[lbo-talk] The Afghan War as a "Loss Leader"

Yoshie Furuhashi furuhashi.1 at osu.edu
Wed Jun 29 09:43:36 PDT 2005



>[lbo-talk] The Afghan War as a "Loss Leader" (Unocal, China and the
>Middle East)
>Chris Doss lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com
>Wed Jun 29 09:31:36 PDT 2005
<snip>
>It was also the only country that had large, pretty much openly
>government-sponsored, infrastructure for supporting Islamist
>terrorism, and the only country whose leadership was ideologically
>devoted to spreading their brand of Islamism throughout the Muslim
>world, violently if need be.
>
>Thank God the US invaded Afghanistan. Everybody in Eurasia is very
>grateful. Too bad they fucked up afterward though.

The finest training ground for all warriors -- soldiers, guerrillas, and terrorists -- is war itself. The real thing beats a simulacrum of it. Terrorists now get better training in Afghanistan than under the Taliban, as US and other troops provide live targets for practice.

Besides, the Afghan War served as a loss leader to sell the Iraq War, and Iraq is now the best terrorist training ground of all:

<blockquote> Iraq has replaced Afghanistan as the training ground for the next generation of "professionalized" terrorists, according to a report released yesterday by the National Intelligence Council, the CIA director's think tank.

Iraq provides terrorists with "a training ground, a recruitment ground, the opportunity for enhancing technical skills," said David B. Low, the national intelligence officer for transnational threats. "There is even, under the best scenario, over time, the likelihood that some of the jihadists who are not killed there will, in a sense, go home, wherever home is, and will therefore disperse to various other countries." (Dana Priest, "Iraq New Terror Breeding Ground: War Created Haven, CIA Advisers Report," Washington Post, <http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A7460-2005Jan13.html>, 14 Jan. 2005, p. A1 )</blockquote>

The more wars Washington makes, the more terrorist training grounds it creates. -- Yoshie

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