The 9/11 Conspiracy Facts

[JonnyFive]

As im about to head out, read this article:

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11012004.html

This should help you.

That doesn't really seem to address the issue of how getting hold of Bin Laden, or bringing him to trial, would help to prevent the 9/11 attacks from occurring, unless he had some reason to say something about future attacks. But the US didn't want him to find out about stuff in the future, they wanted him to put on trial for the Cole attacks, primarily. Similarly, we don't want OBL now to prevent future attacks, we want to put him on trial for his role in 9/11... and the USS Cole attacks... and possibly his role in the 1993 WTC bombing.

I mean, it's not like Jack Bauer is going to force him to tell us about the plan 2 hours before it happens. When the US looks for terror suspects, they're mostly looking for people after the fact to put on trial.

In fact, terrorism is such a threat precisely because it is so disorganized. This is what made the IRA such a pain in the ass for the British. Even if they'd taken down the head of the IRA at any given time, it wouldn't stop the cells from carrying out their individual missions. They didn't even have enough central contact for the leader to really harm them much if caught.

The Al Qaeda group appears to be organized along similar lines, albeit with a slightly different focus. Capturing or killing OBL well in advance of 9/11 would certainly have hurt funding and organization somewhat, but I don't know if we can really argue that that action alone would destroy their ability to conduct operations, especially so close to the 9/11 attacks.

[lapman]

As im about to head out, read this article:

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11012004.html

This should help you.
Where is the proof that Kabir was on the US payroll? Sounds more like somebody trying to use 9/11 to get famous to me.

[DGM]

Where is the proof that Kabir was on the US payroll? Sounds more like somebody trying to use 9/11 to get famous to me.
I don't think it makes any difference. The Frankfort "deal" was with Clinton and he found no reason to act on it either. I have seen no proof anywhere that leads to the Talibans' ability to make good on the deal. Lots of "they saids" but no proof.

[nicepants]

You dont have to. You just try. If you fail, you fail. I think ive told u this b4.

We know that they failed, at least in this case, but you have only claimed that they did not try. It's entirely possible that there were previous attempts at an attack which were thwarted. (A la - Britian-based Liquid Explosives plot)

The suspects, i.e. the people who Mossad have told you are AQ operatives in the US (http://www.antiwar.com/article.php?articleid=2305)

So the govt had the current/correct names and locations of each person involved 9/11? And knew that they were all planning said attack? And deliberately did nothing?


theyre not US citizens

Your argument says to wiretap, etc the people who are believed to be AQ operatives. However, there could easily be many people who may be "believed to be AQ operatives" who are not.

[HeyLeroy]

They made a movie about it, the title is "The Devil Wears Pravda". :DWelcome to my world of frustration when it comes to mjd's posts. I told you he had a habit of posting links that don't have anything to do with his argument.
But y'all didn't want to believe me. A Pox on you ALL.

:D :D :D

If you are bursting, you can read them at SLC.

By the time I am finished with this section, the honest people on the thread will no longer need convincing.

But mjd1982, you raised this issue in your OP; it's also included in the 'tags' for this post. Please address them:

Hello all!
(snip)

There is such a chasm between the facts of this day, and what has been reported in the mainstream media, that the majority of people are not even aware of the most rudimentary facts of the day, one of the most newsworthy days any of our lives. I will address 2 smoking guns.

WTC7

(snip)

WTC 7 was a 47 storey building, 100m north of the North Tower that housed the offices of the CIA, the Secret Service, the Mayor’s Emergency Management Office, the IRS, and the SEC, among others. At 5.20 pm on 9/11, it was taken down in a manner that raised eyebrows. In the words of top Dutch implosion expert Danny Jowenko: “This is controlled demolition. Absolutely certain. This is a hired job done by a team of experts.” Or to quote emeritus Professor in structural analysis and construction at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Hugo Bachmann: “In my opinion WTC7 was with the utmost probability brought down by controlled demolition done by experts". Also, emeritus Professor in structural analysis and construction at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Joerg Schneider: "WTC7 was with the utmost probability brought down by explosives".

The official government story is that the tower was damaged by falling debris, and so fell in a manner that just looked like an implosion, but it was actually structural failure. Any doubts as to this can be put to bed by the testimony of 1st responders both at the time, and subsequently, who state they were told to get away from the building, because it was about to be imploded:
(Google video- WTC7- The smoking gun of 9/11)

I am aware that there is testimony regarding suspicions that the building was at risk, and this is not testimony I deny; I have no doubt that those firefighters thought the building would collapse. Nonetheless, nor do I deny the testimony provided in the above video, and anyone who will accept only one will have to justify why they deny the other.

(snip)

Incidentally, another interesting fact about 9/11 is that the owner of the WTC complex, Larry Silverstein, had his offices on the 88th floor of the North Tower. But by a surprising coincidence, on this day, Larry didn’t make it in, as he had a doctor’s appointment, and his 2 kids, Lisa and Roger, who worked with him, didn’t make it either- they were running late.

Luck of the devil I guess.

(snip)
M

In your video there are first-responders who state that the building was 'gonna blow up', or 'explode', which you seem to consider to be a smoking gun; yet another firefighter states that his radio 'exploded' which you dismiss as a colloquialism.

How can you judge the difference?

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

1. No.

I guess this invalidates all the rest?

Hmmmm... so are you saying 'No' to 9/11 being organised by the US Government,

or

'No - There WERE terrorists involved'?

The latter would suggest that you believe the US Government KNEW a terrorist attack was imminent, but let it happen for their own supposed gain?
At the time of - or prior to - the PNAC, the Government were aware that an attack of catastrophic magnitude was going to be made, so they indirectly alluded to it in the PNAC, then sat back and allowed it to occur - is that what you are driving at?

[T.A.M.]

I just had to post to say that Satansmalevoicechoir is one of the most unique names I have seen here...caught my eye, so I had to post.

TAM:)

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

I just had to post to say that Satansmalevoicechoir is one of the most unique names I have seen here...caught my eye, so I had to post.

TAM:)

I'm flattered! :D

[JonnyFive]

I'm flattered! :D

It is a totally awesome screen name. :)

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

It is a totally awesome screen name. :)

You think the name is awesome - you should actually hear the choir!:D

[HeyLeroy]

I tried google; is this you guys?

http://liveu-05.vo.llnwd.net/vidilife/image/2006/10/10/946639/1228405L.jpg

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

I tried google; is this you guys?

http://liveu-05.vo.llnwd.net/vidilife/image/2006/10/10/946639/1228405L.jpg

Close, but not quite THAT demonic-looking!

[nicepants]

In your video there are first-responders who state that the building was 'gonna blow up', or 'explode', which you seem to consider to be a smoking gun; yet another firefighter states that his radio 'exploded' which you dismiss as a colloquialism.

How can you judge the difference?

Obviously......the demo charges were all disguised as radios.:cool:

[HeyLeroy]

Obviously......the demo charges were all disguised as radios.:cool:

Funny, that. I suggested to mjd1982 the same thing; he could argue that as a way for the explosives to be smuggled into the burning building. He dismissed that.

I guess my troofer hat was a wrong fit.

[SpitfireIX]

I guess my troofer hat was a wrong fit.


:tinfoil

[HeyLeroy]

Yup, that one's too small:

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/619745c4e8071f095.jpg

[JonnyFive]

Yup, that one's too small:

http://forums.randi.org/imagehosting/619745c4e8071f095.jpg


For the love of... how many times do we have to talk about this?! The all-seeing eye lets the cosmic mind control rays in, the tin foil hat is supposed to keep them out. You can't just put an eye on your hat and expect it to work right!

If everyone was as careless as you, we'd be mind zombies already. Geez! ;)

[HeyLeroy]

http://liveu-93.vo.llnwd.net/vidilife/image/2006/10/10/946639/1191593L.jpg

Yep, that was a real 404 page...

[Corsair 115]

If it's printed in a newspaper, it must be true! http://english.pravda.ru/science/mysteries/25-06-2007/93964-monster-0

Go ahead mjd1982, prove there's not a monster at the bottom of a Ukraine lake!I don't know about under water, but U.S. intelligence was aware of something strange on the water. They dubbed it the "Caspian Sea Monster." It was a monster in name only however.

[HawksFan]

Heh, here and I always thought that Satan's male voice choir was KISS. :)

[Unsecured Coins]

Heh, here and I always thought that Satan's male voice choir was KISS. :)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/powers05/wrong.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/powers05/slayer20Signature.jpg

this be Satan's choir

[Swing Dangler]

There are more hijackers on this thread than on 9/11!

[nicepants]

There are more hijackers on this thread than on 9/11!

There were multiple, unprecedented warnings in advance of said hijackings...yet Mjd did nothing to stop them. Obviously these hijackings are "propitious" to his plan.

[MIKILLINI]

There are more hijackers on this thread than on 9/11!

:clap: :D

[Unsecured Coins]

and we ALL listen to SLAYER

[MIKILLINI]

There were multiple, unprecedented warnings in advance of said hijackings...yet Mjd did nothing to stop them. Obviously these hijackings are "propitious" to his plan.

:dl:

Propitious...:faint:

[jab712]

Yeah, I am getting pretty tired of that word. That and "amazing"...uggh

[SpitfireIX]

:dl:

Propitious...:faint:


See handy response 3) in my signature.

[MIKILLINI]

See handy response 3) in my signature.

I wonder how long he spent looking before settling on that word. Might have been debating on favorable and found the synonym of favorable to be the word he chose. #3 is a good response, but I like #1 the best.
Since mjd is arguing the pro-pitious of the inside job.
It must be that we are arguing the con-pitious of it. :p

[mjd1982]

I read the Cockburn article. It presents no evidence that its source is in any way relaiable. It says that he "has a letter from the bush administration" but does not provide it as his only link to Bush. If anything it points to the Clinton administration as being the ones you screwed up. They had everything in place before November 2000 and supposedly put it off to wait to let the next administration handle things. Of course the whole article is dubious at best and seems to have no base in reality.
Excuse me? May I ask why you are here if you have no inclination to look at facts with the slightest degree of honesty?

The source here was the link between the US and the Taliban. It is hard to realistically conceive a more important source than this. He is unequivocal in his opinion- the US "could have had Osama bin Laden's head handed to him on a platter".

What is there to debate? This could not be any more simple.

[mjd1982]

I read the Cockburn article. It presents no evidence that its source is in any way relaiable. It says that he "has a letter from the bush administration" but does not provide it as his only link to Bush. If anything it points to the Clinton administration as being the ones you screwed up. They had everything in place before November 2000 and supposedly put it off to wait to let the next administration handle things. Of course the whole article is dubious at best and seems to have no base in reality.
Sorry, I just cant read this post without pissing myself!!!

What an intrepid seeker of the truth you are!

[mjd1982]

I have a question for you mjd1982.


Is this true?

Please comment.

There, now I give credence to said story. So it must be true since it's quoted by multiple sources.
I have commented on it, read the damn thread before you post!

If the JREF globe is reputable enough a source to be quoted as the IG was, then the story may have credence.

Now, comment on this please:

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11012004.html

[mjd1982]

Squirm?? My boy, you are delusional!

Kabir Mohabbat's version of Frankfurt is clearly at odds with Secretary Eastham's (Eastham career Foreign Service officer, not a political appointee, although this is 2000 so that question is moot). So who might have an agenda?


LMAO, right, who's going to have an agenda, the guy from the US State department, or the Afghan/American link between the US and the Taliban? Why does this guy have an "agenda", pray tell?


Who is claiming something that is unusual (given the Taliban's dodging of 30 efforts during the Clinton administration, their willingness post-9/11 to be bombed into the Stone Age rather than turn over bin Laden, the Taliban-Al Qaeda alliance which exists to this day)? Mohabbat's credibility is suspect.


Nice gag! Tell me why his credibility is suspect, over a US state dept official commenting in March 01, vs the independent intermediary between the US and the Taliban commenting in November 04? How can you make this claim with a straigh face?


(Interestingly, I would suggest more appropriate reading for you might be Cockburn's "The 9/11 Conspiracists and the Decline of the American Left". It's not just Chomsky who thinks you're a nutcase.)

What Cockburn or Chomsky thinks of the movement has zero relevance in terms of a debate on the facts. If you want to debate them seriously, for which there is little evidence, you would not need me to tell you this.

[mjd1982]

That doesn't really seem to address the issue of how getting hold of Bin Laden, or bringing him to trial, would help to prevent the 9/11 attacks from occurring, unless he had some reason to say something about future attacks. But the US didn't want him to find out about stuff in the future, they wanted him to put on trial for the Cole attacks, primarily. Similarly, we don't want OBL now to prevent future attacks, we want to put him on trial for his role in 9/11... and the USS Cole attacks... and possibly his role in the 1993 WTC bombing.

I mean, it's not like Jack Bauer is going to force him to tell us about the plan 2 hours before it happens. When the US looks for terror suspects, they're mostly looking for people after the fact to put on trial.

In fact, terrorism is such a threat precisely because it is so disorganized. This is what made the IRA such a pain in the ass for the British. Even if they'd taken down the head of the IRA at any given time, it wouldn't stop the cells from carrying out their individual missions. They didn't even have enough central contact for the leader to really harm them much if caught.

The Al Qaeda group appears to be organized along similar lines, albeit with a slightly different focus. Capturing or killing OBL well in advance of 9/11 would certainly have hurt funding and organization somewhat, but I don't know if we can really argue that that action alone would destroy their ability to conduct operations, especially so close to the 9/11 attacks.
Jonny, please stick to the point. Did the US let OBL live pre 911, when they had his head on a platter. It is very hard to argue that they couldnt have had him dead, when the independent, former intermediary between te US and the Taliban is stating that in the strongest possible terms.

Tell me if you accept this.

Now, in terms of what this would have done to hinder 911, it is also hard to argue that it wouldnt have hindered it in any way. If the head of AQ is killed, this is going to cause problems for AQ, this is pretty evident. It also has relevance for the WOT- the US needs a bogeyman to encapsulate this "enemy" that we are fighting against. OBL is the perfect one, and it would make little sense had he been killed.

Regardless, the crux of the matter is whether he was allowed to live, when he had been handed to the US on a platter. Then the questions this raises.

[mjd1982]

(Response to Lapman)

LMAO!!

Great gag, another intrepid truth seeker we have on this thread.

Just to show how ridiculous your point is, who the f@$k has heard of Kabir Moabbat?

[mjd1982]

We know that they failed, at least in this case, but you have only claimed that they did not try. It's entirely possible that there were previous attempts at an attack which were thwarted. (A la - Britian-based Liquid Explosives plot)


No, in any case not on a mandate from the WH, since the 911 commission says that no action were taken, until a principals meeting on sept 4th.


So the govt had the current/correct names and locations of each person involved 9/11? And knew that they were all planning said attack? And deliberately did nothing?


Please dont be deliberately obtuse. They dont need the names of all of them. Mossad handed over the names of 19 AQ agents, on the premise that AQ were planning a "hiroshima on US soil", within which were the names of 4 (?) of the eventual hijackers. Nothing was done


Your argument says to wiretap, etc the people who are believed to be AQ operatives. However, there could easily be many people who may be "believed to be AQ operatives" who are not.

Your point? Read about the CIA docs released today? Dont pretend this couldnt be done, that is deliberately ignorant I would surmise.

[mjd1982]

There are more hijackers on this thread than on 9/11!
Of course, they find it better than addressing the points.

[Dave Rogers]

Regardless, the crux of the matter is whether he was allowed to live, when he had been handed to the US on a platter. Then the questions this raises.

The crux of your argument, then, is that OBL had been "handed to the US on a platter". We have four sources that relate to this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,587849,00.html - The Taliban were prepared to hand over OBL to Pakistan in 1998 but changed their mind after US cruise missile attacks.

http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/Content/2004-10/13rai.cfm - The Taliban negotiated with private individuals to hand over OBL to Pakistan but the plan was vetoed by President Musharraf because he couldn't guarantee OBL's safety; the US Ambassador to Pakistan knew about all this.

http://www.infowars.com/saved%20pages/Prior_Knowledge/US_met_taliban.htm - US diplomats negotiated strenuously over three years to get OBL handed over but the negotiations failed, possibly because of Taliban stalling and possibly because of cultural misunderstandings; opinions vary.

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11012004.html - The Taliban offered a plan to the Clinton administration to have OBL and his supporters killed by a US cruise missile strike, but the Bush administration never picked up the plan and ignored subsequent offers of a handover.

Note that the fourth of these pieces is based on the opinion of a single individual who feels that the Bush administration was criminally negligent. It contradicts the third source, and the first and second are partly in agreement and partly contradictory.

There are many possible interpretations of all this. Your interpretation that the US administration deliberately prevented any real progress to avoid capturing OBL is a possible one, which only really agrees with the Counterpunch article. Another is that the three years of fruitless negotiations, in which US diplomats never had the sense of achieving anything, left the US thoroughly disillusioned and reluctant to trust anything the Taliban said.

Most notable is the suggestion that cultural differences were the main factor that derailed the negotiations. This would be consistent with the opinion of Kabir Mohabbat, himself an Afghan, that US officials were not accepting offers that to him were clearly made, and also the opinion of those US officials that no genuine offer was forthcoming; Mohabbat was able to understand the Taliban's way of bargaining, but the US officials were not able to understand fully either the Taliban or even Mohabbat. In other words, as usual there's a perfectly valid cock-up theory that not only explains the facts as well as the conspiracy theory, but even explains some of the apparent contradictions rather better than the conspiracy theory.

As with the PNAC and propitiousness argument, I'm finding your opinions very illuminating here, but not in the way you seem to want; the more you advance arguments for an inside job, the more it prompts me to look into the details, and the more it seems to me that those arguments are poor reflections of the sources they're based on. In that respect, at least, I value this thread.

Dave

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

Now, in terms of what this would have done to hinder 911, it is also hard to argue that it wouldnt have hindered it in any way. If the head of AQ is killed, this is going to cause problems for AQ, this is pretty evident. It also has relevance for the WOT- the US needs a bogeyman to encapsulate this "enemy" that we are fighting against. OBL is the perfect one, and it would make little sense had he been killed.


Incorrect. As has been pointed out, there is no need for a 'bogeyman'. The British Government/Army fought terrorism in Northern Ireland for over 30 years with no recourse to a 'figurehead' of any kind. Why would the US Government need one?

Of course, if the head of AQ was killed it would cause problems - as has been pointed out, but given the nature of Islamic terrorism, I don't think this would make too much of an impact; It would result in the head of AQ being 'martyred', and would only serve to inflame passion and resistance in the rest of the movement. Saddam Hussein being captured and subsequently hanged did nothing significant to quell the dissidents in Iraq.

Also, as has been explained; the way the terrorist cell system works (as pioneered by the IRA) is such that the organisation can survive as a whole if the 'head is cut off', as most cells are completely unaware of others outside their own AO's and operate mostly independantly, only requiring sanction from their higher formations to carry out certain 'jobs'.

Again, can I seek clarification that you're suggesting that the US government were fully aware that a terrorist attack was planned for 9/11, and did nothing to stop it, in order to push through weapons development, obtain oil/gas and establish footholds in the Persian Gulf? And not only did they do nothing to stop it, but they indirectly alluded to it in the PNAC prior to the event?

If this is the case, can you tell me how (if at all) the British Government was complicit in this, seeing as how British % US troops were 'shoulder-to-shoulder' in the War against Terror almost from the outset? Do you think that this implies that the British Government were also 'in on it'?

[Belz...]

If the reporter is borrowing its import for his report, then of course he is lending it credence, since the credence of his report depends on that of the others. This is pretty simple.

Very simple. And wrong.

It would cause the revolutionary, world changing, world/peace/secutiry/democracy/love and happiness saving plan to happen in years, rather than decades, yes.

Now you're just making stuff up. Where did you read that happy toy-land utopic world vision ?

not necessarily key, certainly propitious

Tell me, Mjd, why do you stubbornly refuse to accept that it might NOT be propitious ?

not necessailry "planned the doc", but the sentiment was present in the doc, this we can say

You're adding new meaning to the document, again.

The Pres knew there were AQ cells in the couuntry plotting a mass terrorist attack, deemed a "Hiroshima on US soil", and did zero,

Already refuted. It seems to me like you're not reading some of the responses on this thread. Perhaps they threaten your world-view and you'd rather ignore them.

didnt even care.

Telepathy, now ?

He was offered OBL, and didnt evem care.

Dead horse.

[WildCat]

If the JREF globe is reputable enough a source to be quoted as the IG was, then the story may have credence.
:dl:

[WildCat]

Please dont be deliberately obtuse. They dont need the names of all of them. Mossad handed over the names of 19 AQ agents, on the premise that AQ were planning a "hiroshima on US soil", within which were the names of 4 (?) of the eventual hijackers.
Excuse me? I must have missed the nuke going off...

[Belz...]

The rest was pretty worthless I'm afraid.

Oh, please. Stop being so self-righteous.

You think it's "worthless" to ask you to check your definitions ? You use words but you don't seem to know what they mean. Learning how to communicate is "worthless" ?

And how about this:

Mjd, if ONE media outlet reports something, and fifty other media outlets quote FROM that original source, it's still ONE source. Perhaps you should look up the word "source".

Did you actually read that ? If you think you can just hand-wave other people's points because they don't suit you, and you think they won't notice, then you are both dishonest and deluded.

Good. Then deal with the Counterpunch article linked above.

Did you not read his post ? The ONE source is NOT reliable. If another news outlet quotes an unreliable source, does that suddenly make the story genuine ?

As im about to head out, read this article:

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11012004.html

This should help you.

Did you actually READ JonnyFive's post ?

And about the counterpunch article, do you see something wrong with it ? I do.

[Belz...]

I'm flattered! :D

Wait a minute!

I wasn't aware I had a voice choir...

Who paid for this ?

[Belz...]

Excuse me? May I ask why you are here if you have no inclination to look at facts with the slightest degree of honesty?

Here's a hint: an article that doesn't reference its sources is no article. It's a rant.

The source here was the link between the US and the Taliban.

Speculation, since there are no sources.

It is hard to realistically conceive a more important source than this. He is unequivocal in his opinion- the US "could have had Osama bin Laden's head handed to him on a platter".

So the fact that he's convinced and convincing means its true ?

If the JREF globe is reputable enough a source to be quoted as the IG was, then the story may have credence.

Being quoted by someone else doesn't make you reputable. Quoting someone who is does. So you've got it the other way around.

LMAO!!

This is no laughing matter.

They dont need the names of all of them. Mossad handed over the names of 19 AQ agents, on the premise that AQ were planning a "hiroshima on US soil", within which were the names of 4 (?) of the eventual hijackers. Nothing was done

Hindsight is 20/20. You're only willing to see one possibility. Even IF you were correct about the information they had, foul play isn't the only explanation. Of course, you're wrong about the information they had.

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

Wait a minute!

I wasn't aware I had a voice choir...

Who paid for this ?

Don't worry - we're purely a voluntary tribute choir.

[Billdave2]

Excuse me? May I ask why you are here if you have no inclination to look at facts with the slightest degree of honesty?

The source here was the link between the US and the Taliban. It is hard to realistically conceive a more important source than this. He is unequivocal in his opinion- the US "could have had Osama bin Laden's head handed to him on a platter".

What is there to debate? This could not be any more simple.

So since this random guy is unequivical in his opinion. That is not evidence. If someone puts themself forward as an expert or a witness, they need to have some thing to back them up , more than "I got a letter from the bush adminstration saying I worked for them, but I left it at home and you can't see it". Where are his credentials, and why didn't he provide them. Where is any proof of what he says? Even what he says would lead you to believe that even if he was being honest, even the Clinton administration didn't take him serious. Do you think for one moment they would have said "well we really worked hard to get rid of OBL, and it would sure make us look good to get his head on platter to show up the republicans, but we will just let good old GWB get all the credit by intentiaonally delaying for a couple of months." And this is if the guy seems credible to you! If he is on the up and up he would have no proble presenting some evidence, but says "whoops, I left it at home." You ask why I don't look at facts, but you NEVER present facts, you present assumptions, and implications and wild stories from people with no evidence and who appear to have no credibility with anyone of substance.

I will look at any FACTS you want to present, but the have to be FACTS not opinions/fairy tales.

[WildCat]

I will look at any FACTS you want to present, but the have to be FACTS not opinions/fairy tales.
Actual facts are not propitious to mjd1982's delusions, so opinions and fairy tales are all you're going to get.

[DGM]

Towards the end of that same month of October, 2001 Mohabbat was successfully negotiating with the Taliban for the release of Heather Mercer (acting in a private capacity at the request of her father)

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11012004.html

(CNN) -- After more than three months of confinement in harsh Taliban prisons, U.S. Christian aid workers Heather Mercer, 24, and Dayna Curry, 30, were freed from their cells November 15
Mercer and Curry -- along with four German and two Australian aid workers who were arrested with them -- were freed by Northern Alliance troops

http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/curry.mercer/profile.html

This statement makes me wonder about Mohabbat's negotiating capacity with the Taliban

[WildCat]

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11012004.html




http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/people/shows/curry.mercer/profile.html

This statement makes me wonder about Mohabbat's negotiating capacity with the Taliban
Seems counterpunch.org has some credibility problems... :rolleyes:

[JonnyFive]

Jonny, please stick to the point. Did the US let OBL live pre 911, when they had his head on a platter. It is very hard to argue that they couldnt have had him dead, when the independent, former intermediary between te US and the Taliban is stating that in the strongest possible terms.

Oh, and you were doing so well. Now you have to go back to this "stick to the point" crap. I thought that the issue of the US having OBL "on a platter" was essential to your point that the US allowed 9/11 to happen. I've asked you why capturing, trying, or killing OBL would help stop those terrorist attacks in early 2001, when the negotiations you reference actually happened.

Could have had him dead? The US seemed to want to put him on trial. That's what all those sources you keep referencing say. Why would they want him dead? They wanted him held accountable for his crimes.

There is also the minor issue of them not really having his "head on a platter" in the sense you keep using. The US was negotiating with an unreliable, unstable, dogmatic political entity to try to secure the release of a man they treated as a guest. Somehow I don't think this was a particularly "good faith" negotiation.

How could the US have had him dead? Did we know precisely where he was? "Inside Afghanistan" clearly isn't enough, given our inability to capture him during the recent war there.

Tell me if you accept this.

No, because you haven't shown proof of it, and every source you've linked to flatly defies the idea of him being "handed" to anyone.

Now, in terms of what this would have done to hinder 911, it is also hard to argue that it wouldnt have hindered it in any way. If the head of AQ is killed, this is going to cause problems for AQ, this is pretty evident.

You have no idea how organizations like Al Qaeda work, do you?

Terrorist groups, like AQ, are often organized into what is known as "cells." These cells, generally comprised of a small number of people, operate largely independently of the larger group itself. The larger group supplies funding, training, equipment, and guidance, then allows the cells to operate without direct leadership from the main group.

Evidence suggests that OBL had contact with members of the cells periodically before they carried out their mission, but there is no reason to suspect that their operation would cease when the leadership was destroyed. Just as the AQ cells in Afghanistan are able to continue to fight against American troops despite the death of several of their key leaders, any cell in the US is generally able to continue its mission unless that specific cell is destroyed to the point where its operational capacity is removed.

Moreover, the motivation behind most terrorist groups is not adherence to a particular figure or group, it is adherence to a set of particular ideals and beliefs, regardless of how pathological those ideals and beliefs may be. This is largely what allows the cell system to work - individual operators do not require constant reinforcement from on high to continue their operations.

You can examine several situations to see how this works: the Afghan insurgency, the Iraqi insurgency, the terrorist operations carried out by HAMAS in Israel and the surrounding area, the IRA operations in Northern Ireland that took place for decades, and the activity of any of the "lone gunman" terrorists that show how much damage a motivated individual can do.

Cutting off the head of a terrorist organization is like cutting off the head of the Hydra. It might make you feel good, and it might even hurt them for a bit (OBL was a key organizer and provided a lot of money), but it will never kill them. That is one of the key things that make terrorism so enduring and dangerous. Remember that many terrorist groups have long outlasted the lifespans or involvement of their original members - they are not defined by one leader.

Even more to the point, by the time OBL was even "offered" to the US, again assuming such an offer was even remotely genuine, the cell planning 9/11 was in its end run. Despite all its moving parts, the hijacking plot was pretty low-tech, so it's not like they needed a constant influx of OBL money to continue operations.

It also has relevance for the WOT- the US needs a bogeyman to encapsulate this "enemy" that we are fighting against. OBL is the perfect one, and it would make little sense had he been killed.

That's the thing, the War on Terror is such a great deal for the government precisely because it doesn't need one man for that. All it needs is the shadowy boogeyman of "the terrorists." It works even better if you don't tie it in to one man. Osama could die at any time, even if the US was working full time to protect him secretly, but the concept of a shadow group that hates America will never go away.

I'm willing to bet large sums of money that there will never be a world where there are no terrorists of one sort or another. There will always be people willing to use terroristic violence to try and achieve their political ends. If you want to be cynical about it, the War on Terror's abstract qualities ensure we will almost always have an enemy to fight. Unlike the Cold War, which largely ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, there will always be some terrorists.

Regardless, the crux of the matter is whether he was allowed to live, when he had been handed to the US on a platter. Then the questions this raises.

I, again, contest the idea that he was "handed on a platter." The evidence you have linked to does not at all support this idea. In fact, it appears more to be Taliban obfuscation and diplomatic posturing than anything else. This isn't "we had him in our custody and let him go" stuff, not by a long shot.

[JonnyFive]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/powers05/wrong.jpg


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/powers05/slayer20Signature.jpg

this be Satan's choir

I must be off to a slow start this morning, because I thought the guy in the first picture was supposed to be one of the people in Satan's choir.

[mjd1982]

The crux of your argument, then, is that OBL had been "handed to the US on a platter".


Of this part of the argument, yes


We have four sources that relate to this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/waronterror/story/0,1361,587849,00.html - The Taliban were prepared to hand over OBL to Pakistan in 1998 but changed their mind after US cruise missile attacks.


Irrelevant, since it dates to 1998, when Mohabbat is referring specifically to the negligence of the Bush admin, and no one else.


http://www.zmag.org/Sustainers/Content/2004-10/13rai.cfm - The Taliban negotiated with private individuals to hand over OBL to Pakistan but the plan was vetoed by President Musharraf because he couldn't guarantee OBL's safety; the US Ambassador to Pakistan knew about all this.


This deals with post 911, which again, is superfluous to the point- disposing of OBL b4 911


http://www.infowars.com/saved%20pages/Prior_Knowledge/US_met_taliban.htm - US diplomats negotiated strenuously over three years to get OBL handed over but the negotiations failed, possibly because of Taliban stalling and possibly because of cultural misunderstandings; opinions vary.


Ok, a story from the US side


http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11012004.html - The Taliban offered a plan to the Clinton administration to have OBL and his supporters killed by a US cruise missile strike, but the Bush administration never picked up the plan and ignored subsequent offers of a handover.

Note that the fourth of these pieces is based on the opinion of a single individual who feels that the Bush administration was criminally negligent. It contradicts the third source, and the first and second are partly in agreement and partly contradictory.


It doesnt contradict the 1st 1 at all, since it relates more to post Cole negotiations:


Mohabbat went to Kandahar and communicated the news of imminent bombing to the Taliban. They asked him to set up a meeting with US officials to arrange the circumstances of their handover of Osama.


Nor does it to the 2nd for the portion that matters, since we are addressing the pre 911 failures; the post 911 have little relevance.


There are many possible interpretations of all this. Your interpretation that the US administration deliberately prevented any real progress to avoid capturing OBL is a possible one, which only really agrees with the Counterpunch article. Another is that the three years of fruitless negotiations, in which US diplomats never had the sense of achieving anything, left the US thoroughly disillusioned and reluctant to trust anything the Taliban said.


Which still leaves zero justification for when you are told OBL is in this house here, bomb him, that you dont do so.


Most notable is the suggestion that cultural differences were the main factor that derailed the negotiations. This would be consistent with the opinion of Kabir Mohabbat, himself an Afghan, that US officials were not accepting offers that to him were clearly made, and also the opinion of those US officials that no genuine offer was forthcoming; Mohabbat was able to understand the Taliban's way of bargaining, but the US officials were not able to understand fully either the Taliban or even Mohabbat.


Oh boy, a plunge into the incredulous here. Why would they not be able to understand Mohabbat? He's a Texan businessman, who was born in Afghanistan. So that point is out the window and in the dustbin. Further, the argument is a complete catch all, since it would imply that even if the Taliban were saying "OBL is here, please bomb him", which they were, then the Bush admin would just not understand it, due to cultural differences. I take it you are not making this argument seriously. Moreover, read the article carefully. The reaction of the Bush admin was not that they didnt know that they could, they knew they could, they were just procrastinating:


The Bush administration sent Mohabbat back, carrying kindred tidings of delay and regret to the Taliban three more times in 2001, the last in September after the 9/11 attack. Each time he was asked to communicate similar regrets about the failure to act on the plan agreed to in Frankfurt. This procrastination became a standing joke with the Taliban, Mohabbat tells CounterPunch "They made an offer to me that if the US didn't have fuel for the Cruise missiles to attack Osama in Daronta, where he was under house arrest, they would pay for it."




In other words, as usual there's a perfectly valid cock-up theory that not only explains the facts as well as the conspiracy theory, but even explains some of the apparent contradictions rather better than the conspiracy theory.


Pffff! Or not, as above.


As with the PNAC and propitiousness argument, I'm finding your opinions very illuminating here, but not in the way you seem to want; the more you advance arguments for an inside job, the more it prompts me to look into the details, and the more it seems to me that those arguments are poor reflections of the sources they're based on. In that respect, at least, I value this thread.

Dave

Ok, well after trying quite well so far, your back to plunging the depths as per usual. If you want to address my points on PNAC, go ahead, they are firmly enunciated in #493. Stating "I think your wrong, oh, how wrong you are", is not amenable to sensible debate, and, I would suggest, does not belong anywhere near here.

[mjd1982]

Incorrect. As has been pointed out, there is no need for a 'bogeyman'. The British Government/Army fought terrorism in Northern Ireland for over 30 years with no recourse to a 'figurehead' of any kind. Why would the US Government need one?


There was no bogeyman in N Ireland, but that doesnt mean that it would have been less effective with one. These are 2 completely different instances; one is a manufactured war against an invisible enemy, the other is a genuine conflict. Were the Troubles manufactured, there would be good reason to construct a bogeyman to put fear into a population, and gain credence.


Of course, if the head of AQ was killed it would cause problems - as has been pointed out, but given the nature of Islamic terrorism, I don't think this would make too much of an impact; It would result in the head of AQ being 'martyred', and would only serve to inflame passion and resistance in the rest of the movement. Saddam Hussein being captured and subsequently hanged did nothing significant to quell the dissidents in Iraq.


Right, but that doesnt invalidate the validity of killing Saddam, does it? Which is the point.


Also, as has been explained; the way the terrorist cell system works (as pioneered by the IRA) is such that the organisation can survive as a whole if the 'head is cut off', as most cells are completely unaware of others outside their own AO's and operate mostly independantly, only requiring sanction from their higher formations to carry out certain 'jobs'.


as above


Again, can I seek clarification that you're suggesting that the US government were fully aware that a terrorist attack was planned for 9/11, and did nothing to stop it, in order to push through weapons development, obtain oil/gas and establish footholds in the Persian Gulf?


yes, to further and entrench geo political hegemony. See my long post half way down p3 for more.


And not only did they do nothing to stop it, but they indirectly alluded to it in the PNAC prior to the event?


This evinces the propitiousness of such an event in their minds, im not arguing anything else


If this is the case, can you tell me how (if at all) the British Government was complicit in this, seeing as how British % US troops were 'shoulder-to-shoulder' in the War against Terror almost from the outset? Do you think that this implies that the British Government were also 'in on it'?

No, I don't. The Brits (we) see that, again for geo political reasons to stand shoulder to shoulder (or knee) with the US is beneficial. Of course this has obvious benefits such as stable access to cheap oil and gas, as well as a boon to the weapons industry, whose importance Goldsmith et al are very aware of, but this is all tangential. They are not in on it, nor are they possblly even aware that this is an inside job.

[mjd1982]

Very simple. And wrong.



Now you're just making stuff up. Where did you read that happy toy-land utopic world vision ?



Tell me, Mjd, why do you stubbornly refuse to accept that it might NOT be propitious ?



You're adding new meaning to the document, again.



Already refuted. It seems to me like you're not reading some of the responses on this thread. Perhaps they threaten your world-view and you'd rather ignore them.



Telepathy, now ?



Dead horse.
I'm sorry, but no points here constitute any form of an argument.

If you wish to constitute such, go ahead.

[mjd1982]

Oh, please. Stop being so self-righteous.

You think it's "worthless" to ask you to check your definitions ? You use words but you don't seem to know what they mean. Learning how to communicate is "worthless" ?

And how about this:



Did you actually read that ? If you think you can just hand-wave other people's points because they don't suit you, and you think they won't notice, then you are both dishonest and deluded.



Did you not read his post ? The ONE source is NOT reliable. If another news outlet quotes an unreliable source, does that suddenly make the story genuine ?



Did you actually READ JonnyFive's post ?

And about the counterpunch article, do you see something wrong with it ? I do.
Right, so here you invalidate the CP article since it is based on the testimony of one person. You are stating that an article based on 1 source is ipso facto unreliable.

Please think b4 u post.

[nicepants]

No, in any case not on a mandate from the WH, since the 911 commission says that no action were taken, until a principals meeting on sept 4th.

Where does the 911 comm say "no action was taken"?
A principals meeting on 9/4....so action was taken?


Please dont be deliberately obtuse. They dont need the names of all of them. Mossad handed over the names of 19 AQ agents, on the premise that AQ were planning a "hiroshima on US soil", within which were the names of 4 (?) of the eventual hijackers. Nothing was done

So 4 of the 19 were the hijackers...the other 15 would have been wire-tapped, followed, bugged, etc all in violation of US law. Great plan.


Your point? Read about the CIA docs released today? Dont pretend this couldnt be done, that is deliberately ignorant I would surmise.
I'm not saying it "couldn't" be done...I'm saying it couldn't be done LEGALLY. It sounds like you support the government illegally wiretapping individuals without any legal authorization to do so.

He is unequivocal in his opinion- the US "could have had Osama bin Laden's head handed to him on a platter".

What is there to debate? This could not be any more simple.

(bolding/underlining mine)

You said it yourself, it's an opinion.......

[mjd1982]

Here's a hint: an article that doesn't reference its sources is no article. It's a rant.

Speculation, since there are no sources.

So the fact that he's convinced and convincing means its true ?

Being quoted by someone else doesn't make you reputable. Quoting someone who is does. So you've got it the other way around.

