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Politics : New FADG. -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: kumar who wrote (525)	5/21/2007 12:18:18 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Respond to of 4152

Kumar, We are simply going to have to agree to disagree. Think about this, my friend.. In 1991, the Shi'a rebelled against Saddam. And even despite the brutal losses he had suffered in Desert Storm, they were able to brutally suppress that rebellion even as our own Air Force created a "no-fly zone" in the South and North. Now granted, our Air Force would have been able to neutralize Saddam's armored formations, but without a major military force inside the country, the likelihood of any covert action would have resulted in giving Saddam's forces the ability to react and counter-attack. And remember.. the Sunni tribes were firmly aligned with Saddam, if only out of fear of the Shi'a taking control. It was highly unlikely that any amount of influence would have persuaded them to take up arms against the Ba'thists. And besides, the religious extremists who were gaining growing influences within these tribes already had their own agenda to overthrow Saddam at some point in the future and institute an Islamic Republic. Why would they want to assist the US in overthrowing Saddam in order to create something they loathed, namely a democracy? And one more thing.. If you're familiar with former CIA operative, Robert Baer's, writing about his experiences in Iraq, you'll know that when the opportunity arose where Iraqi generals were willing to assassinate Saddam and replace his regime, our government (Clinton administration) balked. In fact, they actually attempted to charge Baer with attempting to orchestrate Saddam's assassination, which would have been a violation of the "no assassination" order which prevented US intelligence agencies from such "wet-work". As if the story isn’t exciting enough, I get a subsequent message that says, come back to Washington, you and your team. I said, if I come back, any chance of putting this back together is over. I’m associated with this. If I leave, it looks like we’re in trouble. The Kurds are going to mistake what happened, the Iraqi military will too. Come back to Washington and report at this office at 9 o’clock in the morning. Not only that, but you’re prohibited from calling anybody on the way home or when you get home. I get out at CIA headquarters and I’m met by the FBI, who read me my rights, as well as my team’s. The charge was attempted murder of Saddam Hussein. And not only that, it was a capital crime, Title 18, Section 1958, which I think falls under RICO. If there are lawyers here, they may be able to explain this better. But it’s crossing interstate borders to commit murder. Obviously I got out of this, but you want to talk about sending a confused message to the Iraqis? The one chance that I know about we could have gotten rid of Saddam Hussein, the CIA people end up charged with a capital crime? We were cleared. We received medals because we didn’t try to assassinate Saddam. We were just relaying what these Iraqis wanted to do. We had done our duty. We reported it, we had the cable numbers, the cables. The FBI was furious. People in the CIA got the message, which they still have today—that if you get involved in an operation like getting rid of Saddam Hussein, you end up in jail. wmassociation.com So let's face some facts.. our credibility with regard to seriously overthrowing Saddam by an internal coup was absolute nil. 2 Are we sure the Taliban is eliminated ? Everything I read says they are rebuilding. No.. and they never will be. Just like we can't eliminate Nazis and White Supremists. Their ideology will always exist so long as the economic and social conditions pervade that generate support for their cause. But they aren't in charge of Afghanistan any more. And so long as the Afghani people are willing to defend their newly found government, they won't be in the future. Hawk

To: kumar who wrote (525)	5/21/2007 8:49:17 AM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 4152

Kumar, you were asking about whether the Taliban are "rebuilding". Well, they seem to be finding new recruits, but they are losing them pretty quickly. But I acknowledge there are more of them, than there are of us. Desperate Taliban Changes Strategy May 21, 2007: Another Taliban ambush backfired, resulting in at least 25 dead Taliban. NATO and U.S. aerial surveillance, and a growing network of informants, puts the Taliban at an enormous information disadvantage. When the shooting starts, the Taliban have only vague idea of who is where, while their opponents are getting live overhead video of the action. That, plus smart bombs and better trained troops, usually results in a very lopsided outcome. As a result of this, the Taliban now says it is getting out of the countryside and moving the war to the urban areas. This would appear suicidal, because the Taliban has far more support in the countryside than they do in the towns and cities. But with Pakistan and Iran forcing the remaining four million Afghan refugees to return home, it is believed that many of these people will settle in the cities. These refugees were the original source of Taliban recruits, and continued to be very pro-Taliban. Moreover, the Taliban believe they will be safer in the cities, carrying out a terrorist campaign. The Taliban appear to be ignoring what's going on in Iraq. There, the terrorist bombers are hated by the population, and most of the Iraqi Sunni Arab population that supports the terrorists, have been driven out of the country. Trying to move the war to the cities is a desperate measure, and one that will only make the Taliban weaker. It's bad news for the many future victims of Taliban suicide bombers, but good news in that it is a sign that the Taliban is losing and desperate for something that will save them. strategypage.com