Reply #56: What has ANSWER accomplished? [View All]

[maha]

You are saying if an objective has not been accomplished, then it was wrong to make the effort to begin with? Yeah, that makes sense. By the same logic, since ANSWER has not brought peace to the world, they might as well close up shop.

I'm saying the objective was worthwhile, but that the execution was messed up.

"Keep in mind that the Taliban offered to turn bin laden and his top people over to the US and bush refused."

That's not exactly how I remember it. What I remember is that the Taliban was just stalling; it wasn't an honest offer.

Remember, the Taliban were not nice people. Just because George Bush sent soldiers after them does not turn them into heroes. They were very evil and very twisted and not be be trusted.

"By their own admission , the plans for the attack on Afghanistan were sitting on bushes desk at least two days BEFORE 911."

Those plans were based on plans generated by the Clinton Administration after the attack on the U.S.S. Cole.

"On Nov. 7 <2000>, Berger met with William Cohen, then Secretary of Defense, in the Pentagon. The time had come, said Berger, for the Pentagon to rethink its approach to operations against bin Laden. 'We've been hit many times, and we'll be hit again,' Berger said. 'Yet we have no option beyond cruise missiles.' He wanted 'boots on the ground'--U.S. special-ops forces deployed inside Afghanistan on a search-and-destroy mission targeting bin Laden. Cohen said he would look at the idea, but he and General Hugh Shelton, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, were dead set against it. They feared a repeat of Desert One, the 1980 fiasco in which special-ops commandos crashed in Iran during an abortive mission to rescue American hostages." -- Michael Elliott, "Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?" Time, August 12, 2002

(You have to pay for the article to view it online.)

Sandy Berger and others went ahead and drew up these plans, and presented them to the Bushies in January 2001. And the Bushies sat on them and did nothing. An amended version of the plans had finally made their way to Bush's desk right before September 11.

"To the bushies , 911 was just a happy coincidence, an excuse for their attack , not the reason. The war in Afghanistan was about a pipeline, it wasn't about fighting terrorism."

It wasn't JUST about pipelines.

The U.S.S. Cole disaster really happened. September 11 really happened. These matters REQUIRED a response. Just because the Bushies came up with the WRONG response doesn't change that.