This is no laughing matter.


The source is Koabbir Mohabbat. This is referenced many times


Hindsight is 20/20. You're only willing to see one possibility. Even IF you were correct about the information they had, foul play isn't the only explanation. Of course, you're wrong about the information they had.

Well this is what we're debating. Learn the meaning of that word, and if you think your up to it, join in.

[mjd1982]

So since this random guy is unequivical in his opinion.


Oh my days....Please explain how he is a "random guy"...


That is not evidence. If someone puts themself forward as an expert or a witness, they need to have some thing to back them up , more than "I got a letter from the bush adminstration saying I worked for them, but I left it at home and you can't see it". Where are his credentials, and why didn't he provide them. Where is any proof of what he says?


Please read the article before you post:


From the documents he's supplied us and from his detailed account we regard Kabir Mohabbat's story as credible and are glad to make public his story of the truly incredible failure of the Bush administration to accept the Taliban's offer to eliminate Bin Laden.



He told his story to the 9/11 Commission (whose main concern, he tells us, was that he not divulge his testimony to anyone else), also to the 9/11 Families



portions of Mohabbat's role have been the subject of a number of news reports, including a CBS news story by Alan Pizzey



This meeting in Quetta was reported in carefully vague terms by Pizzey on September 25, where Mohabbat was mentioned by name



Even what he says would lead you to believe that even if he was being honest, even the Clinton administration didn't take him serious. Do you think for one moment they would have said "well we really worked hard to get rid of OBL, and it would sure make us look good to get his head on platter to show up the republicans, but we will just let good old GWB get all the credit by intentiaonally delaying for a couple of months."


That is no form of argument.

In addition, please watch the Clinton-Wallace interview (http://youtube.com/watch?v=aPyQ4Ae6Ei0) for info on why Clinton didnt bomb OBL.


And this is if the guy seems credible to you! If he is on the up and up he would have no proble presenting some evidence, but says "whoops, I left it at home."



From the documents he's supplied us and from his detailed account we regard Kabir Mohabbat's story as credible


read b4 u post


You ask why I don't look at facts, but you NEVER present facts, you present assumptions, and implications and wild stories from people with no evidence and who appear to have no credibility with anyone of substance.

I will look at any FACTS you want to present, but the have to be FACTS not opinions/fairy tales.

Unbelievable.

All as above.

ETA- Sorry, I just cant leave this standing. It is so astonishing, and so reflective of what I say in the OP


I will state that I do believe that those who are not “Truthers” fall into 2 categories- ill informed (~90%) and deluded (the rest). I mean deluded not as some blind pejorative, rather in the strict sense of the word- they will ignore, manipulate and select evidence in order to squeeze it into a story that fits nicely with their preconceived, but ultimately baseless view of how the world might work. This has been illustrated time and again on the SLC, but I hope will not be the case here. Let’s be honest, and open minded.


So let's look at what's happening here. We have the middle man, as documented by many sources, between the Bush admin and the Taliban, primarily responsible for arranging for OBL to be killed, and his unequivocal opinion? Bush had him on a platter, but said no thanks. How is this treated by you? It's a "fairy tale", and he must be lying.

It almost makes me sick to think I am part of the same populace as people such as yourselves, so wilfully ignorant and deluded that it will accept any subterfuge in order to reject the most evident truths and facts.

Some reading for you-

Propaganda (http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html) by Ed Bernays, the father of the political and the business PR industry

Public Opinion (http://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/etext04/pbpnn10.txt) by Walter Lippman, originator of the term "the manufacture of consent".

These are the textbooks of suppression of democratic thought in democratic societies. You will see how an event such as 911 fits perfectly into this scheme.

Of course, true to your profile, you will not read either of these, but at least I have tried.

[Dave Rogers]

Oh boy, a plunge into the incredulous here.

[...]

I take it you are not making this argument seriously.

[...]

Pffff! Or not, as above.

[...]

Ok, well after trying quite well so far, your back to plunging the depths as per usual.

[...]

Stating "I think your wrong, oh, how wrong you are", is not amenable to sensible debate, and, I would suggest, does not belong anywhere near here.

I'll just let your own words speak for me.

Dave

[nicepants]

We have the middle man, as documented by many sources, between the Bush admin and the Taliban, primarily responsible for arranging for OBL to be killed, and his unequivocal opinion? Bush had him on a platter, but said no thanks. How is this treated by you? It's a "fairy tale", and he must be lying.

1 - Proof that he is "the middle man between the Bush admin and the Taliban"?

2 - If this guy KNEW for certain that Bush could have OBL on a platter, why doesn't he just state it as a fact, rather than simply an opinion?

[mjd1982]

Oh, and you were doing so well. Now you have to go back to this "stick to the point" crap. I thought that the issue of the US having OBL "on a platter" was essential to your point that the US allowed 9/11 to happen. I've asked you why capturing, trying, or killing OBL would help stop those terrorist attacks in early 2001, when the negotiations you reference actually happened.


Stick to the point that is relevant to this segment! I.e. whether OBL was refused by teh Bush admin, either handover or death.


Could have had him dead? The US seemed to want to put him on trial. That's what all those sources you keep referencing say. Why would they want him dead? They wanted him held accountable for his crimes.


What? The US has tried to kill OBL many times under Clinton, the reason for the trial comes from the fact that according to those sources the Taliban were at one point stating that they would give him to be tried. The US wanted him dead, how could they refuse such an offer?


There is also the minor issue of them not really having his "head on a platter" in the sense you keep using. The US was negotiating with an unreliable, unstable, dogmatic political entity to try to secure the release of a man they treated as a guest. Somehow I don't think this was a particularly "good faith" negotiation.


lPlease read:


We all agreed," Mohabbat tells CounterPunch, "the best way was to gather Osama and all his lieutenants in one location and the US would send one or two Cruise missiles."

Up to that time Osama had been living on the outskirts of Kandahar. At some time shortly after the Frankfurt meeting, the Taliban moved Osama and placed him and his retinue under house arrest at Daronta, thirty miles from Kabul.

...

The Bush administration sent Mohabbat back, carrying kindred tidings of delay and regret to the Taliban three more times in 2001, the last in September after the 9/11 attack. Each time he was asked to communicate similar regrets about the failure to act on the plan agreed to in Frankfurt. This procrastination became a standing joke with the Taliban, Mohabbat tells CounterPunch "They made an offer to me that if the US didn't have fuel for the Cruise missiles to attack Osama in Daronta, where he was under house arrest, they would pay for it."



How could the US have had him dead? Did we know precisely where he was? "Inside Afghanistan" clearly isn't enough, given our inability to capture him during the recent war there.


as above


No, because you haven't shown proof of it, and every source you've linked to flatly defies the idea of him being "handed" to anyone.


Handed on a platter, i dont just mean given over, I mean disposed of. Head on a platter is the line from the article.


You have no idea how organizations like Al Qaeda work, do you?

Terrorist groups, like AQ, are often organized into what is known as "cells." These cells, generally comprised of a small number of people, operate largely independently of the larger group itself. The larger group supplies funding, training, equipment, and guidance, then allows the cells to operate without direct leadership from the main group.


Sure, but of course you are not suggesting taht the US didnt want OBL dead, are you?


Evidence suggests that OBL had contact with members of the cells periodically before they carried out their mission, but there is no reason to suspect that their operation would cease when the leadership was destroyed.


not cease maybe, but be hindered, for sure.Otherwise whats the point in killing terror leaders?


Just as the AQ cells in Afghanistan are able to continue to fight against American troops despite the death of several of their key leaders, any cell in the US is generally able to continue its mission unless that specific cell is destroyed to the point where its operational capacity is removed.


as above, (incidentally I assume you are not taking "insurgents" who attack US troops to be terrorists?)


Moreover, the motivation behind most terrorist groups is not adherence to a particular figure or group, it is adherence to a set of particular ideals and beliefs, regardless of how pathological those ideals and beliefs may be. This is largely what allows the cell system to work - individual operators do not require constant reinforcement from on high to continue their operations.

You can examine several situations to see how this works: the Afghan insurgency, the Iraqi insurgency, the terrorist operations carried out by HAMAS in Israel and the surrounding area, the IRA operations in Northern Ireland that took place for decades, and the activity of any of the "lone gunman" terrorists that show how much damage a motivated individual can do.

Cutting off the head of a terrorist organization is like cutting off the head of the Hydra. It might make you feel good, and it might even hurt them for a bit (OBL was a key organizer and provided a lot of money), but it will never kill them. That is one of the key things that make terrorism so enduring and dangerous. Remember that many terrorist groups have long outlasted the lifespans or involvement of their original members - they are not defined by one leader.

Even more to the point, by the time OBL was even "offered" to the US, again assuming such an offer was even remotely genuine, the cell planning 9/11 was in its end run. Despite all its moving parts, the hijacking plot was pretty low-tech, so it's not like they needed a constant influx of OBL money to continue operations.


all as above


That's the thing, the War on Terror is such a great deal for the government precisely because it doesn't need one man for that. All it needs is the shadowy boogeyman of "the terrorists." It works even better if you don't tie it in to one man. Osama could die at any time, even if the US was working full time to protect him secretly, but the concept of a shadow group that hates America will never go away.


I like this point Jonny, I think I have made it before, you touch on a very important point.

It is very hard to deny that The War on Terror is not a diversionary construct, since it is not a realistic war, i.e. one that can ever end. It is a self perpetuating cycle of threats ->fear-> invasion of resource rich countries/military radicalisations that serve precisely the basic purposes outlined in RAD. This is why the WOT gives the game away. It is as blatant a falsehood as can be conceived. How do you wage war on an abstract noun? Further, I take it you understand that the US is in no way opposed to terrorism? See my longish post on p3 for more. Finally, nor is it opposed (http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60C14FC3C5B0C728DDDAF0894DF4044 82) to Jihadism either. (http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/05/protected.terrorists/index.html)
So what is the WOT? Look at what it was called in Sept 2000, and you will have your answer.

More to your point, it doesnt need a bogeyman, but it works all the better for it- although it is a faceless enemy, he is the epitome of it. As for his death- maybe he is dead right now? Who would know? If no one knows, all the better for it. You might also wanna watch 911 Press for Truth, or read the Cockburn article to find out more on the astonishing fact as to why OBL hasnt been captured, after 6 1/2 yeears.


I'm willing to bet large sums of money that there will never be a world where there are no terrorists of one sort or another. There will always be people willing to use terroristic violence to try and achieve their political ends. If you want to be cynical about it, the War on Terror's abstract qualities ensure we will almost always have an enemy to fight. Unlike the Cold War, which largely ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union, there will always be some terrorists.


that would be a safe bet. as above.


I, again, contest the idea that he was "handed on a platter." The evidence you have linked to does not at all support this idea. In fact, it appears more to be Taliban obfuscation and diplomatic posturing than anything else. This isn't "we had him in our custody and let him go" stuff, not by a long shot.

Read the article as stated.

[Augustine]

LMAO, right, who's going to have an agenda, the guy from the US State department, or the Afghan/American link between the US and the Taliban? Why does this guy have an "agenda", pray tell?

Nice gag! Tell me why his credibility is suspect, over a US state dept official commenting in March 01, vs the independent intermediary between the US and the Taliban commenting in November 04? How can you make this claim with a straigh face?

I have bolded your misleading word. Mohabbat is not independent. Why would a US State Department career employee risk his career (30+ years) over lying about the Taliban response to US demands for bin Laden? Why would everyone else involved be complicit except for Mohabbat? Why would the US State Department career FSO risk going to jail in falsifying reports of what was discussed at a meeting?

Does Mohabbat have links to the Taliban? What tribe is he? How has his "business" fared since the Taliban has been driven from power? What evidence does he have? When did he produce it? I trust a memorandum written immediately following a meeting documenting what was said far more than a version "remembered" four years later.

What is pashtun-wali? What is pannah warkawel? Do you notice that honesty is not part of this code?

What Cockburn or Chomsky thinks of the movement has zero relevance in terms of a debate on the facts. If you want to debate them seriously, for which there is little evidence, you would not need me to tell you this.

I'm just busting your chops on Chomsky. I find it amusing that your intellectual hero would think that you are a fool.
Cockburn is relevant because he clearly has looked at the same evidence as you have; you cite him as a reference. Yet he arrives at a completely different conclusion; i.e. not LIHOP. Well, where does Cockburn fall into the categories of non-twoofers? Is he in the ill-informed or the deluded? If he is ill-informed or deluded, why should I trust his references? You have said that "sensible and honest people will come to sensible and honest conclusions"; well, is Cockburn sensible and honest? Is his conclusion sensible and honest?

[mjd1982]

I'll just let your own words speak for me.

Dave
There is nothing wrong with arguing from incredulity, through sarcasm etc, if such tools are not used to avoid addressing the point.

This is a very, very simple point, and one that you should evidently take time to understand.

[Dave Rogers]

There is nothing wrong with arguing from incredulity, through sarcasm etc, if such tools are not used to avoid addressing the point.

This is a very, very simple point, and one that you should evidently take time to understand.

I'm getting quite curious about what you actually hope to achieve here. Your tactics throughout this thread have generally been unchanged: state an opinion as fact, if anyone points out that it's an opinion then state that it's the only opinion an intelligent and unbiased observer can reach, and if anyone advances a rational counter-argument, abuse them. Your tone in all your posts has been superior, overbearing, condescending and generally contemptuous of anyone who doesn't immediately agree with you. How exactly, using tactics such as this, do you hope ever to convince anyone of anything? All you do is alienate not only those who disagree with you, but the casual observer as well. Your logical analysis skills may be more germane to the point of this discussion, but your interpersonal skills appear to be letting you down very badly.

Dave

[nicepants]

Stick to the point that is relevant to this segment! I.e. whether OBL was refused by teh Bush admin, either handover or death.

His point is....even if OBL WAS handed over and killed, we have no evidence to suggest that would have stopped the attacks of 9/11.

[JonnyFive]

Stick to the point that is relevant to this segment! I.e. whether OBL was refused by teh Bush admin, either handover or death.

This is all connected to that point. You cannot control discussion of it by bullying people with "stick to the point."

What? The US has tried to kill OBL many times under Clinton, the reason for the trial comes from the fact that according to those sources the Taliban were at one point stating that they would give him to be tried. The US wanted him dead, how could they refuse such an offer?

The US wanted him handed over, in this particular case.

The US Government is funny like that. They kind of switch between trying to kill people with bombs and cruise missiles and trying to capture them. Ironically, this is exactly what happened with Saddam Hussein. We spent a lot of money trying to bomb him into oblivion, but then capture him when we found him in the spider hole.

Why? Politics. It's political gold to put someone like OBL on trial. You can have him convicted and legally executed or indefinitely jailed for the crimes he committed. It makes the US look much better than simply killing him secretly.

lPlease read:

as above

Any evidence that the US actually wanted to target him with cruise missiles, or knew his specific location for a targetted strike.

There's also that messy little issue of international diplomacy... and your own sources. All your other sources are consistent with US negotiation to put OBL on trial. Again, I'm making the very liberal assumption that all the facts are exactly as your sources claim.

Handed on a platter, i dont just mean given over, I mean disposed of. Head on a platter is the line from the article.

However, as I just said, your other sources are all remarkably consistent with attempting to secure OBL for a trial with regards to his involvement with the 1998 attack on the USS Cole. Nothing the US did is particularly consistent with them wanting him dead without trial, and to say that their failure to attack him with cruise missiles is suspicious, absent additional evidence that they wanted simply to kill him at that time, is speculation.

Sure, but of course you are not suggesting taht the US didnt want OBL dead, are you?

I'm suggesting that, at the time, they wanted to put him on trial. The probable result of that trial would be an execution, but it would be a politically beneficial execution.

But wait, your point was that the failure to kill OBL was somehow significant in 9/11 happening. What was it you said about sticking to the point? I'm arguing that, even if we grant you everything you believe to be true, your ultimate point is still incorrect.

not cease maybe, but be hindered, for sure.Otherwise whats the point in killing terror leaders?

At that point in this specific operation (the 9/11 attacks), probably not even hindered. You're taking the generic and trying to use it to suggest something about a very specific case, rather than using the issues of this specific case.

So what is the point? Well, partly it's done to prevent new cells from being recruited and forming. It can also help to reduce funding, which has the long-term goal of reducing the operational capacity of the group.

It's also partly political posturing - it can make people feel safer to know that some big leader of some terrorist group is dead or captured. It may not reduce the operational effectiveness of the existing cells one bit, but it makes people feel safer, and that counts for something when one of the primary terrorist weapons is fear.

I didn't say there's no reason to target terrorist leaders, but the reasons don't have so much to do with harming individual cells as generally harming the group's ability to continue to form cells, recruit new members, and carry out future operations where elements like funding and manpower haven't yet been finalized.

as above, (incidentally I assume you are not taking "insurgents" who attack US troops to be terrorists?)

There is a very, very fine line between an insurgent and a terrorist, and often they are two sides of the same coin. A lot of it has to do with targetting, and a bit has to do with tactics. Historically, the two are usually linked: HAMAS, FARC, Al Qaeda, IRA, PLA... they all use both terrorist and "guerilla" or "insurgent" tactics as needed to further their goals.

all as above

Your evasion is noted. You appear to weakly resort to "as above" to address complex situations where your simple answers don't work. You seem to believe the death of OBL would hinder the 9/11 attacks, and that the fact the US didn't kill him is suspicious. However, you're failed to actually explain how killing him would prevent or hinder those attacks. Funding? Organization? Authorization?

Why don't you explain what you think about this situation. How do you believe killing OBL in early 2001 would significantly hinder the 9/11 attacks?

I like this point Jonny, I think I have made it before, you touch on a very important point.

It is very hard to deny that The War on Terror is not a diversionary construct, since it is not a realistic war, i.e. one that can ever end. It is a self perpetuating cycle of threats ->fear-> invasion of resource rich countries/military radicalisations that serve precisely the basic purposes outlined in RAD.

I don't think it's a "diversionary construct," I think it is simply something that cannot really ever be "won" in the traditional sense. The enemy we face, though real, is one that is shifting constantly. All we (all target nations) can do is strive to defend ourselves more effectively, and not succumb to the fear that our real enemies wish to use to further their own ends, without depriving the citizens of target countries of their rights. To defend ourselves only at the expense of all our freedom would effectively be self-defeating.

This is why the WOT gives the game away. It is as blatant a falsehood as can be conceived. How do you wage war on an abstract noun?

This is a misconception and piece of equivocation on your part, mjd. No one is suggesting that the US is using its military to fight against the abstract noun, "terror," as that is an impossible and silly concept beyond all comprehension. When you say such a thing, you cheapen your arguments considerably, as when you simply reply "as above" to a point without addressing the finer details.

Further, I take it you understand that the US is in no way opposed to terrorism? See my longish post on p3 for more. Finally, nor is it opposed (http://select.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=F60C14FC3C5B0C728DDDAF0894DF4044 82) to Jihadism either. (http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/meast/04/05/protected.terrorists/index.html)

I understand that the US sometimes uses repulsive or violent groups to fight groups that are a threat to it, or to further its ends. I am not naive enough to think that we do not (e.g. our support of the Afghan insurgency against the Soviets that brought the Taliban into power, our support for various insurgent groups in Latin America, among other things), but it is quite a leap from this to your position.

This is not tantamount to not opposing terrorism. We clearly oppose terrorism when it is directed against us, or our allies, or basically anyone we aren't actively fighting. We also, remarkably enough, seem to generally refrain from actively supporting terrorism against used against our enemies, and don't seem to have used US forces for direct, sanctioned, terrorist activities in recent history.

So what is the WOT? Look at what it was called in Sept 2000, and you will have your answer.

In September 2000, the "war on terror" as a political entity did not exist (as you claim it is simply a "diversionary construct" I would think you would readily agree with me on that point). That does not mean the US was not engaged in a conflict with groups that used terrorist tactics against them or their allies.

The US population became more aware of terrorism after 9/11, but the actual face of the conflict was remarkably similar to that which had been boiling for some time.

More to your point, it doesnt need a bogeyman, but it works all the better for it- although it is a faceless enemy, he is the epitome of it.

That is unimportant to my point: the war on terror is useful as a political entity because it does not require a particular person.

As for his death- maybe he is dead right now? Who would know? If no one knows, all the better for it. You might also wanna watch 911 Press for Truth, or read the Cockburn article to find out more on the astonishing fact as to why OBL hasnt been captured, after 6 1/2 yeears.

Because he is a slippery bastard with money and influence in certain circles, and the US military cannot search every inch of the face of the Earth for him. I don't find his not being captured "astonishing" at all.

Actually, I'm astonished that we found Saddam. Of course, he wasn't accustomed to the kind of underground, off the grid existence that Osama uses. Hussein seemed to rely overly on his power inside of Iraq, and couldn't manage once that power was gone. Another story for another day, I suppose.

Read the article as stated.

I did (I assume you mean the Counterpunch thing). I am not particularly impressed. Your other sources (and even this, in many ways) point in a direction that you seem to heading away from in the interest of making some point, and it's not really helping your case.

[Undesired Walrus]

1) a war on terror- no sane person is going to wage a war against an abstract noun


Word of advice: Don't steal a Michael Moore quote and try and palm it off as your own.

[JonnyFive]

Word of advice: Don't steal a Michael Moore quote and try and palm it off as your own.

No kidding? I thought that sounded sort of familiar.

[Dave Rogers]

Oh boy, a plunge into the incredulous here. Why would they not be able to understand Mohabbat? He's a Texan businessman, who was born in Afghanistan. So that point is out the window and in the dustbin. Further, the argument is a complete catch all, since it would imply that even if the Taliban were saying "OBL is here, please bomb him", which they were, then the Bush admin would just not understand it, due to cultural differences. I take it you are not making this argument seriously. Moreover, read the article carefully. The reaction of the Bush admin was not that they didnt know that they could, they knew they could, they were just procrastinating:

Just coming back to this one, did you read the same article I did (http://www.infowars.com/saved%20pages/Prior_Knowledge/US_met_taliban.htm)? And did you spot the following paragraphs?

Some Afghan experts argue that throughout the negotiations, the United States never recognized the Taliban need for aabroh, the Pashtu word for "face-saving formula." Officials never found a way to ease the Taliban's fear of embarrassment if it turned over a fellow Muslim to an "infidel" Western power.

U.S. officials struggled to communicate with Muslim clerics unfamiliar with modern diplomacy and distrustful of the Western world, and they failed to take advantage of fractures in the Taliban leadership.

"We never heard what they were trying to say," said Milton Bearden, a former CIA station chief who oversaw U.S. covert operations in Afghanistan in the 1980s. "We had no common language. Ours was, 'Give up bin Laden.' They were saying, 'Do something to help us give him up.' "

Publicly, the Taliban said they no longer knew where he was. Inderfurth now says the United States interpreted such statements "as an effort to evade their responsibility to turn him over."

Others, however, say the cryptic statements should have been interpreted differently. Bearden, for example, believes the Taliban more than once set up bin Laden for capture by the United States and communicated its intent by saying he was lost.

"Every time the Afghans said, 'He's lost again,' they are saying something. They are saying, 'He's no longer under our protection,' " Bearden said. "They thought they were signaling us subtly, and we don't do signals."

What we have here is a failure to communicate. If Mohabbat was in the middle of all this, and was quite capable of understanding the cultural nuances of what the Taliban was saying, it might well appear to him as if the US was stalling. And no, being a Texas businessman doesn't necessarily make him an ideal emissary between two parties who mistrust and misunderstand each other; his very familiarity with both sides of the discussion could easily blind him to the fact that neither side ever really understood the other.

As for the Taliban saying "OBL is here, please bomb him", this article suggests that they weren't saying that. They were actually saying "We don't know where OBL is" and expecting the US to hear the words "It's open season on OBL, guys, come loaded for bear". The article suggests that the US negotiators simply didn't realise this.

But that's all about nuances, and your posts so far suggest that you don't do nuances. Very like the US negotiators, if this is an accurate picture.

Dave

[JonnyFive]

That article linked in inforwars doesn't seem to agree at all with mjd's conclusions. Here's another pertinent quote:

Taliban leaders also kept demanding the United States provide more evidence of bin Laden's terrorist activities.

"It became clear that the call for more evidence was more a delaying tactic than a sincere effort to solve the bin Laden issue," Inderfurth said.

Throughout 1999 and 2000, Inderfurth, Sheehan and Thomas R. Pickering, then undersecretary of state, continued meeting in Washington, Islamabad, New York and Bonn to review evidence against bin Laden. They warned of war if there were another terrorist attack.

"We saw a continuing effort to evade, deny and obfuscate," Inderfurth said. "They had no interest in an international panel, really. Their only intention was not to hand bin Laden over."

And


Even after Sept. 11, as U.S. aircraft carriers and warplanes rushed toward Afghanistan, the Taliban's mysterious maneuvering continued.

[HeyLeroy]

Excuse me? May I ask why you are here if you have no inclination to look at facts with the slightest degree of honesty?

The source here was the link between the US and the Taliban. It is hard to realistically conceive a more important source than this. He is unequivocal in his opinion- the US "could have had Osama bin Laden's head handed to him on a platter".

What is there to debate? This could not be any more simple.

How was said severed head to be delivered? Where was said severed head to be delivered? Was it to be delivered on an official White House silver platter, or some other pattern?

I say this to point out the underlying bias of ther person who wrote that piece. You must ask yourself it it colours the way he wrote the rest of it, and where his bias lies.

There was no bogeyman in N Ireland, but that doesnt mean that it would have been less effective with one. These are 2 completely different instances; one is a manufactured war against an invisible enemy, the other is a genuine conflict. Were the Troubles manufactured, there would be good reason to construct a bogeyman to put fear into a population, and gain credence.
(snip)


Can you clarify this, mjd1982? Are you trying to argue that the US government has framed Usama bin Ladin as a patsy?

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

Originally Posted by SatansMaleVoiceChoir
Incorrect. As has been pointed out, there is no need for a 'bogeyman'. The British Government/Army fought terrorism in Northern Ireland for over 30 years with no recourse to a 'figurehead' of any kind. Why would the US Government need one?

There was no bogeyman in N Ireland, but that doesnt mean that it would have been less effective with one. These are 2 completely different instances; one is a manufactured war against an invisible enemy, the other is a genuine conflict. Were the Troubles manufactured, there would be good reason to construct a bogeyman to put fear into a population, and gain credence.

But AQ aren't 'invisible'... many government agencies worldwide are fully aware of prominent members of AQ. OBL was on the FBI's 'Most Wanted' list years before 9/11. Neither is the threat invisible.


Originally Posted by SatansMaleVoiceChoir
Of course, if the head of AQ was killed it would cause problems - as has been pointed out, but given the nature of Islamic terrorism, I don't think this would make too much of an impact; It would result in the head of AQ being 'martyred', and would only serve to inflame passion and resistance in the rest of the movement. Saddam Hussein being captured and subsequently hanged did nothing significant to quell the dissidents in Iraq.

Right, but that doesnt invalidate the validity of killing Saddam, does it? Which is the point.

So what IS the point?! With Saddam alive or dead, the dissidents will still fight. With OBL alive or dead, they will still fight.


Originally Posted by SatansMaleVoiceChoir
Again, can I seek clarification that you're suggesting that the US government were fully aware that a terrorist attack was planned for 9/11, and did nothing to stop it, in order to push through weapons development, obtain oil/gas and establish footholds in the Persian Gulf?

yes, to further and entrench geo political hegemony. See my long post half way down p3 for more.

Originally Posted by SatansMaleVoiceChoir
And not only did they do nothing to stop it, but they indirectly alluded to it in the PNAC prior to the event?

This evinces the propitiousness of such an event in their minds, im not arguing anything else

So they are dastardly superfiends who leave clues to their cunning plots littered around to mock the only ones who are intelligent enough to realise what they are - the 'Truth' movement?


Originally Posted by SatansMaleVoiceChoir
If this is the case, can you tell me how (if at all) the British Government was complicit in this, seeing as how British % US troops were 'shoulder-to-shoulder' in the War against Terror almost from the outset? Do you think that this implies that the British Government were also 'in on it'?

No, I don't. The Brits (we) see that, again for geo political reasons to stand shoulder to shoulder (or knee) with the US is beneficial. Of course this has obvious benefits such as stable access to cheap oil and gas, as well as a boon to the weapons industry, whose importance Goldsmith et al are very aware of, but this is all tangential. They are not in on it, nor are they possblly even aware that this is an inside job.

So, given that the entire gullible British Government has been unwittingly hoodwinked by the villainous and cunning US Government into going to war over a terror plot they allowed and encouraged, and as a result of which have lost probably millions of pounds in destroyed equipment, brought the popularity of the current Government to an all-time low, spent millions on getting troops to war, millions maintaining them while they're AT war, are currently undergoing an armed forces manning crisis as overstretched soldiers are leaving the army in droves, and last - but not least - have had 150 British soldiers killed - many who's deaths sparked newer controversies - in Iraq alone, can you tell me if you think the benefits outweigh the negatives?

[MSgtWeiss]

You're wrong. "Pravda" means "truth" in Russian. And we all know that anything with "truth" in the title has to be true!

It's true! :)

Old goats like me may remember the old Russian joke from Cold War days, pretty much a standard among the Russian lower classes: "No news in Isvestia, no truth in Pravda"

(Isvestia translates as "news")

[mjd1982]

1 - Proof that he is "the middle man between the Bush admin and the Taliban"?

2 - If this guy KNEW for certain that Bush could have OBL on a platter, why doesn't he just state it as a fact, rather than simply an opinion?
Oh boy!

1. Ok. Now let's think about how "proof" in a situation such as we are in works.

I make an assertion. I back that up with evidence. That evidence needs to be of a certain level of credulity for it to be accepted. Once that is done, then someone who wants to oppose that viewpoint, puts forth countering evidence, of a sufficient level of credulity to neuter the previous. Asking for "proof" is just stupid and evasive- how can "proof". i.e. something that unequivocally proves something, be brought forth on an internet forum? E.g. I know that Henry Kissinger is of frequent counsel to the Bush admin. My evidence for this miht be, amongst other things, Cheney being quoted in "State of Denial" that he is the person he speaks to most outside the Admin. But it this "proof"? No, of course not, and if it were crucial to the issue at hand here, you would not accept it, since it is not proof. Very little can be proven on an internet forum, qualititatively in any case, so stop asking for it, since it is merely a manifestation of a tragic intranisgence.

If you want evidence for it, then read the article again. 1stly, he is not stated by Cockburn as someone who claims he is the middleman, he is someone who is. 2ndly this is corroborated by many other news sources. Finally, he showed Cockburn et al official documents to corroborate this. End iof.

2. He does state it as fact. What is your point?

[mjd1982]

I have bolded your misleading word. Mohabbat is not independent. Why would a US State Department career employee risk his career (30+ years) over lying about the Taliban response to US demands for bin Laden?


Such a "lie", if it is such, puts the US in a favourable light, seeing as they were doing nothing about it.


Why would everyone else involved be complicit except for Mohabbat? Why would the US State Department career FSO risk going to jail in falsifying reports of what was discussed at a meeting?


?!

As above. I think your getting desperate now.


Does Mohabbat have links to the Taliban? What tribe is he? How has his "business" fared since the Taliban has been driven from power? What evidence does he have? When did he produce it? I trust a memorandum written immediately following a meeting documenting what was said far more than a version "remembered" four years later.


Excuse me???

This is 100% speculative, and is soooooo very desperate, it is pretty sad. Of course, this is a standard tactic of a dishonest debater- muddy the issue, and then no one can win. Cast aspersions on a source, aspersions with no base for proof, nor for dismissal.

Unfortunately such sub moronic tactics aint gonna wash here; my deluded friend, all the above is rank speculation with zero basis in reality. The reality is that Eastham is a state dept official of 30 yrs, hence completely un-independent. For all we know, Mohabbat is independent. Full stop.


What is pashtun-wali? What is pannah warkawel? Do you notice that honesty is not part of this code?


:jaw-dropp

What the hell are you talking about?


I'm just busting your chops on Chomsky. I find it amusing that your intellectual hero would think that you are a fool.


Since when is he my hero? And why would he think i was a fool?


Cockburn is relevant because he clearly has looked at the same evidence as you have;


think before you post please. How do you know he has looked at what I have?


you cite him as a reference. Yet he arrives at a completely different
conclusion; i.e. not LIHOP. Well, where does Cockburn fall into the categories of non-twoofers? Is he in the ill-informed or the deluded? If he is ill-informed or deluded, why should I trust his references?


ill informed, I would assume


You have said that "sensible and honest people will come to sensible and honest conclusions"; well, is Cockburn sensible and honest? Is his conclusion sensible and honest?

Oh boy, what a terrible post, this is one of the worst yet.

Maybe you can try again, here catch: http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11012004.html

[MIKILLINI]

Originally Posted by MIKILLINI View Post
This is the case you are trying, but everyone here is showing you the fallacy of your arguments.
Haha.. nice gag! I hope you dont actually believe that.

Ah, but I do believe that

If you do, you may want to start by learning the difference between addressing someone's points (i.e. as I have done here) and restating ones own (i.e. if I had just said, "No, PNAC did say what i say it said")

Mjd, you said PNAC was propitious to the Neocons, correct? The exception in the document regarding the difference between the long term and the short term is the key you are using. The key is the catastrophic and catalyzing event written in the document. Since this was written before 9/11, please show how the "sentiment" was there;

not necessailry "planned the doc", but the sentiment was present in the doc, this we can say
The consensus of all those who signed the document had determined these changes will take place over the long term. Where is the proof of the short term "sentiment?"

[twinstead]

This is 100% speculative, and is soooooo very desperate, it is pretty sad. Of course, this is a standard tactic of a dishonest debater- muddy the issue, and then no one can win. Cast aspersions on a source, aspersions with no base for proof, nor for dismissal.

Jesus, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. You speculate, then hand wave away any sources that contradict you all the while saying that any reasonable person couldn't help but only come to your conclusion.

[mjd1982]

I'm getting quite curious about what you actually hope to achieve here. Your tactics throughout this thread have generally been unchanged: state an opinion as fact,


You are confusing a statement of inference with a statement of fact. This has been pointed out a number of times to you.


if anyone points out that it's an opinion then state that it's the only opinion an intelligent and unbiased observer can reach,


Please show me where this has been done


and if anyone advances a rational counter-argument, abuse them.


as above


Your tone in all your posts has been superior, overbearing, condescending and generally contemptuous of anyone who doesn't immediately agree with you.


Though there is a degree of currency to what you say, it is only slight. The people who debate sensibly here, and respect facts, honesty and common sense, I debate with respect. Those who lay pretensions to, but in reality are contemptuously ignorant, all the while posting intranisgently and self deceptively, I will be contemptuous of, in an issue as important as this.

Incidentally, although you have problems when a CTer addresses you in this tone, this is, from my observation, the standard tone adopted by OTers towards CTers on this forum. So to complain of such is astonishing hypocrisy, and yes, contemptuously ignorant.


How exactly, using tactics such as this, do you hope ever to convince anyone of anything? All you do is alienate not only those who disagree with you, but the casual observer as well. Your logical analysis skills may be more germane to the point of this discussion, but your interpersonal skills appear to be letting you down very badly.

Dave

The former part resides in the honesty of an observer; this should be the case in any scenario, this is obvious.

The latter part may be correct; my "interpersonal skills" on this forum are, perhaps truculent. This is very simply explained.

In the texts I have referred you to many times, Propaganda and Public Opinion, both written in the 20's, it is stated very clearly that the biggest threat to the smooth running of a democratic society, is democratic thought. Thus, consent needs to be manufactured, opnions need to be commoditised and mass produced, in order that the elected minority can get about their job of ruling, "serving by leading, rather than leading by serviing", to paraphrase Bernays. Of course, the prime way that such is achieved, is through mass means- media, school, commonly propagated cultural ideologies etc.

Now what this relies on is very simple. A populace which is, in broad enough swathes, lazy, ignorant, and intransigent. Thus they will not care to educate themselves as to the truth, which is highly evident upon the most cursory inspection, and will refuse to believe it when it is placed in front of their very eyes; they will be intransigent and accept any subterfuge to not have to accept such simple truths, since they conflict with the lessons they have held most dear- such as those from school, media and cultural ideology. In this way, which as stated relies on ignorance, intransigence and subterfuge of the public, the powerful minority can do whatever they like.

Now... Given that these characteristics are such a blight and such a danger, when they get evinced on this thread, where they are, so overwhelmingly evident, it is understandable that I would get riled, and contemptuous of people who exhibit characteristics that are surely as worthy of contempt as anything could possibly be. As I have said many times, I have no problem, none at all with people disgreeing, if they can do so via rational counter-debate. This does not happen here, or hardly at all. It could not be a more evident example of the acceptance of any subterfuge in order not to have to swallow an unpalatable reality. Look at any post- the last one, I think, where the person was claiming that ~we cant trust Mohabbat, since he may have an agenda, since his business may have suffered when the Taliban went down etc. A prime example of muddying the issue, raising a subterfuge, to prevent oneself from facing a version of events one doesnt want to. And there are too many examples to go through here, it is pretty astonishing. And depressing.

It will continue, of that I have no doubt.

[mjd1982]

His point is....even if OBL WAS handed over and killed, we have no evidence to suggest that would have stopped the attacks of 9/11.
It would have surely hindered them. There is no excuse or possible explanation for why he wasnt handed over, within your scheme in any case.

[WildCat]

Though there is a degree of currency to what you say, it is only slight. The people who debate sensibly here, and respect facts, honesty and common sense, I debate with respect. Those who lay pretensions to, but in reality are contemptuously ignorant, all the while posting intranisgently and self deceptively, I will be contemptuous of, in an issue as important as this.

Incidentally, although you have problems when a CTer addresses you in this tone, this is, from my observation, the standard tone adopted by OTers towards CTers on this forum. So to complain of such is astonishing hypocrisy, and yes, contemptuously ignorant.



The former part resides in the honesty of an observer; this should be the case in any scenario, this is obvious.

The latter part may be correct; my "interpersonal skills" on this forum are, perhaps truculent. This is very simply explained.

In the texts I have referred you to many times, Propaganda and Public Opinion, both written in the 20's, it is stated very clearly that the biggest threat to the smooth running of a democratic society, is democratic thought. Thus, consent needs to be manufactured, opnions need to be commoditised and mass produced, in order that the elected minority can get about their job of ruling, "serving by leading, rather than leading by serviing", to paraphrase Bernays. Of course, the prime way that such is achieved, is through mass means- media, school, commonly propagated cultural ideologies etc.

