2. Did you forget to post something or were you referring to point 3?  If I jumped ahead and you haven't posted it yet, then I apologize and will edit this off later.

3. 

I would again direct you to the body count site earlier in this post to show you that they DO have the capability to hit us.

  I think you and I need to clarify who the "us" is.  In your original response to me where you stated "He made this country less safe beyond belief", I took that to mean that you meant the United States of America - the actual physical land that we occupy.  You seem to be referring solely to our troops fighting in a war.  As this is the case, then of course our troops are less safe... We're fighting an enemy in their own territory so yes, they're pissed off and fighting back.  Can't disagree with you there.  But I was referring to the physical area that "us" as the USA occupy being less safe than before.  In which case I argue that we are more safe despite the increased animosity towards our country.  Like I stated before, we are more aware of the threat and are looking out for ourselves with more intensity and frequency than pre-Iraq and pre-9/11.  This whole debate stems from the statement you made, "He made this country less safe beyond belief", and we've gone back and forth arguing our own point and not each others. 

But you seem to think there are magical terrorists everywhere including in Saddam's Iraq despite him ruling with a secular fist and those "terrorists" just magically sprung into action against us when we invaded like adding water to Sea Monkeys....  You say they are "everywhere" which goes back to point 1.  The simple truth is...no they are not everywhere.  This isn't a movie.  This isn't the bogey man.  They are not everywhere.  Now I tell you that foreign fighters (a term you should be familiar with from the news) flooded into Iraq to do damage to us (they have a reasonable ability to inflict damage and have done so) because we invaded Iraq.  This is a well known point.  But you would say "oh those terrorists would have done it anyway" denying the simple reality that many muslims sympathized with the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan after the 911 attacks.

It's naive to think that there is not a single Iraq native who is not now a terrorist.  Maybe I should be say insurgent and maybe I've meant that all along.  Maybe I was the naive one to think that the people shooting AK's and RPG's at our troops are considered terrorists when in fact they are insurgents.  My point is that they have been there far before 9/11.  Just because they don't act on it doesn't mean they aren't terrorists.  There are currently around 31,234,000 Iraqi citizens.. I'm sure there were a few people in that population before we invaded that would have loved to do us harm.  My point is that they were there, not in the numbers that they are now (just like current day Pakistan), but they were there. 

Posted By ChrisA on 26 May 2009 11:07 AM

2. Did you forget to post something or were you referring to point 3?  If I jumped ahead and you haven't posted it yet, then I apologize and will edit this off later.

I think you and I need to clarify who the "us" is.

But I was referring to the physical area that "us" as the USA occupy being less safe than before.  In which case I argue that we are more safe despite the increased animosity towards our country.

It's naive to think that there is not a single Iraq native who is not now a terrorist.  Maybe I should be say insurgent and maybe I've meant that all along.  Maybe I was the naive one to think that the people shooting AK's and RPG's at our troops are considered terrorists when in fact they are insurgents.  My point is that they have been there far before 9/11.  Just because they don't act on it doesn't mean they aren't terrorists. 

I didn't leave anything out.  I quoted your second point and then responded in kind.  I pointed out that you think Muslims who would be pissed off and would present a threat to us (using your definition) do not make us less safe (you say) because they lack reasonable ability to carry out their threats.  I point out they do carry out their threats to Americans frequency in Iraq and they have the reasonable ability to do so here, as well.  Your logic denies they have a reasonable ability to make good on their threats for some reason.

To clarify, I used the word "us" to refer to Americans.  But using your definition of "us" as those of us in the physical U.S...  Do you really think we're more safe HERE when we send the majority of our combat assets over there?  Do you think we're more safe here when we piss them off there (when they have a reasonable capabiltiy to come here...if they didn't then we would have all the Homeland Security efforts and, despite them, there is no way we can stop every attacker that means us harm).  Yet you say we are MORE safe.

