9/11 the US pressed the Taliban to turn over OBL, and they refused under UN sanctioned threat of attack. Why are trying to re write history Joe?


j-mac

Not rewriting, correcting the misperception. The trainign there had little to nothing to do with America. The Taliban had no interest is us, but had benefitted from CIA trainign and continued that mindset. al Qaeda may well have taken advantage of it, but the 9/11 folks were not trained or launched fromt there. The came from SA (mostly), got Saudi and Pakistani money. Trianed here, learning to fly. Afgahnistan could have been a simple fix. Just destroy such camps. And as those camps gave nothing to the training and call that Iraq did, we lost the entire effort (if stopping trianing was our goal).
 
Sure, but you have to be more specific. The lsit of support for our enemies is large, and in the big picture, even comes from the home front. Afghanistan was far and away the least of our problems, and became a larger problme the second we invaded.


so just so I have this straight, after 9/11, you would have asked that the Taliban turn over OBL, and when they refused like they did, you'd have what? tried to send in the SEALS? CIA? neither? Nothing?


j-mac
 
Not rewriting, correcting the misperception. The trainign there had little to nothing to do with America. The Taliban had no interest is us, but had benefitted from CIA trainign and continued that mindset. al Qaeda may well have taken advantage of it, but the 9/11 folks were not trained or launched fromt there. The came from SA (mostly), got Saudi and Pakistani money. Trianed here, learning to fly. Afgahnistan could have been a simple fix. Just destroy such camps. And as those camps gave nothing to the training and call that Iraq did, we lost the entire effort (if stopping trianing was our goal).


So you'd have left them in place? That's nuts.


j-mac
 
So you'd have left them in place? That's nuts.


j-mac

They were npo threat to us, and were not interested. I'd have fixed the problem. Gone after OBL, and closed down al Qaeda.
 
so just so I have this straight, after 9/11, you would have asked that the Taliban turn over OBL, and when they refused like they did, you'd have what? tried to send in the SEALS? CIA? neither? Nothing?


j-mac

I'd have sent them in on 9/12. Gotten OBL and left. This would ahve done the job and sent the proper message without the excessive cost. And would have damaged al Qaeda far more. We don't need to help them recruit and train as we did in Iraq.
 
I'd have sent them in on 9/12. Gotten OBL and left. This would ahve done the job and sent the proper message without the excessive cost. And would have damaged al Qaeda far more. We don't need to help them recruit and train as we did in Iraq.

Who is "them"?

j-mac
 
al Qaeda and our enemies. That too is clear.

So you don't see the Taliban as enemies of the United States?

On October 4, 2001, British Prime Minister Tony Blair released information compiled by Western intelligence agencies connecting Osama bin Laden to the Afghanistan's Taliban leadership as well as being the leader of the al-Qaeda organization.[28] The Taliban government gave safe haven to Osama bin Laden in the years leading up to the attack, and his al-Qaeda network may have had a close relationship with the Taliban army and police[citation needed]. On the day of 9/11, the Taliban foreign minister told the Arab television network Al Jazeera: "We denounce this terrorist attack, whoever is behind it."[96]

The United States requested the Taliban to shut down all al-Qaeda bases in Afghanistan, open them to inspection and turn over Osama bin Laden. The Taliban refused all these requests. Instead they offered to extradite Osama bin Laden to an Islamic country, for trial under Islamic law, if the United States presented evidence of his guilt.[97] The Taliban had previously refused to extradite bin Laden to the United States, or prosecute him, after he was indicted by the US federal courts for involvement in the 1998 United States embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.[98] The Taliban deemed eyewitness testimony and satellite phone call recordings entered in the public record in February 2001 during a trial as insufficient grounds to extradite bin Laden for his involvement in the bombings.[citation needed]

Invoking the Bush Doctrine, which stated "We will make no distinction between the terrorists and those who harbor them", the United States and Britain invaded and overthrew the Taliban regime in 2001, using air power, special forces and the Northern Alliance as a land army.

Responsibility for the September 11 attacks - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

No distinction is pretty clear.

But better yet Joe, do you believe in human rights?

j-mac
 
Yep, and we are talking about the Taliban.

j-mac

who grew out of the Mujahadeen.

The differences are discussed here:

Katib's account might be exaggerated, but the story still reveals that there was an unspoken rule that women and girls were part of the conquest package. As such, the mujahideen's struggle over Kabul was a continuation of traditional jihad complete with internal rivalries, pillage and looting. The mujahideen were part of the realm of traditional politics in which a conquered region is a turf that can be exploited by strongmen, who call themselves mujahideen so as to appear respectable.

The Taliban's conquest of Afghanistan in 1996, by contrast, strayed from the path of tradition. In a striking breach of precedence, the Taliban militia did not make use of their unspoken right to pillage and loot. They searched the conquered populations' homes, but only to confiscate weapons and so ensure a monopoly of violence for their state.

It appears the one (our allies) fought in order to have the right to pillage, rape, and loot, while the other (our enemies) wanted to disarm the public and so gain power.

I believe Al Qaeda is the other group that grew out of our allies, was it not?
 
who grew out of the Mujahadeen.

The differences are discussed here:



It appears the one (our allies) fought in order to have the right to pillage, rape, and loot, while the other (our enemies) wanted to disarm the public and so gain power.


Oh I know, the Taliban are just a great group of guys....Misunderstood taxi cab drivers all....


I believe Al Qaeda is the other group that grew out of our allies, was it not?

You do realize that the Mujahideen is by definition a loosely affiliated group from differing backgrounds right?


j-mac
 
Oh I know, the Taliban are just a great group of guys....Misunderstood taxi cab drivers all....




You do realize that the Mujahideen is by definition a loosely affiliated group from differing backgrounds right?


j-mac

Of course I do.
You do realize that both the Taliban and Al Qaeda are loosely affiliated groups from differing backgrounds, and that both of them grew out of the Mujahadeen, right?

and that the Mujahadeen was basically a loosely affiliated group of bandits who waged guerrilla warfare in order to be able to rape, plunder, and pillage, right?

and that no one is saying that the Taliban is a "great group of guys" because their goal was power rather than plunder, right?
or that the taxi driver who was tortured and killed was not Al Qaeda or Taliban, right?

right, right???
 
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So you don't see the Taliban as enemies of the United States?



No distinction is pretty clear.

But better yet Joe, do you believe in human rights?

j-mac

J, you're not posting anything here we don't know or that addresses what I've said at all.

As for human rights, do you remember when I posted the position of humans groups, their detailed reasoning for why Iraq was not something human rights groups could support? Not sure they did anything for Afghanistan, but the same reasoning would largely follow. We didn't invade either for human rights concerns, and we brought a lot of pain, much of which human rights groups did not support, for valid reasons.
 
War and Sacrifice in the Post-9/11 Era | Pew Social & Demographic Trends
"Veterans are more supportive than the general public of U.S. military efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq. Even so, they are ambivalent. Just half of all post-9/11 veterans say that, given the costs and benefits to the U.S., the war in Afghanistan has been worth fighting. A smaller share (44%) says the war in Iraq has been worth it. Only one-third (34%) say both wars have been worth fighting, and a nearly identical share (33%) say neither has been worth the costs."

Exactly...................!
 
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