Now what this relies on is very simple. A populace which is, in broad enough swathes, lazy, ignorant, and intransigent. Thus they will not care to educate themselves as to the truth, which is highly evident upon the most cursory inspection, and will refuse to believe it when it is placed in front of their very eyes; they will be intransigent and accept any subterfuge to not have to accept such simple truths, since they conflict with the lessons they have held most dear- such as those from school, media and cultural ideology. In this way, which as stated relies on ignorance, intransigence and subterfuge of the public, the powerful minority can do whatever they like.

Now... Given that these characteristics are such a blight and such a danger, when they get evinced on this thread, where they are, so overwhelmingly evident, it is understandable that I would get riled, and contemptuous of people who exhibit characteristics that are surely as worthy of contempt as anything could possibly be. As I have said many times, I have no problem, none at all with people disgreeing, if they can do so via rational counter-debate. This does not happen here, or hardly at all. It could not be a more evident example of the acceptance of any subterfuge in order not to have to swallow an unpalatable reality. Look at any post- the last one, I think, where the person was claiming that ~we cant trust Mohabbat, since he may have an agenda, since his business may have suffered when the Taliban went down etc. A prime example of muddying the issue, raising a subterfuge, to prevent oneself from facing a version of events one doesnt want to. And there are too many examples to go through here, it is pretty astonishing. And depressing.

It will continue, of that I have no doubt.
So many words, and yet not a single "conspiracy fact" yet in this thread. :rolleyes:

[mjd1982]

This is all connected to that point. You cannot control discussion of it by bullying people with "stick to the point."

The US wanted him handed over, in this particular case.

The US Government is funny like that. They kind of switch between trying to kill people with bombs and cruise missiles and trying to capture them. Ironically, this is exactly what happened with Saddam Hussein. We spent a lot of money trying to bomb him into oblivion, but then capture him when we found him in the spider hole.


That is because they could capture him. If they could have easier killed him, they would have done that. He was on the run in a country they ran. Its a totally different situation.

I think if you are going to argue on the basis that if the US could have had OBL dead pre 911 they would have said no, then you are on pretty irrational ground.


Why? Politics. It's political gold to put someone like OBL on trial. You can have him convicted and legally executed or indefinitely jailed for the crimes he committed. It makes the US look much better than simply killing him secretly.


Yes, if that were possible. But it wasnt, as has been shown here many times in articles posted. The US wanted a trial in NY or nothing. But he was offered to be killed. There is no excuse for not accepting the death of a man who is the biggest single human threat to civilian life in your country, for many yrs.


Any evidence that the US actually wanted to target him with cruise missiles, or knew his specific location for a targetted strike.


Come on dude, you said you read the article, i dont ask a lot


Up to that time Osama had been living on the outskirts of Kandahar. At some time shortly after the Frankfurt meeting, the Taliban moved Osama and placed him and his retinue under house arrest at Daronta, thirty miles from Kabul.

In the wake of the 2000 election Mohabbat traveled to Islamabad and met with William Milam, US ambassador to Pakistan and the person designated by the Clinton administration to deal with the Taliban on the fate of bin Laden. Milam told Mohabbat that it was a done deal but that the actual handover of bin Laden would have to be handled by the incoming Bush administration.

On November 23, 2000, Mohabbat got a call from the NSC saying they wanted to put him officially on the payroll as the US government's contact man for the Taliban. He agreed. A few weeks later an official from the newly installed Bush NSC asked him to continue in the same role and shortly thereafter he was given a letter from the administration (Mohabbat tells us he has a copy), apologizing to the Taliban for not having dealt with bin Laden, explaining that the new government was still setting in, and asking for a meeting in February 2001.

The Bush administration sent Mohabbat back, carrying kindred tidings of delay and regret to the Taliban three more times in 2001, the last in September after the 9/11 attack. Each time he was asked to communicate similar regrets about the failure to act on the plan agreed to in Frankfurt. This procrastination became a standing joke with the Taliban, Mohabbat tells CounterPunch "They made an offer to me that if the US didn't have fuel for the Cruise missiles to attack Osama in Daronta, where he was under house arrest, they would pay for it."




There's also that messy little issue of international diplomacy... and your own sources. All your other sources are consistent with US negotiation to put OBL on trial. Again, I'm making the very liberal assumption that all the facts are exactly as your sources claim.


There were no doubt negotiations to do this. There were also those to have him killed.


However, as I just said, your other sources are all remarkably consistent with attempting to secure OBL for a trial with regards to his involvement with the 1998 attack on the USS Cole.


errr... 2000.


Nothing the US did is particularly consistent with them wanting him dead without trial, and to say that their failure to attack him with cruise missiles is suspicious, absent additional evidence that they wanted simply to kill him at that time, is speculation.


Again, please tell me in what world, when the main non gov threat to civilian life in your country for decades is offered to you on a platter, do you say "No thanks". Your american; how can you accept your government doing this? Please tell me?!


I'm suggesting that, at the time, they wanted to put him on trial. The probable result of that trial would be an execution, but it would be a politically beneficial execution.


As aboce


But wait, your point was that the failure to kill OBL was somehow significant in 9/11 happening. What was it you said about sticking to the point? I'm arguing that, even if we grant you everything you believe to be true, your ultimate point is still incorrect.


a) It would have been a hindrance
b) How can it be explained, within the OT scheme. I dont think it can; it is inexplicable.


At that point in this specific operation (the 9/11 attacks), probably not even hindered. You're taking the generic and trying to use it to suggest something about a very specific case, rather than using the issues of this specific case.

So what is the point? Well, partly it's done to prevent new cells from being recruited and forming. It can also help to reduce funding, which has the long-term goal of reducing the operational capacity of the group.

It's also partly political posturing - it can make people feel safer to know that some big leader of some terrorist group is dead or captured. It may not reduce the operational effectiveness of the existing cells one bit, but it makes people feel safer, and that counts for something when one of the primary terrorist weapons is fear.

I didn't say there's no reason to target terrorist leaders, but the reasons don't have so much to do with harming individual cells as generally harming the group's ability to continue to form cells, recruit new members, and carry out future operations where elements like funding and manpower haven't yet been finalized.


Note- I am not saying this would have killed AQ or stopped 911. Just as I have said.


There is a very, very fine line between an insurgent and a terrorist, and often they are two sides of the same coin. A lot of it has to do with targetting, and a bit has to do with tactics. Historically, the two are usually linked: HAMAS, FARC, Al Qaeda, IRA, PLA... they all use both terrorist and "guerilla" or "insurgent" tactics as needed to further their goals.


The US/UK are occupying armies in a foreign country; they have no rights and all attacks on them are, within the framework of international law, justified. Dont fall for propaganda where these people are called terrorists; people who blow themselves up in a market place in Baghdad is one thing attacking an occupying army is something that Americans should be able to appreciate as an integral part of their heritage.


Your evasion is noted. You appear to weakly resort to "as above" to address complex situations where your simple answers don't work. You seem to believe the death of OBL would hinder the 9/11 attacks, and that the fact the US didn't kill him is suspicious. However, you're failed to actually explain how killing him would prevent or hinder those attacks. Funding? Organization? Authorization?

Why don't you explain what you think about this situation. How do you believe killing OBL in early 2001 would significantly hinder the 9/11 attacks?


Funding for sure; organisation, since his death would throw AQ into a degree of chaos; confidence as well. If they see that their leader is dead, what will that do for them? If AQ is the glue that bound the hijackers together, through a variety of means, the death of the head and founder would necessarily weaken that.


I don't think it's a "diversionary construct," I think it is simply something that cannot really ever be "won" in the traditional sense. The enemy we face, though real, is one that is shifting constantly. All we (all target nations) can do is strive to defend ourselves more effectively, and not succumb to the fear that our real enemies wish to use to further their own ends, without depriving the citizens of target countries of their rights. To defend ourselves only at the expense of all our freedom would effectively be self-defeating.


Tell me why you think this name was conceived for the war. You understand it was a political, not a media construct?


This is a misconception and piece of equivocation on your part, mjd. No one is suggesting that the US is using its military to fight against the abstract noun, "terror," as that is an impossible and silly concept beyond all comprehension. When you say such a thing, you cheapen your arguments considerably, as when you simply reply "as above" to a point without addressing the finer details.


As above! Seriously, why do you think this term was conceived by the Bush admin?


I understand that the US sometimes uses repulsive or violent groups to fight groups that are a threat to it, or to further its ends. I am not naive enough to think that we do not (e.g. our support of the Afghan insurgency against the Soviets that brought the Taliban into power, our support for various insurgent groups in Latin America, among other things), but it is quite a leap from this to your position.


At that time there was not a declared WOT. Now there is, so why are there so many despicable terrorists living in asylum with Bush/Cheney imprimatur?


This is not tantamount to not opposing terrorism. We clearly oppose terrorism when it is directed against us, or our allies, or basically anyone we aren't actively fighting. We also, remarkably enough, seem to generally refrain from actively supporting terrorism against used against our enemies, and don't seem to have used US forces for direct, sanctioned, terrorist activities in recent history.


Errrr.... Hmmm. Ok, well let's start with Operation Condor. Please read up on that, or let me know if you want a heads up.


In September 2000, the "war on terror" as a political entity did not exist (as you claim it is simply a "diversionary construct" I would think you would readily agree with me on that point). That does not mean the US was not engaged in a conflict with groups that used terrorist tactics against them or their allies.


The point is that what it entails is what is outlined in RAD. The WOT is a construct to achieve those goals, with 911, and, at the start at least, a free OBL as key elements therein


The US population became more aware of terrorism after 9/11, but the actual face of the conflict was remarkably similar to that which had been boiling for some time.


Such as?


That is unimportant to my point: the war on terror is useful as a political entity because it does not require a particular person.


Does not require, but is all the more effective for it.


Because he is a slippery bastard with money and influence in certain circles, and the US military cannot search every inch of the face of the Earth for him. I don't find his not being captured "astonishing" at all.


Oh come on... The same could be said for Saddam, found in what, 3 weeks? Its been 6 1/2 yrs, he's been in Tora Bora!!! Its not like he could be anywhere on the face of the earth. And Bush has said himself- he doesnt care where he is anymore!!! Unbelievable! Forget 911, what about everything else! Is it water under the bridge? How do you explain this, other than by my reasoning?


Actually, I'm astonished that we found Saddam. Of course, he wasn't accustomed to the kind of underground, off the grid existence that Osama uses. Hussein seemed to rely overly on his power inside of Iraq, and couldn't manage once that power was gone. Another story for another day, I suppose.


But he was nonetheless found in weeks. OBL nowhere near found, after years.


I did (I assume you mean the Counterpunch thing). I am not particularly impressed. Your other sources (and even this, in many ways) point in a direction that you seem to heading away from in the interest of making some point, and it's not really helping your case.

Look at them as unrelated. One pointing to trial; the other to death. And do read it, and tell me what you think and why

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11012004.html

[mjd1982]

Word of advice: Don't steal a Michael Moore quote and try and palm it off as your own.
I didnt know it was. Terry Jones maybe, no one else.

[mjd1982]

So many words, and yet not a single "conspiracy fact" yet in this thread. :rolleyes:
An unbelievably ironic post, given what it was replying to.

[WildCat]

An unbelievably ironic post, given what it was replying to.
Let's examine your entire case to date, what you call "conspiracy facts".

1. Your interpretation of the PNAC document, which relies on reading things into it that simply aren't there.
2. Bizarre claims that vague threats of terrorism prior to 9/11 were specific enough to take decisive action. You claim these warnings were unprecedented, yet you have no statistics to back up this claim. How many threats typically are received by intelligence agencies in a month, for example?
3. Insistence that an article in the obscure India Globe is credible, yet you are completely unable to produce said article, you haven't read the article, you've never read an issue of the India Globe, you know nothing of the reporter and sole employee of said newspaper. To top it all off, you think that other media mentioning said paper somehow add credibility to it.
4. Complete reliance on a statement by Mohabbat 4 years after the fact that contradicts all records and reports made at the time.
5. I'll leave this blank for now, and fill it in with your claims about WTC 7 and the FDNY when you make them.

Maybe the word "fact" doesn't mean what you think it does?

[Brainache]

If, for the sake of argument, we assume that the Taliban's offer of "OBL's head on a platter" was genuine, is it certain that they had the capacity to actually deliver it?

The man was at the centre of a training base for terrorists. Were the Taliban just going to walk in and demand he give himself up to the US for trial? Are we expected to believe that he and his little army would go along with this?

Or, in the cruise missile scenario, was there any assurance that OBL would be anywhere near any target supplied by the Taliban? How could the US know that they wouldn't tip him off?

How can you be so arrogant as to assume that you know more about these things than the people on the ground at the time?

[MIKILLINI]

If, for the sake of argument, we assume that the Taliban's offer of "OBL's head on a platter" was genuine, is it certain that they had the capacity to actually deliver it?

The man was at the centre of a training base for terrorists. Were the Taliban just going to walk in and demand he give himself up to the US for trial? Are we expected to believe that he and his little army would go along with this?

Or, in the cruise missile scenario, was there any assurance that OBL would be anywhere near any target supplied by the Taliban? How could the US know that they wouldn't tip him off?

How can you be so arrogant as to assume that you know more about these things than the people on the ground at the time?

Getting OBL head on a platter is not a guarantee to prevent 9/11 from happening, since Kalid Shiek Mohammed was bound and determined to make
sure those towers were going down.

[Kage]

If the US government were willing to do all of this, why not fake WMDs in Iraq? Wouldn't that be more propituous to the neocons goals, considering the neocons are now considered intellectually suspect due to the lack of WMDs? What about documents linking Iraq to AQ? I fail to see how the conspiracy you suggest is any easier than getting an arabic typewriter and a vial of anthax to Iraq. You've picked a bunch of details but your theory makes no sense in the bigger picture.

I almost wished they had faked those. As much as I hate GWB the lack of those things has hurt America greatly.

[MIKILLINI]

Thus they will not care to educate themselves as to the truth, which is highly evident upon the most cursory inspection, and will refuse to believe it when it is placed in front of their very eyes; they will be intransigent and accept any subterfuge to not have to accept such simple truths, since they conflict with the lessons they have held most dear- such as those from school, media and cultural ideology. In this way, which as stated relies on ignorance, intransigence and subterfuge of the public, the powerful minority can do whatever they like.
Now this is something that you haven't acknowledged about this forum. For instance, how much predetermination of guilt have you assigned to the US government before you went checking into your facts? What type of sites were you checking in to that convinced you 9/11 HAD to be an inside job and the mainstream media was an accomplice?

They will be intransigent and accept any subterfuge to not have to accept such simple truths.

There are simple truths being shown to you, mjd, but you are convinced that the Neocons desired their New American Century to happen quickly. Hanging on to this unrelenting belief causes you to overlook simple truths by holding on to what you believe is the absolute truth.

Thus they will not care to educate themselves as to the truth, which is highly evident upon the most cursory inspection, and will refuse to believe it when it is placed in front of their very eyes

JREF has been the most enlightening sight for Me about FACTS regarding 9/11. There are very educated, skeptical, enlightened people here who have debated, searched, cross referenced, and confirmed their sources to point out discrepancies in your arguments. Certainly this is the whole point about debates; It's point-counterpoint, what are the arguments and counterarguments. you are showing your reason why you believe what you believe, but you are truculently arguing without understanding that your sources of information may not be as reliable as you believe.
To claim that JREFers do not check their info is like saying troops in Iraq don't know what an IED is.

[MIKILLINI]

Jesus, talk about the pot calling the kettle black. You speculate, then hand wave away any sources that contradict you all the while saying that any reasonable person couldn't help but only come to your conclusion.

It's a new term called WOCS; War On Common Sense. It's long, drawn out and protracted. Designed to exasperate the persons senses from all the excessive insensible nonsense thereby rendering people to a "Whatever" statement making the CTer believe they had convinced same exasperated person to agree with them. :hypnotize

[Brainache]

It's a new term called WOCS; War On Common Sense. It's long, drawn out and protracted. Designed to exasperate the persons senses from all the excessive insensible nonsense thereby rendering people to a "Whatever" statement making the CTer believe they had convinced same exasperated person to agree with them. :hypnotize

...absent some catastrophic and catalysing event like a temporal lobe seizure...

[Kage]

It's a new term called WOCS; War On Common Sense. It's long, drawn out and protracted. Designed to exasperate the persons senses from all the excessive insensible nonsense thereby rendering people to a "Whatever" statement making the CTer believe they had convinced same exasperated person to agree with them. :hypnotize

Nobody in their right mind would declare war on an abstract noun!

[Unsecured Coins]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v236/powers05/kelly-monaco-gm_l3.jpg

[MIKILLINI]

...absent some catastrophic and catalysing event like a temporal lobe seizure...

That would make it propitious for an inside job lobotomy. :D

[MIKILLINI]

ooooooh! Kelly Monacomeover..Good one UC..that picked up the thread again. :drool:

[MIKILLINI]

Nobody in their right mind would declare war on an abstract noun!

Those who are in the not right mind believe abstract nouns are very dangerous and need to be "addressed". :rolleyes:

[David Wong]

Nobody in their right mind would declare war on an abstract noun!

Wait a second... what about the War on Poverty? Or the War on Illiteracy?

Moore doesn't oppose those, does he?





Ah, never mind.

[Dave Rogers]

I make an assertion. I back that up with evidence. That evidence needs to be of a certain level of credulity for it to be accepted. Once that is done, then someone who wants to oppose that viewpoint, puts forth countering evidence, of a sufficient level of credulity to neuter the previous.

Just as an aside, MJD, could you please look up the words "credulity" and "credibility", and satisfy yourself as to which of them you intended to use in this passage?

Dave

[mjd1982]

Just coming back to this one, did you read the same article I did (http://www.infowars.com/saved%20pages/Prior_Knowledge/US_met_taliban.htm)? And did you spot the following paragraphs?

What we have here is a failure to communicate. If Mohabbat was in the middle of all this, and was quite capable of understanding the cultural nuances of what the Taliban was saying, it might well appear to him as if the US was stalling.


Which would be a 100% accurate interpretation seeing as he is american and is transmitting the communications himself.

Since he was the intermediary between the US and the Taliban, you are arguing that the US did not take up the Taliban offer, since they had problems understanding Mohabbat, an American. Are you sure you want to argue this? Are you sure you are being honest?


And no, being a Texas businessman doesn't necessarily make him an ideal emissary between two parties who mistrust and misunderstand each other; his very familiarity with both sides of the discussion could easily blind him to the fact that neither side ever really understood the other.


Errr.. so he's familiar with US cultural nuances, and with Afghan cultural nuances, and with the bridge betweem US and Afghan cultural nuances, since he has had to cross that bridge, but he was for some reason unable to understand the cultural nuances. I dont think you are doing yourself any justice here.


As for the Taliban saying "OBL is here, please bomb him", this article suggests that they weren't saying that. They were actually saying "We don't know where OBL is" and expecting the US to hear the words "It's open season on OBL, guys, come loaded for bear". The article suggests that the US negotiators simply didn't realise this.


The article given by the independent intermediary says very different. As he is independent, he is the one, all else being equal, whose word we should trust, particularly given the crucial nature of his position.

[mjd1982]

That article linked in inforwars doesn't seem to agree at all with mjd's conclusions. Here's another pertinent quote:



And
As I have said, at base, we can either trust what the US State dept says about their procrastination, or we can take the opinion of the independent man at the heart of the matter. I think this is a simple choice.

[mjd1982]

Originally Posted by
But AQ aren't 'invisible'... many government agencies worldwide are fully aware of prominent members of AQ. OBL was on the FBI's 'Most Wanted' list years before 9/11. Neither is the threat invisible.


This isnt the "War on AQ"


So what IS the point?! With Saddam alive or dead, the dissidents will still fight. With OBL alive or dead, they will still fight.


Does that mean that they shouldnt be killed/arrested? Does that mena that by doing such you are helping thei terrorists efforts?


So they are dastardly superfiends who leave clues to their cunning plots littered around to mock the only ones who are intelligent enough to realise what they are - the 'Truth' movement?


No, they are moronic, bumbling, murderous imbeciles who would struggle to organise a piss up in a brewery. But given the power of demicratic propaganda, which I have alluded to many times here so far, many people will struggle to find out the information, and when they do, will accept ridiculous subterfuges in order to not have to believe it.


So, given that the entire gullible British Government


why entire?


has been unwittingly hoodwinked by the villainous and cunning US Government into going to war over a terror plot they allowed and encouraged, and as a result of which have lost probably millions of pounds in destroyed equipment,


Oil, gas and weapons contracts offset that quite readily i would think


brought the popularity of the current Government to an all-time low,


errr.. Brown may well win the next election, and if he doesnt, Cameron, who has endorsed all of this himself, will do


spent millions on getting troops to war, millions maintaining them while they're AT war, are currently undergoing an armed forces manning crisis as overstretched soldiers are leaving the army in droves, and last - but not least - have had 150 British soldiers killed - many who's deaths sparked newer controversies - in Iraq alone, can you tell me if you think the benefits outweigh the negatives?

As above, plus think about geo-political strategy for the Brits, It is a matter of hanging on to the big boys coat tails.

[nicepants]

Asking for "proof" is just stupid and evasive- how can "proof". i.e. something that unequivocally proves something, be brought forth on an internet forum? (bolding mine....and Stundie Nominated (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2729390&postcount=365))

Pretty simple concept, you basically provide evidence that backs up your claim and shows it to be true.

Ex: I claim that not all the concrete in the towers was turned to dust, and subsequently a CTer tells me to "prove it". I then post a photo of large chunks of concrete in the rubble.

If you want evidence for it, then read the article again. 1stly, he is not stated by Cockburn as someone who claims he is the middleman, he is someone who is. 2ndly this is corroborated by many other news sources.

How about links to these "many other news sources" who, you claim, corroborate this claim?

[nicepants]

His point is....even if OBL WAS handed over and killed, we have no evidence to suggest that would have stopped the attacks of 9/11.It would have surely hindered them. There is no excuse or possible explanation for why he wasnt handed over, within your scheme in any case.

How would killing OBL prevent the hijackers from carrying out their assigned duties?

[mjd1982]

Originally Posted by MIKILLINI View Post
Mjd, you said PNAC was propitious to the Neocons, correct? The exception in the document regarding the difference between the long term and the short term is the key you are using. The key is the catastrophic and catalyzing event written in the document. Since this was written before 9/11, please show how the "sentiment" was there;


The consensus of all those who signed the document had determined these changes will take place over the long term. Where is the proof of the short term "sentiment?"

Right, time to put this ridiculous PNAC argument to bed.

Of course you, and everyone else could have found your answer in post #493; but you have chosen not to read it. I would advise you do so again, if you are interested in the truth.

But no worries. Because there is an even more elementary way to illustrate my point that a new PH was deemed propitious to the neo cons, as per RAD. It involves some pretty simple linguistic analysis. It has been on the tip of my tongue for ages, but havent bee able to enunciate it, until now. The answer is right in front of us. Let's look at the sentence in question again:


Further, the process of transformation,
even if it brings revolutionary change, is
likely to be a long one


The part of this that gets the least attention is, of course the "even" clause. This is because the import of the sentence gets taken for granted by most people. Not here. But no worries. Lets look at this clause more closely, because it provides proof, and I mean that word, that a slow transformation was deemed bad, and thus a new PH was indeed deemed propitious by the neo cons who would go on to be in chanrge of running and protectiong the US on and up to 911.

So... what is this clause? Very simple. Its a modifying clause, that serves to create oppostion between itself, and the clause to which it is linked. I.e. the "even" clause will have a particular import (say, +ve), and the clause to which it relates will have the opposite import (i.e. -ve). This is a standard construction in english, and other languages too, and will apply to all sentences.

Let's see some examples:

That cake, even if it looks fattening, is actually only 50 calories

Here we have a clear opposition between the negative import of the fatty cake, and the truth of the matter that it is indeed, not fatty. Bad/-ve vs good/+ve (or vice versa in some cases). As stated b4, this will always be the case when an "even" clause comes into play. Let's look at some more examples:

That girl, even if she looks classy, is a slut

That bed, even if it looks comfy, will in fact screw up your back

This building work, even if it will take a long time, will eventually make your house look beautiful

Clear oppositions, facilitated by the use of an "even" clause:

-Looks classy (good); is slutty (bad)
- Looks comfy (good); will hurt you (bad)
- Will take ages (bad); will make your house look great (good)

Note that it doesnt matter if one particular clause is deemed good or bad, all that counts is that the next one will have the opposite import. I.e. maybe you dont like classy looking girls, and prefer sluts; the opposition still applies.

So what we can do, when there is debate as to the +ve/-ve import of a particular clause, is to gauge that of the uncontroversial clause, and the clause in question will, logically, assume the opposite import. This has been demonstrated very clearly above.

Now, let's apply this to RAD. That phrase again:

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one

So, let's apply what now know. Since we are all aware that this "revolutionary change" is deemed to be +ve/good, we can therefore conclude, in all certainty and absent all controversy, that the import of the "long one" clause, is negative. Applying that same formula:

- Revolutionary change (good/+ve); will take a long time (bad/-ve)

Thus we conclude that the idea that this change will take a long time is a negative one, an event that would cause this change to happen sooner would be a positive one, thus such an event, i.e. a new Pearl Harbour, is deemed propitious to policy. Yeh!

********

Of course if anyone has any problems with this point, then do address them; regurgitation of past points is now even more worthless than it was before.

[Belz...]

This deals with post 911, which again, is superfluous to the point- disposing of OBL b4 911

Okay I'm going to ask:

1. what do you think would have changed about 9/11 if OBL would have been caught or killed prior to it ?

2. Why would the US government want to get rid of OBL before 9/11 if the event hadn't yet occur ? Doesn't that sound like post hoc reasoning ?

[Dave Rogers]

The article given by the independent intermediary says very different. As he is independent, he is the one, all else being equal, whose word we should trust, particularly given the crucial nature of his position.

Except that, as the intermediary, his responsibility was to ensure communication between parties. One of the parties has made it clear that, in their opinion, he failed. His account is therefore to some extent self-serving and exculpatory, since if he can argue that one of the parties was not negotiating in good faith, he therefore has no responsibility for the failure of the negotiations.

But really this is of no more use than talking to a brick wall. Since I've shown you the specific examples cited in the article that my argument is based on, and since you refuse to acknowledge that there is any possibility of them being valid, I think we have nothing more to say to one another.

Dave

[Belz...]

I'm sorry, but no points here constitute any form of an argument.

They're not arguments, they are QUESTION that you keep avoiding:

1. Why do you stubbornly refuse to accept that it might NOT be propitious ?

2. Why do you keep adding meaning that is not implied in the words used in the document ?

3. Are you reading the responses that people offer ? You don't seem to, because you're simply ignoring their points.

4. How do you know that Bush didn't care ? Do you have actual evidence of this, or is this simply your opinion ?

Right, so here you invalidate the CP article since it is based on the testimony of one person. You are stating that an article based on 1 source is ipso facto unreliable.

Please think b4 u post.

You should follow your own advice.

What did I say ? Did I say that "an article based on 1 source is ipso facto unreliable." ? Did I ? No, I did NOT. I said THIS:

The ONE source is NOT reliable. If another news outlet quotes an unreliable source, does that suddenly make the story genuine ?

I said that THAT source is not reliable for reasons mentioned by several people here. I also said that being quoted does not miraculously make you reliable.

What say you ?

The source is Koabbir Mohabbat. This is referenced many times

It is MENTIONED. Where are the references ?

[mjd1982]

(bolding mine....and Stundie Nominated (http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2729390&postcount=365))

Pretty simple concept, you basically provide evidence that backs up your claim and shows it to be true.

Ex: I claim that not all the concrete in the towers was turned to dust, and subsequently a CTer tells me to "prove it". I then post a photo of large chunks of concrete in the rubble.



How about links to these "many other news sources" who, you claim, corroborate this claim?
Please think before you post. I could then ask you "Prove that that photo is in fact taken from ground zero"; if you do that, "Prove that it is a genuine photo", and on and on. This will of course be pretty impossible for you to do on an internet forum. Think!

2nd point, really not hard for you to do:

http://www.mail-archive.com/marxist-leninist-list@lists.econ.utah.edu/msg04273.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/28/attack/main312836.shtml
http://www.minor-heresies.com/?cat=2

[DGM]

That cake, even if it looks fattening, is actually only 50 calories

Would that be per serving? Now I want some cake. Thanks MJ

[mjd1982]

Except that, as the intermediary, his responsibility was to ensure communication between parties. One of the parties has made it clear that, in their opinion, he failed. His account is therefore to some extent self-serving and exculpatory, since if he can argue that one of the parties was not negotiating in good faith, he therefore has no responsibility for the failure of the negotiations.

But really this is of no more use than talking to a brick wall. Since I've shown you the specific examples cited in the article that my argument is based on, and since you refuse to acknowledge that there is any possibility of them being valid, I think we have nothing more to say to one another.

Dave
Do as you wish. You choose to buttress your argument against US government negligence by citiing US government officials; I buttress mine with independent intermediaries. I think people with common sense and honesty will come to sensible conclusions.

[JonnyFive]

That is because they could capture him. If they could have easier killed him, they would have done that. He was on the run in a country they ran. Its a totally different situation.

You're just arguing from ignorance. Unless you have evidence that they "would have done that," you can't use such a claim to advance your position. Do you have historical evidence that the Bush administration would rather systematically killed OBL than captured him?

I think if you are going to argue on the basis that if the US could have had OBL dead pre 911 they would have said no, then you are on pretty irrational ground.

What? What are you talking about? The sources you linked to all talked about trying to negotiate a handover, except for your Counterpunch article. I see you've dropped back to using that source exclusively, discarding the India Globe. The consensus of your own sources goes against your conclusions.

Yes, if that were possible. But it wasnt, as has been shown here many times in articles posted. The US wanted a trial in NY or nothing. But he was offered to be killed. There is no excuse for not accepting the death of a man who is the biggest single human threat to civilian life in your country, for many yrs.

Except that the US has specific policies against using assassination.

There is no source about wanting a trial in "NY or nothing," and that makes no sense at all. Your sources have said either the US or a third-party, but not an Islamic court. I fail to see how that is unreasonable.

Come on dude, you said you read the article, i dont ask a lot

Drop the condescending crap. I read your articles, and I don't agree with you. I fail to see the corroboration for the "they handed his head on a silver platter" aspect.

You've also backed well away from your other sources, that all disagree with that aspect of the Counterpunch article. I find this telling. If your sources don't integrate, that means you have a discrepency to clear up, which you've failed to do as of yet.

There were no doubt negotiations to do this. There were also those to have him killed.

Based on? The Counterpunch's source? Any corroboration?

errr... 2000.

My mistake, of course, I forgot the year.

In any case, OBL was still being sought in connection to it.

Again, please tell me in what world, when the main non gov threat to civilian life in your country for decades is offered to you on a platter, do you say "No thanks". Your american; how can you accept your government doing this? Please tell me?!

The world in which he wasn't actually being "offered to you on a platter." You're moving to goalposts around by shifting sources, but failing to corroborate the unique information from the new sources. What you have corroborated shows nothing with respect to a "head on a platter."

To be honest, I could care less if Osama is killed or brought to trial or dies of cancer in some God-forsaken rat hole. I want his organization to be rendered impotent and him to be somehow brought to justice. Given my druthers, I would prefer to see him brought on trial in international court and sentenced accordingly.

As aboce

As which "above?"

a) It would have been a hindrance
b) How can it be explained, within the OT scheme. I dont think it can; it is inexplicable.

a) How? You haven't yet explained this, but maybe you will in this post... let's see.

b) How can what be explained? This doesn't seem to connect to what I said.

Note- I am not saying this would have killed AQ or stopped 911. Just as I have said.

So why even bring it up? You suggest that not taking OBL's "head on a platter" is somehow suggestive of government culpability in 9/11, yet you systematically fail to either prove the "head on a platter" part and outright suggest 9/11 might happen anyway. Is this really the best kind of evidence you have?

The US/UK are occupying armies in a foreign country; they have no rights and all attacks on them are, within the framework of international law, justified.

Actually, the rights they have are governed by treaties established between various global entities.

Dont fall for propaganda where these people are called terrorists; people who blow themselves up in a market place in Baghdad is one thing attacking an occupying army is something that Americans should be able to appreciate as an integral part of their heritage.

I said that there is a fine line between insurgency and terrorism. That line is generally one of targetting, but the two are drawn from the same ideological pool. It has to do with methodology and psychology, not semantic games.

The IRA or FARC are better comparisons for the American Revolution - the motivation was more similar. The Afghan resistance, along with HAMAS and their ilk, has more of a religious undertone to the organization, with the whole fatwa/Jihad deal. The simplistic comparison between events separated by over two hundred years is cute, but not particularly helpful to our current debate.

Funding for sure; organisation, since his death would throw AQ into a degree of chaos; confidence as well.

Proof of this? Do you have any cases in which the death of a leader of a cell-based terrorist group caused the group to be thrown into chaos?

If you mean the creation of new cells would be hampered, then I agree. But we're talking about a cell that was already in place and ready to go. They didn't need additional funding by early 2001, and they had their mission in place.

If they see that their leader is dead, what will that do for them? If AQ is the glue that bound the hijackers together, through a variety of means, the death of the head and founder would necessarily weaken that.

No, that is utterly at odds with the psychology displayed by extremist groups like AQ. To the contrary, the ideology is the glue that holds the group together, which is why they are able to survive over such long periods of time.

A group held together by a leader is something like, say, the Waco cult. Those groups tend to dissolve or weaken if their leader or leadership dies. On the other hand, ideological extremist groups are bonded by something that transcends one person or group of people.

If anything, the loss of a leader to the enemy is something that would bolster the resolve of the terrorist groups. Obviously this is speculation, as it never happened, but it is speculation more consistent with the psychology of the group, and the past behavior displayed by this and similar groups. Would you say, for example, that the death of key Al Qaeda personnel has stopped their operations in Afghanistan?

Tell me why you think this name was conceived for the war. You understand it was a political, not a media construct?

Well, if you really want to get anal about it, the term goes back a ways:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_terror#Historical_usage_of_phrase

Your focus on the specific phrase used isn't very useful to you. It makes it sound like you're playing with semantics when the specific phrase is unimportant. What matters are the realities underlying it.

In this case, there are certainly ideologically motivated groups opposed to the political, military, and social aspects of the Western world. Those groups are willing to use terrorist tactics to harm the West. Ergo, there is a de facto "war with terrorism" whether we acknowledge it or not. This has been the case for decades, although general public awareness of the specifics is relatively recent.

As above! Seriously, why do you think this term was conceived by the Bush admin?

Because it makes for nice sound bytes, and the term is a no-brainer. What would you prefer: "The war against anti-Western ideologically-motivated religious and quasi-religious fanatical groups that have their roots in a particularly militant branch of the Islamic religious community?"

At that time there was not a declared WOT. Now there is, so why are there so many despicable terrorists living in asylum with Bush/Cheney imprimatur?

"Imprimatur?" Good one, I like it. Much better than the plebian "sanction," or is this one of those words used more outside the US?

The existence of a "declared" war on terror is a meaningless mental construct, because the "war on terror" is not an actual, declared war. It is a phrase to describe a reality that exists regardless of what you call it.

Over time, I think the US has been getting a little bit better about supporting repulsive people to further our ends. If you think otherwise, you need to study history a little more.

You want to see some real nasty stuff, look back at the American expansion in the 1800's. Now that was brutal. Of course, every other expanding nation at the time did it, and some of them made the US look positively glowing by comparison.

Hell, we treated a large chunk of our own citizens like sub-human dirt fit only for oppression for a long time. The history of many nations is far from glowing.

Errrr.... Hmmm. Ok, well let's start with Operation Condor. Please read up on that, or let me know if you want a heads up.

How does this contradict what I said? Condor seems to more be a case of certain elements of the US government looking the other way more than anything else.

Besides which, I said "generally refrain." I have never claimed the US is a perfect angel that has never done anything wrong. Also, Condor took place from a period of nearly sixty to a period of nearly thirty years ago, and doesn't seem to have involved direct, sanctioned US terrorist action, which is what I actually said.

Such as?

Recent terrorist Activity prior to 9/11/2001:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beirut_barracks_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Military_activity_and_terrorism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_United_States_embassy_bombings (Sorry, I got the '98 date from the Embassy Bombings, not the Cole)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khobar_Towers_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_March_2001_BBC_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_August_2001_Ealing_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_city_bombing (Yes, domestic terrorism is still terrorism)

September 11th raised public awareness to a new level, mostly because it was the first large-scale attack the US had experienced. That doesn't mean that this sort of thing had never occurred in the past.

Does not require, but is all the more effective for it.

How so? What about when that person dies?

Oh come on... The same could be said for Saddam, found in what, 3 weeks?

Nine months, actually. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_hussein#Capture_and_incarceration) If you count from the date of invasion. US invaded on 3/20/2003, and Saddam was captured on 12/13/2003. That is almost exactly nine months.

Three weeks? Where do you get this stuff?

Its been 6 1/2 yrs, he's been in Tora Bora!!! Its not like he could be anywhere on the face of the earth. And Bush has said himself- he doesnt care where he is anymore!!! Unbelievable! Forget 911, what about everything else! Is it water under the bridge? How do you explain this, other than by my reasoning?

Bad luck, bad intelligence, lack of intelligence, lack of political cooperation, instability in the region, mountainous terrain, cave systems, lack of security and police in the region, limited US resources.

That's a pretty decent start. You really think the best possible explanation for not finding one person in a highly contested area is government collusion?

Yes, he was at the Battle of Tora Bora. So what? He escaped, and again you think the best explanation is government help? Do you have evidence of that, or is it just a guess?

But he was nonetheless found in weeks. OBL nowhere near found, after years.

I would really love to see how you got three weeks from nine months.

Look at them as unrelated. One pointing to trial; the other to death. And do read it, and tell me what you think and why

I think the one pointing to death is uncorroborate at this point, and that suggests it is much less likely to be true. I think the bulk of the sources you have actually cited to prove your point do precisely the opposite.

This is because there are multiple lines of reasoning that ultimately arrive at the conclusion that there was some negotiation for an OBL hand-over, but it was not likely that the Taliban was sincere, and it is possible they couldn't actually deliver him. In any case, the conditions imposed were unacceptable to the US, and very likely were imposed as political delaying tactics.

You're fallen back on the Counterpunch article because it is the only one that even remotely supports your current claims.

[Belz...]

Well this is what we're debating. Learn the meaning of that word, and if you think your up to it, join in.

No, you're not debating. You are CLAIMING. Over and over again. But you have no form of evidence. All you offer is your interpretation and opinion.

Examples ?

You quote from the PNAC document, but fail to actually point to real sentences that say that it would pe "propitious" or that they need it to happen.

You link to an article that claims that OBL was offered to the US on a platter, but forget to note that the article is ALSO simply making a claim without references.

