That’s just one mode of attack prevented simply by cockpit-door defense. Al Qaeda had, both before and after 09/11/2001, carried out other attacks against Western targets. The only way to stop those are to take out the perpetrators at the source and make sure they don’t feel they can attack our citizens with impunity.
I’m FAR from an expert, but have we accomplished much more now, 18 yrs later? Or did it just take us too long to decide to walk away?
In regard to the Afghan government, I’d say…we probably provided the softest possible landing for the Afghan people. I don’t know that the current government is that friendly to US interests, but I think the Afghans overall suffered way less under the US nation-building attempts than they would have under the type of wars for control that would have happened had the US pulled out as soon as they had deposed the Taliban.
I did two civilian deployments to Iraq, and had decided that the war there was a mistake even before I volunteered. But I thought if we broke it, we should fix it, so I wanted to help out with that. Obviously, I’m disappointed in how things there have turned out.
I have never received anything but sincere, polite praise for serving, from any of my friends. Even hardcore liberals invariably told me, “Thank you for your service”.
Iraq was based on lies, but Afghanistan wasnt. In fact the USA had widespread international support for that* action. * In any case, it wasnt a war per se. We went in support of one side of a civil war, against the Taliban who had almost no International recognition of being the legit government.
Yes, the Govt lied about the progress of the war, but not about the reasons.
The issue is that Afghanistan just will not end, just as many military experts said would happen.
They were. But the govt did post overly optimistic "lies’ about how the war was progressing. So, that is sorta a lie. But the war itself was not in any way shape or form "
based" on a lie.
Al Qaeda is not, and has never been, a significant threat to your or my life. And certainly not one worth spending hundreds of billions of dollars on. Not that much of our effort in Afghanistan even focuses on anti-terrorism. I wonder what else we could have done with that money…
Ruken:
Hard disagree. I was only a few blocks away from the World Trade Center on 09/11/2001.
That you find your proximity relevant is telling. This is why we should teach children about rational risk assessment. Might save us some money once they start voting.
Now bees and dogs, those will get ya. I live with both sometimes :eek:
Ruken:
I’d say the same thing for an attack anywhere on American territory, the immediacy of the proximity was simply a refutation of the statement I was responding to in the most literal sense.
We went to war with Japan and Germany over the deaths of 2/3 the amount of people in an attack on America that was against a military base far away from the mainland. An attack against civilians on the American mainland is certainly justification for an all-out campaign against those behind the attack. Rational risk assessment? Makes sense for allocating resources toward preventive measures before anything happens. Once an attack has been made, a country has to retaliate, otherwise it’s just sending a signal that it’s open season on its citizens.
A refutation, you say. Shark attacks are an insignificant risk to Americans. Had you been at a beach on the day of one of these rare attacks, that would not refute the truth that shark attacks are an insignificant risk to you or me.
We went to war with Japan and Germany for many reasons. Last I checked, there was never any danger of a bunch of rag-tag goat fuckers taking over Europe and Asia. And even if there were, they and their hosts were out of power within 6 months.
Ruken:
It would refute a statement that “sharks never have been a significant threat to my life”. You did not use the word “risk” in your earlier statement, which makes a difference.
There were plenty of good reasons to, but we most certainly did not actually mobilize our military until Pearl Harbor was attacked.
Wow. Just, wow.
Osama bin Laden comes from a wealthy family that owns an international construction corporation. The actual 9/11 terrorists went to pilot school. (Maybe they just took a crash course?) Stereotype much?
Because we attacked them, rather than just installed better locks on our cockpits and called it a day. They weren’t going to be out of power just in the natural course of events.
Its jingoism to distract people from doing their duty as citizens to oversee when a nation goes to war. Soldiers go to war because politicians tell them to. The reason a politician tells them to can be varied, and some reasons are very unethical.
its much easier to just shout slogans and tell people to stop thinking and support the troops, and refuse to do any oversight of the politicians who actually decide where and when we go to war.
Also most people in the military function in support roles, not combat roles.
It does not. They’re not a threat either, nor have they been, just because you were near one. But if you want to quibble about threat vs risk, it seems you agree that there is no significant risk from shark attacks. If true, then there must also be no significant threat from terrorism.
He didn’t have access to his family’s wealth. We’re talking a few rural training camps compared to some of the largest militaries the world had ever seen. Losers who scraped together some money to send a few of their gang to flight school vs major modern armies. There was no danger of them taking over the world. Deaths are bad. But when animals kill more people, on average, let’s stay rational. So yeah, compared to Germany and Japan back then, AQ was indeed a bunch of goatfuckers who exploited a one-time loophole.
And then we stuck around, got more Americans killed in the process than they ever killed. Spent hundreds of billions of borrowed dollars. Killed more civilians than bin Laden ever dreamed of killing. And we’re still at it.
Or we could have just locked the doors and let someone even try to pull a box cutter on a plane and see how that goes for them. Hell their plan stopped working once the passengers on one plane even found out what was going on. It would have been a lot cheaper than the boondoggle we’re still spending and killing on.
That’s not a justification for launching actual wars against nations and their entire populations. Terrorist attacks need to be countered by better domestic and international policing, not by military attacks and wholesale destruction that just make the locals more sympathetic to terroristic hatred of the attackers.
Terrorists aren’t like a nest of hornets that you can “take out” and thereby eliminate the threat. They’re an ideological movement that is strengthened when attacking armies wreak wholesale destruction on civilians, thus validating the terrorist propaganda about the attackers. If you “take out” 300 terrorists with wanton general slaughter and thereby create 3000 more terrorists enraged against your nation, you have not really made any headway against your terrorism problem.
Nor are terrorists like ordinary political/military entities to whom concepts such as deterrence can be rationally applied. The idea that suicide-attack terrorists care one whit about preserving their own “impunity” is laughable on its face.
:rolleyes: You don’t make a very convincing case for this attitude towards the military not being “worship” when you yourself are calling it “worship” a few sentences later.
For a short thread, this one is filled with confusions and half-truths.
Many soldiers who served in Afghanistan hoped for a peace-time job. Many, especially blacks, turned to the military as one way to escape poverty. It is quite wrong to refer to the majority of these soldiers as either heroes or as war-criminals. Instead hundreds of thousands of these soldiers are themselves victims, suffering stress-related problems. I think a large majority of Americans appreciate and commend the soldiers’ service whether the war has been fought intelligently or not.
Eighteen years after the start of America’s war, intended to defeat the Taliban, the Taliban and its allies control almost half the country; that power will grow when U.S. withdraws. On average the Taliban still kills almost 1000 Afghanis per month.
Even the very reason for this 18-year American war is unclear.
Bush let Bin Laden slip away to be embraced by our “ally” Pakistan, whereupon his tune changed:
It’s funny what’s happened to the veterans in this thread - they’ve been forgotten.
Remember everyone, if you don’t begin and end each comment in this thread with “Thank you for your service.” then you’re a seditious unamerican traitor that is giving aid and comfort to our enemies. Our troops fought and died so that you would feel too guilty to ever criticize government military interventions.
I don’t let my opposition to the various wars get in the way of honoring the grunts who were also victims of the politican’s mendacity. That said, I did not oppose the invasion of Afghanistan, but I strongly opposed invading Iraq. Incidentally, but for that, we might not have dropped the ball so badly in Afghanistan.
At times I wonder if folk had refused to volunteer, whether that would have restricted the admin’s ability to pursue these inexcusable (and horrifically costly) wars.
I view the vast majority of individual vets as mercenaries - nothing more, nothing less. They weren’t protecting any values I hold dear, and were advancing many I abhor.