Has the War in Iraq made us safer at home?

[Scrum]

Not talking about intrests overseas. Here at home.
Are you safer now than you were before the invasion of Iraq?

[motivez]

No, funds that could have been diverted and put to good use securing our borders, our ports, etc, etc, have been used to fund this clusterfuck.

[Scrum]

Poll is up.

[7960]

I'm waiting for the "we're creating thousands of terrorists over there" comment without any proof or evidence that it's actually happening



edit: We are no more or less safe than we were before 9/11/01.

[motivez]

What kind of proof would you need?

Terrorist attacks worldwide are up since our invasion in Iraq.

Our failed policies and refusal to change to a sane course of action / strategy have allowed terrorists the opportunity for very effective propaganda.

[thomez]

Originally Posted by 7960

I'm waiting for the "we're creating thousands of terrorists over there" comment without any proof or evidence that it's actually happening



edit: We are no more or less safe than we were before 9/11/01.

if I threw 1 baseball at you, or I threw 50 baseballs at you, when are your odds of catching 100% of balls thrown the greatest?

[Donkey®]

Originally Posted by 7960

I'm waiting for the "we're creating thousands of terrorists over there" comment without any proof or evidence that it's actually happening



edit: We are no more or less safe than we were before 9/11/01.

So before 9/11, those British citizens were plotting to bomb American planes all the time?

[Scrum]

Originally Posted by 7960

I'm waiting for the "we're creating thousands of terrorists over there" comment without any proof or evidence that it's actually happening



edit: We are no more or less safe than we were before 9/11/01.

Who are we killing over there then if they aren't terrorists?

I don't recall car bombs going off all over Baghdad when Saddam was in charge.

[kinggovernor]

definetly safer, just look at how terrorists have shifted their focus to iraq rather than america

[motivez]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

definetly safer, just look at how terrorists have shifted their focus to iraq rather than america

I guess all those "plots" the Bush Administration wants to claim credit for stopping really didn't happen if that's the case.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by motivez

I guess all those "plots" the Bush Administration wants to claim credit for stopping really didn't happen if that's the case.

I remeber when you used to be at least rational

Of course some people are still going to try to attack us, but the majority have shifted their attention to iraq

[motivez]

Yeah, pointing out the obvious makes me not rational.

You can't claim they've shifted their focus over there when there has been an increase in apparent plots over here, or an increase in terrorism, which ultimately means more radicals out there.

Besides, even if you were right (which you aren't), what gives us the right to invade another country and subject their people to terrorism and then do nothing to prevent an ensuing civil war?

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by motivez

Yeah, pointing out the obvious makes me not rational.

You can't claim they've shifted their focus over there when there has been an increase in apparent plots over here, or an increase in terrorism, which ultimately means more radicals out there.

Bin Laden’s Iraq Plans
At a secret meeting, bin Laden’s reps give bad news to the Taliban: Qaeda fighters are shifting to a new front
By Sami Yousafzai, Ron Moreau and Michael Hirsh
Newsweek

Dec. 15 issue - During the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, three senior Qaeda representatives allegedly held a secret meeting in Afghanistan with two top Taliban commanders.

The confab took place in mid-November in the remote, Taliban-controlled mountains of Khowst province near the Pakistan border, a region where Al Qaeda has found it easy to operate—frequently even using satellite phones despite U.S. surveillance.

At that meeting, according to Taliban sources, Osama bin Laden’s men officially broke some bad news to emissaries from Mullah Mohammed Omar, the elusive leader of Afghanistan’s ousted fundamentalist regime. Their message: Al Qaeda would be diverting a large number of fighters from the anti-U.S. insurgency in Afghanistan to Iraq. Al Qaeda also planned to reduce by half its $3 million monthly contribution to Afghan jihadi outfits.

All this was on the orders of bin Laden himself, the sources said. Why? Because the terror chieftain and his top lieutenants see a great opportunity for killing Americans and their allies in Iraq and neighboring countries such as Turkey, according to Taliban sources who complain that their own movement will suffer. (Though certainly not as much as Washington would like: last week Taliban guerrillas killed a U.N. census worker in an ambush, and a rocket struck near the U.S. Embassy in Kabul only hours after a visit by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.) Bin Laden believes that Iraq is becoming the perfect battlefield to fight the “American crusaders” and that the Iraqi insurgency has been “100 percent successful so far,” according to a Taliban participant at the mid-November meeting who goes by the nom de guerre Sharafullah.

Fluent in Arabic, Sharafullah tells NEWSWEEK he acted as the meeting’s official translator. He has proved to be a reliable source in previous stories. Prior to 9/11, he was Mullah Omar’s translator in face-to-face meetings with bin Laden. And Sharafullah has translated correspondence between the two leaders. Another Taliban source separately confirmed that the meeting occurred, and he corroborated other parts of Sharafullah’s account.