These are the textbooks of suppression of democratic thought in democratic societies. You will see how an event such as 911 fits perfectly into this scheme.

It is IRRELEVANT if the motives or means are believable. Courts don't convict on motive or means. They convict on EVIDENCE. You have none. You're just blowing air.

read b4 u post

Learn English.

There is nothing wrong with arguing from incredulity

Of course there is. It doesn't say "this is impossible" it says "I don't THINK it's possible". Why should we care what you think ?

[mjd1982]

They're not arguments, they are QUESTION that you keep avoiding:

1. Why do you stubbornly refuse to accept that it might NOT be propitious ?

2. Why do you keep adding meaning that is not implied in the words used in the document ?


I have just posted on this, please read it


3. Are you reading the responses that people offer ? You don't seem to, because you're simply ignoring their points.


I htink ive responded to pretty much everybody here, so why would u say that?


4. How do you know that Bush didn't care ? Do you have actual evidence of this, or is this simply your opinion ?


911 Comm report. Read it. 40 PDB warnings; nothing done


You should follow your own advice.

What did I say ? Did I say that "an article based on 1 source is ipso facto unreliable." ? Did I ? No, I did NOT. I said THIS:



I said that THAT source is not reliable for reasons mentioned by several people here. I also said that being quoted does not miraculously make you reliable.

What say you ?


Please tell me why we should not accept hs testimony. Simple question.

Next, although that doesnt make you reliable, it lends u credibility if you are quoted by credible sources. If you go to the NYTimes tomorrow and say "I could have had OBL killed for the US, but Bush told me no", you will not get printed. If you are credible, your credibility should get reflected by the papers who quote you.


It is MENTIONED. Where are the references ?

Please tell me what you mean by "references"

[JonnyFive]

As I have said, at base, we can either trust what the US State dept says about their procrastination, or we can take the opinion of the independent man at the heart of the matter. I think this is a simple choice.

Did we ever get evidence that he was in fact at the heart of the matter? I mean, other than his word.

I'm going to go with trusting the version of events shown through the convergence of several divergent streams of evidence into one clear picture, rather than just one person or group's claims.

[Belz...]

I make an assertion. I back that up with evidence.

No, you back it up with someone ELSE's assertion.

That evidence needs to be of a certain level of credulity for it to be accepted.

I think you meant "credibility", but "credulity" works better, you're right.

Asking for "proof" is just stupid and evasive- how can "proof". i.e. something that unequivocally proves something, be brought forth on an internet forum?

Same way it can be brought before a Jury.

2. He does state it as fact. What is your point?

Stating something as fact doesn't make it much more than an opinion if it's without evidence.

I think your getting desperate now.

Against what ? Your opinions ?

You are confusing a statement of inference with a statement of fact.

And you are confusing a statement of fact with a fact.

[nicepants]

Please think before you post. I could then ask you "Prove that that photo is in fact taken from ground zero"; if you do that, "Prove that it is a genuine photo", and on and on. This will of course be pretty impossible for you to do on an internet forum. Think!1 - It's easily identifyable as a GZ photo due to the rest of the photograph
2 - It was printed in a major news publication with more credibility than the "indian globe" therefore it would be your responsibility to prove it WRONG. (This per your standards)

2nd point, really not hard for you to do:

http://www.mail-archive.com/marxist-leninist-list@lists.econ.utah.edu/msg04273.html
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/09/28/attack/main312836.shtml
http://www.minor-heresies.com/?cat=2

None of these articles prove that this guy is the middleman...

But CBS News has met with an Afghan-American businessman who
describes himself as a middleman and says he attended a meeting on September 16th between the U.S. and Taliban officials in the hotel in Quetta. It was only his claim, CBS does not support this claim.

Your other sources - 1 is a mail archive....not a news source. The other is a blog which does not prove your claim.

Again, if numerous news organizations corroborate this claim, where are these corroborations?

[Augustine]

Right, time to put this ridiculous PNAC argument to bed.

Of course you, and everyone else could have found your answer in post #493; but you have chosen not to read it. I would advise you do so again, if you are interested in the truth.

But no worries. Because there is an even more elementary way to illustrate my point that a new PH was deemed propitious to the neo cons, as per RAD. It involves some pretty simple linguistic analysis. It has been on the tip of my tongue for ages, but havent bee able to enunciate it, until now. The answer is right in front of us. Let's look at the sentence in question again:



The part of this that gets the least attention is, of course the "even" clause. This is because the import of the sentence gets taken for granted by most people. Not here. But no worries. Lets look at this clause more closely, because it provides proof, and I mean that word, that a slow transformation was deemed bad, and thus a new PH was indeed deemed propitious by the neo cons who would go on to be in chanrge of running and protectiong the US on and up to 911.

So... what is this clause? Very simple. Its a modifying clause, that serves to create oppostion between itself, and the clause to which it is linked. I.e. the "even" clause will have a particular import (say, +ve), and the clause to which it relates will have the opposite import (i.e. -ve). This is a standard construction in english, and other languages too, and will apply to all sentences.

Let's see some examples:

That cake, even if it looks fattening, is actually only 50 calories

Here we have a clear opposition between the negative import of the fatty cake, and the truth of the matter that it is indeed, not fatty. Bad/-ve vs good/+ve (or vice versa in some cases). As stated b4, this will always be the case when an "even" clause comes into play. Let's look at some more examples:

That girl, even if she looks classy, is a slut

That bed, even if it looks comfy, will in fact screw up your back

This building work, even if it will take a long time, will eventually make your house look beautiful

Clear oppositions, facilitated by the use of an "even" clause:

-Looks classy (good); is slutty (bad)
- Looks comfy (good); will hurt you (bad)
- Will take ages (bad); will make your house look great (good)

Note that it doesnt matter if one particular clause is deemed good or bad, all that counts is that the next one will have the opposite import. I.e. maybe you dont like classy looking girls, and prefer sluts; the opposition still applies.

So what we can do, when there is debate as to the +ve/-ve import of a particular clause, is to gauge that of the uncontroversial clause, and the clause in question will, logically, assume the opposite import. This has been demonstrated very clearly above.

Now, let's apply this to RAD. That phrase again:

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one

So, let's apply what now know. Since we are all aware that this "revolutionary change" is deemed to be +ve/good, we can therefore conclude, in all certainty and absent all controversy, that the import of the "long one" clause, is negative. Applying that same formula:

- Revolutionary change (good/+ve); will take a long time (bad/-ve)

Thus we conclude that the idea that this change will take a long time is a negative one, an event that would cause this change to happen sooner would be a positive one, thus such an event, i.e. a new Pearl Harbour, is deemed propitious to policy. Yeh!

********

Of course if anyone has any problems with this point, then do address them; regurgitation of past points is now even more worthless than it was before.

Example:Junior's vicious case of crabs will not go away, EVEN IF he lights his pubes on fire.

Please identify the good/bad in that sentence.

"EVEN IF" has zero to do with good/bad, and more to do with expectations.

[Belz...]

Again, please tell me in what world, when the main non gov threat to civilian life in your country for decades is offered to you on a platter, do you say "No thanks". Your american; how can you accept your government doing this? Please tell me?!

All this is based on your trust of a dubious source, Mjd. Do you realise that ?

As I have said, at base, we can either trust what the US State dept says about their procrastination, or we can take the opinion of the independent man at the heart of the matter. I think this is a simple choice.

No, it's not. We follow evidence, not whom we think is more likely to be honest.

But no worries. Because there is an even more elementary way to illustrate my point that a new PH was deemed propitious to the neo cons, as per RAD. It involves some pretty simple linguistic analysis.

"Linguistic analysis" ? Or is it simply what you WANT to read in that document ? Are you a linguistics expert ? "Read B4 U post" does seem to indicate that you are not. Are you ?

The part of this that gets the least attention is, of course the "even" clause. This is because the import of the sentence gets taken for granted by most people. Not here. But no worries. Lets look at this clause more closely, because it provides proof, and I mean that word, that a slow transformation was deemed bad, and thus a new PH was indeed deemed propitious

So this sentence: "Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one." means that necessarily, a faster change would be better, or that a "catastrophic and catalysing" event would be good ? Just because of the word "even" ? Please. You know nothing about language.

Like all other twoofers, you just fancy yourself an expert in everything, with a towering intellect far above that of even the smartest. You are a deluded man.

[Belz...]

I htink ive responded to pretty much everybody here, so why would u say that?

Asking people to "read b4 u post" and "think" is not an answer. Sure, you "replied", but didn't adress the point.

911 Comm report. Read it. 40 PDB warnings; nothing done

I didn't ask you if you knew if something was done. I'm asking you how you can know his MIND.

Please tell me why we should not accept hs testimony. Simple question.

That is NOT what I said. Read b4 u post.

Please tell me what you mean by "references"

A filmed interview or at least an actual transcript would be a good start. That's IF he's the original source. If not, a reference to HIS source is paramount.

[Augustine]

This is 100% speculative, and is soooooo very desperate, it is pretty sad. Of course, this is a standard tactic of a dishonest debater- muddy the issue, and then no one can win. Cast aspersions on a source, aspersions with no base for proof, nor for dismissal.

Unfortunately such sub moronic tactics aint gonna wash here; my deluded friend, all the above is rank speculation with zero basis in reality. The reality is that Eastham is a state dept official of 30 yrs, hence completely un-independent. For all we know, Mohabbat is independent. Full stop.

This is standard practice for evaluating the credibility of a witness. It is not "100% speculative"; we already know the answer to many of these questions, and they call into question the credibility of Mohabbat. He is most definitely NOT independent. His story asks us to disbelieve the entire past record of Taliban responses to US demands, documented meetings, and Afghani culture.


What the hell are you talking about?


The fact that you do not know what pashtun-wali is or what pannah warkawel is does not surprise me. It seems there is a lot that you do not know. These concepts call into question Mohabbat's claims. They also call his trustworthiness into question. While I only have experience dealing with Iraqis, I have friends and colleagues with substantial experience dealing with Afghanis. Understand the culture.

Since when is he my hero? And why would he think i was a fool?
Because you believe foolish things.


Maybe you can try again, here catch:

Linking to the same article over and over does not make your case stronger. It only reveals the paucity of your evidence.

[Billdave2]

Right, time to put this ridiculous PNAC argument to bed.

Of course you, and everyone else could have found your answer in post #493; but you have chosen not to read it. I would advise you do so again, if you are interested in the truth.

But no worries. Because there is an even more elementary way to illustrate my point that a new PH was deemed propitious to the neo cons, as per RAD. It involves some pretty simple linguistic analysis. It has been on the tip of my tongue for ages, but havent bee able to enunciate it, until now. The answer is right in front of us. Let's look at the sentence in question again:



The part of this that gets the least attention is, of course the "even" clause. This is because the import of the sentence gets taken for granted by most people. Not here. But no worries. Lets look at this clause more closely, because it provides proof, and I mean that word, that a slow transformation was deemed bad, and thus a new PH was indeed deemed propitious by the neo cons who would go on to be in chanrge of running and protectiong the US on and up to 911.

So... what is this clause? Very simple. Its a modifying clause, that serves to create oppostion between itself, and the clause to which it is linked. I.e. the "even" clause will have a particular import (say, +ve), and the clause to which it relates will have the opposite import (i.e. -ve). This is a standard construction in english, and other languages too, and will apply to all sentences.

Let's see some examples:

That cake, even if it looks fattening, is actually only 50 calories

Here we have a clear opposition between the negative import of the fatty cake, and the truth of the matter that it is indeed, not fatty. Bad/-ve vs good/+ve (or vice versa in some cases). As stated b4, this will always be the case when an "even" clause comes into play. Let's look at some more examples:

That girl, even if she looks classy, is a slut

That bed, even if it looks comfy, will in fact screw up your back

This building work, even if it will take a long time, will eventually make your house look beautiful

Clear oppositions, facilitated by the use of an "even" clause:

-Looks classy (good); is slutty (bad)
- Looks comfy (good); will hurt you (bad)
- Will take ages (bad); will make your house look great (good)

Note that it doesnt matter if one particular clause is deemed good or bad, all that counts is that the next one will have the opposite import. I.e. maybe you dont like classy looking girls, and prefer sluts; the opposition still applies.

So what we can do, when there is debate as to the +ve/-ve import of a particular clause, is to gauge that of the uncontroversial clause, and the clause in question will, logically, assume the opposite import. This has been demonstrated very clearly above.

Now, let's apply this to RAD. That phrase again:

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one

So, let's apply what now know. Since we are all aware that this "revolutionary change" is deemed to be +ve/good, we can therefore conclude, in all certainty and absent all controversy, that the import of the "long one" clause, is negative. Applying that same formula:

- Revolutionary change (good/+ve); will take a long time (bad/-ve)

Thus we conclude that the idea that this change will take a long time is a negative one, an event that would cause this change to happen sooner would be a positive one, thus such an event, i.e. a new Pearl Harbour, is deemed propitious to policy. Yeh!

********

Of course if anyone has any problems with this point, then do address them; regurgitation of past points is now even more worthless than it was before.

Just because the term "even" is used does not mean that it always references good vs. bad. In you own example of the cake, the fact that it "looks fattening" is not in and of itself bad. It is neutral to the issue of how many calories the cake has. You could even argue that since it looks fatteniong it is more appealing and therefore it is good all the way around. The statement in the PNAC you refer to,the even is refering to two different things altogether. It is simply used to show that no matter how big the change is it will not effect the time it take. It could have been written as "The process, even if it brings a small change, will likely be a long process" and the meaning is exactly the same but the by your arguement, small change=bad long process=good. The even in this statement is to show that the process will be long no matter the size of the change,ie the process time is the determining factor. It is the same as the professional logician states, "just because all of Alma Kogen is dead, not all dead people are Alma Kogen", likewise just because some statements using even show absolute diametric opposition does not mean all staements using even have to show opposition.

[nicepants]

So... what is this clause? Very simple. Its a modifying clause, that serves to create oppostion between itself, and the clause to which it is linked. I.e. the "even" clause will have a particular import (say, +ve), and the clause to which it relates will have the opposite import (i.e. -ve). This is a standard construction in english, and other languages too, and will apply to all sentences.

Let's see some examples:

That cake, even if it looks fattening, is actually only 50 calories

Here we have a clear opposition between the negative import of the fatty cake, and the truth of the matter that it is indeed, not fatty. Bad/-ve vs good/+ve (or vice versa in some cases). As stated b4, this will always be the case when an "even" clause comes into play. Let's look at some more examples:

That girl, even if she looks classy, is a slut

That bed, even if it looks comfy, will in fact screw up your back

This building work, even if it will take a long time, will eventually make your house look beautiful

Clear oppositions, facilitated by the use of an "even" clause:

-Looks classy (good); is slutty (bad)
- Looks comfy (good); will hurt you (bad)
- Will take ages (bad); will make your house look great (good)

Note that it doesnt matter if one particular clause is deemed good or bad, all that counts is that the next one will have the opposite import. I.e. maybe you dont like classy looking girls, and prefer sluts; the opposition still applies.

So what we can do, when there is debate as to the +ve/-ve import of a particular clause, is to gauge that of the uncontroversial clause, and the clause in question will, logically, assume the opposite import. This has been demonstrated very clearly above.

Now, let's apply this to RAD. That phrase again:

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one

So, let's apply what now know. Since we are all aware that this "revolutionary change" is deemed to be +ve/good, we can therefore conclude, in all certainty and absent all controversy, that the import of the "long one" clause, is negative. Applying that same formula:

- Revolutionary change (good/+ve); will take a long time (bad/-ve)

Thus we conclude that the idea that this change will take a long time is a negative one, an event that would cause this change to happen sooner would be a positive one, thus such an event, i.e. a new Pearl Harbour, is deemed propitious to policy. Yeh!


In most cases, the "even" statement is used to contradict a person's assumptions about a situation:

Ex:

-The damage to my car is minor.
-For a major repair, it would take 4 days for this body shop to fix it.
-My damage is not major, therefore it will take less than 4 days. (Assumption)
-The body shop said that even though my repair is minor, the repair will take 4 days.

The "even though" statement only contradicts the person's ASSUMPTION. It is not a negative of the statement that follows it. If you believed that the repair would take 2 days, you bring the car in and they say 4 days, if your assumption that it would take 2 days is strong enough, you might question them. At that point they would respond: "Even though the repair is minor, the repair will take 4 days". Again this statement just contradicts any assumption you may have about the repair taking less than 4 days.

Another Example?

That laptop battery, even if you charge it all night, will die in 5 minutes.

Assumption: If I charge the laptop battery overnight, it will last longer than 5 minutes.

The "even" statement contradicts my ASSUMPTION that it would last longer than 5 minutes. Again, the statement can be made without the "even statement"

That laptop battery will die in 5 minutes.


Now on to your examples


That girl, even if she looks classy, is a slut

Even statement contradicts the assumption that she is not a slut based on the way she looks. LOOKS CLASSY is not the opposite of IS A SLUT

That bed, even if it looks comfy, will in fact screw up your back
This contradicts the assumption that the bed is comfy based on the way it looks.LOOKS COMFY is not the opposite of WILL SCREW UP YOUR BACK

This building work, even if it will take a long time, will eventually make your house look beautiful
This contradicts the assumption that the work may not make the house look beautiful if it takes a long time.WILL TAKE A LONG TIME is not the opposite of WILL MAKE YOUR HOUSE LOOK BEAUTIFUL

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one.

Assumption: The process of transformation will not take long if it brings revolutionary change.

The "even" statement contradicts an external assumption, and in no way makes a statement about whether a long transformation is good or bad. It simply clarifies to avoid anyone assuming that a transformation bringing revolutionary change will somehow happen faster.

[Billdave2]

In most cases, the "even" statement is used to contradict a person's assumptions about a situation:

(snip)

The "even" statement contradicts an external assumption, and in no way makes a statement about whether a long transformation is good or bad. It simply clarifies to avoid anyone assuming that a transformation bringing revolutionary change will somehow happen faster.

This is kind of what I was trying to say in my post above, only yours is much better written.

"Me fail English? Unpossible!"

[JonnyFive]

Linking to the same article over and over does not make your case stronger. It only reveals the paucity of your evidence.

Every time mjd does this without saying anything of substance, every time he does that stupid "as above" without adding a useful comment, and every time he uses abbreviated garbage words like "b4" and "u," my opinion of him drops a little lower.

Is it really that hard to type "you" and "before?"

[nicepants]

This is kind of what I was trying to say in my post above, only yours is much better written.

Thanks, although Augustine's example is my favorite:

Junior's vicious case of crabs will not go away, EVEN IF he lights his pubes on fire.

It sounds to me like MJD is confusing "even if" and "even though".

[mjd1982]

You're just arguing from ignorance. Unless you have evidence that they "would have done that," you can't use such a claim to advance your position. Do you have historical evidence that the Bush administration would rather systematically killed OBL than captured him?



What? What are you talking about? The sources you linked to all talked about trying to negotiate a handover, except for your Counterpunch article. I see you've dropped back to using that source exclusively, discarding the India Globe. The consensus of your own sources goes against your conclusions.



Except that the US has specific policies against using assassination.

There is no source about wanting a trial in "NY or nothing," and that makes no sense at all. Your sources have said either the US or a third-party, but not an Islamic court. I fail to see how that is unreasonable.



Drop the condescending crap. I read your articles, and I don't agree with you. I fail to see the corroboration for the "they handed his head on a silver platter" aspect.

You've also backed well away from your other sources, that all disagree with that aspect of the Counterpunch article. I find this telling. If your sources don't integrate, that means you have a discrepency to clear up, which you've failed to do as of yet.



Based on? The Counterpunch's source? Any corroboration?



My mistake, of course, I forgot the year.

In any case, OBL was still being sought in connection to it.



The world in which he wasn't actually being "offered to you on a platter." You're moving to goalposts around by shifting sources, but failing to corroborate the unique information from the new sources. What you have corroborated shows nothing with respect to a "head on a platter."

To be honest, I could care less if Osama is killed or brought to trial or dies of cancer in some God-forsaken rat hole. I want his organization to be rendered impotent and him to be somehow brought to justice. Given my druthers, I would prefer to see him brought on trial in international court and sentenced accordingly.



As which "above?"



a) How? You haven't yet explained this, but maybe you will in this post... let's see.

b) How can what be explained? This doesn't seem to connect to what I said.



So why even bring it up? You suggest that not taking OBL's "head on a platter" is somehow suggestive of government culpability in 9/11, yet you systematically fail to either prove the "head on a platter" part and outright suggest 9/11 might happen anyway. Is this really the best kind of evidence you have?



Actually, the rights they have are governed by treaties established between various global entities.



I said that there is a fine line between insurgency and terrorism. That line is generally one of targetting, but the two are drawn from the same ideological pool. It has to do with methodology and psychology, not semantic games.

The IRA or FARC are better comparisons for the American Revolution - the motivation was more similar. The Afghan resistance, along with HAMAS and their ilk, has more of a religious undertone to the organization, with the whole fatwa/Jihad deal. The simplistic comparison between events separated by over two hundred years is cute, but not particularly helpful to our current debate.



Proof of this? Do you have any cases in which the death of a leader of a cell-based terrorist group caused the group to be thrown into chaos?

If you mean the creation of new cells would be hampered, then I agree. But we're talking about a cell that was already in place and ready to go. They didn't need additional funding by early 2001, and they had their mission in place.



No, that is utterly at odds with the psychology displayed by extremist groups like AQ. To the contrary, the ideology is the glue that holds the group together, which is why they are able to survive over such long periods of time.

A group held together by a leader is something like, say, the Waco cult. Those groups tend to dissolve or weaken if their leader or leadership dies. On the other hand, ideological extremist groups are bonded by something that transcends one person or group of people.

If anything, the loss of a leader to the enemy is something that would bolster the resolve of the terrorist groups. Obviously this is speculation, as it never happened, but it is speculation more consistent with the psychology of the group, and the past behavior displayed by this and similar groups. Would you say, for example, that the death of key Al Qaeda personnel has stopped their operations in Afghanistan?



Well, if you really want to get anal about it, the term goes back a ways:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_on_terror#Historical_usage_of_phrase

Your focus on the specific phrase used isn't very useful to you. It makes it sound like you're playing with semantics when the specific phrase is unimportant. What matters are the realities underlying it.

In this case, there are certainly ideologically motivated groups opposed to the political, military, and social aspects of the Western world. Those groups are willing to use terrorist tactics to harm the West. Ergo, there is a de facto "war with terrorism" whether we acknowledge it or not. This has been the case for decades, although general public awareness of the specifics is relatively recent.



Because it makes for nice sound bytes, and the term is a no-brainer. What would you prefer: "The war against anti-Western ideologically-motivated religious and quasi-religious fanatical groups that have their roots in a particularly militant branch of the Islamic religious community?"



"Imprimatur?" Good one, I like it. Much better than the plebian "sanction," or is this one of those words used more outside the US?

The existence of a "declared" war on terror is a meaningless mental construct, because the "war on terror" is not an actual, declared war. It is a phrase to describe a reality that exists regardless of what you call it.

Over time, I think the US has been getting a little bit better about supporting repulsive people to further our ends. If you think otherwise, you need to study history a little more.

You want to see some real nasty stuff, look back at the American expansion in the 1800's. Now that was brutal. Of course, every other expanding nation at the time did it, and some of them made the US look positively glowing by comparison.

Hell, we treated a large chunk of our own citizens like sub-human dirt fit only for oppression for a long time. The history of many nations is far from glowing.



How does this contradict what I said? Condor seems to more be a case of certain elements of the US government looking the other way more than anything else.

Besides which, I said "generally refrain." I have never claimed the US is a perfect angel that has never done anything wrong. Also, Condor took place from a period of nearly sixty to a period of nearly thirty years ago, and doesn't seem to have involved direct, sanctioned US terrorist action, which is what I actually said.



Recent terrorist Activity prior to 9/11/2001:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Cole_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Trade_Center_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beirut_barracks_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamas#Military_activity_and_terrorism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_United_States_embassy_bombings (Sorry, I got the '98 date from the Embassy Bombings, not the Cole)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khobar_Towers_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/4_March_2001_BBC_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/3_August_2001_Ealing_bombing
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oklahoma_city_bombing (Yes, domestic terrorism is still terrorism)

September 11th raised public awareness to a new level, mostly because it was the first large-scale attack the US had experienced. That doesn't mean that this sort of thing had never occurred in the past.



How so? What about when that person dies?



Nine months, actually. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saddam_hussein#Capture_and_incarceration) If you count from the date of invasion. US invaded on 3/20/2003, and Saddam was captured on 12/13/2003. That is almost exactly nine months.

Three weeks? Where do you get this stuff?



Bad luck, bad intelligence, lack of intelligence, lack of political cooperation, instability in the region, mountainous terrain, cave systems, lack of security and police in the region, limited US resources.

That's a pretty decent start. You really think the best possible explanation for not finding one person in a highly contested area is government collusion?

Yes, he was at the Battle of Tora Bora. So what? He escaped, and again you think the best explanation is government help? Do you have evidence of that, or is it just a guess?



I would really love to see how you got three weeks from nine months.



I think the one pointing to death is uncorroborate at this point, and that suggests it is much less likely to be true. I think the bulk of the sources you have actually cited to prove your point do precisely the opposite.

This is because there are multiple lines of reasoning that ultimately arrive at the conclusion that there was some negotiation for an OBL hand-over, but it was not likely that the Taliban was sincere, and it is possible they couldn't actually deliver him. In any case, the conditions imposed were unacceptable to the US, and very likely were imposed as political delaying tactics.

You're fallen back on the Counterpunch article because it is the only one that even remotely supports your current claims.
Ok. I'm sure you will appreciate this, as will I, if I just try and condense this exchange a little.

1. The point relating to which articles/sources I am using. I started with the India Globe stating that OBL was offered to Saudi. Some people had a problem with the credibility of this, and so in order to show that the US had no desire to deal with OBL in any concrete manner. This relates to either having him killed, or having him handed over. The 2 are not mutually exclusive; they both relate to the eventual vanquishing of OBL either through incarceration , or through death. Since people should be less prone to question CP's credibility, exchanges have been occurring regarding that more recently; but I am fine with addressing either, since, as I have stated, they both relate to the sam propensity.

2. In terms of what would have happened to 911 had OBL been killed. That is speculation, yes, but look at it this way for one second- why would you not accept OBL dead? It is inexplicable that such would happen, absent belief in the connivance of the US with regard to 911. Now, it should be accepted that were he to have been killed, pre 911, this would have rocked the boat to some degree. And, more to the point, in terms of the contrived nature of the whole sequence of events, it would have made the WOT much less effective, if it were to have been deprived of its most effective face, even before it had been begun.

Related, your points about the search for OBL can be explained much more simply, as I have stated- Bush does not care for finding him. These are his words, not mine. Can you explain this? My bad for the 3 weeks thing.

If I have missed something, let me know

[mjd1982]

Every time mjd does this without saying anything of substance, every time he does that stupid "as above" without adding a useful comment, and every time he uses abbreviated garbage words like "b4" and "u," my opinion of him drops a little lower.

Is it really that hard to type "you" and "before?"
Thats because I have the courtesy to reply to most everyone who posts here; I think I can be excused the odd abbreviation/avoidance of repetition.

[mjd1982]

This is standard practice for evaluating the credibility of a witness.


which is fine when you have answers. when you dont, it is speculating.


It is not "100% speculative"; we already know the answer to many of these questions,


such as?


and they call into question the credibility of Mohabbat. He is most definitely NOT independent. His story asks us to disbelieve the entire past record of Taliban responses to US demands, documented meetings,


No it doesnt. The Taliban were happy to have him tried in a court of 3 judges, with one selected by the US and another by Saudi, the US client state. This would have stacked the odds overwhelmingly in the favour of one result, and was proposed by the Taliban. Thus the assertion that they had made arrangements for his death is completely congruent.


and Afghani culture.

The fact that you do not know what pashtun-wali is or what pannah warkawel is does not surprise me. It seems there is a lot that you do not know. These concepts call into question Mohabbat's claims. They also call his trustworthiness into question. While I only have experience dealing with Iraqis, I have friends and colleagues with substantial experience dealing with Afghanis. Understand the culture.


Ok, good. So you are now arguing that we cannot trust this man since though he is an American, he has Afghan heritage, and as such cannot be trusted. Of course this is an argument from xenophobia, and racism, and as such while you may like to argue from it, it is generally inadmissible to any serious debate. Try again.


Linking to the same article over and over does not make your case stronger. It only reveals the paucity of your evidence.

No, it is symptomatic of your inabilty/refusal to confront the article in a coherent manner. I think your post here illustrates this nicely.

[mjd1982]

In most cases, the "even" statement is used to contradict a person's assumptions about a situation:

Ex:

-The damage to my car is minor.
-For a major repair, it would take 4 days for this body shop to fix it.
-My damage is not major, therefore it will take less than 4 days. (Assumption)
-The body shop said that even though my repair is minor, the repair will take 4 days.

The "even though" statement only contradicts the person's ASSUMPTION. It is not a negative of the statement that follows it. If you believed that the repair would take 2 days, you bring the car in and they say 4 days, if your assumption that it would take 2 days is strong enough, you might question them. At that point they would respond: "Even though the repair is minor, the repair will take 4 days". Again this statement just contradicts any assumption you may have about the repair taking less than 4 days.

Another Example?

That laptop battery, even if you charge it all night, will die in 5 minutes.

Assumption: If I charge the laptop battery overnight, it will last longer than 5 minutes.

The "even" statement contradicts my ASSUMPTION that it would last longer than 5 minutes. Again, the statement can be made without the "even statement"

That laptop battery will die in 5 minutes.


Now on to your examples


That girl, even if she looks classy, is a slut

Even statement contradicts the assumption that she is not a slut based on the way she looks. LOOKS CLASSY is not the opposite of IS A SLUT

That bed, even if it looks comfy, will in fact screw up your back
This contradicts the assumption that the bed is comfy based on the way it looks.LOOKS COMFY is not the opposite of WILL SCREW UP YOUR BACK

This building work, even if it will take a long time, will eventually make your house look beautiful
This contradicts the assumption that the work may not make the house look beautiful if it takes a long time.WILL TAKE A LONG TIME is not the opposite of WILL MAKE YOUR HOUSE LOOK BEAUTIFUL

Further, the process of transformation, even if it brings revolutionary change, is likely to be a long one.

Assumption: The process of transformation will not take long if it brings revolutionary change.

The "even" statement contradicts an external assumption, and in no way makes a statement about whether a long transformation is good or bad. It simply clarifies to avoid anyone assuming that a transformation bringing revolutionary change will somehow happen faster.
I was stating that the use of such a clause implied contrast from one to the other; good/bad was one example of such.

However, you are probably right, in that I have got "even if" and "even though" mixed up in this instance. My bad, and why I asked for people to point out an error if it was present. Thank you.

Nonetheless, this was the 4th point in defense of the PNAC doc; the other 3 remain, basically, unchallenged, after ~1200 posts. You know the formula; apply the same principle to those 3 as you did to the 4th, and see how you do.

[Augustine]

which is fine when you have answers. when you dont, it is speculating.

such as?

Just because you do not have the answers does not mean that others do not. As has been established many times in this thread, your research is woefully shallow. You find someone who says something you want to hear, then stop.

No it doesnt. The Taliban were happy to have him tried in a court of 3 judges, with one selected by the US and another by Saudi, the US client state. This would have stacked the odds overwhelmingly in the favour of one result, and was proposed by the Taliban. Thus the assertion that they had made arrangements for his death is completely congruent.

A claim, first of all. Second, there is a world of difference between the Saudi government and the Saudi clerics. They are not interchangeable. Given that bin Laden's fatwa supporting the use of nuclear weapons in a terrorist attack came from a Saudi cleric, your assertion that this hypothetical Islamic court would have "stacked the odds" is true, but not in the way that you imagine.

Ok, good. So you are now arguing that we cannot trust this man since though he is an American, he has Afghan heritage, and as such cannot be trusted. Of course this is an argument from xenophobia, and racism, and as such while you may like to argue from it, it is generally inadmissible to any serious debate. Try again.

How is this xenophobia? How is this racist? Your claims of the Taliban offer go against their cultural code. Research pashtun-wali and pannah warkawel and get back to me. This calls into question his original claim, and makes the Taliban's historical refusal to hand over bin Laden understandable in context. Secondly, the concept of "honesty" appears nowhere in the pashtun-wali (which, if you knew what Mohabbat's tribal affiliation was, you would be able to judge relevance). The concept of "telling the truth" is seen as far more malleable, even in Iraq, and definitely in Afghanistan. "Lying" or "shading the truth" is done widely, with little to no regret or even awareness. Again, understand the culture.

No, it is symptomatic of your inabilty/refusal to confront the article in a coherent manner. I think your post here illustrates this nicely.

I think the fact that at 40+ pages you are still straining to wrangle an interpretation out of the PNAC document illustrates the strength of your case quite nicely. I think the fact that there have been numerous instances throughout this thread where you have been shown to be completely oblivious to any larger context illustrates the depth of your thinking quite nicely.

[mjd1982]

[Augustine]

Yes, but it is the Saudi gov who would be choosing the clerics.

Provide reference to support statement that "the Saudi gov would be choosing the clerics". Where is this supported?

Theyre not my claims, theyre Mohabbats.

Understand, you cannot make the argument that Mohabbat is to be disbelieved since Afghans are inherently dishonest.

Briefly, I have never made that argument. I have argued that Mohabbat's claims are questionable because:
- his claims go against all documentation of meetings, documentation done immediately following or soon afterwards, while his claims are years later,
- his claims go against the Taliban cultural code, and their historical record of refusal to turn over bin Laden,
- complete absence of any public statement by any Taliban official expressing any desire to turn over bin Laden,
- complete absence of any corroborating details,
- he is not independent, and his credibility as a witness bears examination, particularly in light of the nature of his claims with respect to above.

Nice try, Junior, but I think Chomsky and Cockburn are right about you...

[jab712]

Originally Posted by Augustine
Research pashtun-wali and pannah warkawel and get back to me. This calls into question his original claim, and makes the Taliban's historical refusal to hand over bin Laden understandable in context. Secondly, the concept of "honesty" appears nowhere in the pashtun-wali (which, if you knew what Mohabbat's tribal affiliation was, you would be able to judge relevance). The concept of "telling the truth" is seen as far more malleable, even in Iraq, and definitely in Afghanistan. "Lying" or "shading the truth" is done widely, with little to no regret or even awareness. Again, understand the culture.

Ha! This is priceless. How many Afghans do you know again? Understand, you cannot make the argument that Mohabbat is to be disbelieved since Afghans are inherently dishonest. This is a stupid, racist argument. Have some sense.

You know MJD, if you actually researched pashtunwali and pannah warkawel like Augustine asked, you would understand what he meant by the above post.

Since you couldn't be bothered to research and you just assumed you understood what he is saying, I went ahead and did some of your work for you.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pashtunwali

Specifically
Hospitality - being hospitable to all, especially guests and strangers, and, at times, even the most hostile of enemies is a key teaching. The exception that makes the rule is when one has come to take advantage of Pashtunwali for their own corrupt ends, bringing harm to you in the pursuit of their aims.


http://www.joshuarey.com/index.pl?Action=ShowArticle&DoNotGoToFood=&ID=25

This link above gives good insight. I have included a passage from the link below...

To Western ears this sounds like a crazy code of honour. In some final judgement of value system against value system beyond the clouds, it may transpire that, in the eye of God, it is indeed crazy. But what it is not is a euphemism for something else. It is hard to explain how deep in the Afghan soul is this code of hospitality since we in the West now have very few non-negotiable values. To every value we apply the test 'what good does it do anyone?' The code of hospitality, for all that it may in the grand scheme of things have some survival value for the society that holds it, is often a very bad thing for all concerned in individual instances.

This is particularly so in the Osama case. Afghanistan gets no benefit from his staying there and is in sore need of all the economic contact it can obtain with the outside world, as well as development assistance. But Osama, having shown up with money and guns at a time when they needed both to fight the Soviet Union (a fight of which we are all beneficiaries, since their victory was a material cause of communism's collapse) has hung about long enough to undergo the metaphysical transformation into a guest. And once a man is a guest he can only cease to be guest by leaving of his own accord. Until he does that you have to protect him or... or nothing: it's not the kind of calculation we make, you just have to protect him and that's it.

This, I repeat, is a difficult thing for Westerners to understand. We would have made more sense of it in the Regency when duelling over matters of honour was a normal thing. I do not mean to commend either duelling or the Afghan's uncompromising code of hospitality. but I want to make it clear that they are real things, different from our everyday experience here.

Augustine is not saying that Afghans are inherently dishonest. Had you researched you would understand, because of their culture, they will lie or shade the truth as it pertains to what they believe. If the Afghans have an uncompromising code of hospitality, they will lie to keep within that code. Mind you, I only researched this for 20 minutes. I am only picking out the hospitality part. I am sure there is more going on here within the culture than the hospitality. This is a start though. Maybe you should research it more for further clarification. I have only provided two links, but do a google search, you will be amazed what you can find, all suggesting the same thing.

Furthermore, because of Mohabbat's tribal affiliation, don't you think HE would understand this? Brings his claims into question, don't you think?

Think! oh and read and research like people suggest.

[DGM]

Jab712:
I had just started researching this subject. Fascinating look into the culture and why they would allow themselves to destroyed over a guest.

[WildCat]

This isnt the "War on AQ"
It most certainly is. From S.J.Res.23 (http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/sjres23.enr.html):
SEC. 2. AUTHORIZATION FOR USE OF UNITED STATES ARMED FORCES.


(a) IN GENERAL- That the President is authorized to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States by such nations, organizations or persons.

[JonnyFive]

It most certainly is. From S.J.Res.23 (http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/sjres23.enr.html):

Choose your answer:

1) Would you stop with all these facts? What do you think this is, the conspiracy facts thread?

2) It isn't technically a "war" because war was never officially declared on terrorism. You can't declare war on an abstract noun. Twenty-three equivocation skiddoo!

3) The JOOOZ, IT WAS THE JOOZ! WHY CAN'T YOU SEE IT WAS THE JOOOOZ?!!?!

[WildCat]

Secondly, the concept of "honesty" appears nowhere in the pashtun-wali (which, if you knew what Mohabbat's tribal affiliation was, you would be able to judge relevance). The concept of "telling the truth" is seen as far more malleable, even in Iraq, and definitely in Afghanistan. "Lying" or "shading the truth" is done widely, with little to no regret or even awareness. Again, understand the culture.
Too bad the British didn't know this in 1842, when they were assured by Afghan tribal chiefs that they would be given safe passage out of Afghanistan if they only gave up their arms... :rolleyes:

[mjd1982]

I'll be back later, but since I couldnt resist...