So by your logic, if we were to invade Switzerland because they have weapons of mass destruction or because we want to liberate the people from their government (we all know this is a stupid setup and we all know that Switzerland is not Iraq but this serves my point) and then I was to stand up and say, "Whoa...  That was dumb to send all our troops there and look how pissed the Swiss are and look how an insurgency has raised up and is killing Americans" then you would say, "It's naive to think there weren't Swiss insurgents there all along!  We're safer now that we've killed some of those Swiss.  The Swiss insurgents were there all along.  Just because the Swiss don't act like terrorists doesn't mean they aren't."  Really?

Sigh...  I wasn't referring to the country as a whole when I made that statement.  I was defending my statement that there were terrorists/insurgents/whatever there all along.  They didn't ALL come flooding in from other countries the moment our tanks rolled in..  SOME were already there, which is the point I'm trying to make. 

 

"Do you really think we're more safe HERE when we send the majority of our combat assets over there?"  You would know better than I about our assets, but we have a pretty good sized military presence still here in the U.S.  Our Navy would stop any advances by sea, our Air Force would stop any advances by air (we have plenty of fighters here still), we have missle defense systems top (hopefully) stop any missles on their way over.  I feel pretty safe here and have for the last 8 years.  I will continue to feel safe until another attack on our soil takes place, which doesn't seem so likely (knocks on wood).

Posted By ChrisA on 26 May 2009 12:12 PM

"Do you really think we're more safe HERE when we send the majority of our combat assets over there?"  I feel pretty safe here and have for the last 8 years.  I will continue to feel safe until another attack on our soil takes place, which doesn't seem so likely (knocks on wood).

The question was do you think we are MORE safe when we send the majority of our assets overseas?

 

Yeah, why wouldn't I?  We sent them to fight the people are trying to harm us...  We have plenty here to do the job.  There are over 1,100,000 Army Soldiers between AD, Guard, and Reserves.  In April '05, there were about 170,000 troops (not Soldiers) deployed in theater, about 15% of the total Army numbers alone.  Since we're minimizing forces in Iraq and only allocating about 1/6th of those numbers back into Afghanistan, we've got even more of them home now.

So yeah, I feel pretty safe here.  Not to mention I work on an Army post (certainly not the highest point in my career ), so I feel extra safe!

 

EDIT: Why aren't you out flying?  Seem's like it would be more fun than going back and forth with me

watching the debate rage on here, I'm gonna throw in my .02. As far as terrorist in Iraq goes, they may have been there, but I find it extremely unlikely. Ryno, you may have already mentioned something along these lines, but it's my understanding that Saddam didn't tolerate terrorist. He worked himself to keep them out because he understood their capabilities in terms of influencing/threaten a population to revolt, much like weve see happening in Afghanistan and even more current, the Taliban in Pakistan. So to say there were always terrorist in Iraq, okay that may be true, but it would have been in the most insignificant amount where it would a slim to none issue in terms of our safety. Terrorist moved into Iraq to join the stance against the West. Think about it, if they were there the ENTIRE time, why didn't we have the suicide bombers and road side bombs when the absolutely knew we were coming?

As far as our safety over here on the home front, I think your confusing a full scale attack from an organized country trying to invade us, versus combating terrorist cells who have already crossed our borders. Yes we have the troops, planes, ships, missles to defend ourselves. But if we are talking about terrorist cells, those don't mean shit because we wont know what hit us until another 9/11 happens (of course, I hope to the high heavens that doesnt ever happen again). The only defense we have against such threats are intel and the government agencies that hunt them down. So given those odds, the only reason I feel safe is because I don't anticipate a major attack in Columbus MS. Aside from that, we are fighting an enemy that has no set numbers, no defined ROEs or tactics, and no sign of letting up.

OK, I concede my stance on the issue of terrorists in Iraq before we got there.

As far as our safety over here on the home front, I think your confusing a full scale attack from an organized country trying to invade us, versus combating terrorist cells who have already crossed our borders. Yes we have the troops, planes, ships, missles to defend ourselves. But if we are talking about terrorist cells, those don't mean shit because we wont know what hit us until another 9/11 happens (of course, I hope to the high heavens that doesnt ever happen again). The only defense we have against such threats are intel and the government agencies that hunt them down. So given those odds, the only reason I feel safe is because I don't anticipate a major attack in Columbus MS. Aside from that, we are fighting an enemy that has no set numbers, no defined ROEs or tactics, and no sign of letting up.

