al-Zarqawi is dead

[phee]

OK people *Blows whistle* lets break it up.... remember I am the only Fuckstick here... and I don't want anyone taking my title....

[BrassFusion]

I wasn't "in over my head." I used a really common grain of classroom blackboard banner wisdom in reference to the shittiest news network our country has ever seen and got insulted for it. Again. As usual.

Phee, I'd like these posts to be an example of what we discussed over hard drugs and male strippers the other day.

[phee]

I wasn't "in over my head." I used a really common grain of classroom blackboard banner wisdom in reference to the shittiest news network our country has ever seen and got insulted for it. Again. As usual.

Phee, I'd like these posts to be an example of what we discussed over hard drugs and male strippers the other day.

:fear

[The_Dark]

Where exactly.. between your insults.. were you insulted?

[Blackmail]

so what about Al-Zarqawi?

I'm glad he's dead.

Start a new thread if you want to bash Fox news, I would hope it's a constructive thread with evidence rather than a "fox news sucks" thread but I'm not a mod so it's merely a suggestion.

[Shade Everdark]

Sigh.

If you kids can't play nice, I will have to close this thread.

Oh, and just as a pedantic point of interest, these threads belong to everyone on DGn. The only reason I get to close them is because, as a mod, I have a duty to see that things don't get TOO vitriolic around here.

If it sounds hypocritical to you, it probably is. And I probably don't care.

And Blackmail is right. A new thread would be in order for discussion of the validity of Fox News. I'm sure it will make interesting reading.

[BrassFusion]

What does any of this have to do with the topic? You like to argue for the sake of arguing.

So I took that as an insult.

[creatureofthenyte]

Ding ! Dong! The schmuck is dead !

The big bad schmuck, The big bad schmuck,

Ding ! Dong ! The Big Bad Schmuck is Deaaaaaaaaaaaad!

[Msterbeau]

Heres an interesting little addendum to the al_Zarqawi story:

"One relevant angle to this story, however, that has not been emphasized (or even mentioned) by most news outlets this morning is that Zarqawi could have been taken out years ago, on several occasions, but Bush decided not to strike.

NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself -- but never pulled the trigger.

In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.

The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.

"Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11 and we still didn't do it," said Michael O'Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/...6_06/008971.php

[phee]

Heres an interesting little addendum to the al_Zarqawi story:

"One relevant angle to this story, however, that has not been emphasized (or even mentioned) by most news outlets this morning is that Zarqawi could have been taken out years ago, on several occasions, but Bush decided not to strike.

    NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself -- but never pulled the trigger.

    In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide.

    The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, the plan was debated to death in the National Security Council.

    "Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11 and we still didn't do it," said Michael O'Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution."

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/...6_06/008971.php

Do they go into why not?

[The_Dark]

maybe it was because at the time we were not at war with Iraq and wee still trying to get UN backing for the war.

[phee]

There may indeed be a valid or invalid reason... I am just curious... we will probably never know

[Msterbeau]

Do they go into why not?

You probably need to follow the trail of links.. I read a few... none that I've read say why.

Mark - He was a known terrorist... 9/11 had happened... we were "at war" with them. As now, it may not mean a whole lot in the grand scheme of things. Terrorism would probably still risen like it did.

One of the links from that story suggested that Bush let him live to help bolster his argument linking Saddam to terrorists in Iraq.

[The_Dark]

Right... but he was in Iraq and at that point in time we were still trying to get the security council to back us using force agaisnt Sadam.

[phee]

Right... but he was in Iraq and at that point in time we were still trying to get the security council to back us using force agaisnt Sadam.

It is very complicated.... The term "War On Terror" should mean "War on Terror unless the Terror is directly benifiting U.S. rightwing agenda" I mean Saddam was terrible... but not a terrorist...

*Phee braces himself for the response*

[The_Dark]

Like any other war.. you have to choose your battles. When and where you fight is just as important as how you fight or how good you are at fighting.

The time and place wre not right.

[sudokryst]

It's dandy that al-Zarqawi is dead.

What does it mean for the so-called war on terror? Jack and shit. That's the entire point of terrorism. You utilize a decentralized organizational pattern in order to avoid the potential debilitation caused by losing a high-up. So, for a little while the insurgents will be a bit less coordinated; the delightful thing about terrorists is that they are resourceful, and highly motivated. It won't be long until we are hearing about the death of al-Zarqawi's successor. And it will be just as meaningless.

