|| -----Original Message-----
|| From: Gordon Fitch (...)
|| However, if this bin Laden
|| fellow is the devilish mastermind that he is portrayed to be,
|| one would think he would have taken care to lay out a good
|| escape route for himself, indeed, to have left Afghanistan
|| before the first bomb fell on it, unless he was planning a
|| heroic fighting martyrdom for himself a la Ali Hussein. So
|| also his supposed buddies.
||
|| Had the Administration wanted to get just these people, one
|| would think it would have played a far more delicate and
|| sophisticated game than rechurning the Afghan rubble with
|| large bombs dropped from high altitudes. So I conclude they
|| have been up to something else.
||
||
|| -- Gordon
||
The US admin has lost all credibility as regards the motives for its war, and the reasons you give are about right. The allegedly "succesful" war has succeeded only in: 1 - killing nearly 4000 civilians (not counting those wasting away in remote, forgotten refugee camps) and executing hundreds of prisoners (outright executed, killed in a CIA-provoked riot, asphyxiated in container trucks, etc.) 2 - Allowing about 7.000 Russian troops in on what seems to be a permanent basis 3 - Paying millions of dollars to warlords so that they can resume their old opium-trading, looting, raping, and warring 4 - Allowing the Pakistani air force to extract hundreds if not thousands of Al Qaeda troops from Kunduz 5 - Allowing the bulk of the Al Qaeda forces in Kandahar to regroup in Peshawar while we watched the fireworks show at Tora Bora 6 - Finally, the only _real_ achievements: Putting a CIA asset (Karzai) temporarily in charge, setting up the Camp Rhino base, restarting the pipeline deal, and last but not least, cutting off Al Qaeda support to Wahhabist guerillas in the stans, which US oil raiders have invested heavily in. Thus, another pipeline-guerilla a la Chechnia is averted. Bush and Cheney have once again done their masters proud.
The legal grounds for the war were never there but the neocons never lost any sleep over steamrollering international law. The Bush admin started off with a good laugh at the expense of the International Court of Justice by appointing John Negroponte to the UN Security Council. Then it just went ahead and bombed Afghanistan, allegedly in retaliation for S11, without evidence, without seeking a UN mandate, in the absence of continuing hostilities, and using grossly disproportionate force.
Although illegal, the war might have at least had the merit of eliminating the bad guys. To be sure, the massive amounts of ordnance dropped in support of US defence contractors managed to eliminate some bad guys next to the thousands of innocent bystanders. But the Qaeda cadres and main force are still unaccounted for. As for the Taliban baddies, they were also handsomely rewarded for switching sides. One payoff at Kunduz was a cool 250 grand - made by a warlord, who obviously had plenty more where that came from.
So forget legality, forget even effectiveness, where's the retribution? What kind of wussy empire kills women and children for revenge?
Moreover, the Qaeda network is not being targeted one-tenth as aggressively as Afghan babies and women. The omitted portions of the ObL home video tell us that he still enjoys the support of the Saudi ulema. The US admin hasn't touched them, nor has it shut down the big Saudi banks like Dalla al Baraka which Qaeda uses and the royal family owns. The US admin can't even think of touching the Muslim Brotherhood, the World Islamic League, and their offshoots, because these are the mainstays of Saudi power, although they are thoroughly penetrated by Qaeda. The US can't even bring itself to condemning Pakistan, a rogue state on any number of counts: a - military dictatorship b - nuclear proliferator c - a haven for islamic terrorists d - recently guilty of sending terrorists to attack government buildings in India, the last being the parliament.
And that's only the ME front. Spanish and French judges made it pretty clear that the main plannng and support for S11, as well as numerous other aborted plots in Europe, came from Europe. London has been revealed as the center of Qaeda terrorism, due to MI5 preventing Scotland Yard from rounding up known activists, who have been training in camps supervised by ex(?)-SAS personnel. The British hospitality for islamic terrorists has prompted French security authorities to coin the word Londonistan. The shoe bomber, a pal of Moussaoui, is a case in point. Clearly, MI6 is loath to give up its network, which it has used for capers like the attempted assasination of Colonel Gaddafi. Why don't we see the US putting its foot down when the Brits are still letting terrorists walk - on C4-packed shoes? Is Blair's jingoism considered sufficient atonement?
Finally, how about the US admin's own fundamentalist activist Ashcroft, who has no intention of doing anything about the "ultimate Jihad challenge" combat training courses and weaponry provided for Qaeda terrorists coutesy of the NRA?
This farce is just as likely to end in a total rout as was Nixon's CREEP or Reagan's Iran-Contra.
Hakki