Jahdog comments

Yes, Scheuer wants the army on the borders and the ports secured, because they are, seven years after 9/11, very porous, making importation of a nuke much more likely.

In fact, Scheuer advocates drastic action in enough areas that few people would agree 100%, and condemns Bushes and Clintons for their failures to take out OBL, but especially condemns W for blundering into Iraq.

February 2001: Al-Qaeda Is Expecting US to Invade Afghanistan, Wants War in Iraq and Somalia as Well Ahmed Zaidan, a journalist for Al Jazeera, is invited to a wedding also attended by al-Qaeda leaders Osama bin Laden and Mohammed Atef in Afghanistan, and while there he talks to Atef about al-Qaeda’s military strategy. He will later recall that Atef told him, “He was explaining to me what’s going to happen in the coming five years.… There are two or three places in the world which [are] the most suitable places to fight Americans: Afghanistan, Iraq, and Somalia. We are expecting the United States to invade Afghanistan. And we are preparing for that. We want them to come to Afghanistan.” Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, will later comment, “Did they want us involved in the war on the ground in Islamic countries? Absolutely. Part of the goal was to make sure that Muslims perceived America as the infidel invader of Muslim lands.” http://www.cooperativeresearch.org/entity.jsp?entity=michael_scheuer

"Terrorism should be seen as a strategic reaction to American power, an idea associated with Johnson's (2000) 'blowback' thesis...the powerful global position of the United States, particularly in its role of propping up repressive undemocratic regimes... [creates an environment conducive to] Arab-Islamic terrorism as a result. The causal mechanism here is that the projection of military power plants seeds of later terrorist reactions, as 'retaliation for previous American imperial actions'." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_terrorism#Motivation.2C_ideology_and_theology

Look at things in context: http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/05/01/int05001.html Michael Scheuer: ...the most basic thing for Americans to realize is that this war has nothing to do with who we are or what we believe, and everything to do with what we do in the Islamic world. Mr. Bush, Mr. Clinton, Mr. Bush before Mr. Clinton--they all identified Islamic militancy as being based on the hatred of Western democracy and freedom, and that’s clearly not the case. They surely don’t like our way of life, but very few people are willing to die to keep us from having primary elections or because we have freedom of the press.

Universally in the Muslim world, at least according to the most recent polling data, American foreign policy in several specific areas is hated by Muslims. Majorities of 85-90 percent are registered as hating or resenting American policies, towards our support for Israel, our ability to keep oil prices low, or low enough to satisfy Western consumers, our support for Arab tyrannies from Morocco to the Indian Ocean, our support for Putin in Chechnya.

Super D, what are you talking about? I sure don't exonerate militant Muslims.

Superlib: "If a bomb were to go off in the US we'd hold our government responsible for not preventing it.," like you held Clinton responsible for 9/11, right?

That said, and as Michael Scheuer says, US administrations since 1973 bear responsibility for the current quagmire of Iraq/Muslim fundamentalism (just as they do for Christian fundamentalism). It's gonna get very ugly. http://www.amazon.com/Marching-Toward-Hell-America-Islam/dp/0743299698

A regenerated al-Qaeda will remain the leading terrorism threat, Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence Donald M. Kerr said. Pakistan's "inward" political focus and failure to control the tribal territories where al-Qaeda maintains a haven, he said, is "the number one thing we worry about." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/30/AR2008053002858.html?hpid=topnews

People shouldn't joke about the oppression of women (Would that all ideologies of oppression were gone, this moment). Bombing and oppressing only strengthens radical ideologies, and there are a billion Muslims around the world. PNAC (Cheney, Rummy, et al) should have thought harder about this...

Stunning:

"Al Quaeda Bin Ladin are just names. It is totally irrelevant what happens with them; there are countless other jihadist organizations and leaders to take their place."

From "We'll get him, dead or alive" to "he's irrelevant," eh? The tragic humor is that OBL is the best thing that ever happened to W, who is the worst thing that ever happened to America and the West.

But your point about "countless other" jihadis to take the place of OBL/AlQ is valid. Of course, by playing into OBL's strategy and invading a Muslim country for oil, W helped OBL gain this countless supply of jihadis.

Do you not yet understand that OBL wanted W and the GOP to remain in charge? By his actions, W has radicalized a billion Muslims, in the Middle East and around the planet. OBL will no doubt appear in a video before the 2008 election in an attempt to keep the war going and bleed the US dry.

