WWIII placeholder thread.

There's no dispute about the Talebans lack of sense. Faced with threats from a superpower it is always a good idea to give them what they want.

Yet the question arises as to why you invented a version where something else entirely happened.

 

What do you mean by "invented"?

 

I think you know what I mean. What you stated to have occurred, did not occur.

 

Not exactly. Are you saying I "invented" something? Or are you saying that the US government "invented" something? And what, specifically, are you claiming was "invented" by whomever it was you were talking about? And what could I possibly hope to gain by inventing anything on this topic? Nobody's going to change their mind on the basis of what you or I post here, so calling somebody out about something on this topic isn't exactly productive. How long have we been pointing at the likes of MF and Dayton, and telling them that they're nuts? And besides providing a source of amusement for us, its accomplished nothing else.

 

It seemed pretty clear at the time that the Taliban were protecting Bin Laden and that Bin Laden was responsible. Hindsight hasn't changed this.

 

No, no, there has to be a way for America to have been wrong.

 

No, it seemed pretty clear at the time that the Taliban didn't have the power to oust bin Laden, and hindsight makes this even more plausible given that the US, once it had replaced the Taliban, and clearly being the by far superior military force, also was unable to oust bin Laden for many more years.

 

Bin Laden ran from the United States.

He had no need to run from the Taliban and he and they were fellow travelers.

 

In no way were they fellow travelers; by Taliban standards, bin Laden had committed capital crimes. What they had was an uneasy truce between neighbouring powers. We've been over this before. Why do you insist on this falsehood? Is it because your interpretation of events after 9/11 collapses unless you stick to this lie? Or is it just because anything beyond the fallacy of "A is not US and B is not US, therefore A is B" overtaxes your political imagination?

 

I believe what I've posted to be true. Normally organizations do not base themselves in nations that are hostile to them for obvious reasons.

The Taliban were every bit perversion of Islam, vicious murdering thugs as Al Queda was.

At any rate, if the Taliban lacked the power to turn Bin Laden over to the U.S. then they forfeited any right to rule Afghanistan.

 

Thus no Hamas in Israel.

(Note in passing that Taliban don't accept our territorial notion of nations, but that's probably too complicated for this debate.)

I've said this before and you ran away: How did bin Laden communicate with his followers? What happenes to a person using video technology under Taliban rule?

Oh the fun we'd have if we followed that rule, starting from the US' attempt to rule Afghanistan right through to Israel as mentioned above, passing through the Ukrainian as well as the Russian government obviously holding no right to rule Crimea since neither has so far ousted the other.

 

No doubt the Taliban made unofficial exceptions for a fellow traveler.

The U.S. never attempted to rule Afghanistan.

Is Hamas based within the recognized borders of Israel?

Ukrainian situation does not apply.

 

Wait, what? Are you smoking crack? The Taliban and Al-Qaeda didn't get along? They had integrated forces and funding. The Taliban defended Bin Laden. Packard must be referring to these wackos:

http://www.allgov.com/news/us-and-t...ban-and-al-qaeda-are-worlds-apart?news=842184

 

Given the situation in Ukraine, I wonder if this would be a good time to make a movie of Tom Clancy's Red Storm Rising?

Only move it several hundred miles east........

 

Again with the binary thinking. Remember: by this standard, the US and Russia are close allies.

 

*Snicker*..hey..hey...remember when Bush said he saw into Putin's soul?

 

I always had a feeling that what Bush really saw was that he needed the use of former Soviet air bases in central Asia and the roads that the Soviets built into Afghanistan rather than relying on the Pakistanis.

 

I don't follow. Are you claiming that the U.S. and Russia have integrated forces and funding? Think again.

 

As a one-off based on one specific and grossly untypical need, as was the case for Brigade 055, sure they do. Are you aware of the international space station?

 

Neither applies.

 

Then let's hear your version.

 

Clearly. And you did so in order to portray the US modus operandi as more reasonable than the Russian one.

 

I can't agree with that. Th Taliban could have tried to capture him, or at least made it far more difficult for him to remain in Afghanistan. True, he got away from us, but we also significantly harmed his ability to promote terrorism. The Taliban could also have done that. They didn't.

 

FTFY. Had the US commander Tommy Franks been willing to push the fight, Bin Laden might have been killed/captured in December of '01. In this podcast, Col. Douglas Macgregor describes how in October of '01 he got a call from Newt Gingrich who said, "We're going into Iraq, and we want to do it right this time." Mind you, Rumsfeld had already scaled back the Afghan operation from what the US military wanted to send, which meant we were decidedly handicapped when we went into Afghanistan (and then Iraq).

So, when was the last time somebody killed 3K Russian civilians on Russian soil? I can't seem to recall it happening in the 21st Century, or any time in the post-World War II era, but maybe I'm wrong. I think the simple fact that 3K American civilians being killed was what led to the US invading Afghanistan, while the Russian invasion of Afghanistan in the '70s (and the Crimea today) was not prompted by the deaths of Russian civilians, pretty much puts paid to the idea that the two cases are in any way equal. Now, if you want to argue that the US invasion of Iraq had as much validity and justification (i.e. none) as the Russian invasions of Afghanistan or the Crimea, I'll agree with you.

 

And yet still begging the question of why, if it was so clearly justified, you felt the need to rewrite the history of how it happened.

 

What would've happened if the Taliban had simply told the United States, "Yes bin Laden is here. Come get him".

The U.S. could hardly have justified deposing the Taliban.

Needless to say, the Taliban did not do that.

 

Facts not in evidence. How has Tuckerfan re-written history?

 

Read the thread.

 

Yeah Rick, I've read the thread. And you have made some radical claims, not backed by evidence.