Augustine is not saying that Afghans are inherently dishonest... they will lie or shade the truth as it pertains to what they believe... they will lie to keep within that code.

Think!

I think inherently bigoted would be a more appropriate slur here.

[Belz...]

1. The point relating to which articles/sources I am using. [...] The 2 are not mutually exclusive

Irrelevant. You're arguing from the argument, really.

2. In terms of what would have happened to 911 had OBL been killed. That is speculation, yes, but look at it this way for one second- why would you not accept OBL dead? It is inexplicable that such would happen, absent belief in the connivance of the US with regard to 911.

Are you saying that the fact that it would happen would be propitious to policy ?

Thats because I have the courtesy to reply to most everyone who posts here

Except mine, apparently. (Posts 1612, 1615, 1618 and 1619)

Nonetheless, this was the 4th point in defense of the PNAC doc; the other 3 remain, basically, unchallenged

Don't you find it annoying when every one of your claims is demolished ?

[Belz...]

Yes, but it is the Saudi gov who would be choosing the clerics. Think!

You think too much. You should stick to what we know, instead of continuing to speculate and interpolate.

I think inherently bigoted would be a more appropriate slur here.

That you absolutely refuse to verify their claims when they have given you pointers certainly speaks volumes about your intentions towards knowing the truth.

[WildCat]

I'll be back later, but since I couldnt resist...



I think inherently bigoted would be a more appropriate slur here.
Statements such as this do nothing but further reveal your astounding ignorance of the issues at hand. You really should try reading a book some time by respected authors, or even watch some of the many fine documentaries available on Afghanistan.

[jab712]

I think inherently bigoted would be a more appropriate slur here.

Oh, I see, you didn't read any of the information I provided. Not that I am surprised really.

[WildCat]

Oh, I see, you didn't read any of the information I provided. Not that I am surprised really.
Of course he didn't read the links. To do so would not be propitious to maintaining his delusions.

[HeyLeroy]

Thats because I have the courtesy to reply to most everyone who posts here; I think I can be excused the odd abbreviation/avoidance of repetition.

Funny, you've avoided several of my posts while choosing to respond to posts bracketing mine.

which is fine when you have answers. when you dont, it is speculating.

Agreed 110 %.

Ok, good. So you are now arguing that we cannot trust this man since though he is an American, he has Afghan heritage, and as such cannot be trusted. Of course this is an argument from xenophobia, and racism, and as such while you may like to argue from it, it is generally inadmissible to any serious debate. Try again.

You are purposely misinterpreting what he said. He's asking you to widen your understanding of a different culture; that doesn't sound very racist to me. You've been shown where to find this information being discussed yet you purposely avoid that as well. Very strange; it appears that you're running some kind of game here. Oh well, here are more links to skip over:

Pakhtoonwali / Pashtoonwali / Pakhtunwali / Pashtunwali(PDF) (http://www.afghanan.net/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=122)
Pakhtoonwali / Pashtoonwali / Pakhtunwali / Pashtunwali(HTML) (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:6xNdfH_5e7oJ:www.afghanan.net/index2.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26do_pdf%3D1%26i d%3D122+pannah+warkawel&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5)

I've known many Afghani refugees from the Soviet invasion era; during that war I sent part of my paper-route money and whatever childrens' clothing I could gather to the mujahidin there in support of their war against the communist invaders (I started when I was thirteen). I've broken bread with them, met their families, seen with my own eyes the stumps of missing arms of children who'd had the misfortune of picking up anti-personnel mines disguised as red toy trucks left behind by columns of Soviet soldiers as they passed through villages. Afghanis are very honourable people and they take that very seriously. Were you to read up on the subject it might make more sense to you how incongruous your arguments are to the reality of the situation.

If you don't understand a different culture, that's fine. If people try to educate you on the subject, it's also fine to disregard such an attempt. But if you try to discuss said culture with a wilful ignorance of the topic at hand, it only makes you look foolish.

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

Originally Posted by SatansMaleVoiceChoir
Originally Posted by
But AQ aren't 'invisible'... many government agencies worldwide are fully aware of prominent members of AQ. OBL was on the FBI's 'Most Wanted' list years before 9/11. Neither is the threat invisible.

This isnt the "War on AQ"
Semantics; AQ were the catalyst for the whole War on Terror, but that's by-the-by; my point was that the enemy in this instance are not 'invisible', which you didn't address.


Originally Posted by SatansMaleVoiceChoir
So what IS the point?! With Saddam alive or dead, the dissidents will still fight. With OBL alive or dead, they will still fight.
Does that mean that they shouldnt be killed/arrested? Does that mena that by doing such you are helping thei terrorists efforts?

Not what I'm saying; my point was that with or without a figurehead, the dissidents will still fight; you seem to be suggesting that 9/11 would never have happened if OBL had been 'taken care of' earlier./B]

Originally Posted by SatansMaleVoiceChoir
So they are dastardly superfiends who leave clues to their cunning plots littered around to mock the only ones who are intelligent enough to realise what they are - the 'Truth' movement?

No, they are moronic, bumbling, murderous imbeciles who would struggle to organise a piss up in a brewery. But given the power of demicratic propaganda, which I have alluded to many times here so far, many people will struggle to find out the information, and when they do, will accept ridiculous subterfuges in order to not have to believe it.

[B]"moronic, bumbling, murderous imbeciles who would struggle to organise a piss up in a brewery" who yet - according to you - who managed to perpetrate/take advantage of the events of 9/11, and - bar the minority of intrepid 'Truth Seekers' - have convinced the world that they knew nothing about it?

Originally Posted by SatansMaleVoiceChoir
So, given that the entire gullible British Government

why entire?

So far as I am aware, not one MP has publicly come forward and stated that they believe 9/11 was an 'inside job'.

Originally Posted by SatansMaleVoiceChoir
has been unwittingly hoodwinked by the villainous and cunning US Government into going to war over a terror plot they allowed and encouraged, and as a result of which have lost probably millions of pounds in destroyed equipment,

Oil, gas and weapons contracts offset that quite readily i would think

Think again. ONE Warrior AFV costs approximately 2 million pounds - not including a full BOWMAN fit. I can think of four instances of destroyed Warriors straight away, since the invasion of Iraq, and when you factor in the logistical costs of simply getting to Iraq and BEING there, I would suggest there IS no benefit. Hence why the British Army are closing down many bases in Iraq and looking to withdraw as soon as possible.

Originally Posted by SatansMaleVoiceChoir
brought the popularity of the current Government to an all-time low,
errr.. Brown may well win the next election, and if he doesnt, Cameron, who has endorsed all of this himself, will do

Whether he endorsed all this or not, if Cameron wins the next election; ie - the OPPOSITION government come to power, I would suggest that is pretty demonstrative of the unpopularity of the current Government who made the decision to aid the US in the War on Terror. Blair's handling of the Iraq invasion is a big factor in the calls for him to step down which, again, indicates unpopularity, don't you think?


Originally Posted by SatansMaleVoiceChoir
spent millions on getting troops to war, millions maintaining them while they're AT war, are currently undergoing an armed forces manning crisis as overstretched soldiers are leaving the army in droves, and last - but not least - have had 150 British soldiers killed - many who's deaths sparked newer controversies - in Iraq alone, can you tell me if you think the benefits outweigh the negatives?

As above, plus think about geo-political strategy for the Brits, It is a matter of hanging on to the big boys coat tails.

Which only maintains the relationship we already have with the US; we don't GAIN from it.

If I may ask again; do you think the London bombings were also 'allowed' to happen so the British Government could further it's own agenda?

[WildCat]

Originally Posted by SatansMaleVoiceChoir
Originally Posted by
SMVC, I find it very difficult to read your posts the way they are formatted - I'm not sure who you're responding to and where a response ends and a quote begins. It's much easier if you'd just use the "quote" button/tags.

[SatansMaleVoiceChoir]

Apologies Wildcat, I post in somewhat of a rush quite a lot of the time.
I shall make every effort to make posts more clear and organised! :blush:

[Belz...]

Use the quote function, Choir. It helps.

And while you're at it, sing us a little song. Hell kings also need some tunes...

[mjd1982]

Provide reference to support statement that "the Saudi gov would be choosing the clerics". Where is this supported?


It;s one of the main articles by have been discussing, keep up:
http://www.infowars.com/saved%20pages/Prior_Knowledge/US_met_taliban.htm


Briefly, I have never made that argument.


(The argument being that Mohabbat cannot be believed since Afghans are inherently dishonest)

Of course, this is a complete lie ("http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=84473&page=40)


Do you notice that honesty is not part of this code?


and again


Research pashtun-wali and pannah warkawel...the concept of "honesty" appears nowhere in the pashtun-wali (which, if you knew what Mohabbat's tribal affiliation was, you would be able to judge relevance)..."Lying" or "shading the truth" is done widely, with little to no regret or even awareness

I don't think I will need to do much more to emphasise the irony of the last phrase, but maybe you can explain why you do such? Maybe I can infer that this is therefore part of the US "cultural code", and can make inferences on US official statements based on that?


I have argued that Mohabbat's claims are questionable because:
- his claims go against all documentation of meetings, documentation done immediately following or soon afterwards, while his claims are years later,


Right. Such as? Show me docs that are mutually exclusive, contrary to what Mohabbat says.


- his claims go against the Taliban cultural code, and their historical record of refusal to turn over bin Laden,


Again, another broad ethnic slur to justify you pov. How sad is this? Do you not understand that you cannot apply a sterotype, or what you call a "cultural code" to every instance of behaviour of every member of a population? It disgusts me to have to be telling somebody this, boy oh boy...

On top of which sources that your colleagues are using do state that the Taliban were willing to hand over OBL to what would have been in essence a US mandated court, which is 100% congruent with what Mohabbat stated.

And finally, we have independence. Your bigoted nature aside, are we going to believe an American/Afghan intermediary with no evident conflicts of interest, or the US state dept's comments on how their procrastination didnt in fact assist in the deaths of 3000 US. This is a simple question for anyone who is looking at this seriously.


- complete absence of any public statement by any Taliban official expressing any desire to turn over bin Laden,


Why would this have to be the case?


- complete absence of any corroborating details,


Other than the reports that we already know, as shown above


- he is not independent, and his credibility as a witness bears examination, particularly in light of the nature of his claims with respect to above.


as above... dear oh dear.

[mjd1982]

It most certainly is. From S.J.Res.23 (http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/sjres23.enr.html):
That is one element of the WOT, I have said this a million times, to you especially, think before posting tripe please.

[mjd1982]

Oh, I see, you didn't read any of the information I provided. Not that I am surprised really.
No, I had read the wikipedia pages when I was referred to them initially.

I will repeat- using an ethnic slur (i.e. that Afghans are inherently, culturally dishonest, thus we cannot believe any of them) is of zero value to a serious argument.

I can give you a nice example of such in fact. There is a common stat repeated outside the US, that some fractional percentage of US own a passport (http://www.gyford.com/phil/writing/2003/01/31/how_many_america.php). This, were I to argue from an ignorant standpoint similar to you are your ilk, illustrates that there is a deeply ingrained culture of complete ignorance and apathy about anything that goes ont outside the US. I could buttress this claim further with quotes from the holder of the highest office in the US. And this premise would lead to the conclusion that nothing a yank says about anything to do with a foreign country can have validity, since ignorance, or at best, ignorant revisionism will colour anything they say on the topic.

Now this is obviously stupid, but it is no more than any other racial slur. So, let's stick to sensible facts and sensible inferences.

[mjd1982]

Funny, you've avoided several of my posts while choosing to respond to posts bracketing mine.


This is because you have had your chance, and very few of your posts here seem serious. This is, pretty much another instance of such.


You are purposely misinterpreting what he said. He's asking you to widen your understanding of a different culture; that doesn't sound very racist to me.


No, that is not what is being asked, it is you who is apparently deliberately misleading himself. The argument is that since Afghans have a "cultural code" of dishonesty, we cannot trust what a half Afghan half yank has to say. This is hard to miss.


You've been shown where to find this information being discussed yet you purposely avoid that as well. Very strange; it appears that you're running some kind of game here. Oh well, here are more links to skip over:

Pakhtoonwali / Pashtoonwali / Pakhtunwali / Pashtunwali(PDF) (http://www.afghanan.net/index2.php?option=com_content&do_pdf=1&id=122)
Pakhtoonwali / Pashtoonwali / Pakhtunwali / Pashtunwali(HTML) (http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:6xNdfH_5e7oJ:www.afghanan.net/index2.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26do_pdf%3D1%26i d%3D122+pannah+warkawel&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=5)

I've known many Afghani refugees from the Soviet invasion era; during that war I sent part of my paper-route money and whatever childrens' clothing I could gather to the mujahidin there in support of their war against the communist invaders (I started when I was thirteen). I've broken bread with them, met their families, seen with my own eyes the stumps of missing arms of children who'd had the misfortune of picking up anti-personnel mines disguised as red toy trucks left behind by columns of Soviet soldiers as they passed through villages. Afghanis are very honourable people and they take that very seriously. Were you to read up on the subject it might make more sense to you how incongruous your arguments are to the reality of the situation.

If you don't understand a different culture, that's fine. If people try to educate you on the subject, it's also fine to disregard such an attempt. But if you try to discuss said culture with a wilful ignorance of the topic at hand, it only makes you look foolish.

Well, well done on your younger efforts.

I will repeat, the posts here are not "learn about another culture". This isnt lonelyplanet.com. It is learn that Afghans lie without knowing it, thus we cannot believe what any of them says. This is, by definition , an ethnic slur, and I hope we will not have to argue this any more here.

[DGM]

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2726463#post2726463

I see you chose not to deal with this post that seriously brings into question the credibility of this source.

[mjd1982]

Semantics; AQ were the catalyst for the whole War on Terror, but that's by-the-by; my point was that the enemy in this instance are not 'invisible', which you didn't address.


They were the catalyst, but this isnt a war on AQ.

They are, essentially invisible in that you cannot see them (!). You can identify them after the fact, but the problem is that this is a "hidden enemy"- they could be sitting opposite you on the tube, bus etc.


Not what I'm saying; my point was that with or without a figurehead, the dissidents will still fight; you seem to be suggesting that 9/11 would never have happened if OBL had been 'taken care of' earlier./B]


I have said a number of times, 2 things- 1) The non killing/arrest of OBL is inexplicable in any other sceanrio than conspiracy (unless someone wants to show me otherwise, which thy havent), and 2) It may not have stopped 911, but would have hindered it at the very least.


[B]"moronic, bumbling, murderous imbeciles who would struggle to organise a piss up in a brewery" who yet - according to you - who managed to perpetrate/take advantage of the events of 9/11, and - bar the minority of intrepid 'Truth Seekers' - have convinced the world that they knew nothing about it?

This is not hard. Read this, chapters 1-3 and 6 if you are serious about finding out more.
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/bernprop.html

Oh, and watch this
http://youtube.com/watch?v=pkKsaRXrvSo

[QUOTE=SatansMaleVoiceChoir;2732365]
So far as I am aware, not one MP has publicly come forward and stated that they believe 9/11 was an 'inside job'.


Michael Meacher.

This doesnt mean that no others believe it, btw



Think again. ONE Warrior AFV costs approximately 2 million pounds - not including a full BOWMAN fit. I can think of four instances of destroyed Warriors straight away, since the invasion of Iraq, and when you factor in the logistical costs of simply getting to Iraq and BEING there, I would suggest there IS no benefit. Hence why the British Army are closing down many bases in Iraq and looking to withdraw as soon as possible.


£8mn? That's nothing!


Whether he endorsed all this or not, if Cameron wins the next election; ie - the OPPOSITION government come to power, I would suggest that is pretty demonstrative of the unpopularity of the current Government who made the decision to aid the US in the War on Terror. Blair's handling of the Iraq invasion is a big factor in the calls for him to step down which, again, indicates unpopularity, don't you think?


The war is unpopular, yes, but whats your point? Its not the decision that wa unpopular, the war has become an albatross, very different. The gov wasnt to know this when they made the decision.


Which only maintains the relationship we already have with the US; we don't GAIN from it.

If I may ask again; do you think the London bombings were also 'allowed' to happen so the British Government could further it's own agenda?

No.

There is a terror threat, but this is the cunning of the WOT- invade countries, mainly Muslim, illegally, commit atrocities, and stir up tensions amongst Muslims, which leads inevitably to teror, or the threat of terror.

[mjd1982]

http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2726463#post2726463

I see you chose not to deal with this post that seriously brings into question the credibility of this source.
Oh please! I missed you, I'm sorry.

Read the article closer. The claim as to the successful nature of his negotiations comes from CP, not from him. There is thus no conflict.

[DGM]

Oh please! I missed you, I'm sorry.

Read the article closer. The claim as to the successful nature of his negotiations comes from CP, not from him. There is thus no conflict.
Wrong. He claims to be successfully negotiating her release. This did not happen. The very same thing as with OBL. He overstates his importance. Really quite simple. Try to comprehend


Towards the end of that same month of October, 2001 Mohabbat was successfully negotiating with the Taliban for the release of Heather Mercer

[DGM]

The claim as to the successful nature of his negotiations comes from CP

Please, He is the source of the article.

[WildCat]

That is one element of the WOT, I have said this a million times, to you especially, think before posting tripe please.
"One element"? It's the actual freaking declaration of war! :rolleyes:

[Unsecured Coins]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/Jaye77/jlhhanesadgifbg0.gif

[DGM]

Kabir Mohabbat definitely should not use the "counter punch" article on his negotiator resume.

Figuring in his extensive dealings with the Taliban in the late 1990s was much investment of time and effort for a contract to develop the proposed oil pipeline through northern Afghanistan.

FAIL

Towards the end of that same month of October, 2001 Mohabbat was successfully negotiating with the Taliban for the release of Heather Mercer

FAIL

Osama bin Laden

FAIL

He's 0 for 3.

[WildCat]

mjd1982, 434 posts so far. Not a single "conspiracy fact". Will you be offering one up soon?

[gumboot]

invade countries, mainly Muslim, illegally, commit atrocities, and stir up tensions amongst Muslims



And meanwhile in the real world?

-Gumboot

[jab712]

This is because you have had your chance, and very few of your posts here seem serious. This is, pretty much another instance of such.

No, that is not what is being asked, it is you who is apparently deliberately misleading himself. The argument is that since Afghans have a "cultural code" of dishonesty, we cannot trust what a half Afghan half yank has to say. This is hard to miss.

Well, well done on your younger efforts.

I will repeat, the posts here are not "learn about another culture". This isnt lonelyplanet.com. It is learn that Afghans lie without knowing it, thus we cannot believe what any of them says. This is, by definition , an ethnic slur, and I hope we will not have to argue this any more here.

Not once did any of the posts say "Afghans have a cultural code of dishonesty". You are either purposely spinning it that way or your reading comprehension skills are seriously lacking. Honestly, I am having a hard time figuring out which it is with you. I want believe that you don't have trouble comprehending and it is just that you are spinning it the way you want to, but I am really starting to wonder.

I would assume that Afghans would prefer not to lie. However, if it comes to going against their culture, they will lie if need be. Or do whatever else they feel necessary to abide by their culture.

Let me give an example that maybe even you can understand. Say you have a mother who is very much against lying, but the safety of her child will be in jeopardy if she tells the truth. That mother is going to lie. She would prefer to never lie, however, if push comes to shove, she will LIE TO PROTECT HER CHILD. Let's take it a step further. That mother, is very much against killing. It is a sin. But her child is in grave danger and the only option she has is to kill the person harming her child. Guess what? She is going to save her child and kill the person. I can say this because I am a mother. I could not take another life, but if it came down to that person or my daughter, that f'r is going down. Does that make all mothers murderers? Hardly. Does that make all mothers liars? Again, no.

Same goes with the Afghans, their cultural code is to protect their guest. If push comes to shove, the Afghan will lie to protect their guest. Or whatever else they need to do to protect their guest. Thus, handing over Bin Laden goes against their cultural code. The POINT, which is so obviously escaping you, is that your source is questionable. Why? Because he should understand, because of his tribal affiliation, that it goes against their cultural code to hand him over. PERIOD.

Good grief MJD, keep up.

[MIKILLINI]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v295/Jaye77/jlhhanesadgifbg0.gif

:jaw-dropp The threads heating up. I do so love Hewitt...ummm Ghost whisperers.

[MIKILLINI]

Not once did any of the posts say "Afghans have a cultural code of dishonesty". You are either purposely spinning it that way or your reading comprehension skills are seriously lacking. Honestly, I am having a hard time figuring out which it is with you. I want believe that you don't have trouble comprehending and it is just that you are spinning it the way you want to, but I am really starting to wonder.

I would assume that Afghans would prefer not to lie. However, if it comes to going against their culture, they will lie if need be. Or do whatever else they feel necessary to abide by their culture.

Let me give an example that maybe even you can understand. Say you have a mother who is very much against lying, but the safety of her child will be in jeopardy if she tells the truth. That mother is going to lie. She would prefer to never lie, however, if push comes to shove, she will LIE TO PROTECT HER CHILD. Let's take it a step further. That mother, is very much against killing. It is a sin. But her child is in grave danger and the only option she has is to kill the person harming her child. Guess what? She is going to save her child and kill the person. I can say this because I am a mother. I could not take another life, but if it came down to that person or my daughter, that f'r is going down. Does that make all mothers murderers? Hardly. Does that make all mothers liars? Again, no.

Same goes with the Afghans, their cultural code is to protect their guest. If push comes to shove, the Afghan will lie to protect their guest. Or whatever else they need to do to protect their guest. Thus, handing over Bin Laden goes against their cultural code. The POINT, which is so obviously escaping you, is that your source is questionable. Why? Because he should understand, because of his tribal affiliation, that it goes against their cultural code to hand him over. PERIOD.

Good grief MJD, keep up.

Mjd, if your not familiar of what jab is describing here, I'll give you an example of this tribal culture in Afghanistan.
This story is what happened with Navy Seal Marcus Luttrell after his unit was involved in a firefight and He was the only one left alive; Shot in the hip and then subsequently captured.

But he couldn't stand. Three men lifted 240 pounds of dead weight and carried Luttrell to the 15-hut village of Sabray. They took his rifle.

What happened next baffled him. Mohammed Gulab, 33, father of six, fed Luttrell warm goat's milk, washed his wounds and clothed him in what Luttrell called "man jammies."

"I didn't trust them," Luttrell said. "I was confused. They'd reassure me, but hell, it wasn't in English."

Hours after his arrival, Taliban fighters appeared and demanded that the villagers surrender the American. They threatened Gulab, Luttrell said, and tried to bribe him. "I was waiting for a good deal to come along and for Gulab to turn me over.

"I'd been in so many villages. I'd be like, 'Up against the wall, and shut the hell up!' So I'm like, why would these people be kind to me?" Luttrell said. "I probably killed one of their cousins. And now I'm shot up, and they're using all the village medical supplies to help me."

What Luttrell did not understand, he said, was that the people of Sabray were following their own rules of engagement -- tribal law. Once they had carried the invalid Seal into their huts, they were committed to defend him. The Taliban fighters seemed to respect that custom, even as they lurked in the hills nearby

The whole story can be found here; http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp;-dyn/content/article/2007/06/10/AR2007061001492.html?hpid=topnews

[mortimer]

I've been following this thread fairly closely. But, did I somewhere miss where mjd provided any evidence that the Bush administration did "nothing" in response to the PDBs regarding the AQ terror threats?

[mjd1982]

Please, He is the source of the article.
No, he, along with memoranda and documentation, is the main source of the article, there are others too. For instance:


By the end of 1999 US sanctions and near-world-wide political ostracism were costing the Taliban dearly


is not an example of him as a source. The example you have given is another such. And in any case, the 2 citations are not mutually exclusive. The one says Mohabbat was negotiating successfully for their withdrawal; the other says they were freed by a group other than the Taliban. Their freeing by another group may have come as a result of the actions of their captors. Neither article goes into more than a few words on the topic. And of course, it is highlu unlikely, given that the CNN article comes from 2001, that 3 years later, Cockburn and St Clair would be so sloppy on these facts to let them pass in the bare-faced way you imply, whether they were their own statements or those of Mohabbat

[mjd1982]

Not once did any of the posts say "Afghans have a cultural code of dishonesty".


Well...let's see what we have...


if it comes to going against their culture, they will lie if need be. Or do whatever else they feel necessary to abide by their culture.


Now who does this come from...oh yeh, you! 3 lines down!

Isnt this incredible? No matter how hard you guys try, you cannot even begin to hide your bigotry. This is incredibly revealing; belief in the OT is not couched in bigotry, but it is in extreme ignorance, of which such bigotry is a drastic symptom.

Moreover, maybe you are not in fact, a bigot in normal circumstances. Yet again, this illustrates another astonishing symptom of belief in the OT; one will sooner turn to bigotry as a subterfuge to buttress that belief, than accept the evident, but unpalatable fact that will lead one in the other direction. As I have said many times on this thread, a "10%" OTer (i.e. deluded rather than ill informed) will accept any subterfuge in order to not have to believe that this was an inside job. If that involves blatant, naked racism and bigotry, then so be it. This little sub section is a perfect, and amazingly stark example of such a propensity.


Let me give an example that maybe even you can understand. Say you have a mother who is very much against lying, but the safety of her child will be in jeopardy if she tells the truth. That mother is going to lie. She would prefer to never lie, however, if push comes to shove, she will LIE TO PROTECT HER CHILD. Let's take it a step further. That mother, is very much against killing. It is a sin. But her child is in grave danger and the only option she has is to kill the person harming her child. Guess what? She is going to save her child and kill the person. I can say this because I am a mother. I could not take another life, but if it came down to that person or my daughter, that f'r is going down. Does that make all mothers murderers? Hardly. Does that make all mothers liars? Again, no.

Same goes with the Afghans, their cultural code is to protect their guest. If push comes to shove, the Afghan will lie to protect their guest. Or whatever else they need to do to protect their guest. Thus, handing over Bin Laden goes against their cultural code. The POINT, which is so obviously escaping you, is that your source is questionable. Why? Because he should understand, because of his tribal affiliation, that it goes against their cultural code to hand him over. PERIOD.

Good grief MJD, keep up.

Lol, right, nice ending.

Ok, this should have been to hard to understand. You are putting forth one of the most basic human propensities, i.e. care for ones offspring, and using it to buttress an ethnic slur, which just doesnt work. Mothers will kill to defend their kids; therefore an Afghan will always lie to protect their guest (who is Mohabbat protecting btw?). This is as pure nonsense as one can imagine, and I hope your not being serious in stating it.

[DGM]

No, he, along with memoranda and documentation, is the main source of the article, there are others too. For instance:



is not an example of him as a source. The example you have given is another such. And in any case, the 2 citations are not mutually exclusive. The one says Mohabbat was negotiating successfully for their withdrawal; the other says they were freed by a group other than the Taliban. Their freeing by another group may have come as a result of the actions of their captors. Neither article goes into more than a few words on the topic. And of course, it is highlu unlikely, given that the CNN article comes from 2001, that 3 years later, Cockburn and St Clair would be so sloppy on these facts to let them pass in the bare-faced way you imply, whether they were their own statements or those of Mohabbat
Another interpretation on your part? It still leads to question the creditability of the offers and the "counter punch" article.

[mjd1982]

I've been following this thread fairly closely. But, did I somewhere miss where mjd provided any evidence that the Bush administration did "nothing" in response to the PDBs regarding the AQ terror threats?
Yes. The quote regarding the PDBs from the 911 Commission report:


There were more than 40 intelligence articles in the PDBs from January 20
to September 10, 2001, that related to Bin Ladin.


(Excuse the minor inaccuracies in previous posts related to this)

Regarding Bush's inaction, again from the 911 Comm report:


We have found no indication of any further discussion before September
11 among the President and his top advisers of the possibility of a threat of an al Qaeda attack in the United States. DCI Tenet visited President Bush in
Crawford,Texas, on August 17 and participated in PDB briefings of the Pres=
ident between August 31 (after the President had returned toWashington) and September 10. But Tenet does not recall any discussions with the President ofthe domestic threat during this period...domestic agencies did
not know what to do, and no one gave them direction...The borders
were not hardened.Transportation systems were not fortified. Electronic sur
veillance was not targeted against a domestic threat. State and local law
enforcement were not marshaled to augment the FBI’s efforts.The public was
not warned.


ETA- we are gonna get to this in time. For the moment, it would be best if we stick on the refusal to have OBL handed over or killed, and then move onto the PDB's/demotion of Clarke.

[mjd1982]

Another interpretation on your part? It still leads to question the creditability of the offers and the "counter punch" article.
No, because they are not mutually exclusive details, as explained to you, but as you refuse to address.

Incidentally, isnt it interesting how easy you find it to question to credibility of Mohabbat; yet you find no such difficulty in questioning Bush's State dept.

[DGM]

Incidentally, isnt it interesting how easy you find it to question to credibility of Mohabbat; yet you find no such difficulty in questioning Bush's State dept.

The major difference is I have done the research and have looked at the facts without a predetermined conclusion.

[Brainache]

...
ETA- we are gonna get to this in time. For the moment, it would be best if we stick on the refusal to have OBL handed over or killed, and then move onto the PDB's/demotion of Clarke.

You still seem to believe that the Taliban had the ability to "hand Bin Laden over" to the US.

How could they have done this? He wasn't living by himself in a suburban bungalow, he was being protected by his own army.

Even if the Taliban wanted to hand him over I doubt that anyone negotiating with them believed that they could.

If the Taliban had given the US target coordinates for a cruise missile strike, there was no guarantee that Bin Laden would be there when the missile arrived.

The negotiators obviously decided that the Taliban were not negotiating in good faith. What makes you think that you know more about it than they did?

[WildCat]

Isnt this incredible? No matter how hard you guys try, you cannot even begin to hide your bigotry. This is incredibly revealing; belief in the OT is not couched in bigotry, but it is in extreme ignorance, of which such bigotry is a drastic symptom.

...etc etc
I see, when you can't counter a documented fact you resort to ad-homs. :rolleyes:

[MIKILLINI]

I've been following this thread fairly closely. But, did I somewhere miss where mjd provided any evidence that the Bush administration did "nothing" in response to the PDBs regarding the AQ terror threats?

He's arguing the article's from Counterpunch and single source India Globe about how Bin Laden's "head" was offered to the U.S. on a platter and Bush didn't take the offer. This bit has turned into the culture of Afghanistan and how unlikely it would be for Al-Queda to be trusted in addition to how naive the US was about Afghani tribal culture. Mjd is taking the angle that We are blind to the subterfuge of the Bush Administration's oppurtunity to refuse the offer as complicity LIHOP, while at the same time making ad-hom attacks and accusations of bigotry.
Now your caught up.

[mjd1982]

The major difference is I have done the research and have looked at the facts without a predetermined conclusion.
Right, well if this is the case, please tell me for starters how/why you accept unfailingly, the word of the State Dept in possibly the most overtly corrupt and mendacious administration in US history, when it contradicts independent, expert insider testimony? Back to the subterfuge; in any other situation you would think twice before you believe a word that comes out of any of their mouts, but when it comes to 911, you appear so unwilling to swallow anything that may lead towards an unpalatable truth, that you believe them unquestioningly. Why is this?

[mjd1982]

You still seem to believe that the Taliban had the ability to "hand Bin Laden over" to the US.

How could they have done this? He wasn't living by himself in a suburban bungalow, he was being protected by his own army.

Even if the Taliban wanted to hand him over I doubt that anyone negotiating with them believed that they could.

If the Taliban had given the US target coordinates for a cruise missile strike, there was no guarantee that Bin Laden would be there when the missile arrived.

The negotiators obviously decided that the Taliban were not negotiating in good faith. What makes you think that you know more about it than they did?
Errr.... right. So because they didnt accept the offer, your conclusion is that they must have believed that they were lying. Let's see what Mohabbat has to say about that:


"We all agreed," Mohabbat tells CounterPunch, "the best way was to gather Osama and all his lieutenants in one location and the US would send one or two Cruise missiles."

Up to that time Osama had been living on the outskirts of Kandahar. At some time shortly after the Frankfurt meeting, the Taliban moved Osama and placed him and his retinue under house arrest at Daronta, thirty miles from Kabul.

In the wake of the 2000 election Mohabbat traveled to Islamabad and met with William Milam, US ambassador to Pakistan and the person designated by the Clinton administration to deal with the Taliban on the fate of bin Laden. Milam told Mohabbat that it was a done deal but that the actual handover of bin Laden would have to be handled by the incoming Bush administration.

On November 23, 2000, Mohabbat got a call from the NSC saying they wanted to put him officially on the payroll as the US government's contact man for the Taliban. He agreed. A few weeks later an official from the newly installed Bush NSC asked him to continue in the same role and shortly thereafter he was given a letter from the administration (Mohabbat tells us he has a copy), apologizing to the Taliban for not having dealt with bin Laden, explaining that the new government was still setting in, and asking for a meeting in February 2001.

The Bush administration sent Mohabbat back, carrying kindred tidings of delay and regret to the Taliban three more times in 2001, the last in September after the 9/11 attack. Each time he was asked to communicate similar regrets about the failure to act on the plan agreed to in Frankfurt. This procrastination became a standing joke with the Taliban, Mohabbat tells CounterPunch "They made an offer to me that if the US didn't have fuel for the Cruise missiles to attack Osama in Daronta, where he was under house arrest, they would pay for it."


That's how they would have done it; that's how the US refused it.

[mjd1982]

Mark-

The PNAC section of your LC guide is lying in tatters on p3 of the Conspiracy Facts thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=84473&page=3). You have been exhorted many many times to address it sensibly, if, that is, you do indeed take your own comments seriously. As can be seen on the thread, you have been unable to do so. Given that you are such an intrepid seeker of the truth, will you tell us why this is? If you have indeed extricated yourself from the mire of your own stupid conclusions, it might be best to not let your colleagues here continue wallowing in it.

I will wait.

Merged in from AAH thread

[Brainache]

Errr.... right. So because they didnt accept the offer, your conclusion is that they must have believed that they were lying. Let's see what Mohabbat has to say about that:

...
Up to that time Osama had been living on the outskirts of Kandahar. At some time shortly after the Frankfurt meeting, the Taliban moved Osama and placed him and his retinue under house arrest at Daronta, thirty miles from Kabul.
...



That's how they would have done it; that's how the US refused it.

Are there any references to this "house arrest" other than the CP article and Mr Mohabbat's assertions?

I'm not saying that it isn't true, just that I think to accept it requires more than one person's say-so.

Anything from the USG negotiators? Or the Taliban? Any other Journalists?

[DGM]

Right, well if this is the case, please tell me for starters how/why you accept unfailingly, the word of the State Dept in possibly the most overtly corrupt and mendacious administration in US history, when it contradicts independent, expert insider testimony?

Your ugly bias is showing again. Anyway, I have yet to see any credible evidence from a non-bias source that confirm Mohabbat's claims. Why do you take his story with absolute faith? You don't need to answer that I know why.

in any other situation you would think twice before you believe a word that comes out of any of their mouts, but when it comes to 911, you appear so unwilling to swallow anything that may lead toward an unpalatable truth, that you believe them unquestioningly. Why is this?

Your right. except I have the ability to look at things with an open mind. I can weigh information for what it is. If you can show me ONE piece of credible information that isn't spawned from hate and paranoia I'll look. So far I've seen no reason to take the PNAC for anything more than face value. Your lack of compelling argument has done nothing to change this view. All your information is old hat. Your generous use of the thesaurus does not change the facts.

[Belz...]

I will repeat- using an ethnic slur (i.e. that Afghans are inherently, culturally dishonest, thus we cannot believe any of them) is of zero value to a serious argument.

How do you know it's a slur and not a fact if you don't verify the information ?

Now who does this come from...oh yeh, you! 3 lines down!

Isnt this incredible? No matter how hard you guys try, you cannot even begin to hide your bigotry.

I submit, mjd, that you have problems reading the English language. Either that, or with logic. To equate "if it comes to going against their culture, they will lie if need be" with "Afghans have a cultural code of dishonesty" is a shocking example of deficient reading ability. Honestly, I think you should take courses, if you're going to continue interacting and debating with people.

Right, well if this is the case, please tell me for starters how/why you accept unfailingly, the word of the State Dept in possibly the most overtly corrupt and mendacious administration in US history

I do believe this is called poisoning the well.

[Augustine]

No, because they are not mutually exclusive details, as explained to you, but as you refuse to address.

Incidentally, isnt it interesting how easy you find it to question to credibility of Mohabbat; yet you find no such difficulty in questioning Bush's State dept.

It is not merely "Bush's State Dept."; Mohabbat's version runs counter to Clinton State Department officials (Madeline Albright - Secretary of State), NSC officials (Sandy Berger), Richard Clarke, and of course Bill Clinton himself. How vast is this conspiracy again? :rolleyes:

[Augustine]

Right, well if this is the case, please tell me for starters how/why you accept unfailingly, the word of the State Dept in possibly the most overtly corrupt and mendacious administration in US history, when it contradicts independent, expert insider testimony? Back to the subterfuge; in any other situation you would think twice before you believe a word that comes out of any of their mouts, but when it comes to 911, you appear so unwilling to swallow anything that may lead towards an unpalatable truth, that you believe them unquestioningly. Why is this?

I'm sorry, which administration's State Department are you talking about again? Clinton or Bush? Because both administrations contradict Mohabbat's version.

[Augustine]

You still seem to believe that the Taliban had the ability to "hand Bin Laden over" to the US.

How could they have done this? He wasn't living by himself in a suburban bungalow, he was being protected by his own army.

Even if the Taliban wanted to hand him over I doubt that anyone negotiating with them believed that they could.

If the Taliban had given the US target coordinates for a cruise missile strike, there was no guarantee that Bin Laden would be there when the missile arrived.

The negotiators obviously decided that the Taliban were not negotiating in good faith. What makes you think that you know more about it than they did?

Interestingly, Richard Clarke wrote the following in his Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al Qida: Status and Prospects (December 2000) "The Afghan Northern Alliance is engaged in civil war with the Taliban. Al Qida has been a major source of the Taliban's success, providing the best fighting unit (the 55th Brigade) and literally buying the support of provincial leaders."

Other statements agree with this assessment: the best unit in the Taliban's army came from Al Qaeda. Quite an incentive not to hand over bin Laden...not only could they probably not do it, but they would almost certainly lose their most effective fighting force - or even worse, have it turn against them.

(Strangely enough, Richard Clarke's memo makes NO MENTION of the Taliban offer to hand over bin Laden....hmmmmm.....:confused: .....oh that's right, BECAUSE IT DIDN'T HAPPEN....:p )

[lapman]

Been gone a few days, but I had to respond to this.
(Response to Lapman)

LMAO!!