If true, bin Laden’s shift of focus could be unsettling news for George W. Bush. The president is eager to quell the Iraqi insurgency and establish a democratic, stable Iraq as he heads into the 2004 re-election campaign. Until now, the attacks on Americans and other Coalition members have come mainly from local Saddam loyalists rather than an influx of foreign jihadists. But if the Taliban sources are correct, bin Laden may be aiming to help turn Iraq into “the central front” in the war on terror. That is how Bush himself described Iraq in a September speech, when he said, “We are fighting that enemy [there] today so that we do not meet him again on our own streets.” But the president may be getting more than he bargained for. With 79 U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq in November—far more than in any previous month—many Democrats now see Bush’s troubles in Iraq as the central front in their campaign to unseat him.
Bin Laden's Iraq Plans - Newsweek: World News - MSNBC.com

Besides, even if you were right (which you aren't), what gives us the right to invade another country and subject their people to terrorism and then do nothing to prevent an ensuing civil war?

I don't appreciate red herrings, k thnks

[Kytro]

I don't see any compelling evidence that terrorists are focussing less on the US.

They are certainly focussing more on Iraq as a soft target but somehow I don't think it is affecting how the US is considered. The US has never had a large number of terrorist attacks happen at home.

[SpicyMcVoodoo]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

definetly safer, just look at how terrorists have shifted their focus to iraq rather than america

I'm not buying that. Terrorists aren't an army with a finite amount of soldiers who require massive resources and infrastructure. All it takes to be a terrorist is some household chemicals and a backpack. With it being so easy to be a terrorist, it costing so little, and there being millions of angry muslims willing to do it, I'm having a hard time buying that they're all so caught up in Iraq that they're forced to leave us alone here. Not to mention the fact that most people fighting in Iraq are not foreign terrorists, but locals fighting over tribal religious shit. It's a total pipe dream that there are terrorists saying, "Hey, let us bomb Americans and do another 9/11...no, wait, we cannot...must fight in Iraq instead!" They'll easily do both.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by SpicyMcVoodoo

I'm not buying that. Terrorists aren't an army with a finite amount of soldiers who require massive resources and infrastructure. All it takes to be a terrorist is some household chemicals and a backpack. With it being so easy to be a terrorist, it costing so little, and there being millions of angry muslims willing to do it, I'm having a hard time buying that they're all so caught up in Iraq that they're forced to leave us alone here. Not to mention the fact that most people fighting in Iraq are not foreign terrorists, but locals fighting over tribal religious shit. It's a total pipe dream that there are terrorists saying, "Hey, let us bomb Americans and do another 9/11...no, wait, we cannot...must fight in Iraq instead!" They'll easily do both.

bin laden disagrees with you

[SpicyMcVoodoo]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

bin laden disagrees with you

Of course Bin Laden says that...he'd love us to be fighting in Iraq for the next 100 years as we slowly bleed to death. It's a trap he set and we're walking right into it. The really messed up part is that the trap was probably supposed to be Afghanistan. He figured after 911 we'd invade them and get caught up just like the Soviets, which is why he had that Northern Alliance guy killed right before 911. We somehow managed to conquer Afghanistan unlike the British and the Soviets, escape his trap, and then made our own trap in Iraq. Now people like you are doing just what he wants...arguing we must stay there forever and spend unlimited money.

[kinggovernor]

Originally Posted by SpicyMcVoodoo

Of course Bin Laden says that...he'd love us to be fighting in Iraq for the next 100 years as we slowly bleed to death. It's a trap he set and we're walking right into it. The really messed up part is that the trap was probably supposed to be Afghanistan. He figured after 911 we'd invade them and get caught up just like the Soviets, which is why he had that Northern Alliance guy killed right before 911. We somehow managed to conquer Afghanistan unlike the British and the Soviets, escape his trap, and then made our own trap in Iraq. Now people like you are doing just what he wants...arguing we must stay there forever and spend unlimited money there.

Better fighting him in the middle east than north america

[SpicyMcVoodoo]

Originally Posted by kinggovernor

Better fighting him in the middle east than north america

You're still speaking of AQ as if it were an army...as if you can confront it abroad before it gets to your homeland and keep the fight there. That's a delusion. There is no army. There is no way to confine these people. There is no budget you're wasting. They can kill hundreds of people tomorrow in NYC with a few thousands dollars. They'll fight us in both the middle east and north america, despite your false choice. In fact, the more places they can get us to send massive armies, the more they can spread us out, the better...our resources will be more efficiently wasted that way.

The absolute worst thing from Bin Laden's perspective would be that we refuse to get caught up in stalemate's abroad, and instead use all our resources to stave off attacks like richard reed and the london bomb plot. He'dhate it if we only used small teams of special forces or cruise missiles to take out key people because we'd save a shitload of money and make it hard for him to have a recruitment campaign. In other words, your strategy is his dream come true. Iraq is Bin Laden's dream come true.