Re: Frontline / "A Counter-insurgency War?"

DGDevin wrote:
HeyBub wrote:

Nope. From October 1, 2001 onward, capturing or killing OBL was never
the policy of the United States. The avowed policy of the U.S. was to
prevent another attack on the U.S. or U.S. interests abroad. To
achieve this goal, several strategies were employed to disrupt the
terrorist training, communication, financing, weapons acquisition,
recruitment, and movement. And kill as many as possible in the
effort.

Really? So when CIA director Porter Goss said in 2005 that although
they knew where Bin Laden was, unfortunately he hadn't been captured
because he had sanctuary in one or more foreign nations and thus more
steps had to be completed to "wrap up the war on terror," he wasn't
referring to killing or capturing Bin Laden, he meant no link between
getting Bin Laden and defeating terrorism? Odd choice of words then,
wasn't it.

Peter Goss was a former House member. What do you expect from a congressman?


I recommend a book called Jawbreaker: The Attack on Bin Laden and
Al-Qaeda: A Personal Account by the CIA's Key Field Commander,
written by Gary Berntsen. He was on the ground with a CIA/Special
Forces team in 2000, to capture Al Qaeda leaders and figure out what
Bin Laden was up to. He (and the Afghans helping him) were enraged
when Clinton pulled his team out. He thought the job would finally
get done when Bush invaded Afghanistan. He was *there* directing air
strikes on the cornered Al Qaeda fighters at Tora Bora, he could hear
Bin Laden on the radio apologizing to his men for leading them into
what appeared to be a death-trap. And then Berntsen's request for a
couple of battalions of Rangers to be dropped in behind Bin Laden so
he couldn't escape into Pakistan was denied, repeatedly, and of
course Bin Laden escaped.

I suggest you read "War and Decision" by Douglas Feith, Undersecretary of
Defense for Policy and Plans. He was part of the decision-making process.
All I can conclude is that the tactics got garbled as they filtered down to
the lowest activist in the food chain.


But of course now that you've explained none of that mattered, well I
guess we should just forget it. But I can't help but wonder how many
American taxpayers thought getting that sonofabitch was part of the
whole freakin' idea?

About 40%. Those who harken to the misapprehensions of the Democrats.



Does the Bush admin deserve credit for disrupting Al Qaeda? I think
so, along with other nations which broke up AQ networks and froze
their finances and so on. But on the other hand they spent a
trillion dollars (and 4,500 American lives) wallowing around in Iraq
and Afghanistan and Pakistan's nukes are still in peril, the Taliban
controls most of Afghanistan, and Al Qaeda is still in business.

So what? Destruction of the Taliban and/or Al Qaeda - like the killing of
OBL - was never a goal. The single goal of all our efforts was and is to
prevent another assault on the U.S. or civilian U.S. interests abroad. Now
it MAY BE the best way to achieve that goal is to destroy Al Qaeda, but so
far less drastic measures have sufficied.


Liberals are good at anguishing.

I'm a liberal like you're a ballet dancer. And as for what liberals
(or "progressives" as they like to call themselves at times) think
about this war, here's an interesting article that points out some of
them thought the invasion of Afghanistan was justified. Of course
they probably didn't expect the Bush administration to abandon the
job unfinished and instead waste lives and money in Iraq. Too bad
Charlie Wilson's War hadn't been published yet, Bush might have
appreciated the consequences of unfinished work in Afghanistan. But
then he isn't a big reader, is he.

You make some good points. You have, however, succumbed to the meme that
Bush was a big dummy and, perforce, did not, or could not read. Fact is,
Bush reads much more than I (and probably you) and I'm a voracious reader.

Bush read 95 books in 2006 (51 in 2007, and 40+ in 2008), including:

"The nonfiction ran from biographies of Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Carnegie,
Mark Twain, Babe Ruth, King Leopold, William Jennings Bryan, Huey Long, LBJ
and Genghis Khan to Andrew Roberts's "A History of the English Speaking
Peoples Since 1900," James L. Swanson's "Manhunt," and Nathaniel Philbrick's
"Mayflower." Besides eight Travis McGee novels by John D. MacDonald, Mr.
Bush tackled Michael Crichton's "Next," Vince Flynn's "Executive Power,"
Stephen Hunter's "Point of Impact," and Albert Camus's "The Stranger," among
others.

"Each year, the president also read the Bible from cover to cover, along
with a daily devotional."

http://sec.online.wsj.com/article/SB123025595706634689.html



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