Great gag, another intrepid truth seeker we have on this thread.

Just to show how ridiculous your point is, who the f@$k has heard of Kabir Moabbat?
Did you bother to read your own link? Kabir is the one that claims to have brokered the deal.
In a lengthy interview and in a memorandum Kabir Mohabbat has given us a detailed account and documentation to buttress his charge that the Bush administration could have had Osama bin Laden and his senior staff either delivered to the US or to allies as prisoners, or killed at their Afghan base.
and let's not forget:
At this point the US State Department called Mohabbat and said the government wanted to retain his services, even before his official period on the payroll, which lasted from November of 2000 to late September, 2001, by which time he tells us he had been paid $115,000.


So, why is my claim ridiculous?

[Unsecured Coins]

I predict that this new information will be labeled irrelevant in 3, 2, 1....

[mjd1982]

Your ugly bias is showing again. Anyway, I have yet to see any credible evidence from a non-bias source that confirm Mohabbat's claims. Why do you take his story with absolute faith? You don't need to answer that I know why.


His claims are supported by documentation which, though we do have not seen, is confirmed by 2 of the most reputable journalists in the US, to be valid support of his claims. In the absence of anything that would seriously exclude the possibility of his claims being true, there is no reason not to believe so.

In addition, as I have said, your colleagues have already propounded the argument that he was offered to be tried in Saudi, by a US weighted court; thus almost certainly sending him one way. This is congruent with the Taliban's actions here, and is also, awaiting an explanation from you lot as to why it was refused.


Your right. except I have the ability to look at things with an open mind. I can weigh information for what it is. If you can show me ONE piece of credible information that isn't spawned from hate and paranoia I'll look.


Hate and paranoia? What the hell are you talking about?


So far I've seen no reason to take the PNAC for anything more than face value. Your lack of compelling argument has done nothing to change this view. All your information is old hat. Your generous use of the thesaurus does not change the facts.

Ok good, we can do this. If you are serious about this debate, which very few of your ilk are, evidently, return to post 493, and contest it (given that you have mentioned PNAC). This post has not been seriously contested by anyone, despite multiple exhortations, and it was ~1200 posts ago. Maybe, my open minded friend, you can deduce why this would be the case.

[mjd1982]

How do you know it's a slur and not a fact if you don't verify the information ?


for the same reason I do not need to check with lots of Jewish people to verify that they are not all money grabbing and avaricious; or indeed any pejorative description that would apply to an entire ethnicity, race or nationality. This is called racism, and it should not really be tolerated.


I submit, mjd, that you have problems reading the English language. Either that, or with logic. To equate "if it comes to going against their culture, they will lie if need be" with "Afghans have a cultural code of dishonesty" is a shocking example of deficient reading ability. Honestly, I think you should take courses, if you're going to continue interacting and debating with people.


Well, thanks for the point, but since there is little substance, I cant really offer a reply


I do believe this is called poisoning the well.

Ok.

[mjd1982]

It is not merely "Bush's State Dept."; Mohabbat's version runs counter to Clinton State Department officials (Madeline Albright - Secretary of State), NSC officials (Sandy Berger), Richard Clarke, and of course Bill Clinton himself. How vast is this conspiracy again? :rolleyes:
Oh really? Please show where such information has been discredited by such people.

[mjd1982]

Interestingly, Richard Clarke wrote the following in his Strategy for Eliminating the Threat from the Jihadist Networks of al Qida: Status and Prospects (December 2000)

Other statements agree with this assessment: the best unit in the Taliban's army came from Al Qaeda. Quite an incentive not to hand over bin Laden...not only could they probably not do it, but they would almost certainly lose their most effective fighting force - or even worse, have it turn against them.

(Strangely enough, Richard Clarke's memo makes NO MENTION of the Taliban offer to hand over bin Laden....hmmmmm.....:confused: .....oh that's right, BECAUSE IT DIDN'T HAPPEN....:p )
Right, and what is the counter incentive? Relief from the sanction that have been crippling their country. The "carpet of gold" the US had been promising possibly. Think about this.

Regarding Clarke's memo, it came out in Dec 2000, and would have been written before then. The concrete straetgies for killing OBL, e.g. the house in Daronta, came out around this same time. Thus it can be no way other than Clarke not mentioning it.

Such an offer didnt exist, yes, but Inappropriate remark removed.

Do not use personal attacks or insults to argue your point.

[mjd1982]

Been gone a few days, but I had to respond to this.

Did you bother to read your own link? Kabir is the one that claims to have brokered the deal.

and let's not forget:


So, why is my claim ridiculous?
You claim was that Mohabbat was doing this to get famous.

My point was that he was not famous.

Very simple.

[Augustine]

Oh really? Please show where such information has been discredited by such people.

Madeline Albright, Secretary of State at the time of the supposed “offer”:

“In retrospect, it is clear the Taliban never had any intention of giving bin Laden up or of forcing him to leave.” (testimony to Kean-Hamilton Commission, March 23, 2004)

Large excerpt:

Two days after we launched our cruise missile attacks in response to the Kenya-Tanzania bombings, a Taliban representative called the State department to complain. He even put his reclusive leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, on the line. This conversation led to a dialogue spread over more than two years during which we repeatedly pressed the Taliban to hand over Osama bin Laden. Taliban officials replied not by saying no directly but rather by offering a menu of excuses. They said that surrendering bin Laden would violate the Pushtun cultural tradition of courtesy to guests. They said that bin Laden was a hero to Afghans because of his role in ousting the Soviets and that the Taliban would be overthrown if they “betrayed” him in response to American pressure. And they said that they did not believe bin Laden was responsible for the embassy attacks because they had asked him and he had told them he was innocent. For a time, we thought the Taliban might be persuadable.
Notwithstanding their excuses, Taliban officials admitted that their “guest” had become a big problem. They told us that perhaps he would leave “voluntarily.”
At one point, they told us he had already gone. There were rumors that he was ill and had slipped away to find medical treatment. In any case, Taliban leaders assured us that bin Laden was under house arrest and would be prevented from contacting his followers or the press. We didn’t buy these pledges, since the terrorist continued to show up in the media vowing to kill Americans.
Early in 1999, Lt. Col. (ret.) Michael Sheehan--the State Department’s director of Counter-terrorism--proposed a comprehensive diplomatic approach entitled “A New Strategy to Get Bin Laden.” After inter-agency deliberations, the strategy was approved in May. The plan basically was to go to each of the countries that we thought had influence and urge them to tell Taliban leaders that they must hand over bin Laden or else face the loss of diplomatic contacts and a prohibition on international flights by Afghan airlines. Meanwhile, we would make clear to Taliban officials directly our intention to propose UN sanctions if they didn’t come around.
In succeeding weeks, we implemented this strategy according to plan, but the plan did not work. Officials from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates agreed to deliver the right message. The Saudis sent one of their princes to confront the Taliban directly. He came back and told us the Taliban were idiots and liars. Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah visited the Pakistanis for the purpose of putting pressure on them. When the Taliban failed to cooperate, the Saudis did downgrade their diplomatic ties, cut off official assistance and denied visas to Afghans traveling for nonreligious reasons. The UAE took similar actions.
Assistant Secretary of State for South Asia Rick Inderfurth and Mike Sheehan met directly with Taliban leaders. They hinted that cooperation would result in the only thing the Taliban desperately wanted: international recognition (although drug and human rights issues remained obstacles). We told the Taliban that if they did not come through they could expect nothing more than the barest kind of humanitarian aid from the international community. They could forget about economic assistance or loans. And we warned Taliban leaders clearly and repeatedly that they would be held responsible for any future attacks traceable to bin Laden, and that we reserved the right to use military force.
Faced with Taliban intransigence, we made good on our threat to impose sanctions. On July 5, 1999, the president issued an order freezing the Taliban’s U.S. assets and prohibiting trade. This was followed by UN sanctions imposed in 1999 and toughened in 2000. Those UN Security Council resolutions were approved under chapter 7 of the UN Charter signifying a threat to international peace and security. They demanded that the Taliban turn over bin Laden and close all terror training camps. The 2000 resolution imposed an arms embargo, urged the closing of any overseas Taliban offices, and barred the Afghan airline from most international flights.
During this period, we continued to meet with the Taliban occasionally, although the dialogue—never productive—had become completely sterile. In repeating our warnings, Mike Sheehan was explicit, “If bin Laden or any of the organizations affiliated with him attacks the United States or United States interests, we will hold you personally accountable. Do you understand? This is from the highest levels of our government.” In May 2000, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Tom Pickering reinforced this message yet again in a meeting in Pakistan with Mullah Jalil, “deputy foreign minister” and a close associate of Mullah Omar.
The Taliban was a national, not an international movement. It did not exhibit the same malevolently grandiose ambitions that al-Qaeda did in carrying out acts of terror abroad. Further, bin Laden had already relocated to Afghanistan when the Taliban seized power, so there was no pre-existing connection between them. Nevertheless, a symbiotic relationship developed between the Taliban and bin Laden. The Taliban needed money and muscle that bin Laden provided. Bin Laden needed space for his operatives to live and train.
By mid-1998, bin Laden’s influence was reflected in the increasingly pan-Islamist statements of Taliban leaders. Mullah Omar must have concluded that without bin Laden his power in Afghanistan would be threatened. In retrospect, it is clear the Taliban never had any intention of giving bin Laden up or of forcing him to leave.


A rather curious omission for the Secretary of State at the time of the supposed offer: that the Taliban offered bin Laden's - what was the phrase - "head on a platter"? Unless of course, NO SUCH OFFER WAS MADE.

astonishingly deluded mind
EXACTLY.

[lapman]

You claim was that Mohabbat was doing this to get famous.

My point was that he was not famous.

Very simple.
Hence, his attempt at getting famous didn't work. So, where is your documentation that supports Kabir's claim? Not news stories from less than credible sources, but actual memo's, paystubs, official papers, etc.

[Augustine]

Oh really? Please show where such information has been discredited by such people.

Testimony of Samuel Berger, National Security Advisor at the time of the alleged "offer" to the Kean-Hamilton Commission, March 24, 2004:

"Unfortunately, we learned after 9/11 that Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leadership were inseparable - that the Taliban would be destroyed without turning over bin Laden."

Fuller excerpt:

Fifth, we exerted strong diplomatic and economic pressure on the Taliban to give up Osama bin Laden by withholding recognition of their regime, and threatening to hold them responsible for any future al Qaeda attacks on American interests. We engaged in determined diplomacy with leaders and officials in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and the United Arab Emirates, as well as at the G-7 - all with the active participation of both President Clinton and Vice President Gore. The President insisted that two of the annual G-7 leadership summits during our Administration be devoted primarily to terrorism and greater international cooperation. Indeed, President Clinton felt strongly enough about the terrorist threat that he put his personal safety on the line by traveling to Pakistan in 2000, against the vigorous advice of the Secret Service, and personally pressing General Musharraf on the need to confront the Taliban. These efforts culminated in the UN Security Council adopting UNSCR 1333 in December 2000, which included a multilateral arms embargo against the Taliban.
Unfortunately, we learned after 9/11 that Osama bin Laden and the Taliban leadership were inseparable - that the Taliban would be destroyed without turning over bin Laden.


AGAIN, a rather curious omission for the National Security Advisor at the time of the supposed offer: that the Taliban offered bin Laden's - what was the phrase - "head on a platter"? Unless of course, NO SUCH OFFER WAS MADE.

astonishingly deluded mind
JUNIOR?

[JonnyFive]

hey... wait a sec... that's not a hot young scantily clad woman!!

That's where you're wrong, bucko! You see, it's really a picture of a naked lady, but in order to comply with forum rules, HyJinX has applied the old "Soldier" filter to it. You need to disable your forum filter to see the real picture, which is a rather nice one of Mrs. Angelina Jolie in a highly provocative position.

In order to disable the filter, assuming you're using a Windows machine, simply open the "start" menu, navigate to "programs" > "accesories," and click "command prompt."

Then, type in "FORMAT C:" and be sure to answer "yes" to all the various prompts. Ignore the warnings, they're just there to scare you away from the hot, forbidden nudity

If you're using a Mac or Linux or something, please follow this alternative procedure:

-Get a hammer.
-Hit your computer with the hammer as hard as possible at least 40-50 times.
-Not your monitor. It is important to hit the actual computer - hard drives, CD rom, motherboard. Open it up if need be, but make sure you work it good.

That should do it.*







*If you actually do or consider doing any of this, you should seriously consider never touching a computer again for as long as you live.

[nicepants]

His claims are supported by documentation which, though we do have not seen, is confirmed by 2 of the most reputable journalists in the US, to be valid support of his claims.

1 - Who are "the most reputable journalists in the US", and how is this determined?

2 - Who are the specific journalists you're referring to who "confirmed" this?

2.1 - And links to where they confirmed same.

3 - Why haven't we seen this documentation to back up his claims?

[Unsecured Coins]

*If you actually do or consider doing any of this, you should seriously consider never touching a computer again for as long as you live.

AHHHHHK!!! TOO LATE!

[Augustine]

Oh really? Please show where such information has been discredited by such people.

Please cite for me where in Richard Clarke's memo to incoming National Security Advisor Dr. Condoleezza Rice he advises her to accept the offer of bin Laden's "head on a platter". Or where he even MENTIONS IT.

Why is this? Why did Richard Clarke not tell her about the offer? Why did he not recommend the new administration act on it and accept it? Was Clinton's chief counter-terrorism advisor completely unaware of this bombshell? Or did it NEVER EXIST.*

The most obvious explanation - NO SUCH OFFER WAS MADE.

* except in your

astonishingly deluded mind

Junior.

[Augustine]

Oh really? Please show where such information has been discredited by such people.

From Bill Clinton's interview with Chris Wallace, September 24, 2006, which you previously linked to:


So I tried and failed. When I failed, I left a comprehensive anti-terror strategy and the best guy in the country, Dick Clarke, who got demoted.


Even Bill Clinton's detractors would agree that he is an articulate, skilled speaker. Gifted at speaking extemporaneously. Yet, apparently here, when he is justifying his performance, particularly as contrasted with the Bush administration, he FORGETS TO MENTION THAT HE PASSED ON TO THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION THAT OFFER OF OBL's "HEAD ON A PLATTER". And that little piece has remained forgotten, for the nearly 7 years since. Despite the political mileage the Democrats could get out of it.

Wow. Maybe that offer, well, NEVER REALLY EXISTED.

Except, of course, for Junior, in his

ASTONISHINGLY
DELUDED
MIND

[Augustine]

So, Junior, how vast is this conspiracy again?

[Augustine]

Right, and what is the counter incentive? Relief from the sanction that have been crippling their country. The "carpet of gold" the US had been promising possibly. Think about this.

Think about this. "Incentives" don't do you a lick of good when you are no longer in power because your best fighting unit is either sitting out the fight with the Northern Alliance or fighting with them.

Regarding Clarke's memo, it came out in Dec 2000, and would have been written before then. The concrete straetgies for killing OBL, e.g. the house in Daronta, came out around this same time. Thus it can be no way other than Clarke not mentioning it.

So Richard Clarke never got around to mentioning it in his memo to Condoleezza Rice? Never got around to mentioning it to anybody? Maybe he's still catching up with his paperwork? Maybe that's why it's not even in his book?

Such an offer didnt exist, yes,

EXACTLY

[Augustine]

1 - Who are "the most reputable journalists in the US", and how is this determined?

2 - Who are the specific journalists you're referring to who "confirmed" this?

2.1 - And links to where they confirmed same.

3 - Why haven't we seen this documentation to back up his claims?

I hope mjd1982 is not referring to Cockburn and St. Clair. As of 2004, when the story ran, the total paid circulation of Counterpunch was 5,000. (Compared with the India Globe's 10,000. And, say, the Washington Post's 700,000.) Of course, because they are saying something he likes to hear, I would imagine that makes them "the most reputable journalists in the US". :rolleyes:

What's that word? Propitious?

[DGM]

His claims are supported by documentation which, though we do have not seen, is confirmed by 2 of the most reputable journalists in the US.

These guy's?

Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair are both veteran journalists and authors doing the kind of muckraking political and other investigative writing only found in the US online and in out-of-the-mainstream publications and political newsletters like the one they co-publish and edit - CounterPunch with its counterpart web site of the same name.

In addition, he's a contributing editor of In These Times magazine and has written for The Nation, The Progressive, New Left Review and other publications.


http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=12838

CounterPunch is a biweekly newsletter published in the United States that covers politics from a left-wing perspective. It includes a website, updated daily, which contains much more material not published in the newsletter.

Running six to eight pages in length, the CounterPunch newsletter primarily publishes commentaries by Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair with regular contributions by others. It is noted for its critical coverage of both Democratic and Republican politicians and its extensive reporting of environmental and trade union issues, American foreign policy, and the Israeli-Arab conflict. CounterPunch considers itself to carry on the tradition of muckraking journalism of earlier investigative journalists such as I.F. Stone and George Seldes, casting its approach as "muckraking with a radical attitude."

Alexander Claud Cockburn (pronounced [ˈkəʊbɜːn], "co-burn"), born June 6, 1941, is a self-described radical Irish journalist who has lived and worked in the United States since 1973. Together with Jeffrey St. Clair he edits the political newsletter CounterPunch. He also writes the "Beat the Devil" column for The Nation and a weekly syndicated column for the Los Angeles Times. Cockburn was also a regular contributor to the Anderson Valley Advertiser.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Cockburn


Not exactly highly respected.

[rwguinn]

These guy's?






http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=12838





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Cockburn


Not exactly highly respected.
AH--He said "Reputable", just not who held them in repute...

or:

He just forgot to put the "dis" in front
ETA:
OR:
"Dis" is singular. and nobody ever uses "desereputable"

[Darth Rotor]

Mark-

The PNAC section of your LC guide is lying in tatters on p3 of the Conspiracy Facts thread (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=84473&page=3). You have been exhorted many many times to address it sensibly, if, that is, you do indeed take your own comments seriously. As can be seen on the thread, you have been unable to do so. Given that you are such an intrepid seeker of the truth, will you tell us why this is? If you have indeed extricated yourself from the mire of your own stupid conclusions, it might be best to not let your colleagues here continue wallowing in it.

I will wait.
Hi

Some of your rubbish was shredded in this post.

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2682478&postcount=89

As for your analysis of PNAC, I find some of your embedded assumptions to be smothered in post hoc rationalization. I read the PNAC piece in early 2001. In 2003, I read Kagan's "On Paradise and Power" and was struck by how he correctly pointed to the loss of political will in NATO. PNAC's capstone document was written in 1998, and as I read it, was aimed at President Clinton, and a direct criticism of his foreign policy, particularly Clinton's having played away a winning hand he had been dealt in the form of the US Military he inherited upon his innauguration.
Now, since some have pointed out that this has been "debunked ad nauseam", I'm going to take the PNAC section of Gravy's Loose Change Guide, and go through it. I am aware that you have discussed it at points, but with little clarity, it would seem. So.

I have yet to come across a 9/11 conspiracy theorist who DID NOT use this quote as "evidence" that the terrorist attacks were an "inside job" by the neo-cons in the U.S. government. However, the PNAC quote is about the typically slow growth of military technology, abetted by budget cuts in defense R&D.
Problems already. Firstly, the quote is not about slow growth in technology. The transformation addressed is quite clear to ascertain- that of technology and operational concepts. This is evident from:

The United States cannot simply declare a “strategic pause” while experimenting with new
technologies and operational concepts and an instance of potential transformation cited.
A transformation strategy that solely pursued capabilities for projecting force from the United States, for example, and sacrificed forward basing and presence, would be at odds with larger American policy goals and would trouble American allies.
A clear example of a transformational strategy that is not merely technological in nature. Thus, the term "transformation" refers not only to technologies, but also to operational concepts- global posture, transformation of the DoD, using cyberspace as a defense tool- which have been the subject of much of the document.
At core, you miss a key strategic point. After The Wall came down, a significant political movement in the US arose to "stop being the world's policeman" and "accrue the peace dividend." This brought the US Army down from 17 divisions to 12, for example, cut the US Navy down to 300+ from 500+ combatants, reduced the number of ACC Wings to 20, etc. What the PNAC guys were ragging on about was that the base force, Powells's Bottom's Up Review product, had been discarded, and that the old "Two Major Regional Contingency" force posturing (One in Korea, on in the Mid East) had been eroded to "Win one, hold one" with the allies in the "hold" strategy rather nervous about how long hold would have to go on since they relied on big brother US to help them win. Hold is not a winning strategy, it is a delaying strategy. The CONUS based, globally projected strategy much talked about in the Aspin, Perry, Cohen Sec Def days had a small problem: the strat lift to accomplish it wasn't on hand. LMSR, LPD 17, and C-17 were all in trouble in the mid 1990's, and underfunded, as was Comanche for about a decade before it got cut. It is worth noting that General Shinseki, when he took over as Chief of Staff under Clinton, was a man bound and determined to break the US Army from its love affair with the tank in favor of a lighter armored vehicle, partly to make the US Army more deployable From A CONUS Base.

The Clinton cuts beyond the base force, to 10 divisions from 12, to 12 CVBG's with <300 ships, and other reductions in force were seen as a signal to Korea that we weren't sincere about defending them IAW current Op Plans that were, as of that writing, agreed. Taking the PNAC analysis as viewed through a paper towel tube is an intellecutally dishonest method of analyzing the paper.

It is in no way a plan or suggestion for a "new Pearl Harbor."
It states that for such a transformation, crucial, to occur within a timeframe shorter than decades, a new Pearl Harbour would need to happen. Given that for such to happen within years/months, rather than decades is propitious, especially bearing in mind the aims of the "Projects for the new american century", then we can equally conclude that they deem a new PH propitious to policy.No, we cannot. We can conclude nothing of the sort. IT shows rather a profound understanding of US military civilian patterns, and the grow/shrink cycles that have gone on since the days of the Revolution, in terms of the military establishment, as well as the powerful Jacksonian strain of American populism who don't want to mess in foreign affairs without powerful reasons. The statemens as written is a clear headed analysis of the political trends in the US. This has been interpreted POST HOC, over and over, as a mission statement pointed to creating a Second Perl Harbor. It requires an agenda to make that interpretation. To say that PNAC's architects leaped at the opportunity that 9-11 created is very true, but that does not prove, other than via the post hoc, ergo prompter hoc fallacy, that PNAC created all of the conditions, through action, that led to the events of that day. LIHOP? Maybe. LIHDTI (Due To Indifference) Perhaps.

Is it plausible that these "conspirators" would publicly announce a plan to kill thousands of Americans?
This is pretty silly. The idea that "they wouldnt say it, so they didnt say it". is pretty worthless in discussion- it is there in black and white. If you can discredit its purported import, then go ahead. To state that it ipso facto could not happen, is pretty myopic in my opinion.While Mark's point is not iron clad, it takes a real leap to infer that in 1998, Donald Rumsfeld was not interested in the US strategic interest, but in killing Americans for his own ends. Again, this is you reading something into the paper.
According to CT logic, these "conspirators" are the smartest, most devious, most capable connivers the world has ever seen - but are incredbly stupid. This PNAC quote issue is a lot like the CTist emphasis on Larry Silverstein's "Pull it" quote. Right: whenever I commit a billion-dollar crime, I always tell the media I did it.
Wrong. These conspirators are the dumbest, most bungling bunch that could ever be imagined. 9/11 is pretty much as evident an inside job as can be reasonably expected. The calling card of the Bush admin is all over it. The PNAC doc is a prime example of such stupidity. People's dismissal of it is a prime example of why such stupidity can persist.Wrong. The PNAC document is a prime example of a political position paper, written to advance a point and to embarass a sitting president, Clinton. Your characterization of it as a bungle, and your characterization of its authors as stupid is a simple ad hom, post hoc relative to 9-11, that has no basis, nor support. That doesn't make PNAC's position, nor its strategy right. It does make your assertion unsupported.
What is the main thrust of the PNAC plan for military transformation? A nationwide missile defense shield, and dominance of outer-space for offensive and defensive purposes. That's right: "Star Wars."
I'm sorry, but this is only true with pretty slack reading of the document. The main thrust if their plan is outlines clearly in the "Key Finding" section at the start. I do not take too much stock in the total execution of these strategies, since they are reflective of execution rather than design, but I do want to go through them, since they do reflect quite accurately, the current "War on Terror"
ESTABLISH FOUR CORE MISSIONS for U.S. military forces:
• defend the American homeland;
• fight and decisively win multiple, simultaneous major theater wars;
This is a direct slam on the Clinton era retreat from "handle two MRC's and go to a "win hold win" strategy, since it was cheaper. (MRC = Major Regional Contingency: see Korea and Persian Gulf for one each, with Southeastern Turkey and Europe as less likely, but still big, MRC's.)
• perform the “constabulary” duties associated with shaping the security environment in
critical regions;
• transform U.S. forces to exploit the “revolution in military affairs;”The RMA was all about the Silver Bullet idiots trying to wish away the human element in war, and to kill off the tank as an American prime weapons system, while the Critical Regions was a reference to idiot missions like Somalia and FWIW, Bosnia, as nation building exercises. The constabulary duties are explicitly NOT peacekeeping duties. I was inside the belly of the beast when that issue was being kicked around in the mid 1990's.
To carry out these core missions, we need to provide sufficient force and budgetary
allocations. A direct slam on Clinton's consistent budget cuts, which was creating a cracked to hollow force, due to how it mangled the manpower angle, and kept driving up unit costs in critical programs like C-17, LPD-17, and Comanche by cutting the production runs.
So, let's look at these budgetary allocations. From 2001 to 2003, the defense budget increased by 33%- an unprecedented amount. This increase was pursued almost exclusively under the aegis of the War on Terror, which of course, is pursued under the aegis of the new PH.1. Try the 1982-1984 Reagan era defense budget increases. Also, during 2001-2003, 9-11 happened and a whole bunch of unprogrammed increases showed up in support of the Afghanistan Operation. You presume that the intention was that from all along, but I will counter with the insider dope that in early 2000, and based on directives from the CNO as recently as 2004, the Rummy Plan before 9-11 was To Cut The Force Yet Again and focus on toys. 9-11 interrupted the RMA.

Read that again.

New toys bought, yes, manpower accounts reduced, YES. 8 CVBG's, down from 12, Crusader gone, and all that RMA bullspit that I won't go into here. Here we were, in a shooting war, up tempo CVBG deployments, and the CNO is being told to cut from 12 to 8 CVBG's. Pilot manpower was being cut, during a shooting war. Unprecedented, eh? I'll add "stupid," while I am at it.

In particular, the United States must: MAINTAIN NUCLEAR STRATEGIC SUPERIORITY, basing the U.S. nuclear deterrent upon a global, nuclear net assessment that weighs the full range of current and emerging threats, not merely the U.S.-Russia balance. This was again, pursued via the 2001 Nuclear Posture Review, which states explicity the need for pursuing this in the new uncertain, post 9/11 world in which we live. Indeed:
Duh, recycled post-Cold-War-Multi-Polar-World-Rhetoric.
:
The second leg of the New Triad requires development and deployment of both active and passive defenses--a recognition that offensive capabilities alone may not deter aggression in the new security environment of the 21st century. This was obvious before Bush took office, and was an extension of the BMDO's efforts throughout the 1990's to counter the theater, tactical and strategic Ballistic Missile threat thanks to Scud's in 1991 exposing a chink in our armor. I worked some BMD projects in NATO, mid 1990's, and can tell you that this passage is consistent with recognizing that the MAD policy and the two party MAD policies were completely untenable in a multi polar world. Even Clinton saw this.

The events of September 11, 2001 underscore this reality. Not sure what you mean by that.
RESTORE THE PERSONNEL STRENGTH of today’s force to roughly the levels anticipated in
the “Base Force” outlined by the Bush Administration, an increase in active-duty strength
from 1.4 million to 1.6 million. Given the American government's choice during Clinton's years not to withdraw from global events, but to stay "forward engaged" the PNAC guys recognized what those of us in the military saw the OPTEMPO doing to people: if you want to be deploying a lot, you have to pay for it. That means man to those levels.

This is not rocket science.
This number is increasing, from 1.41million to 1.43. This is a small change, but to add even 10,000 troops costs $1.2 bn, according to Richard Myers (would love to be posting URLs here btw) Yeah. Of course, since Rummy took over, they were doing manpower cuts during a war, 2003-2004, in the Navy among other places.
REPOSITION U.S. FORCES to respond to 21st century strategic realities by shifting
permanently-based forces to Southeast Europe and Southeast Asia, and by changing naval
deployment patterns to reflect growing U.S. strategic concerns in East Asia.
Again done via the 2002 Global Posture ReviewThis is rational, given that the pile of troops in Europe were hardly needed. Bring them home, or keep them over seas closer to where they might fight. The latter was chosen, due to how long it takes to deploy from CONUS if you don't fund a massive increase in strateic lift, which neither Bush nor Clinton has done.
MODERNIZE CURRENT U.S. FORCES SELECTIVELY, proceeding with the F-22 program while
increasing purchases of lift, electronic support and other aircraft; expanding submarine
and surface combatant fleets; purchasing Comanche helicopters and medium-weight
ground vehicles for the Army, and the V-22 Osprey “tilt-rotor” aircraft for the Marine
Corps. The Surface fleet has SHRUNK to below 300 ships since PNAC was written. The sub fleet has SHRUNK since 1998. Comanche is dead. Stryker is made, and V-22 survived. F-22 is alive and well, FWIW.
All done, I believe, save the ComanchesNope.
CANCEL “ROADBLOCK” PROGRAMS such as the Joint Strike Fighter, CVX aircraft carrier,
and Crusader howitzer system that would absorb exorbitant amounts of Pentagon funding
while providing limited improvements to current capabilities. Savings from these canceled
programs should be used to spur the process of military transformation.Not sure about the JSF, but done for the Crusader.Crusader is dead, JSF is ALIVE AND WELL, and CVX, or at least CV follow on to the Nimitz class, is still around. DDX is running into trouble, again. :p
Quote:
DEVELOP AND DEPLOY GLOBAL MISSILE DEFENSES to defend the American homeland and
American allies, and to provide a secure basis for U.S. power projection around the world. This was relaunched in 2002, and the Star Wars type systems are indeed being pursued, with the UK mooted as a possible base.This program has been in place since mid 1990's, all Bush did was add funding, and keep it from dying as Comanche did.
CONTROL THE NEW “INTERNATIONAL COMMONS” OF SPACE AND “CYBERSPACE,” and pave
the way for the creation of a new military service – U.S. Space Forces – with the mission of
space control. This has been done- check the “National Space Policy”, and the “National Strategy for Securing Cyberspace”. These policies were not new, friend, and if you bother to check the professional literature of the mid and late 1990's, you will find that a lot of profound thought went into Network Warfare, Cyberwarfare, and Space Policy under Clinton's watch. I couldn't escape the never ending stream of rhetoric on the topic. I even got to brief a flag officer on how vulnerable his HQ was to an EMP weapon delivered by a large motor boat.
Note that these sorts of policies would have been very hard to justify without the WOT as theor pretext.Where do you derive this from conclusion from? The RMA predates Bush arriving in DC, and all of this stuff was in work during the mid 1990's. You demonstrate that you don't know what you are talking about. You can't justify BMD with GWOT, you justify it due to Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, China, ETC, all having ICBM's, and none of them being in the ABM treaty.
EXPLOIT THE “REVOLUTION IN MILITARY AFFAIRS” to insure the long-term superiority of
U.S. conventional forces. Establish a two-stage transformation process which maximizes the value of current weapons systems through the application of advanced technologies, and,
produces more profound improvements in military capabilities, encourages competition
between single services and joint-service experimentation efforts. I think this has been dealt with aboveExcept that you don't seem to know what it means, nor its context. The RMA was the most over used soundbyte in DC that mean't "do more with less and rely on silver bullets and tech to solve your problems, we are shrinking the force." This crap was alive and well in the late 1990's, within the Clinton Defense Department. All Rummy did was make it more intense, and spend more on some of it, and then fight a war on the cheap while he was trying to cut the manpower bill.
INCREASE DEFENSE SPENDING gradually to a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of gross
domestic product, adding $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually. A reaction to the over reductions of Clinton which came along side a threefold increase in deployments, Optempo, among reserves and the Operating Forces between 1993 and 1999.
Done, as intimated above, to the tune of ~$130bn from 01-03.Partly in response to a war.
That type of technology would not have stopped the attacks of 9/11. So what about those low-tech terrorists that we're at war with now? "Rebuilding America's Defenses"
Sorry, who are we at war with again?Afghan and Iraqi Anti Coalition Forces, and whoever else BushCo can tag as "a terrorist."
In case you hadn’t realized, the War on Terror is not in fact a war on terror. Not even the Bush admin would be so stupid as to try and vanquish an abstract noun. Nor is it a War on Terrorism. A quick look at the massive terrorists being granted asylum by the US- Luis Posada Carriles, Orlando Bosch, Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada, Carlos Sanchez Berzain to name a few- debunks this idea. I don’t think that such a notion is intended to be taken seriously by serious people.Don't find much to disagree with there.
The WOT is, as illustrated above, what was once called the “Rebuilding (of) America’s Defenses”, i.e. a serious of radical military measures aimed at furthering US hegemony.No, the WOT is a response to 9-11, and thirty years of failed policy vis a vis terrorists. Rebuilding America's defenses was a peacetime strategy to recapitalize parts of the US Defense capability along Silver Bullet Lines. I spent enough time on flag officer staffs, and dealing with the effects of Silver Bullet thinking from 1995-2005 to see what was really going on, thanks, from the inside. :p
Now, if you wanted to increase defense spending in the areas that the PNAC recommends, what is the LAST thing you'd want to do? Answer: get involved in a ground war and subsequent occupation of a country where many citizens are fighting a guerilla-style campaign against you and against each other with AK-47s, RPGs, and IEDs made from cell phones and 10,000 tons of old artillery shells.As I am writing this, on May 6, 2006, the news has come on: 3 car bombs have gone off in Baghdad and one in Karbala, killing at least 30 Iraqis, including 10 soldiers, and several Italian and Romanian troops. In Basra, a British helicopter was shot down, killing its five crew members, and rescuers were bombarded with fire bombs and rocks. They opened fire on the rioting crowd, killing 4 Iraqis, including a child, and wounding 30. Yesterday, Porter Goss, the incompetent CIA chief, was forced to resign. The fact that such spending and policies are indeed being justified by 9/11 simply makes the case all the more stark that 9/11 is being used as a pretext for military radicalisation, as outlined in RAD, no matter how incongruously. Such spending and programs have been launched, with the WOT as its aegis. A response to a change in METT-T, on a strategic level, and certainly the taking of an opportunity to use emotional leverage from reaction to 9-11. THAT DOES NOT MAKE 9-11 an Inside Job, it makes it An Excuse.
The fact that these programs aren’t not being pursued, with more anti-terror policies in their stead- border control, more police, perhaps, again makes clear that the new PH was to be used as the catalyst for the rebuilding of america’s defenses, no matter what the disconnect.You aren't even coherent here. The rebuilding of America's defenses was a counter to Clinton's dismantling them, the WoT is Using America's Military capability to do something. (Good or bad) The US Military Capability is being used and eroded, NOT BUILT UP!
The disaster in Iraq is the opposite of what the PNAC would want to happen to help effect the military transformation they desired in 2000. So why did those same people lie to us and use fear of terrorism as a pretext to invade Iraq? Because they thought replacing Saddam Hussein would be easy. They didn't listen to the generals, they ignored the intelligence reports, and they expected to be greeted with open arms by the Iraqi people after ousting Hussein. These are the people the CTists think are so clever that they can hide a massive conspiracy. They're the same neo-cons who are under investigation for their petty revenge against Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson. They couldn't even handle THAT without screwing up.
PNAC wanted, with regards to Iraq 2 things- a permanent military base there (done), and Saddam overthrown with US control over oil (done). The rest isn’t so important. It is essential to realise that the war in Iraq is merely one in a lattice of policies forming the WOT. Almost everything laid out in the key findings has been pursued with 911 as the catalyst.
Where, in PNAC, does it say "Bases in Iraq?" We already had bases in

Saudi
Kuwait
UAE
Qatar
Bahrain
Oman
There we have several very confident, matter-of-fact statements about what how the U.S. should impose its military presence on the Mid East. So we established bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to protect our oil interests. But we failed to defend New York and Washington, D.C. against terrorists who were furious at the fact that we had bases in their back yard, and who declared a Jihad against the U.S. because of it. Again, I’m sorry, but this just betrays a gross misunderstanding of the document. It is stating that we need a new PH- a mass terror attack on US soil, ingrained on the public’s consciousness- in order to catalyse hegemonic aims. Not that we need to prevent a new PH ever happening- this is in fact the opposite of what is said.More post hoc rubbish. PNAC's paper isn't saying that, in 1998. You are saying it post 9-11. What PNAC analyzed was how hard it was to get Americans behind a foreign war, particularly with Viet Nam as a marker.

1. The doc states that the myriad of transformations needs to happen within one framework, i.e. under one banner. This is, clearly, the WOT. You think this is just a big coincidence not worth investigating? No, it was clearly the RMA, in 1998, your post hoc rubbish inserts WOT for RMA.
2. The doc also states that the defense policies it outlines need to be crystalised in the president’s mind by October 2001; the time of the QDR, thus implying that a new PH might have to happen by this date. Again, coincidence? I hope you would not think not.Sorry, again no, Oct 2001 begins the First Budget Cycle in Peacetime that the Pres has as his own to shape the FYDP. His FY 2001 budget was written BY CLINTON. The FY2002 budget was his first.
Sorry about the length, but I hope you can appreciate the focus. I don't disagree with some of your critiques of the policy, but your assumptions are neither necessary, nor valid, nor are they grounded in the context and time of the paper's writing. You also mistake analysis for statement of intent.

DR
Merged in from AAH thread

[DGM]

a) The aim of PNAC is to militraily create a platform that will project US hegemony and make the 21st Century the American Century. Thus, it is logical that they would want this platform to be created soon, so they could actively project US hegemony and create an American 21st Century, rather than wait, have it potentially jeopardised by other elements.
b) The fact that the QDR was in Oct 2001, and the elements upon which it was to be based would have to be crystalised in decision makers minds by then; i.e. early, rather than late.
c) A revolutionary change in the geo-political landscape, creating, in the eyes of the authors, stability, peace, security and democracy for the world, is preferable, certainly to power hungry politicians, sooner, rather than later. If anyone is going to argue why this is not the case, I will be very interested to read it.


From the PNAC Statement of principles:

We are in danger of squandering the opportunity and failing the challenge. We are living off the capital -- both the military investments and the foreign policy achievements -- built up by past administrations. Cuts in foreign affairs and defense spending, inattention to the tools of statecraft, and inconstant leadership are making it increasingly difficult to sustain American influence around the world. And the promise of short-term commercial benefits threatens to override strategic considerations. As a consequence, we are jeopardizing the nation's ability to meet present threats and to deal with potentially greater challenges that lie ahead.