I'm not confusing it at all. I may have mixed the 2 ideas, but I think if I clarify some of my statements then you can see my argument. We have agencies like the CIA, Secret Service, Homeland Security, etc that are constantly watching things behind the scenes, things we may never even know about. These are what I'm referring to when I say that I feel safe from 9/11 type attacks. I referenced several articles in a previous post about attacks being thwarted that were not from a full scale attack by an organized country. What's the worst that's happened since 9/11? The anthrax is all that comes to mind. These organizations are staying on top of it, fizzling attacks before they take place.

As far as having our military assets in CONUS making me feel safe, that's in regards to a full scale attack from an organized country and again, I still feel safe from that.

In regards to our safety here at home, here's how I see it. First, let me be clear that I'm talking about the safety of the American civilian population from a terrorist attack at home. Next, I want to clarify that these are my thoughts regarding the question, "Are we safer or less safe here at home from terrorists attacks than we were before 9/11?" There are two possible answers to this question:

1. Yes. We have taken the fight to the terrorists. By being in Afghanistan (and Iraq?), we are able to conduct this non-conventional war in a much more effective manner than we could otherwise. Furthermore, having our troops in the Middle East has occupied the attention of the terrorists so that they no longer can organize a substantial attack on American soil, which is why we have not seen an attack in America since 9/11. We are slowly and methodically picking away at the terrorist population, their resourses, and attempting to dismantle their network. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are saving innocent American lives at home.

2. No. Our actions since 9/11 have been extremely counterproductive to the fight against terrorism. Going to Afghanistan and going after the Taliban and Al Queda was the right choice. However, going into Iraq with out proper legitimacy has made our situation much worse than if we had not. The only way to successfully fight terrorism is win over the hearts and minds of the communities from which the terrorists leech their existence. By going into Iraq without the proper support from the people in that part of the world, we have turned them against us. Before Iraq, terrorists were extremists that represented only a very small fraction of the Muslim population. Now the Muslims who had no reason to hate us before - do. We've provided more resources and motivation for the terrorists to survive off of and a greater capability to try and ruin us here at home.

Now, as to which of these two answers is 100% correct, only time will tell. For one, we don't know what the terrorists are doing. They've proven to be an extremely resiliant adversary that can make themselves near invisible when need be. Case in point, we've had 8 years of looking and still haven't captured Osama. For all we know, there could be some massive and devistating terrorist attack in the works that we haven't been able to uncover. I mean shit, who knows what kind of atomic weapons are out there that slipped through the cracks after the fall of the Soviet Union? And there is always the possibility that some powerful psycho out there (i.e. our short little friend sitting atop North Korea) decides that he wants to start dealing with the terrorists? There are sooo many people in this world and sooo much land to cover, it would be completely ignorant for us to assume that we know every single thing that is going on out there.

On the other hand, it's hard to ignore the fact that the terrorists have not been able to attack us at home since we went after them. It seems like they would be trying to hit us in every way they can to prove how unstoppable they are, yet they haven't even mounted a single attack against us here at home since 9/11. They seem to have focused all of their attention on attacking our troops overseas (which is quite possibly part of a strategy to destroy our country in another way, but that is another subject altogether). Also, brilliant minds (such as General Patraeus) have realized that we were fighting the terrorists the wrong way at the beginning of the war. We have changed our strategy to target those previously mentioned hearts and minds and this seems to be a slow yet effective process. Perhaps we are slowly but surely dismantling the terrorist network, killing them off one by one, and making them less and less effective. But with this enemy, it's just so extremely hard to tell.

The thing that I often think about that worries me the most is how we will ever win this war. What exactly is our end game? We obviously can't kill or capture every terrorist in the world. So how do we know that we've won? Can we ever win? This enemy is ever adapting and changing, and even if we can eliminate most of the threat, whose to say it won't pop up again in the future? We can't keep spending money at the pace we have in the last 8 years, and we can't keep fighting this enemy for eternity, even though they seem to have no other plans in mind. Of course "we can't win" is not an acceptable answer, but seriously... how do we?

