Combine that with the historical knowledge of kamikaze pilots, and it sure makes a mockery of the idea that 9/11 was totally unforeseeable, don’t ya think?. If that was the case, shouldn’t every person charged with protecting American soil at that time, have been fired, at the very least?
Serious question: What would it take to make you give up your idea that major secrets are being kept? What evidence would it take to make you accept that the reason we went into Afghanistan is as stated; to get AQ and overthrow the government that harbored them?
He seems to be implying that since it’s fucked up, someone must have meant for it to be fucked up, and the only reason he can think of that anyone would be interested in fucking up Afghanistan so much is to get an oil pipeline from a sea that doesn’t even border the country, direct to Dick Cheney’s SUV, or something.
Try2B, I know I’ve made somewhat of a strawman of your position here, but can you elaborate? Sure, Afghanistan is a mess, and it seems to me that we pretty much understand how it got to that state. They were used as a pawn in the Cold War, and the people are largely fundamentalist Islamists so they actually support fucked up governments. Now beyond this, what else are you reading into the situation?
The 9/11 Commission’s job was to answer that question. Did you read the report?
Please do go back when you get the chance and reply to the post I cited. The summary doesn’t cut it.
I picked up a bit of formality from another thread, maybe this will clear it up:
The Bush Doctrine boils down to an Argumentum ad Balacum
If x accepts P as true, then Q
Q is a punishment for x
Therefore P is not true.
IOW, if you don’t turn over Bin Laden, its war. It is false reasoning to say their refusal to do so implies their guilt in the matter- maybe they couldn’t control Bin Laden any more than we can. We are talking about territory that wasn’t recognized as a nation and embroiled in a looong civil war.
I’m obviously not a professor of Afghan history; if I were I wouldn’t be asking these questions on SDMB. I’ve looked at a lot of material however and haven’t yet found proof that the Taliban could hand over Bin Laden on demand. Yes I realize that is commonly accepted, but… cite?
You’d need to read the original post, but, here’s the quote from here again for your convenience:
The point is, I’m referring to what was left out. This is also in answer to your question, ‘what secrets?’ This lead probably will go nowhere until the material is released (or you know more), so not much to dispute about on this point.
Agreed. Not arguing that.
AQ was in Afghanistan, but again, please check out my original post. Maybe I simply missed the part where the specific relationship between AQ and the Taliban is described. Please cite?
And, stopping them short of a ‘heavy duty military operation’ is exactly what we did. The military went in afterward, as described in my original post.
Don’t be scared, pipelines are only mentioned once in passing. Again, do go back and reply to those points when you get a chance.
As for the rest… as stated in the OP, my motive for this thread is my own suspicions about the matter, arising from the fact that the various bits I’d picked up about the war didn’t add up. On closer inspection… aha, the CIA is heavily involved. That would make milk and cookies look suspicious. Just realizing the extent of their involvement explains why some things seemed ‘off’, why some leads may never go anywhere, etc. Obviously I do still have some unanswered questions.
Thanks for helping me steer this conversation into Afghanistan- that is where most of my unanswered 911 questions are 
Telemark:
The Saudi funding bit that I mention in my last post. Maybe more information about CIA support of Islamic militants during the Cold War and where that goes after the Soviets withdraw. And- maybe it would only be disabusing me of a misconception- a good explanation of why it is an 8+ year campaign when the major objectives were accomplished in weeks, before full-scale military involvement. And, a description of the relationship between the Taliban and AQ.
There may be other bits, but that’s what comes to mind.
Curt C:
It could be this simple: It is so fucked up I can’t believe it! :smack:
I find details about the ongoing history of the war itself to be sparse. Maybe I don’t know where to look. I’m having trouble understanding what takes 8+ years of military intervention to accomplish. Perhaps a decent history of our 8 years in Afghanistan would help me to accept it at face value.
What other motives could be involved? Between the CIA, the Bush Administration, Saudi Arabia, the Cold War and so on, it could be a lot of things. I don’t know how much patience people would have for the oil theory, but it is one possibility. If people are willing to discuss that I could throw some ideas into this little furnace of criticism about Peak Oil, Caspian Sea oil, what our government officials said about the matter years before the wars began etc., and see what comes of it.
In a nutshell- The Iraq War seems fairly obviously motivated by oil. If Afghanistan did eventually get the pipeline, then we’ve used our military to secure the two last unexploited major oil field regions of the world.
Just a possibility. Could be false. Maybe it needs a sound debunking.
Western powers have been militarily intervening in Afghanistan for over 150 years now, and it’s not getting any more peaceful. It’s unreasonable to think that we’re going to do any better after an intense brief period of overthrow.
Which were used by Japan. Not by al queda.
It was not unforseeable, but it was more than a bit of a stretch. In your comfy chair of hindsight you can look back and say it was inevitable, but really it was a bit hard to comprehend. Al Queda’s primary (but not exclusive) technique was to use truck bombs
Do you want solutions, or do you just want heads? Because the latter does not solve anything and leaves us vulnerable. Just who would you start with?