We seem to have forgotten the essential elements of the Reagan Administration's success: a military that is strong and ready to meet both present and future challenges; a foreign policy that boldly and purposefully promotes American principles abroad; and national leadership that accepts the United States' global responsibilities.


Of course, the United States must be prudent in how it exercises its power. But we cannot safely avoid the responsibilities of global leadership or the costs that are associated with its exercise. America has a vital role in maintaining peace and security in Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. If we shirk our responsibilities, we invite challenges to our fundamental interests. The history of the 20th century should have taught us that it is important to shape circumstances before crises emerge, and to meet threats before they become dire. The history of this century should have taught us to embrace the cause of American leadership.

And how exactly has the Bush administration lived up to the goals of the PNAC? If anything 9/11 and the Bush administration is it's worst nightmare. We a stuck in an expensive situation that has no military benefit for the future and has produced no technological advancements. completely opposite of what the PNAC was looking for.

[DGM]

This very good post concerning the PNAC by Darth Rotor ended up in the AAH section. Thought a link there would be appropriate.


http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2736493#post2736493

[MIKILLINI]

Post #493

Hence the analogy between 911 and PH is valid, and to dispute such would be brainless.


You keep referring to this post as undisputed, but that quote above is yours. This contention of brainless is directed at whom?

I think this is quite simple.

It is, but the multiple paths you have taken have ran circles in the aspect of your reasoning. As I've said before, you have taken simple truths that contradict what you believe is an inside job and twisted them to fit your conviction that some Neocons in the government are complicit.

a) The aim of PNAC is to militraily create a platform that will project US hegemony and make the 21st Century the American Century.

As a matter of fact, it does state that.

the aim of this section is, as has been stated many times, simply to show that a new PH was propitious to policy for PNAC/The Bush Admin.

PNAC favorable to policy for the Bush Administration. Yep, but only if you say
so.
This means right after the election, a conversation would go along the lines of...Well, let's see, who would start this conversation? Cheney? Bush? Rumsfeld? Scooter? Rove? Pearle?
"Hey guys, I see an opportunity here. Remember our latest PNAC document?
What I see here is a chance to make the changes We envisioned in the document to happen more immediately".
"What exactly are you talking about here"?
"What I am saying is that with all these warnings that our intel has received, We can allow an attack to take place here, you know, like it says in the document concerning the catastrophic and catalyzing event?"
"Yes, we know that part"
"If We allow an attack to take place here, then all these changes We want can happen sooner".
"Are you nuts? What about Congress"? They won't go for this"!
"Well, soon We will have the Patriot Act written up, if it isn't done already..I'll give Chertoff a call later to see where he is with that. But getting back to Congress, We'll throw the bill out there and give them a real short time to read it so that they won't have time read it and pass it because they will be so shocked of terrorist attacks...it's perfect and propitious for us".

Your quote down below has prompted Me to give this parody of conversation
shown above.
a) The aim of PNAC is to militraily create a platform that will project US hegemony and make the 21st Century the American Century. Thus, it is logical that they would want this platform to be created soon, so they could actively project US hegemony and create an American 21st Century, rather than wait, have it potentially jeopardised by other elements.

What other elements would jeopardize a long term scenario?

b) The fact that the QDR was in Oct 2001, and the elements upon which it was to be based would have to be crystalised in decision makers minds by then; i.e. early, rather than late.

What were they planning to do about this? And you can't choose your answer from post 9/11 actions. Just remember, this document expressed long term.

c) A revolutionary change in the geo-political landscape, creating, in the eyes of the authors, stability, peace, security and democracy for the world, is preferable, As stated in the document.

certainly to power hungry politicians, sooner, rather than later.
Congress has much more non-Neocons (Republicans) than the Bush Administration has Neocons and potentially the biggest obstacle to the PNAC plan. So you would have to include them in your case.

[Darth Rotor]

This very good post concerning the PNAC by Darth Rotor ended up in the AAH section. Thought a link there would be appropriate.


http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?postid=2736493#post2736493

Thanks, DGM, I have asked the Mods to move it here, apparently the thread where I replied to it was getting dicey with OT and ad homs.

DR

[MIKILLINI]

Thanks, DGM, I have asked the Mods to move it here, apparently the thread where I replied to it was getting dicey with OT and ad homs.

DR

DR, your thread is extremely well detailed and explained with such clarity. Kudo's to you and Mark.
Mjd, your #493 post has been disputed and explained in great detail with some of those simple truths revealing the misconceptions you've had.

[mjd1982]

Madeline Albright, Secretary of State at the time of the supposed “offer”:

“In retrospect, it is clear the Taliban never had any intention of giving bin Laden up or of forcing him to leave.” (testimony to Kean-Hamilton Commission, March 23, 2004)

Large excerpt:


A rather curious omission for the Secretary of State at the time of the supposed offer: that the Taliban offered bin Laden's - what was the phrase - "head on a platter"? Unless of course, NO SUCH OFFER WAS MADE.


EXACTLY.
As I have stated to you already, it is unsurprising that the Clinton administration would not be commenting on this, since the refusal of the offers was perpetrated by the Bush admin. Hence why the article is subtitled:
"How Bush Was Offered Bin Laden and Blew It"

This should not be hard to understand, and applies for Sandy Berger and Bill Clinton too.

Now, you state that such has been "countered" by those people. I will ask you again- show me where such has happened.

[mjd1982]

I hope mjd1982 is not referring to Cockburn and St. Clair. As of 2004, when the story ran, the total paid circulation of Counterpunch was 5,000. (Compared with the India Globe's 10,000. And, say, the Washington Post's 700,000.) Of course, because they are saying something he likes to hear, I would imagine that makes them "the most reputable journalists in the US". :rolleyes:

What's that word? Propitious?
I didnt call them "the most reputable journalists in the US". Please read and think before you post.

Let me be clear- you want to argue that Cockburn and St Clair are disreputable journalists? I dont think that this is an argument that sensible people will take seriously, I'm afraid. They are highly reputable, Cockburn is known even in the UK, and thus to base an argument, even in part, on the fact that they are not, is not going to go very far.

[mjd1982]

These guy's?






http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=21&ItemID=12838





http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Cockburn


Not exactly highly respected.
???

[WildCat]

As I have stated to you already, it is unsurprising that the Clinton administration would not be commenting on this, since the refusal of the offers was perpetrated by the Bush admin. Hence why the article is subtitled:
"How Bush Was Offered Bin Laden and Blew It"
So herte you say the Clinton Admin. had nothing to do with it...

This should not be hard to understand, and applies for Sandy Berger and Bill Clinton too.
Now they did have something to do with it. :boggled:

Now, you state that such has been "countered" by those people. I will ask you again- show me where such has happened.
He just did, and your schizophrenic response above was how you countered it. Bizarre!

[mjd1982]

Hi

Some of your rubbish was shredded in this post.

http://forums.randi.org/showpost.php?p=2682478&postcount=89


Ok, well first thank you for addressing this post. You are the 1st to do so seriously in 1600 posts, which says a lot.

No, regarding this link, I assume that you have posted the wrong link, since all it it is a set of links from another poster. If you can tell me how this has "shredded" anything, please go ahead.


As for your analysis of PNAC, I find some of your embedded assumptions to be smothered in post hoc rationalization.


Ok, fine; I could of course equally say that your statements are smothered in post hoc derationalisation. Let's go ahead and see what you have got.


I read the PNAC piece in early 2001. In 2003, I read Kagan's "On Paradise and Power" and was struck by how he correctly pointed to the loss of political will in NATO. PNAC's capstone document was written in 1998, and as I read it, was aimed at President Clinton, and a direct criticism of his foreign policy, particularly Clinton's having played away a winning hand he had been dealt in the form of the US Military he inherited upon his innauguration.


right, ok...


At core, you miss a key strategic point. After The Wall came down, a significant political movement in the US arose to "stop being the world's policeman" and "accrue the peace dividend." This brought the US Army down from 17 divisions to 12, for example, cut the US Navy down to 300+ from 500+ combatants, reduced the number of ACC Wings to 20, etc.


Tho not aware of these precise details I was aware of the broad point, yes


What the PNAC guys were ragging on about was that the base force, Powells's Bottom's Up Review product, had been discarded, and that the old "Two Major Regional Contingency" force posturing (One in Korea, on in the Mid East) had been eroded to "Win one, hold one" with the allies in the "hold" strategy rather nervous about how long hold would have to go on since they relied on big brother US to help them win. Hold is not a winning strategy, it is a delaying strategy. The CONUS based, globally projected strategy much talked about in the Aspin, Perry, Cohen Sec Def days had a small problem: the strat lift to accomplish it wasn't on hand. LMSR, LPD 17, and C-17 were all in trouble in the mid 1990's, and underfunded, as was Comanche for about a decade before it got cut. It is worth noting that General Shinseki, when he took over as Chief of Staff under Clinton, was a man bound and determined to break the US Army from its love affair with the tank in favor of a lighter armored vehicle, partly to make the US Army more deployable From A CONUS Base.


Ok, so they were opposed to Clinton's strategy and had something different in mind, involving, partly, more funding, right...


The Clinton cuts beyond the base force, to 10 divisions from 12, to 12 CVBG's with <300 ships, and other reductions in force were seen as a signal to Korea that we weren't sincere about defending them IAW current Op Plans that were, as of that writing, agreed. Taking the PNAC analysis as viewed through a paper towel tube is an intellecutally dishonest method of analyzing the paper.


Ok, now we have problems. You see, nothing you have written so far has any refutational substance whatsoever. You have just given a background on the political thought that was swirling around the RAD doc in the 90's, and then you state that my conclusions are intellectually dishonest. What you have stated has zero substance in terms of my conclusions; it doesnt even come close to them.


No, we cannot. We can conclude nothing of the sort. IT shows rather a profound understanding of US military civilian patterns, and the grow/shrink cycles that have gone on since the days of the Revolution, in terms of the military establishment, as well as the powerful Jacksonian strain of American populism who don't want to mess in foreign affairs without powerful reasons. The statemens as written is a clear headed analysis of the political trends in the US. This has been interpreted POST HOC, over and over, as a mission statement pointed to creating a Second Perl Harbor. It requires an agenda to make that interpretation. To say that PNAC's architects leaped at the opportunity that 9-11 created is very true, but that does not prove, other than via the post hoc, ergo prompter hoc fallacy, that PNAC created all of the conditions, through action, that led to the events of that day. LIHOP? Maybe. LIHDTI (Due To Indifference) Perhaps.


Ok, 2 points here that really befuddle me, maybe you can help. 1stly, you try to argue that such a conclusion, as to the desirability for such a transformation to happen soon, cannot be justified, since it shows "a profound misunderstanding" of military civilian patterns. I'm sorry, i do appreciate your diligence and courage in replying to my post at length, but this has zero substance. You have to show why people would want a world changing, peace bringing, democracy, love and happiness exporting change to happen in decades, rather than soon. Just trying to argue from miles in the sky, does little I'm afraid.

2ndly, you state "LIHOP? Maybe". If I have you right, you believe that 911 was "maybe" an inside job? But you dont support the idea of an indepedent investigation to ascertain this??


While Mark's point is not iron clad, it takes a real leap to infer that in 1998, Donald Rumsfeld was not interested in the US strategic interest, but in killing Americans for his own ends. Again, this is you reading something into the paper.


For someone who spends much time arguiing the importance of various rhetorical features, it is actually hypocritical.

More to the point, I dont understand your point. Why was Rumsfeld not interested in US strategy? Why would he be killing people "for his own ends"? Where does 1998 come into this?


Wrong. The PNAC document is a prime example of a political position paper, written to advance a point and to embarass a sitting president, Clinton. Your characterization of it as a bungle, and your characterization of its authors as stupid is a simple ad hom, post hoc relative to 9-11, that has no basis, nor support. That doesn't make PNAC's position, nor its strategy right. It does make your assertion unsupported.


But no. The point I was replying to was the assertion that these guys couldnt be wickedly intelligent (i.e. pulled off 911), and then bumblingly stupid (RAD). If you want to contest this, you very simply have to show that they did not want such a revolutionary transformation to happen as soon as it feasibly could, but rather wanted to wait a few decades. This is the point at hand, and it's starting to look like your not going to grasp it. Whether it was intended to embarrass Clinton is neither here nor there; the Pearl Harbour notion is what matters here.


This is a direct slam on the Clinton era retreat from "handle two MRC's and go to a "win hold win" strategy, since it was cheaper. (MRC = Major Regional Contingency: see Korea and Persian Gulf for one each, with Southeastern Turkey and Europe as less likely, but still big, MRC's.)
The RMA was all about the Silver Bullet idiots trying to wish away the human element in war, and to kill off the tank as an American prime weapons system, while the Critical Regions was a reference to idiot missions like Somalia and FWIW, Bosnia, as nation building exercises. The constabulary duties are explicitly NOT peacekeeping duties. I was inside the belly of the beast when that issue was being kicked around in the mid 1990's.
A direct slam on Clinton's consistent budget cuts, which was creating a cracked to hollow force, due to how it mangled the manpower angle, and kept driving up unit costs in critical programs like C-17, LPD-17, and Comanche by cutting the production runs.


Again this is just elaboration around a theme. I commend you for your inside knowledge, I assume you work with the military in some capacity, but none of what you say is germane to the point I'm afraid.

(I know constabulary duties are not peacekeeping)


1. Try the 1982-1984 Reagan era defense budget increases. Also, during 2001-2003, 9-11 happened and a whole bunch of unprogrammed increases showed up in support of the Afghanistan Operation.


This was an error on my part, it has been apologised for.


You presume that the intention was that from all along, but I will counter with the insider dope that in early 2000, and based on directives from the CNO as recently as 2004, the Rummy Plan before 9-11 was To Cut The Force Yet Again and focus on toys. 9-11 interrupted the RMA.

Read that again.

New toys bought, yes, manpower accounts reduced, YES. 8 CVBG's, down from 12, Crusader gone, and all that RMA bullspit that I won't go into here. Here we were, in a shooting war, up tempo CVBG deployments, and the CNO is being told to cut from 12 to 8 CVBG's. Pilot manpower was being cut, during a shooting war. Unprecedented, eh? I'll add "stupid," while I am at it.


I'm pretty sure this has been dealt with in the original post, with details of the weapons/equipment that have been developed since 911, but would you go into detail as to what you mean by "toys"?


Duh, recycled post-Cold-War-Multi-Polar-World-Rhetoric.

This was obvious before Bush took office, and was an extension of the BMDO's efforts throughout the 1990's to counter the theater, tactical and strategic Ballistic Missile threat thanks to Scud's in 1991 exposing a chink in our armor. I worked some BMD projects in NATO, mid 1990's, and can tell you that this passage is consistent with recognizing that the MAD policy and the two party MAD policies were completely untenable in a multi polar world. Even Clinton saw this.

Not sure what you mean by that.
Given the American government's choice during Clinton's years not to withdraw from global events, but to stay "forward engaged" the PNAC guys recognized what those of us in the military saw the OPTEMPO doing to people: if you want to be deploying a lot, you have to pay for it. That means man to those levels.

This is not rocket science.


Again, as above, al that you have done, is taken what I have said regarding what has been done post 911, and elaborated on it. This does not contest anything.


Yeah. Of course, since Rummy took over, they were doing manpower cuts during a war, 2003-2004, in the Navy among other places.


Right, but the number is still up, as I have stated, from 1.41-1.43


This is rational, given that the pile of troops in Europe were hardly needed. Bring them home, or keep them over seas closer to where they might fight. The latter was chosen, due to how long it takes to deploy from CONUS if you don't fund a massive increase in strateic lift, which neither Bush nor Clinton has done.


Right, as I have said...


The Surface fleet has SHRUNK to below 300 ships since PNAC was written. The sub fleet has SHRUNK since 1998. Comanche is dead. Stryker is made, and V-22 survived. F-22 is alive and well, FWIW.
Nope.
Crusader is dead, JSF is ALIVE AND WELL, and CVX, or at least CV follow on to the Nimitz class, is still around. DDX is running into trouble, again. :p


As I stated in the original post, it is irrelevant if some parts of the plan were not executed properly, since tht is a matter of execution, rather than what we are interested in here, namely design


This program has been in place since mid 1990's, all Bush did was add funding, and keep it from dying as Comanche did.


which was precisely the plan


These policies were not new, friend, and if you bother to check the professional literature of the mid and late 1990's, you will find that a lot of profound thought went into Network Warfare, Cyberwarfare, and Space Policy under Clinton's watch. I couldn't escape the never ending stream of rhetoric on the topic. I even got to brief a flag officer on how vulnerable his HQ was to an EMP weapon delivered by a large motor boat.


I never said it was new. Neither did RAD. They suggest that such plans are integral to US interests, and thu need to be pursued accordingly. A global war against an implacable, unbeatable, invisible, ubiquitous and ever renewing enemy is the perfect environment for such to happen.


Where do you derive this from conclusion from? The RMA predates Bush arriving in DC, and all of this stuff was in work during the mid 1990's. You demonstrate that you don't know what you are talking about. You can't justify BMD with GWOT, you justify it due to Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Iraq, China, ETC, all having ICBM's, and none of them being in the ABM treaty.


This is my bad. What I meant was it is hard to justify them being pursued in the manner that they are, when not in a war environment. This provides the aegis for all military transformations/strategies that are being pursued right now, which is, mor or less, what PNAC had envisaged.


Except that you don't seem to know what it means, nor its context. The RMA was the most over used soundbyte in DC that mean't "do more with less and rely on silver bullets and tech to solve your problems, we are shrinking the force." This crap was alive and well in the late 1990's, within the Clinton Defense Department. All Rummy did was make it more intense, and spend more on some of it, and then fight a war on the cheap while he was trying to cut the manpower bill.


again, which was precislely what RAD called for


A reaction to the over reductions of Clinton which came along side a threefold increase in deployments, Optempo, among reserves and the Operating Forces between 1993 and 1999.


Again, just an elaboration on what I have said


Partly in response to a war.


exactly, as RAD intimated


Afghan and Iraqi Anti Coalition Forces, and whoever else BushCo can tag as "a terrorist."


the last half of your sentence is important- who is a terrorist? Anyone Bus wants to label as such. Olmert? no. Ahmadinejad? Yes. It is not about right and wrong, terror or anti terror. Those who labelling as terrorists will be propitious to the US geo politic will be labelled as such, those who dont, wont.


Don't find much to disagree with there.

No, the WOT is a response to 9-11, and thirty years of failed policy vis a vis terrorists. Rebuilding America's defenses was a peacetime strategy to recapitalize parts of the US Defense capability along Silver Bullet Lines. I spent enough time on flag officer staffs, and dealing with the effects of Silver Bullet thinking from 1995-2005 to see what was really going on, thanks, from the inside. :p


Yes, it was overtly a peacetime document, except for the sentence that states that were there to be a catastrophic and catalysing event, such changes would happen a lot quicker. Thus, the essential point here, is would they have wished such changes to happen quicker or not. I have illustrated why at length in #493, and exhorted the people on this thread to contest it seriously, which no one wants to do. You have not contested the intimations at such a desire that I have expressed in the post you are responding to; if you believe that those nice neo cons wanted to wait an age for such changes to happen, then please tell me why, maybe referencing #493.
[/quote]


A response to a change in METT-T, on a strategic level, and certainly the taking of an opportunity to use emotional leverage from reaction to 9-11.


You'll have tp explain METT-T


THAT DOES NOT MAKE 9-11 an Inside Job, it makes it An Excuse.


I am not arguiing that RAD makes 911 an inside job, I am arguing that it states the propitiousness of a new PH to policy; i.e. it would grant the "excuse" for the neo cons to pursue essentially the policy laid out in RAD.


You aren't even coherent here. The rebuilding of America's defenses was a counter to Clinton's dismantling them, the WoT is Using America's Military capability to do something. (Good or bad) The US Military Capability is being used and eroded, NOT BUILT UP!


Once again, of little relevance, since this is more a question of execution rather than design; in any case, pelase tell me how the militarisation of space, the use of cyberspace as a defense tool, the global posture review etc etc are eroding the US as a military capability.


Where, in PNAC, does it say "Bases in Iraq?" We already had bases in

Saudi
Kuwait
UAE
Qatar
Bahrain
Oman



In the Persian Gulf region, the
presence of American forces, along with
British and French units, has become a semipermanent
fact of life. Though the
immediate mission of those forces is to
enforce the no-fly zones over northern and
southern Iraq, they represent the long-term
commitment of the United States and its
major allies to a region of vital importance.
Indeed, the United
States has for
decades sought to
play a more
permanent role in
Gulf regional
security. While
the unresolved
conflict with Iraq
provides the
immediate
justification, the
need for a
substantial
American force
presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of
the regime of Saddam Hussein.



The continuing challenges from
Iraq also make it unwise to draw down
forces in the Gulf dramatically. Securing
the American perimeter today – and
tomorrow – will necessitate shifts in U.S.
overseas operations.




More post hoc rubbish. PNAC's paper isn't saying that, in 1998. You are saying it post 9-11. What PNAC analyzed was how hard it was to get Americans behind a foreign war, particularly with Viet Nam as a marker.


Errr... 1stly the paper was written in 2000. 2ndly, my point is that is is stating it tacitly; if you want to contest this, I have shown you how. The comment does indeed imply that absent a new PH it woudl be hard to get the US behind a war; hence if a war would speed these changes, a new PH would be propitious to policy.


No, it was clearly the RMA, in 1998, your post hoc rubbish inserts WOT for RMA.


No, because to take an example, "forward basing and presence" is not an examply of RMA, but is of the WOT


Sorry, again no, Oct 2001 begins the First Budget Cycle in Peacetime that the Pres has as his own to shape the FYDP. His FY 2001 budget was written BY CLINTON. The FY2002 budget was his first.


To quote the doc:


This leaves the next
president of the United States with an
enormous challenge: he must increase
military spending to preserve American
geopolitical leadership, or he must pull back
from the security commitments that are the
measure of America’s position as the
world’s sole superpower and the final
guarantee of security, democratic freedoms
and individual political rights. This choice
will be among the first to confront the
president: new legislation requires the
incoming administration to fashion a
national security strategy within six months
of assuming office, as opposed to waiting a
full year, and to complete another
quadrennial defense review three months
after that. In a larger sense, the new
president will choose whether today’s
“unipolar moment,” to use columnist
Charles Krauthammer’s phrase for
America’s current geopolitical preeminence,
will be extended along with the peace and
prosperity that it provides.


R u saying the doc is wrong?


I don't disagree with some of your critiques of the policy, but your assumptions are neither necessary, nor valid, nor are they grounded in the context and time of the paper's writing. You also mistake analysis for statement of intent.

DR


Again, thank you for your time and diligence. Nonetheless, very little of what you have posted is germane to the matter. 1. The similarity of the changes mentioned in RAD to the WOT, 2) The propitiousness of the WOT.

I think I have stated why this was, unfortunately, not the case, and I will look forward to hearing back from you.

[mjd1982]

So herte you say the Clinton Admin. had nothing to do with it...


Now they did have something to do with it. :boggled:


He just did, and your schizophrenic response above was how you countered it. Bizarre!
No, please read the posts to which you are replying before you reply to them.

[Belz...]

for the same reason I do not need to check with lots of Jewish people to verify that they are not all money grabbing and avaricious; or indeed any pejorative description that would apply to an entire ethnicity, race or nationality. This is called racism, and it should not really be tolerated.

But how do you KNOW that it's racism and not FACT if you DON'T CHECK ?

If someone came to you and said that, proportionally, black people commit more crimes in the US than other "races". Would this be racial slur ? Well, I sure don't know if it's true or not, but we hear that, don't we ? So, in order to know if it's true, should we simple "decide" that it's racism or not ? Or should we have a look at the statistics and see ? It may be true and STILL have nothing to do with skin colour; maybe poverty has something to do with it. But you'll never find out if you just ignore the statement.

NOTE: That was just an example I made up, Mjd. Don't go and try to call me a racist.

Well, thanks for the point, but since there is little substance, I cant really offer a reply

That's because you have no idea what I'm talking about.

No one said that these Afghans were dishonest. He said that hospitality took precedence over honesty, and that a host is bound by honour to defend his guests, no matter what. Do you understand what this entails ?

Ok.

More hand-waving by you. Do you even know what "poisoning the well" means ?

[Belz...]

Hence why the article is subtitled:
"How Bush Was Offered Bin Laden and Blew It"

I hope counterpunch never claims that "mjd1982 is a child molester" and gets picked up by other journalists without proof or references. Otherwise you're done for.

2ndly, you state "LIHOP? Maybe". If I have you right, you believe that 911 was "maybe" an inside job?

LIHOP = LET it happen on purpose. LET IT.

If you want to contest this, you very simply have to show that they did not want such a revolutionary transformation to happen as soon as it feasibly could, but rather wanted to wait a few decades.

That's because you assume that the former is necessarily better. And your only "proof" is the use of the word "even".

Again, thank you for your time and diligence. Nonetheless, very little of what you have posted is germane to the matter.

It's amazing how much ability for ignoring other people's points you have.

"Well, that was an interesting post but there's nothing of value in there so bye."

[aggle-rithm]

Ok, now we have problems. You see, nothing you have written so far has any refutational substance whatsoever. You have just given a background on the political thought that was swirling around the RAD doc in the 90's, and then you state that my conclusions are intellectually dishonest. What you have stated has zero substance in terms of my conclusions; it doesnt even come close to them.



Stop it. Just stop it.

I haven't posted here for a couple of weeks because of a death in the family. I am currently going through the phase that makes even the most noble human endeavors seem pointless and stupid...so you can imagine how I feel about this thread right now.

There are two possibilities: First, you don't really believe what you say you believe, and are just doing this to get attention. I'm leaning towards this explanation, especially given the recent "SylviaRox" episode in another thread.

Second, you are sincere and really think a new investigation is called for. If this is true, then by all means, START YOUR INVESTIGATION. Stop brandishing your sniping, cowardly insults and stop waiting for the same government that you feel is covering it up to grant judicial powers to some fantasy organization with better investigatory resources than the FBI.

I'm not wasting any more time with you.

[Augustine]

As I have stated to you already, it is unsurprising that the Clinton administration would not be commenting on this, since the refusal of the offers was perpetrated by the Bush admin. Hence why the article is subtitled:
"How Bush Was Offered Bin Laden and Blew It"

This should not be hard to understand, and applies for Sandy Berger and Bill Clinton too.

Now, you state that such has been "countered" by those people. I will ask you again- show me where such has happened.

So Madeline Albright, Sandy Berger, Richard Clarke, and Bill Clinton are all aware of this offer? And passed it on to the Bush administration? So are they complicit in the conspiracy? Or being deliberately misleading in their comments?

:p Look forward to your response, Junior - where you
will ignore, manipulate and select evidence in order to squeeze it into a story that fits nicely with [your] preconceived, but ultimately baseless view of how the world might work.

(I know I've given you a lot of study suggestions which you have shirked, but I would recommend one more - psychological projection.)

[Darth Rotor]

Ok, fine; I could of course equally say that your statements are smothered in post hoc derationalisation. Let's go ahead and see what you have got.
??
Ok, so they were opposed to Clinton's strategy and had something different in mind, involving, partly, more funding, right...
Yes. If you were around in the mid 1990's, and in the military, as I was, and paying attention to the partisan squabbling over budget matters as the deficit was being roped and branded, you found that some Senators and Congressmen on both sides of the aisle had reservations about how deeply Paneta drove Clinton's wedge into the low slope drawdown of Powell's base force, and how rapidly the slope of drawdown increased beyond the initial Cheney / Bush drawdown initiated in late 89/early 90.

The theme was "Defense budget cut was too deep, need to recapitalize or we will have a hollow force." PNAC was not alone in agreeing with that. Their paper is not evidence of a plot, but a reflection of a widely held opinion that Clinton had gone overboard on cuts, while at the same time increasing the wear and tear on operating forces with frivolous deployments to places like Bosnia. If you note the process they undertook to write the piece, they consulted a host of military and defense experts while doing their analysis.
You have just given a background on the political thought that was swirling around the RAD doc in the 90's, and then you state that my conclusions are intellectually dishonest.
Given your position that the Pearl Harbor illustration was evidence of a plan, rather than a piece of political analysis of what it takes to get America on a war footing, I find your position unsupported by anything other than a post hoc rationalization. If you read the report from front to back, the tone is hardly one of hopeful anticipation of a new Pearl Harbor event.
1stly, you try to argue that such a conclusion, as to the desirability for such a transformation to happen soon, cannot be justified, since it shows "a profound misunderstanding" of military civilian patterns. I'm sorry, i do appreciate your diligence and courage in replying to my post at length, but this has zero substance. You have to show why people would want a world changing, peace bringing, democracy, love and happiness exporting change to happen in decades, rather than soon.
Given that I was someone who disagreed completely with the idea of the US continuing to play "world's policeman" while maggots at the UN cried about dues, and when we undertook multi billion dollar operations in Africa for "no credit to peacekeeping funds," I have no desire to defend PNAC's vision of a more vigorous engagement policy. I considered it ill advised when it came out, and was far more interested in a "let them play" policy that allowed civil wars to run their course, as America's civil war was allowed to run its course with little interference from foreign powers.

Again, the PNAC initial statement of principal was in 1997, and the RAD paper was begun in 1998.
Our aim is to remind Americans of these lessons and to draw their consequences for today. Here are four consequences:

we need to increase defense spending significantly if we are to carry out our global responsibilities today and modernize our armed forces for the future; we need to strengthen our ties to democratic allies and to challenge regimes hostile to our interests and values; we need to promote the cause of political and economic freedom abroad; we need to accept responsibility for America's unique role in preserving and extending an international order friendly to our security, our prosperity, and our principles.

Such a Reaganite policy of military strength and moral clarity may not be fashionable today. But it is necessary if the United States is to build on the successes of this past century and to ensure our security and our greatness in the next.
(Signed by the usual suspects: Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, George Weigel, Paul Wolfowitz)
2ndly, you state "LIHOP? Maybe". If I have you right, you believe that 911 was "maybe" an inside job?
I have not ruled out, in my own mind, the low probability chance that a deliberate indifference/negligence was undertaken as a matter of policy vis a vis terrorist and criminal activity. Much of my evidence for this is indirect, the well known complaints of Scheuer and Clarke, and others, about issues being brought up and not acted on between January and Sept of 2001.

I can't prove it, but I can't rule it out completely. Given that the evidence is locked inside the intentions of policy makers at a very high level, I don't expect to be able to dig it out, seeing as how this indifference/negligence would be grounds for serious charges regarding 9-11 events. No one who knows is going to talk anyway, out of fear. I wonder at the utility of this "independent" investigation you suggest. Who is going to make anyone talk? Notice how they lawyered up over the Plame case?
But you dont support the idea of an indepedent investigation to ascertain this??
Please don't try to put words into my mouth. Thanks. Where did I ever say I don't support such an investigation? I note that the official 9-11 investigation chaired by Lehman was beset by the contamination of political agendas.
For someone who spends much time arguiing the importance of various rhetorical features, it is actually hypocritical.
Since you have built your house on sand, that the Pearl Harbor reference was a sign of intent, rather than analysis, I find it hard to find this objection credible.
More to the point, I dont understand your point. Why was Rumsfeld not interested in US strategy? Why would he be killing people "for his own ends"? Where does 1998 come into this?
The base motivation for the position paper was made public in 1997-1998 in the statement of principles. The RAD paper represented a detailed elaboration on the original theme, based on research begun in 1998, and published after a long process in 2000.
The Project for the New American Century was established in the spring of 1997. From its inception, the Project has been concerned with the decline in the strength of America’s defenses, and in the problems this would create for the exercise of American leadership around the globe and, ultimately, for the preservation of peace.
=====
With this in mind, we began a project in the spring of 1998 to examine the country’s defense plans and resource requirements. We started from the premise that U.S. military capabilities should be sufficient to support an American grand strategy committed to building upon this unprecedented opportunity. We did not accept pre-ordained constraints that followed from assumptions about what the country might or might not be willing to expend on its defenses.

From PNAC's own words. 1998. The opportunity referred to was "being the sole superpower" and all that rot.
But no. The point I was replying to was the assertion that these guys couldnt be wickedly intelligent (i.e. pulled off 911), and then bumblingly stupid (RAD).
Yet they refer to Pearl Harbor also in the Naval Strategy section:
In PNACspeak:

Absent a rigorous program of experimentation to investigate the nature of the revolution in military affairs as it applies to war at sea, the Navy might face a future Pearl Harbor – as unprepared for war in the post-carrier era as it was unprepared for war at the dawn of the carrier age.
If you want to contest this, you very simply have to show that they did not want such a revolutionary transformation to happen as soon as it feasibly could, but rather wanted to wait a few decades.
False dichomoty. You seem to ignore the context of the paper, to inform Presidential level policy making, which for their purposes, GOP, would be either one term or two: That's a 4 or 8 year time horizon, NOT "a few decades." The also discuss, in the body of the work, the lengthy procurement process that hampered "rapid" change, and "revolutions" in military affairs, a sound byte that ignores how military change is most often evolutionary, not revolutionary. Just because PNAC wanted the change to be fast does not mean such is possible, given Congressional processes.

Nevertheless, we believe that, over time, the program we advocate would require budgets roughly equal to those necessary to fully fund the QDR force – a minimum level of 3.5 to 3.8 percent of gross domestic product. A sensible plan would add $15 billion to $20 billion to total defense spending annually through the Future Years Defense Program; this would
result in a defense “topline” increase of $75 billion to $100 billion over that period, a small percentage of the $700 billion onbudget surplus now projected for that same period. We believe that the new president should commit his administration to a plan to achieve that level of spending within four years.
In any event, your demand is irrelevant. The broad strategy for transformation was spelled out as a strategy, in language consistent with the mid to long term timelines consistent with procurement programs. The tone of the entire paper reflects that. Your cherry picking is an attempt to present a different tone.
Paradoxically, as American power and influence are at their apogee, American military forces limp toward exhaustion, unable to meet the demands of their many and varied missions, including preparing for tomorrow’s battlefield. Today’s force, reduced by a third or more over the past decade, suffers from degraded combat readiness; from difficulties in recruiting and retaining sufficient numbers of soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines; from the effects of an extended “procurement holiday” that has resulted in the premature aging of most weapons systems; from an increasingly obsolescent and inadequate military infrastructure; from a shrinking industrial base poorly structured to be the “arsenal of democracy” for the 21st century; from a lack of innovation that threatens the technological and operational advantages enjoyed by U.S. forces for a generation and upon which American strategy depends.
Whether it was intended to embarrass Clinton is neither here nor there; the Pearl Harbour notion is what matters here.
Pearl Harbor was mentioned twice, in two different contexts. In both cases, it was to use a historical example of either mobilization of public will, or of Naval Forces improperly configured to handle a new style of warfare. (Which was a bogus reference, since Billy Mitchell had already demonstrated the vulnerability of ships to aircraft in the late 1920's. )
I assume you work with the military in some capacity, but none of what you say is germane to the point I'm afraid.
I spent 25 years as a Navy pilot and later on, staff officer. :mad:
I'm pretty sure this has been dealt with in the original post, with details of the weapons/equipment that have been developed since 911, but would you go into detail as to what you mean by "toys"?
All of them, but in particular UAV's, whose origins go back to the DASH of the 1960's. Stryker was already in the pipe. JSF was already in the pipe. F-22. V-22. Nothing significantly new has hit the battlefield since 2000 beyond advantages accrued by increased processing power, and continual improvements in C2 capability, that I can discuss in a non classified environment. You can call the proliferation of small UAV's in Iraq at the tactical level an evolutionary change that was, again, in the pipe in the 1990's as part of Force XXI.

A variety of innovations in EW I am not at liberty to discuss. Sorry. I signed the NDA's,l and unlike Scooter Libby and Richard Armitage, I give a crap about OPSEC. Still.

Since your sole point seems to be "Pearl Harbor" there isn't much to contest, other than your attempt to spread misunderstanding of a strategy proposal. You will note that the CV elimination, and JSF elimination, did not happen for the usual Congressional/political/Pentagon reasons: not everyone agreed with this Brave New World of the PNAC folks, who tended toward silver bullet advocacy: Neither in Congress, nor in the Military.
Right, but the number is still up, as I have stated, from 1.41-1.43
BFD. In a war, end strength rises less than two percent. How is that significant?
A global war against an implacable, unbeatable, invisible, ubiquitous and ever renewing enemy is the perfect environment for such to happen.
It was an opporunity to weight the US Forces more toward Light and SOF, until Iraq was invaded. Had the WoT remained just that, and an Afghan nation building exercise at the same time, you might have had a point, as Rummy's obsession with SOF and tech would have had lots of space on his point papers and procurement priorities. By taking on Iraq, the cruel reality of full spectrum warfare, and the inherently human nature of war, returned to the fore, and quite frustrated Rummy's attempt to transform the military.
the last half of your sentence is important- who is a terrorist? Anyone Bus wants to label as such. Olmert? no. Ahmadinejad? Yes. It is not about right and wrong, terror or anti terror. Those who labelling as terrorists will be propitious to the US geo politic will be labelled as such, those who dont, wont.
In the language of the 1990's defense thinking, extra national political entities who use armed force, and the threat of armed force, to achieve a political end.

What is your definition of a terrorist?
Yes, it was overtly a peacetime document, except for the sentence that states that were there to be a catastrophic and catalysing event, such changes would happen a lot quicker.
Except that you ignore the other use of Pearl Harbor, in the completely Naval context, and show that your cherry picking is simply that: grasping at straws.
You'll have to explain METT-T
Mission Enemy Terrain Troops - Time

Conceptual framework for "what situation am I in, what is on hand to solve it, and how much time do I have." Military jargon, sorry.
I am not arguiing that RAD makes 911 an inside job, I am arguing that it states the propitiousness of a new PH to policy; i.e. it would grant the "excuse" for the neo cons to pursue essentially the policy laid out in RAD.
That is your post hoc reading into the document. Pearl Harbor was used to illustrate, as a threshold, given the political climate of the US in the late 1990's, and Viet Nam as a marker, how big an event had to happen for the American public to back a significant defense build up in the short term.

The problem is, there is little evidence of funding going to transformative change, but an immense amount of men and material and wealth being expended on a war that has, once again, hampered Rummy's desired transformation.