I just left the Pentagon where I listened to a lecture by Thomas Ricks (author of "Fiasco" and "The Gamble" and journalist for the Washington Post). He paints an extremely bleak picture over Iraq...extremely bleak. He likens Iraq to "a poison tree" and says it may very well be that any fruit Iraq bears will be poisoned because of the immoral and lie filled way we went into the war (I paraphrase his comment). He says that Iran will likely be the only winner in Iraq. Does that make us less safe? You bet. When you make more terrorists every day than you kill...it's hard to argue that you're making anything safer.

ChrisA, he also mentioned something that reminded me of you. He brought up a discussion of various insurgents that we've gotten on the payroll over there and all the intel we've gotten from them. He talked about one such insurgent that was radicalized over the Abu Ghraib scandal. The point is, shit like that matters. These are people. Using force and being wrong and pigheaded makes insurgents out of any freedom loving people. This is why Iraq made us less safe. Just like if we were to invade Switzerland it would make us less safe because people see and they feel outrage and they feel hatred at injustice and bullying.

As far as terrorists not hitting us at home I would imagine that is because they want us to focus on the holy lands. It makes perfect sense. First, they can kill Americans and destroy their credibility (as they have done) in an insurgent population of support they can hide in. They fit in. Secondly, it costs less money to kill us over there than it does over here. Third, it costs US more money to send our costly hardware and people over there and it bleeds us dry. This is a war of attrition for them and they've battled the Soviets in much the same way (although the Soviets weren't so stupid as to invade Iraq while fighting in Afghanistan). I do think now, however, we are more likely to see an attack at home only because doing so would hurt President Obama's efforts to win the war primarily through diplomacy (which is the only way we will win this war...) and would usher in the American Taliban twins that responded in textbook fashion to their insurgent tactics. Insurgency is all about using small numbers to provoke an overreaction so the big numbers can be picked away at. Cheney and his buddies sell oil and military equipment. They make money off wars. They are power driven men that don't give two shits about you in uniform or your family.

Ryno, where are you stationed?  I'm at APG outside of Baltimore and was planning on heading into Andrews to talk with some pilots soemtime.

"As far as terrorists not hitting us at home I would imagine that is because they want us to focus on the holy lands. It makes perfect sense. First, they can kill Americans and destroy their credibility (as they have done) in an insurgent population of support they can hide in. They fit in. Secondly, it costs less money to kill us over there than it does over here. Third, it costs US more money to send our costly hardware and people over there and it bleeds us dry."

This makes sense to me too and is a good point.  Something I hadn't thought of before.

" When you make more terrorists every day than you kill...it's hard to argue that you're making anything safer."  Again a statement that makes sense and I can get behind.

So since we're 'leaving' Iraq now, how does that change things?  Is the damage already done and there's no way of reversing it?  Or by changing focus back to Afghanistan and finishing the war we started, will we be able to undo some of that damage?

Posted By ChrisA on 27 May 2009 07:59 AM

Ryno, where are you stationed?  I'm at APG outside of Baltimore and was planning on heading into Andrews to talk with some pilots soemtime.

So since we're 'leaving' Iraq now, how does that change things?  Is the damage already done and there's no way of reversing it?  Or by changing focus back to Afghanistan and finishing the war we started, will we be able to undo some of that damage?

Check your PMs.

I don't think we're leaving Iraq.  It's a shit sandwich.  There are no easy answers and if we "win" in Iraq it will likely be a country that is just as bad as it was under Saddam and probably worse and it will likely be anti-American and run by Iran.  It may very well take many more years for us to achieve that victory as pulling out now would create a scene even worse.  The damage isn't yet done...there is plenty more to be had.  It's all about choosing the least shitty situation at this point.

But as Brimley states in his "Tentacles of Jihad" article, "The longer Iraq continues to function as a magnet for the global jihadist movement, the more dangerous these new networks will become."  It's a horrible situation all around and it's going to take serious leadership to keep it from being as bad as it can be.  Thankfully we've got a serious and extremely intelligent POTUS who thankfully is dedicated to cleaning up this mess.