The US economy is on the brink of meltdown as the price of oil continues to rise, Iran has already gained greatly, and you want to dig the hole deeper?

'...in the Middle East, Arabs and even Israel reckon with the limits of American power--and begin to cut their own deals..." http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/05/30/AR2008053002517.html

Tell me this guy doesn't know what he's talking about: Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror by Michael Scheuer, a 22-year CIA veteran who ran the Counterterrorist Center's bin Laden station from 1996 to 1999

"...the war in Iraq was like a 'Christmas gift' to bin Laden not just because it distracted the U.S. military from the war against al Qaeda, but more importantly because it has provided global jihadists a failed state from which to operate that is even more conducive to terrorism than Afghanistan. By attacking and occupying the second holiest place in Shi'a Islam, the U.S. has turned Iraq into a lightning rod for jihadists from around the globe to come attack the occupying armies...has provided credibility and substance to bin Laden's assertion that terrorists are waging a defensive jihad against foreign occupier bent on destroying Islam.

Scheuer: in Afghanistan, the Taliban was not defeated; it is simply biding its time for the eventual withdrawal of U.S. troops and the inevitable collapse of Hamid Karzai's government in Kabul. "Karzai's defeat may not come tomorrow...but come it will..."

Scheuer: AlQ will "inevitably" acquire WMD and try to use them; OBL is probably "comfortable" commanding his organisation from the mountainous tribal lands along the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"Our choice of timing, moreover, shows an abject, even wilful failure to recognise the ideological power, lethality and growth potential of the threat personified by Bin Laden, as well as the impetus that threat has been given by the US-led invasion and occupation of Muslim Iraq."

...the US missed its biggest chance to capture the al-Qaida leader at Tora Bora in the Afghan mountains in December 2001. Instead of sending large numbers of his own troops, General Tommy Franks relied on surrogates who proved to be unreliable. "For my money, the game was over at Tora Bora."

(6-19-04) Yesterday President Bush repeated his assertion that Bin Laden was cornered and that there was "no hole or cave deep enough to hide from American justice".

Scheuer: "What I think we're seeing in al-Qaida is a change of generation. The people who are leading al-Qaida now seem a lot more professional group. They are more bureaucratic, more management competent, certainly more literate. Certainly, this generation is more computer literate, more comfortable with the tools of modernity..."

"I'm very sure they can't have a better administration for them than the one they have now...One way to keep the Republicans in power is to mount an attack that would rally the country around the president." Mr Bush is taking the US in exactly the direction Bin Laden wants, towards all-out confrontation with Islam under the banner of spreading democracy. "It's going to take 10,000-15,000 dead Americans before we say to ourselves: 'What is going on'?"

May 29, 2008 "Why Doesn't al-Qaeda Attack the US?" http://www.antiwar.com/scheuer/

What is hilarious is to see all these democrats now treating McLellans word as gospel... the same they would not have believed a single word from, just a few years ago. But then, of course, now he says what they want to hear.

Yeah, that's hilarious! They didn't believe a single word when he was repeating administration lies! then, when he says the administration lied the US into war, right after it's revealed that former generals posing as independent analysts at TV networks were working for weapons makers and Rumsfeld, they believe him. Go figure.

Confederacy of Dunces: a president swept up by his own propaganda and a grand plan of seeding democracy in the Middle East by overturning Saddam Hussein’s regime; aides so wrapped up in trying to shape the story to their political advantage that they ignored facts that did not fit the picture; national security adviser "more interested in figuring out where the president stood and just carrying out his wishes while expending only cursory effort on helping him understand all the considerations and potential consequences” of war...

6/97: PNAC statement: the use of military power and bold global leadership will be essential elements of any plan to bring peace and security to the world. (signed) Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, et al http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/2003/10/iraqiinvasion.html

7/11: FBI agent Kenneth Williams sends memo to bureau brass in Washington and New York warning of OBL disciples at U.S. flight schools... http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/2004/04/nobodytoldus.html

9/11: NORAD commander Gen.Eberhart: planes could have been stopped had there been order within the chain of command. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/18/politics/18PANE.html http://www.truthout.org/article/norad-commander-911-planes-could-have-been-stopped

Shoot messenger! Ignore history!