Please tell me how the militarisation of space, the use of cyberspace as a defense tool, the global posture review, are eroding the US as a military capability.
They are not, the war in Iraq is, but those features were all part and parcel of the Clinton era defense policies, absent some of the detail on space mmilitarization IIRC. I'd have to reference some old papers on international space agreements to discuss the details, but that is rather off topic to your contention, that Pearl Harbor as an illustration is evidence of much of anything.
Errr... 1stly the paper was written in 2000.
Not quite. It was published in 2000, the project was begun in 1998, so 1998/1999 is the contemporary political context.
The comment does indeed imply that absent a new PH it would be hard to get the US behind a war;
No duh, it was like stating that Texas is next to Mexico. Viet Nam for fifty, Alex, though PNAC was somewhat wrong. The Kuwait/Iraq War of 1990-1991 did not require a Pearl Harbor.
Hence if a war would speed these changes, a new PH would be propitious to policy.
But the war has not demonstrably sped those changes. Rummy tried to do this on the cheap crap, tech heavy, troop light, and it bloody well didn't work. He wanted to reduce the CV frce, and cancel JSF. DID NOT HAPPEN. Do you notice results much? The Army and Marines are bellowing for more troops, not less, as the transformative model demands.

Again, it does not necessarily follow that this outcome was intended. The Pearl Harbor example was, in analysis, an event that would make easier a re prioritizing of money to the defense budget, which otherwise, as noted in the body of the paper, would take the usual tooth pulling and hard work of the normal peacetime Congressional/political process.
No, because to take an example, "forward basing and presence" is not an examply of RMA, but is of the WOT
Wrong! It is an example of US Foreign Policy, and security posture, since the end of WW II.

DR

[mjd1982]

But how do you KNOW that it's racism and not FACT if you DON'T CHECK ?

If someone came to you and said that, proportionally, black people commit more crimes in the US than other "races". Would this be racial slur ? Well, I sure don't know if it's true or not, but we hear that, don't we ? So, in order to know if it's true, should we simple "decide" that it's racism or not ? Or should we have a look at the statistics and see ? It may be true and STILL have nothing to do with skin colour; maybe poverty has something to do with it. But you'll never find out if you just ignore the statement.

NOTE: That was just an example I made up, Mjd. Don't go and try to call me a racist.

No one said that these Afghans were dishonest. He said that hospitality took precedence over honesty, and that a host is bound by honour to defend his guests, no matter what. Do you understand what this entails ?


Good. So you agree that taking one stereotypical view of a group, and applying it to all members of such group, is racist and thus inadmissible to serious debate.

I hope you will refrain from using such tactics again.

[mjd1982]

I hope counterpunch never claims that "mjd1982 is a child molester" and gets picked up by other journalists without proof or references. Otherwise you're done for.


They would be unlikely to do this, since thy are a reputable publication.


LIHOP = LET it happen on purpose. LET IT.


If LIHOP is the case, then 911 was an inside job, and Bush Cheney et al will all face firing squads; no different to if it was MIHOP

[mjd1982]

Stop it. Just stop it.

I haven't posted here for a couple of weeks because of a death in the family.


I am sorry to hear that.


I am currently going through the phase that makes even the most noble human endeavors seem pointless and stupid...so you can imagine how I feel about this thread right now.

There are two possibilities: First, you don't really believe what you say you believe, and are just doing this to get attention. I'm leaning towards this explanation, especially given the recent "SylviaRox" episode in another thread.


I am sorry for your bereavement, but I dont think this part dignifies response


Second, you are sincere and really think a new investigation is called for. If this is true, then by all means, START YOUR INVESTIGATION.


Again I'm sorry for about circumstance, but this is not a good point. What would I do in an investigation?


Stop brandishing your sniping, cowardly insults


where has this happened?


and stop waiting for the same government that you feel is covering it up to grant judicial powers to some fantasy organization with better investigatory resources than the FBI.


Why am I waiting for them to do that? I am stating the necessity of an investigation to occur, not waiting for Bush to investigate himself.

A very bad point, I'm afraid.

[mjd1982]

So Madeline Albright, Sandy Berger, Richard Clarke, and Bill Clinton are all aware of this offer? And passed it on to the Bush administration? So are they complicit in the conspiracy? Or being deliberately misleading in their comments?


Why would they be aware of this offer? I have told you before, the overwhelming activity/negligence in its regard took place under Bush, hence why the article is targeted at him, not Clinton.

This should not be hard to understand.

[nicepants]

His claims are supported by documentation which, though we do have not seen, is confirmed by 2 of the most reputable journalists in the US, to be valid support of his claims.


You have not answered my questions.

1 - Who are "the most reputable journalists in the US", and how is this determined?

2 - Who are the specific journalists you're referring to who "confirmed" this?
2.1 - And links to where they confirmed same.

3 - Why haven't we seen this documentation to back up his claims?

[Augustine]

Why would they be aware of this offer? I have told you before, the overwhelming activity/negligence in its regard took place under Bush, hence why the article is targeted at him, not Clinton.

This should not be hard to understand.

From your article, Mohabbat's allegations:

In the summer of 2000, on one of his regular trips to Afghanistan, Mohabbat had a summit session with the Taliban high command in Kandahar. They asked him to arrange a meeting with appropriate officials in the European Union, to broker a way in which they could hand over Osama bin Laden . Mohabbat recommended they send bin Laden to the World Criminal Court in the Hague.
Shortly thereafter, in August of 2000, Mohabbat set up a meeting at the Sheraton hotel in Frankfurt between a delegation from the Taliban and Reiner Weiland of the EU. The Taliban envoys repeated the offer to deport bin Laden. Weiland told them he would take the proposal to Elmar Brok, foreign relations director for the European Union. According to Mohabbat, Brok then informed the US Ambassador to Germany of the offer.
At this point the US State Department called Mohabbat and said the government wanted to retain his services, even before his official period on the payroll, which lasted from November of 2000 to late September, 2001, by which time he tells us he had been paid $115,000.
On the morning of October 12, 2000, Mohabbat was in Washington DC, preparing for an 11am meeting at the State Department , when he got a call from State, telling him to turn on the tv and then come right over. The USS Cole had just been bombed. Mohabbat had a session with the head of State's South East Asia desk and with officials from the NSC. They told him the US was going to "bomb the hell out of Afghanistan". "Give me three weeks," Mohabbat answered, "and I will deliver Osama to your doorstep." They gave him a month.
Mohabbat went to Kandahar and communicated the news of imminent bombing to the Taliban. They asked him to set up a meeting with US officials to arrange the circumstances of their handover of Osama. On November 2, 2000, less than a week before the US election, Mohabbat arranged a face-to-face meeting, in that same Sheraton hotel in Frankfurt, between Taliban leaders and a US government team.
After a rocky start on the first day of the Frankfurt session, Mohabbat says the Taliban realized the gravity of US threats and outlined various ways bin Laden could be dealt with. He could be turned over to the EU, killed by the Taliban, or made available as a target for Cruise missiles. In the end, Mohabbat says, the Taliban promised the "unconditional surrender of bin Laden" . "We all agreed," Mohabbat tells CounterPunch, "the best way was to gather Osama and all his lieutenants in one location and the US would send one or two Cruise missiles."
Up to that time Osama had been living on the outskirts of Kandahar. At some time shortly after the Frankfurt meeting, the Taliban moved Osama and placed him and his retinue under house arrest at Daronta, thirty miles from Kabul.
In the wake of the 2000 election Mohabbat traveled to Islamabad and met with William Milam, US ambassador to Pakistan and the person designated by the Clinton administration to deal with the Taliban on the fate of bin Laden. Milam told Mohabbat that it was a done deal but that the actual handover of bin Laden would have to be handled by the incoming Bush administration.
On November 23, 2000, Mohabbat got a call from the NSC saying they wanted to put him officially on the payroll as the US government's contact man for the Taliban. He agreed.


So, are you still claiming the Clinton administration (Clinton, Albright, Berger, Clarke) was completely unaware of this offer? How can that be?

(Unless, of course, the offer DIDN'T EXIST :p )

[jab712]

Stop brandishing your sniping, cowardly insults


where has this happened?


I suppose cowardly is just a matter of opinion.

You have gotten warnings from the moderators. Must I show you these again? One just happened on the previous page.

http://www.randi.org/forumlive/showpost.php?p=2736197&postcount=1690

You keep suggesting that everyone "keep up". Yet, you can't even "keep up" with yourself. Don't come back and say irrelevant, pointless, or whatever. You asked for it, you got it.

[mjd1982]

??

Yes. If you were around in the mid 1990's, and in the military, as I was, and paying attention to the partisan squabbling over budget matters as the deficit was being roped and branded, you found that some Senators and Congressmen on both sides of the aisle had reservations about how deeply Paneta drove Clinton's wedge into the low slope drawdown of Powell's base force, and how rapidly the slope of drawdown increased beyond the initial Cheney / Bush drawdown initiated in late 89/early 90.

The theme was "Defense budget cut was too deep, need to recapitalize or we will have a hollow force." PNAC was not alone in agreeing with that. Their paper is not evidence of a plot, but a reflection of a widely held opinion that Clinton had gone overboard on cuts, while at the same time increasing the wear and tear on operating forces with frivolous deployments to places like Bosnia. If you note the process they undertook to write the piece, they consulted a host of military and defense experts while doing their analysis.


I'm sorry, I presume you have not been on this thread before, but i will state my position pretty clearly on RAD since there appear to be crossed wires here.

The RAD document illustrates that PNAC, composed significantly of members who were to assume important positions in the Bush admin on and up to 911, deemed a catastrophic and catalysing even, a new PH, to be propitious to policy, that policy of military radicalisation as outlined in RAD. This policy is now, to an overwhelmingly accurate degree, now being pursued under the banner of the WOT. I do not state that RAD constitutes a plan; it merely gives us a framework within which to analyse the behaviour of Bush et al in the lead up to 911, given that they had deemed such an even to be propitious.


Given your position that the Pearl Harbor illustration was evidence of a plan, rather than a piece of political analysis of what it takes to get America on a war footing, I find your position unsupported by anything other than a post hoc rationalization. If you read the report from front to back, the tone is hardly one of hopeful anticipation of a new Pearl Harbor event.


as above


Given that I was someone who disagreed completely with the idea of the US continuing to play "world's policeman" while maggots at the UN cried about dues, and when we undertook multi billion dollar operations in Africa for "no credit to peacekeeping funds," I have no desire to defend PNAC's vision of a more vigorous engagement policy. I considered it ill advised when it came out, and was far more interested in a "let them play" policy that allowed civil wars to run their course, as America's civil war was allowed to run its course with little interference from foreign powers.

Again, the PNAC initial statement of principal was in 1997, and the RAD paper was begun in 1998.

(Signed by the usual suspects: Elliott Abrams, Gary Bauer, William J. Bennett, Jeb Bush, Dick Cheney, Eliot A. Cohen, Midge Decter, Paula Dobriansky, Steve Forbes, Aaron Friedberg, Francis Fukuyama, Frank Gaffney, Fred C. Ikle, Donald Kagan, Zalmay Khalilzad, I. Lewis Libby, Norman Podhoretz, Dan Quayle, Peter W. Rodman, Stephen P. Rosen, Henry S. Rowen Donald Rumsfeld, Vin Weber, George Weigel, Paul Wolfowitz)


right...


I have not ruled out, in my own mind, the low probability chance that a deliberate indifference/negligence was undertaken as a matter of policy vis a vis terrorist and criminal activity. Much of my evidence for this is indirect, the well known complaints of Scheuer and Clarke, and others, about issues being brought up and not acted on between January and Sept of 2001.

I can't prove it, but I can't rule it out completely. Given that the evidence is locked inside the intentions of policy makers at a very high level, I don't expect to be able to dig it out, seeing as how this indifference/negligence would be grounds for serious charges regarding 9-11 events. No one who knows is going to talk anyway, out of fear. I wonder at the utility of this "independent" investigation you suggest. Who is going to make anyone talk? Notice how they lawyered up over the Plame case?


Ok, so you state that it may have been an inside job, but because an independent investigation might be too hard, you dont support it?


Please don't try to put words into my mouth. Thanks. Where did I ever say I don't support such an investigation? I note that the official 9-11 investigation chaired by Lehman was beset by the contamination of political agendas.


Ok good! Well seeing as a CTer can be broadly defined as someone who thinks there is sufficient evidence of gov comlicity in 911 to warrant a new independent investigation into such, would you thus be a CTer?


Since you have built your house on sand, that the Pearl Harbor reference was a sign of intent, rather than analysis, I find it hard to find this objection credible.


as above, no i dont think that


The base motivation for the position paper was made public in 1997-1998 in the statement of principles. The RAD paper represented a detailed elaboration on the original theme, based on research begun in 1998, and published after a long process in 2000.

From PNAC's own words. 1998. The opportunity referred to was "being the sole superpower" and all that rot.


Right. A theme regarding US strategy. And in terms of the new PH line, who knows when that was mooted?


Yet they refer to Pearl Harbor also in the Naval Strategy section:
In PNACspeak:

Absent a rigorous program of experimentation to investigate the nature of the revolution in military affairs as it applies to war at sea, the Navy might face a future Pearl Harbor – as unprepared for war in the post-carrier era as it was unprepared for war at the dawn of the carrier age.


I dont see what this has to do with anything, sorry


False dichomoty. You seem to ignore the context of the paper, to inform Presidential level policy making, which for their purposes, GOP, would be either one term or two: That's a 4 or 8 year time horizon, NOT "a few decades." The also discuss, in the body of the work, the lengthy procurement process that hampered "rapid" change, and "revolutions" in military affairs, a sound byte that ignores how military change is most often evolutionary, not revolutionary. Just because PNAC wanted the change to be fast does not mean such is possible, given Congressional processes.


The transformations they talk about implementing would take several decades to implement, according to them:


In general terms it seems likely that the
process of transformation will take several
decades



This two-stage process is likely to take
several decades.



Although it may take several decades
for the process of transformation to unfold,


The point about time horizon is very interesting. In realistic terms, yes, they only have 4/8 years to implement this transformation. But, the dastardly nature of the WOT is such that, as explained, it will persist beyond 2009, indeed indefinitely, as Terror can never be vanquished. If the batteries ever start to run thin, and US hegemony looks set to be threatened, all that needs to happen is another inside job attack, say pinned on Venezuelan terrorist, or Iranian, or whoever, and the WOT starts up all over again, This is how a war can last forever, despite its initiators and founding ideologues only being around for 4 or 8 years. This is why the WOT makes no sense; even if 911 wasnt an inside job, they could have called it a War on AQ, or a War on Jihadist Terrorism. The WOT is so flexible and regenerative, that it is the perfect construct, political and not media, note that, to ensure the sustenance of US hegemony through military means throughout the 21st century, just as PNAC has set out to achieve.


In any event, your demand is irrelevant. The broad strategy for transformation was spelled out as a strategy, in language consistent with the mid to long term timelines consistent with procurement programs. The tone of the entire paper reflects that. Your cherry picking is an attempt to present a different tone.


Yes, but as pointed out to you before, and at length in post 493 (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=84473&page=13), it makes little sense to believe other than that the originators would have wanted the change to happen sooner rather than later.


Pearl Harbor was mentioned twice, in two different contexts. In both cases, it was to use a historical example of either mobilization of public will, or of Naval Forces improperly configured to handle a new style of warfare. (Which was a bogus reference, since Billy Mitchell had already demonstrated the vulnerability of ships to aircraft in the late 1920's. )


Right, which is more or less my point.


I spent 25 years as a Navy pilot and later on, staff officer. :mad:

All of them, but in particular UAV's, whose origins go back to the DASH of the 1960's. Stryker was already in the pipe. JSF was already in the pipe. F-22. V-22. Nothing significantly new has hit the battlefield since 2000 beyond advantages accrued by increased processing power, and continual improvements in C2 capability, that I can discuss in a non classified environment. You can call the proliferation of small UAV's in Iraq at the tactical level an evolutionary change that was, again, in the pipe in the 1990's as part of Force XXI.

A variety of innovations in EW I am not at liberty to discuss. Sorry. I signed the NDA's,l and unlike Scooter Libby and Richard Armitage, I give a crap about OPSEC. Still.

Since your sole point seems to be "Pearl Harbor" there isn't much to contest, other than your attempt to spread misunderstanding of a strategy proposal. You will note that the CV elimination, and JSF elimination, did not happen for the usual Congressional/political/Pentagon reasons: not everyone agreed with this Brave New World of the PNAC folks, who tended toward silver bullet advocacy: Neither in Congress, nor in the Military.


As I have said many times, RAD is a strategy proposal, one that will ~save the world for America; it is inexplicable that initiators of such would want such an occurence to wait awhile and then hope someone else would implement it; or that they would not want such to be implemented as firmly and as quickly as possible.


BFD. In a war, end strength rises less than two percent. How is that significant?


Lol, this is exaclty the point! They wanted the end strength to go up, and a war would spur that change!


It was an opporunity to weight the US Forces more toward Light and SOF, until Iraq was invaded. Had the WoT remained just that, and an Afghan nation building exercise at the same time, you might have had a point, as Rummy's obsession with SOF and tech would have had lots of space on his point papers and procurement priorities. By taking on Iraq, the cruel reality of full spectrum warfare, and the inherently human nature of war, returned to the fore, and quite frustrated Rummy's attempt to transform the military.


Hence, maybe, why he was replaced. Nonetheless, many of the elements of the WOT, outlined many times already, have been pursued under the aegis of this war, Iraq or no Iraq.


In the language of the 1990's defense thinking, extra national political entities who use armed force, and the threat of armed force, to achieve a political end.

What is your definition of a terrorist?


I wouldnt go along with "extra national" at all; if a government blows up a civilian building/plane, this is terrorism too.


Except that you ignore the other use of Pearl Harbor, in the completely Naval context, and show that your cherry picking is simply that: grasping at straws.


The fact that PH is mentioned in another context in the doc is completely meaningless; what is your point?


Mission Enemy Terrain Troops - Time

Conceptual framework for "what situation am I in, what is on hand to solve it, and how much time do I have." Military jargon, sorry.

That is your post hoc reading into the document.


No its not. As I have said before, if you want to argue that the neo cons wanted this change that would in their eyes, secure US hegemony for the century to come, to happen slowly, rather than as soon as would be possible and feasible, then i think you have some work to do. Just because we are after the event, you cannot just throw the term "post hoc" at any efforts to use RAD as evidence.


Pearl Harbor was used to illustrate, as a threshold, given the political climate of the US in the late 1990's, and Viet Nam as a marker, how big an event had to happen for the American public to back a significant defense build up in the short term.


Correct! And hence how such would be propitous to policy. Where is the problem here? I cant see whats so hard to understand.


The problem is, there is little evidence of funding going to transformative change, but an immense amount of men and material and wealth being expended on a war that has, once again, hampered Rummy's desired transformation.


Again a matter of execution, rather than design; though I would like to see the specific figures, since I cannot believe that significant amounts arent going into the other programmes mentioned here so far.


They are not, the war in Iraq is, but those features were all part and parcel of the Clinton era defense policies, absent some of the detail on space mmilitarization IIRC. I'd have to reference some old papers on international space agreements to discuss the details, but that is rather off topic to your contention, that Pearl Harbor as an illustration is evidence of much of anything.


It is evidence of propitiousness to policy, nothing more for the moment.

I know that such policies had been mooted under Clinton.


Not quite. It was published in 2000, the project was begun in 1998, so 1998/1999 is the contemporary political context.


Ok, or 99/200


No duh, it was like stating that Texas is next to Mexico. Viet Nam for fifty, Alex, though PNAC was somewhat wrong. The Kuwait/Iraq War of 1990-1991 did not require a Pearl Harbor.


I cant make head or tail of that post im afraid


But the war has not demonstrably sped those changes. Rummy tried to do this on the cheap crap, tech heavy, troop light, and it bloody well didn't work. He wanted to reduce the CV frce, and cancel JSF. DID NOT HAPPEN. Do you notice results much? The Army and Marines are bellowing for more troops, not less, as the transformative model demands.


But we are agreed it should. And the reason for the PH statement is to illustrate that reality, which you have mentioned yourself. This is the point; the execution is irrelevant, particularly under this bunch of bumblers.


Again, it does not necessarily follow that this outcome was intended. The Pearl Harbor example was, in analysis, an event that would make easier a re prioritizing of money to the defense budget, which otherwise, as noted in the body of the paper, would take the usual tooth pulling and hard work of the normal peacetime Congressional/political process.


Hence why it would be propitious to policy. Are we agreed?


Wrong! It is an example of US Foreign Policy, and security posture, since the end of WW II.

DR

In a broad sense yes, but as it was called for in PNAC, and is being done under the Global Posture Review, it is an example of one part of the WOT.

In short, you seem to agree that a new PH would speed the changes, as military changes in a wartime environment are a lot easier to implement than in peacetime. Are you stating that even taking this ease into account, PNAC would rather such changes be pursued in peacetime? I think if you are serious, you do not, and if you do not, you must agree with my assertion that a new PH was deemed propitious to policy. Further, I am not sure that you are too far away from a CT position, given your comments on LIHOP; maybe you can inform me on this.

[aggle-rithm]

where has this happened?


From the first five pages of this thread:

Right, so you have just lied through your teeth. No surprise there. Why do you waste your time here?

This has been outlined to you in pretty plain english, and in great detail. Why have you ignored these issues? Pray tell.

ETA: And since you, apparently, don't read very well:



This shouldnt have been too hard, to read, or to understand.

Oh, sorry, hahaha, yep there it is. That's some grade A debunking. Well done!

For anyone who has a serious point to make in response to my points on Gravy's "critique", I look forward to reading it.

So, well done on your diligence, but the majority of the links you have provided are utterly irrelevant, and the one that is has had all its points, brainless though they are, addressed by me.

Ok, you did! Then, quite simply, you have some pretty severe comprehension problems.
...................
You might wanna sit the next few out my friend.

Please dont post to me again until you start doing some research.




What an excellent command of rhetoric you have. You would have noticed, wereyour reading comp skills above that of a 7 year old......

Ahhh... how true. What a fine intellectual specimen you are proving yourslef to be! Keep it up!

.................

You are a charmingly empty headed one, no?




Oh, and one other thing- HeyLeroy, though I am impressed at your use of a big word like cartography, please learn to read maps before typing it.

[HeyLeroy]

I'm bowing out of this one.

mjd1982, the blatant dishonesty inherent in your racism/bigotry accusations shines the harsh light of reality on your underhanded tactics. You're not really interested in honest debate, you're much more interested in 'winning' at any cost. I won't be able to continue in this thread and at the same time abide by the rules of civility.

Someone PM me if he ever makes it around to his crack-pot views on 7WTC.

HeyLeroy out.

[MIKILLINI]

Welcome to the new angle, DR, of twoofer circular reasoning.

It's WOCS; War On Common Sense. It's long, drawn out and protracted. Designed to exasperate the persons senses from all the excessive insensible nonsense thereby rendering people to a "Whatever" statement making the CTer believe they had convinced same exasperated person to agree with them.

[Dr Adequate]

Clinton had gone overboard on cuts, while at the same time increasing the wear and tear on operating forces with frivolous deployments to places like Bosnia. "Frivolous"?

[Belz...]

Good. So you agree that taking one stereotypical view of a group, and applying it to all members of such group, is racist and thus inadmissible to serious debate.

I hope you will refrain from using such tactics again.

Dear MJD, please read the following VERY carefully:

In the post you were answering to, I was attempting to make you understand the meaning of the Afghan claim by using an analogy. Specifically, I meant to explain to you that if you don't verify a claim, you cannot say whether it is true or not, and therefore you cannot claim that it is a racial slur.

Your post above merely confirms what I've suspected since the OP; namely that you cannot interpret what you read. It is obvious that you either did not read my post, did not understand what it meant, or simply ignored its content.

Such an attitude towards other people's statements make it impossible to engage in a debate with you, since the only voice you are hearing is your own.

They would be unlikely to do this, since thy are a reputable publication.

Circular reasoning.

If LIHOP is the case, then 911 was an inside job

You don't understand the meaning of the word "LET" ? That's hardly surprising.

Mjd, you should take my advice and take English lessons. Your ability to understand what you read is laughable.

[tsig]

I'm sorry, I presume you have not been on this thread before, but i will state my position pretty clearly on RAD since there appear to be crossed wires here.

The RAD document illustrates that PNAC, composed significantly of members who were to assume important positions in the Bush admin on and up to 911, deemed a catastrophic and catalysing even, a new PH, to be propitious to policy, that policy of military radicalisation as outlined in RAD. This policy is now, to an overwhelmingly accurate degree, now being pursued under the banner of the WOT. I do not state that RAD constitutes a plan; it merely gives us a framework within which to analyse the behaviour of Bush et al in the lead up to 911, given that they had deemed such an even to be propitious.



as above



right...



Ok, so you state that it may have been an inside job, but because an independent investigation might be too hard, you dont support it?



Ok good! Well seeing as a CTer can be broadly defined as someone who thinks there is sufficient evidence of gov comlicity in 911 to warrant a new independent investigation into such, would you thus be a CTer?



as above, no i dont think that



Right. A theme regarding US strategy. And in terms of the new PH line, who knows when that was mooted?



I dont see what this has to do with anything, sorry



The transformations they talk about implementing would take several decades to implement, according to them:







The point about time horizon is very interesting. In realistic terms, yes, they only have 4/8 years to implement this transformation. But, the dastardly nature of the WOT is such that, as explained, it will persist beyond 2009, indeed indefinitely, as Terror can never be vanquished. If the batteries ever start to run thin, and US hegemony looks set to be threatened, all that needs to happen is another inside job attack, say pinned on Venezuelan terrorist, or Iranian, or whoever, and the WOT starts up all over again, This is how a war can last forever, despite its initiators and founding ideologues only being around for 4 or 8 years. This is why the WOT makes no sense; even if 911 wasnt an inside job, they could have called it a War on AQ, or a War on Jihadist Terrorism. The WOT is so flexible and regenerative, that it is the perfect construct, political and not media, note that, to ensure the sustenance of US hegemony through military means throughout the 21st century, just as PNAC has set out to achieve.



Yes, but as pointed out to you before, and at length in post 493 (http://forums.randi.org/showthread.php?t=84473&page=13), it makes little sense to believe other than that the originators would have wanted the change to happen sooner rather than later.



Right, which is more or less my point.



As I have said many times, RAD is a strategy proposal, one that will ~save the world for America; it is inexplicable that initiators of such would want such an occurence to wait awhile and then hope someone else would implement it; or that they would not want such to be implemented as firmly and as quickly as possible.



Lol, this is exaclty the point! They wanted the end strength to go up, and a war would spur that change!



Hence, maybe, why he was replaced. Nonetheless, many of the elements of the WOT, outlined many times already, have been pursued under the aegis of this war, Iraq or no Iraq.



I wouldnt go along with "extra national" at all; if a government blows up a civilian building/plane, this is terrorism too.



The fact that PH is mentioned in another context in the doc is completely meaningless; what is your point?



No its not. As I have said before, if you want to argue that the neo cons wanted this change that would in their eyes, secure US hegemony for the century to come, to happen slowly, rather than as soon as would be possible and feasible, then i think you have some work to do. Just because we are after the event, you cannot just throw the term "post hoc" at any efforts to use RAD as evidence.



Correct! And hence how such would be propitous to policy. Where is the problem here? I cant see whats so hard to understand.



Again a matter of execution, rather than design; though I would like to see the specific figures, since I cannot believe that significant amounts arent going into the other programmes mentioned here so far.



It is evidence of propitiousness to policy, nothing more for the moment.

I know that such policies had been mooted under Clinton.



Ok, or 99/200



I cant make head or tail of that post im afraid



But we are agreed it should. And the reason for the PH statement is to illustrate that reality, which you have mentioned yourself. This is the point; the execution is irrelevant, particularly under this bunch of bumblers.



Hence why it would be propitious to policy. Are we agreed?



In a broad sense yes, but as it was called for in PNAC, and is being done under the Global Posture Review, it is an example of one part of the WOT.

In short, you seem to agree that a new PH would speed the changes, as military changes in a wartime environment are a lot easier to implement than in peacetime. Are you stating that even taking this ease into account, PNAC would rather such changes be pursued in peacetime? I think if you are serious, you do not, and if you do not, you must agree with my assertion that a new PH was deemed propitious to policy. Further, I am not sure that you are too far away from a CT position, given your comments on LIHOP; maybe you can inform me on this.

Boring.

[Cuddles]

Man, I'm away for a couple of weeks and you're still talking about PNAC and Pearl Harbour? I'll repeat what I said before.

According to this source spending is currently estimated at about 3.4% of GDP. In 1997 when the statement was published spending was at 3.3% of GDP. Is this really what you consider a massive increase in spending that could only be brought about by a major attack on the US? To contrast this with previous spending, until 1995 the defence budget had not dropped below 4% since 1948. So apparently PNAC orchestrated 11/9 in order to maintain military spending at the lowest level since the end of WWII.

Seriously, please give up with this argument now. You have not just been proven wrong, this entire line of attack involving the PNAC proves your whole argument utterly nonsensical. PNAC did not say they want a new Pearl Harbour, they did not get a new Pearl Harbour and they didn't even get what they said would happen if a new Pearl Harbour had actually happened. No motive, no opportunity and no result. Possibly the most ineffective conspiracy ever. In fact, it's almost as though the conspiracy didn't actually exist.

PNAC did not say they wanted a new Pearl Harbour. They said something on the scale of Pearl Harbour would have to happen for massive changes in the military to happen quickly. This does not mean that they want this to happen.

A new Pearl Harbour did not happen. A military attack by military forces on a military base with a military objective as part of a military war is not even close to the same thing as a civilian attack on civilians with a political objective. Terrorism is not the same thing as war.

The supposd objectives that would be achieved by a new Pearl Harbour did not happen. As demonstrated by the figures I have once again quoted, military spending has remained at its lowest level since the end of WWII.

Seriously mjd, please just stop spouting such utter nonsense. PNAC didn't want Pearl Harbour, they didn't get Pearl Harbour and they didn't get anything that might have happened with a new Pearl Harbour. You have nothing.

[Belz...]

PNAC did not say they wanted a new Pearl Harbour. They said something on the scale of Pearl Harbour would have to happen for massive changes in the military to happen quickly. This does not mean that they want this to happen.

Of course they did, Cuddles. That's why they used the word "even" :rolleyes:

[mjd1982]

From the first five pages of this thread:
Sorry mate, I have sympathy for your situation, but these are neither "sniping" nor "cowardly".

[mjd1982]

You have not answered my questions.

1 - Who are "the most reputable journalists in the US", and how is this determined?

2 - Who are the specific journalists you're referring to who "confirmed" this?
2.1 - And links to where they confirmed same.

3 - Why haven't we seen this documentation to back up his claims?
1. By repute
2. Cockburn and St Clair, [url="http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11012004.html"the link[/url] has been provided 1000 times, do keep up
3. Journalists dont include links to offline documentation in their articles

[mjd1982]

From your article, Mohabbat's allegations:


So, are you still claiming the Clinton administration (Clinton, Albright, Berger, Clarke) was completely unaware of this offer? How can that be?

(Unless, of course, the offer DIDN'T EXIST :p )
The vague offer to have OBL dealt with, occurring at the end of the Clinton admin, may have been something they were aware of; maybe not. Millam has not come out, in the last 2 1/2 years, to denounce this claim; neither have the NSC. What they would not have been aware of, was the constant badgering of the government by Mohabbat et al, to do something about the Frankfurt deal, when concrete steps had been put in place to deal with it. This is because these were directed to Bush; hence why the article is targeted at Bush, not at Clinton.

Incidentally, you still have not dealt with the claim, put forward by some of your colleagues against my claim, that the Taliban offered to hand OBL to a US stacked court in Saudi. Please give an explanation as to why this would have been rejected, in addition to the above.

[mjd1982]

Welcome to the new angle, DR, of twoofer circular reasoning.

It's WOCS; War On Common Sense. It's long, drawn out and protracted. Designed to exasperate the persons senses from all the excessive insensible nonsense thereby rendering people to a "Whatever" statement making the CTer believe they had convinced same exasperated person to agree with them.
Hahaha, nice gag! Since you havent been following very closely, you will not have noticed that although this is getting frustratingly protracted, this is due to the reason that none of your ilk wish to seriously contest the major points that get raised, despite numerous exhortations. Such posts, the key ones in the thread, include #95, #493, and #750. Few of your ilk appear to have the balls to address these points seriously; yet they are quite happy to rabbit on about no planes, CD of the TT's etc.

So yes, this is going on longer than it should, but were your friends more amenable to honest debate, this would not need to be the case.

[mjd1982]

Dear MJD, please read the following VERY carefully:

In the post you were answering to, I was attempting to make you understand the meaning of the Afghan claim by using an analogy. Specifically, I meant to explain to you that if you don't verify a claim, you cannot say whether it is true or not, and therefore you cannot claim that it is a racial slur.

Your post above merely confirms what I've suspected since the OP; namely that you cannot interpret what you read. It is obvious that you either did not read my post, did not understand what it meant, or simply ignored its content.

Such an attitude towards other people's statements make it impossible to engage in a debate with you, since the only voice you are hearing is your own.



Circular reasoning.



You don't understand the meaning of the word "LET" ? That's hardly surprising.

Mjd, you should take my advice and take English lessons. Your ability to understand what you read is laughable.
An assertion that is by definition a racial slur (i.e. one that tars a race with a pejorative brush), is not one that any reasonable person will waste time investigating. This is a pretty simple concept, i'm afraid to say.

[DGM]

Incidentally, you still have not dealt with the claim, put forward by some of your colleagues against my claim, that the Taliban offered to hand OBL to a US stacked court in Saudi. Please give an explanation as to why this would have been rejected, in addition to the above.

There is no proof the offer was in good faith, Remember. Please keep up.

[mjd1982]

Man, I'm away for a couple of weeks and you're still talking about PNAC and Pearl Harbour? I'll repeat what I said before.



PNAC did not say they wanted a new Pearl Harbour. They said something on the scale of Pearl Harbour would have to happen for massive changes in the military to happen quickly. This does not mean that they want this to happen.

A new Pearl Harbour did not happen. A military attack by military forces on a military base with a military objective as part of a military war is not even close to the same thing as a civilian attack on civilians with a political objective. Terrorism is not the same thing as war.

The supposd objectives that would be achieved by a new Pearl Harbour did not happen. As demonstrated by the figures I have once again quoted, military spending has remained at its lowest level since the end of WWII.

Seriously mjd, please just stop spouting such utter nonsense. PNAC didn't want Pearl Harbour, they didn't get Pearl Harbour and they didn't get anything that might have happened with a new Pearl Harbour. You have nothing.
I'm sorry, but I dont think you're being serious.

1stly, this has been debated to conclusion, very few of your colleagues wish to seriously contest it, but you can flick back and see how it has gone, I think it is pretty conclusive. 1stly, you make the elementary mistake that what PNAC strictly wanted was not a new PH, but a catastrophic and catalysing event. If you deny that 911 was the sort of event PNAC were referring you, then you are denying that 911 was either catastophic, or catalysing. Since this would have to be the case, I repeat my assertion that you are not being serious.

2ndly, if you wish to contest the similarity between RAD and WOT, then there is a very simple way to do it. Go to post 95, as has Darth Rotor, and see what the contentions are in this regard. There you will see that RAD is an almost blow by blow replica of the WOT. This will be very simple for you to understand, should you be posting on this thread in a serious vein.

[mjd1982]

There is no proof the offer was in good faith, Remember. Please keep up.
That's not the point. The point is that there was no discussion on the US side of whether to accept. This is what needs explanation.

[SpitfireIX]

An assertion that is by definition a racial slur (i.e. one that tars a race with a pejorative brush), is not one that any reasonable person will waste time investigating. This is a pretty simple concept, i'm afraid to say.


All right, mjd1982, let me pose the following example. Suppose I state that "All the Dutch who were hiding or would have hidden Jews during World War II would have shaded the truth, or even lied, rather than hand them over to the Nazis." By your logic, this is clearly an ethnic slur. Please comment.

[DGM]

That's not the point. The point is that there was no discussion on the US side of whether to accept. This is what needs explanation.

We have shown with a high degree of probability that the offer did not exist. How does one go about discussing this?:confused:

[WildCat]

I'm sorry, but I dont think you're being serious.

1stly, this has been debated to conclusion, very few of your colleagues wish to seriously contest it, but you can flick back and see how it has gone, I think it is pretty conclusive. 1stly, you make the elementary mistake that what PNAC strictly wanted was not a new PH, but a catastrophic and catalysing event. If you deny that 911 was the sort of event PNAC were referring you, then you are denying that 911 was either catastophic, or catalysing. Since this would have to be the case, I repeat my assertion that you are not being serious.
In all seriousness: Who ya crappin'?

[MIKILLINI]

Hahaha, nice gag! [QUOTE]Since you havent been following very closely,

How are you determining this? By the amount of postings? Or do you consider "following closely" as a consensual agreement between people here and you
by way of your arguments?

you will not have noticed that although this is getting frustratingly protracted, this is due to the reason that none of your ilk wish to seriously contest the major points that get raised, despite numerous exhortations.

Here's something you don't know, mjd, but now you will; I argued the very same points you are arguing, and argued them here, just like you are now.
Those people (as you call them My ilk) you give the ad-hom attack to, have researched the points you are arguing, as have I. The problem is You. Read that again, the problem is you and I'll reasonably tell you why.
You are so convinced that the Neocons had written PNAC with the intention of making these transformational changes in the short term, with their expression as a catastrophic and catalyzing event to be the trigger. 9/11 turned out to be that event. I'm not saying your completely wrong as far as the intentional acts of corruption leading to up 9/11, it's just that any acts of corruption are indirect in causing 9/11 to happen. The larger context of corruption was seized upon after 9/11. Note here that it's a key point.

Such posts, the key ones in the thread, include #95, #493, and #750. Few of your ilk appear to have the balls to address these points seriously. So yes, this is going on longer than it should, but were your friends more amenable to honest debate, this would not need to be the case.

They have been addressed, countless times. there's no fear here to do that.
As I've stated previously, I was making these arguments you are now, in the past. I realized and was shown 9/11 was not an inside job, just that incompetence, corruption, indifference, bureaucratic procedure all had contributed to the conditions. Honest debate means you can agree to disagree. Here is the BIG problem though: Who is going to allow a new investigation?

[mjd1982]

All right, mjd1982, let me pose the following example. Suppose I state that "All the Dutch who were hiding or would have hidden Jews during World War II would have shaded the truth, or even lied, rather than hand them over to the Nazis." By your logic, this is clearly an ethnic slur. Please comment.
No, because lying to save people from genocide is different to lying to protect a mass murderer. Pretty simple, hence the use of the word "pejorative".

In addition, there would also be the issue of the veracity of your statement which would be questionable, which again illustrates the haplessness of the arguments being put forth here.