Remember that al-Zarqawi was leader of foreign fighters in Iraq. Not the far larger domestic guerilla forces.

Killing terrorists does not stop terrorism, unless you kill every last one of them. Iraq is a created country (by the British, no less). It has very little national identity. Each faction is fighting for as big a share of the national resources as possible. It will take an extraordinary act of multipartisan statesmanship on the part of the Iraqi parliament to hold the country together.

On the other hand, killing murderers is sort of a double negative, and that makes it a good thing, right?

[BrassFusion]

Hey, welcome to the forum.

I agree that it's good that they got one of the leaders for now, but I also question the war on terror.

Like you said, to be effective, they'd have to kill ALL the terrorists. What I realized in reading your post just now is that terrorism is so subjective that no matter how many people we kill, there will still be some people who are so disenchanted with the administration that they take action. Then, they'll be the terrorists. It won't matter if they actually kill anyone and it won't matter what their citizenship is.

I'm kind of amazed that it took me 3 years to get the full effect of that. I guess I should say "thank you."

[BrassFusion]

oh psh hi dave I didn't notice it was you. welcome.

/suckup

[Hellion]

:devil Oh Well,another useless P.O.S. off the face of the planet.

Time to Nuke Bin-ladin.

[sudokryst]

Who is this 'Dave' of which you speak? :innocent

Yeah, the real issue is that creating a government that everyone is satisfied with might not be possible. Result? War. War and then more war.

Why the big problem? Why, the same reason that we care so much about what happens in the godforsaken mudpit: Oil, my darlings. Every Kurd, Shiite and Sunni wants to get a nice big barrel of it. Haliburton gets some phat lewts, and everyone goes home happy. Except the dead people. Them, not so much.

If this were some kind of humanitarian effort, we'd be in Sudan. Or maybe we'd be finishing the mess in Afghanistan, instead of just sort of... sitting on it.

[BrassFusion]

Who is this 'Dave' of which you speak?  :innocent

Yeah, the real issue is that creating a government that everyone is satisfied with might not be possible. Result? War. War and then more war.

Why the big problem? Why, the same reason that we care so much about what happens in the godforsaken mudpit: Oil, my darlings. Every Kurd, Shiite and Sunni wants to get a nice big barrel of it.  Haliburton gets some phat lewts, and everyone goes home happy. Except the dead people. Them, not so much.

If this were some kind of humanitarian effort, we'd be in Sudan.  Or maybe we'd be finishing the mess in Afghanistan, instead of just sort of... sitting on it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I was reading the latest Popular Science yesterday (shut up, Meijer didn't have Discover), and it has this great article about how we could eliminate our dependence on foreign oil with technology we have now, in 15 years at the outside. It kind of pisses me off.

[Blackmail]

Who is this 'Dave' of which you speak?  :innocent

Yeah, the real issue is that creating a government that everyone is satisfied with might not be possible. Result? War. War and then more war.

Why the big problem? Why, the same reason that we care so much about what happens in the godforsaken mudpit: Oil, my darlings. Every Kurd, Shiite and Sunni wants to get a nice big barrel of it.  Haliburton gets some phat lewts, and everyone goes home happy. Except the dead people. Them, not so much.

If this were some kind of humanitarian effort, we'd be in Sudan.  Or maybe we'd be finishing the mess in Afghanistan, instead of just sort of... sitting on it.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree with part of your analysis, however it should be noted that the Kurds could care less about oil.

Also, we can't go into Sudan, as much as I wish we could. The death toll there would be far higher than Iraq and the UN won't touch it either. Plus remember our last attempt at humanatarianism thru military in Africa? It ended up being a Josh Hartnett movie.

[sudokryst]

Oh shit, thanks for the laugh. :cheerful

Yes, I admit that trying to 'liberate' Sudan, or whatever, would probably be a clusterfuck. I'm just trying to say that surely, if our goal was really global stabilization or humanitarian action, there are other venues where our efforts would be better spent.

Hussein was a bastard of the first rank, but he was also a stable leader (er, despot) in a fairly developed country. Sure, he liked himself a little genocide now and then, but that didn't bother us so much back when we were more worried about Iran, the USSR, etc. Funny how our outlook changed when he started rocking the oil rig by storming into Kuwait.

In terms of the Kurds, everything I've read suggests that they would be perfectly happy seperating from Iraq all together, except they want to keep their oil rights (more specifically, their oil revenue). Did I miss somethin?