The thing is, total protection from terrorism (or even simple crime) is impossible without maximum security everywhere and cameras up everyone’s butt. Obviously, the general public wants to not be threatened by the common criminal or the rabid terrorist, but the general public also doesn’t want to be treated like a criminal all the time. Meaning a compromise between the two has to be reached, and every step down on the continuum going from total privacy protection to 1984 on PCP opens up some alleys for attack.
For instance, a lot of people all over the world felt (and still feel) raw about the increase in security measures re. airplane travel. The random full body searches, the profiling, the stupid rules about what one can and can’t take on board etc… But even these obnoxious rules offer only a piss poor amount of additional protection. In order to be totally, absolutely sure no aircraft is ever going to be hijacked, one would have to require the passengers and flight crew to have their entire background thorougly checked before the flight, and to be naked and tightly shackled for its duration, with no luggage allowed whatsoever*. I don’t think people are quite ready to go with that 
Same applies at every level of society.
*Dopers, feel free to point the possible loopholes and flaws in my Total Air Security program, and amend it accordingly 
Hey ivan, you seem to have missed these posts. Just giving you a friendly reminder to please respond to them. Same to EasyPhil. Thanks.
I have not gotten around to reading this thread yet, but I believe David Ickes version, minus the reptilian crap. There is no debunking as no way the faa and norad would be that incompetant.
Look, Afghanistan is fucked up. It was fucked up when we got there, and our intervention hasn’t made it any less fucked up. It is barely a country. The government controls only the capital city. The rest of the country is controlled by various sorts of organizations–or rather, no organization can be said to control anything except where they have guys with guns. So the Northern Alliance you hear about is an alliance of warlords who we backed against the Soviets. Soviets leave, and the warlords start fighting each other (“Brothers, we should be struggling together!” “We are, we are!”).
Note that the Northern Alliance guys are Islamic fundamentalists just like everyone else in Afghanistan, but they aren’t fanatical Islamists. They care about money, power, guns, and such. The Taliban are a different sort. When people get tired of the warlords they start supporting the Students who promise to root out corruption and impose Islamic law and get rid of the criminals. And when people get tired of the theocratic Talibs, they start supporting the warlords who at least don’t care how long your beard is.
The Taliban was supported by the Pakistani intelligence service. Most Talibs are Pashtuns, and Pashtuns live on both sides of the border–the border between India (which Pakistan was then a part of) and Afghanistan was deliberately drawn to partition Pashtunistan. This is the “border region” or “tribal areas” you hear about. There really is no such border. It is an area that isn’t controlled by either the Afghan government or the Pakistan government.
Look, the idea that there has to be a reason Afghanistan is screwed up is naive. Screwed up areas don’t need to be explained, because that’s the natural state of human existence. It’s the areas that aren’t screwed up that require special explanation.
The reason we were able to topple the Taliban in a few weeks but are unable to control the country is the same reason that the Soviets were able to march into the country unopposed but were chased out a few years later. Same with the British.
We can march anywhere we like in Afghanistan and drop bombs anywhere we like, but that doesn’t mean we can conquer Afghanistan. And building a pipeline you can’t protect across a country you can’t control doesn’t sound like the kind of idea that hard-headed Masters of the Universe would support.
Well it’s good to know that you have limits to what you’ll believe. No way people are slipping stuff past you.
Unless the hard-headed Masters are borderline incompetent at the best of times, only factor the most optimistic scenarios in their thinking process and haven’t bothered reading up on the history of the region, prefering to rely on the Cliff Notes.
wink, wink, nudge, nudge
What did you expect them to do?
But the reptillian crap is what makes David Icke fun. That’s like watching a porno with the sex scenes cut out.
Interesting about David Icke - how could someone find part of what he says credible, when he’s so obviously bat-shit insane? Could someone think that his brain is that compartmentalized, so that his ideas on 9/11 are formed using good critical thinking skills evaluating evidence properly, it’s just that this little section of his brain over here is responsible for his conclusion that the world is controlled by a race of alien reptiles, including the Queen of England and Boxcar Willie?
Deploy the alien tech they scavenged from Area 51, natch.
The fact that they didn’t proves they were in on it.
There had been intelligence reports that something was in the works but not exactly when, where, nor how. These reports mentioned the possiblity of truck bombs at Federal buildings, tourist icons, and an unnamed location in America’s heartland. The possibility of hijackings was also mentioned but there was no reason to expect any hijacked plane to crash into a building because, until 9/11, that had never happened.
How about the various US intelligence agencies? They’re notorious for treating reports the same way a toddler would a new toy. In addition to the above, there were reports of a training camp that specialized in how to use boxcutters to perform hijackings but this only came to light after the fact due to being sat on by the intelligence agency that had custody.
Weeeeell, the pilot episode of “The Lone Gunmen,” but included a hijacked (by remote-control) airliner that was intended to fly into the WTC. This was broadcast in March, '01. Good thing I was the only person who watched that show.