6/97: PNAC drafts a statement of principles to make the case that the US should use its position as the world's only superpower to shape the events of the 21st century...that the use of military power and bold global leadership will be essential elements of any plan to bring peace and security to the world....The 25 original signatories of the statement included Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and former Minnesota Rep. Vin Weber...as the group became more active in their pronouncements, their motives became highly questionable..." http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/2003/10/iraqiinvasion.html 7/11: FBI agent Kenneth Williams sends memo to bureau brass in Washington and New York warning that a cadre of Osama bin Laden disciples might be training at U.S. flight schools in preparation for future "terror activity against civil aviation targets." Williams suggested a nationwide FBI review to determine whether such a "coordinated effort" could be seen in other localities. The Williams memo was roundly ignored, of course, until after the World Trade Center was leveled. http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/2004/04/nobody_told_us.html 9/11: How it was possible for four commercial airplanes to pierce the most formidable air defenses in history?...The commander of NORAD says those planes could have been stopped had there been order within the chain of command. ...W was in a grade school reading a children's book as the second plane struck the Towers...it was Cheney who gave the shoot-down order, way too late. http://www.nytimes.com/2004/06/18/politics/18PANE.html

The administration switched its focus from Osama bin Laden to Saddam Hussein five months after 9/11.

The road to war took place over three phases: Sept. 12, 2001, to December 2001; January 2002, from Bush’s State of the Union address, to April 2002; and Sept. 12, 2002, to Oct. 11, 2002, the period from Bush’s address to the United Nations to Congress’s approval of the resolution to use force in Iraq.

The five main rationales: war on terror, prevention of the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, lack of weapons inspections, removal of Saddam Hussein’s regime, Saddam Hussein is evil.

Other rationales: Sen. Joe Lieberman’s “because Saddam Hussein hates us,” Colin Powell’s “because it’s a violation of international law,” and Richard Perle’s “because we can make Iraq an example and gain favor within the Middle East.” http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/2004/05/study_says_bush.html

W made the decision to rely on local forces to get Bin Laden in Tora Bora, over the CIA's explicit objections (They specifically told the president the local forces weren’t capable and shouldn't be relied upon, and we should nail him ourselves).

The local forces were bought off by bin Laden, allowing him and a small group to walk across the Pakistan border, which wasn't blocked. Gen. Musharraff had offered to move forces from Pakistan's eastern border, telling Gen. Tommy Franks in Islamabad that all he needed was a US airlift. Franks never sent it. (from fmr. Nat'l Coordinator for Security & Counterterrorism Richard Clarke's Your Government Failed You)

Afghanistan has not been stabilized to the point where civilian teams can safely rebuild the country, stop the drug trade, etc.

More history at http://bigpicture.typepad.com/writing/wardefense/index.html

The way to defeat alQaeda is to dry up their support. The US has been doing the opposite. The US is doing exactly what alQaeda said we would: invade and occupy an oil-rich country that had done nothing to justify such an action.

SuperLib, you don't know what are you talking about, or are simply repeating wingnut talking points. People protested, at least on college campuses, esp. about Saddam's using gas on Shiites and Kurds (of course, the weapons were sold to him by, uh...anyway) and that does nothing to erode the credibility of being against stealing elections, going to war based on lies, and the other great crimes of the Bush admin.

The anti-war crowd discussed Saddam's crimes plenty. In a democracy, however, it makes more sense to protest one's own government's crimes, so as to effect a change in its policies and have the criminals brought to justice. But you knew that, right? (I can't believe the W supporters here can still believe what they write about his administration. They must be getting paid, or have other financial reasons for supporting this war that is ruining the US.) Is taniwha still out there? I'd like to hear his take on the situation...

W/ingnut:

someone with a penchant for self-deception if it “suits his needs at the moment,” who has a lack of interest in delving deeply into policy options, a man with a lack of self-confidence that makes him unable to acknowledge when he’s been wrong.

But can they bloviate! for eight seven years, cheering W as he's bankrupted the US six ways from Sunday, all the louder every time a former insider reveals the administration's malevolent incompetence; after the neocon mea culpa; after the pro-war, former generals on TV turn out to be shills for weapons makers...

W's own Press Secretary criticizes the American media for being "too deferential" to the Government. He lays the blame for Bush's ability to propagandize the nation on the media's uncritical dissemination of the Republican administration's falsehoods...if even Scott McClellan recognizes the mythical nature of the "liberal media" cliche and sees political journalists as meek little handmaidens for government propaganda, how much longer can this myth be maintained? http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/05/28/mcclellan/index.html

The Chronicles of W/ingnut: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ku8JRW3cz1E http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxWtsbapkio&feature=related