Comments on: NY Times: Bush OK'd Global Secret Raids

Rumsfeld Penned Order Allowing Ground Forces To Invade Any Country To Go After Al Qaeda

[tincup356]

you people need to remember , the enemy was identified by Bush , Bush who has lied about everything about the war.Slick move to get the attention away from his lies.George, ***, and donald are the worlds biggest terrorists.They just make up and break laws to do what they want to, at anybody else''s expense.they are in the act right now of a large terror scheme called the bailout.After they devalue the American dollar as much as they can they will introduce the Amero, and will gladly exchange them for your dollars...at pennies on the dollar...coming soon .Just wait till they are all up on charges of war crimes, treason, murder, extortion,torture and breaking of Geneva convention laws.i hope to see all three of them tried , convicted , and executed.For what they have done to our country and the world.

[promaclaura]

Terrorist''s live among the civilians, at their families peril. It would be wonderful if these cells would group together and set up barracks away from the innocent, targeting them would be so much easier.

[erich_1-2009]

"The U.S. military has conducted nearly a dozen secret operations against al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Syria, Pakistan and other countries since 2004"....

They should be continued and expanded.

I couldn''t agree more!

[promaclaura]

The operative essence of the terrorist threat is precisely that it is dispersed into small, individual factions in many different countries. Therefore, you have to attack it as such. You need small, lethal clandestine operations to quietly insert, kill and leave. Attempting to acuire the preliminary permission of many of these governments is not feasible. It may not even be necessary in their minds, provided they are able to maintain plasubile deniability. It is often much easier to receive forgiveness than permission.


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Posted by brianp55 at 05:19 PM : Nov 10, 2008

I don''t think we will ever see a Middle Eastern government fully engage against terrorism. It''s asking them to conduct war with brother against brother, not all muslim''s believe in jihad but the enemy does sometimes live within their homes. I like Brian''s final statement as it is very true.

[brianp55]

The operative essence of the terrorist threat is precisely that it is dispersed into small, individual factions in many different countries. Therefore, you have to attack it as such. You need small, lethal clandestine operations to quietly insert, kill and leave. Attempting to acuire the preliminary permission of many of these governments is not feasible. It may not even be necessary in their minds, provided they are able to maintain plasubile deniability. It is often much easier to receive forgiveness than permission.

[promaclaura]

Targeting just Bin Laden is not going to eliminate terrorism. OBL is in the forefront, but not the end all be all to stop muslim extremism. These "terror" cells are in all countries, but they have no country. Comparing the war on terror to the cold war/Soviet Union is like comparing apples to oranges. The Soviet Union was talking tough to protect their borders, terrorism is talking/acting aggresive to promote a religious zeal. We insult them when we think talking will change their minds on our destruction, terror listens only to jihad.

[nycsense]

richwl1,

Getting back to small scale attacks on other countries. You''re saying that we can afford to attack in small skirmishes. How long do you think it would take before these countries band together and declare war on us? Because a war is not just us declaring war on someone else.

[thechooch1]

richwl1

If we had been doing it all along, why weren''t we doing it right? Where is bin Laden? Why didn''t we go after them? What harm is talking to our enemies? Our country has a history of doing just that. Even during the scariest part of my life, the cold war, we talked to the Soviet Union.

[nycsense]

richwl1,

No sit downs with Al Queda, period. I''m talking about the leaders of the Iraqi insurgents, who are not Al Queda. And a dialog with the Taliban leaders. Because if history shows us anything, no one has EVER defeated the Afghans, not on their turf anyway, just ask the Russians.

[richwl1]

Fact is, all history is revisionist, and the "truth" more often than not depends on who''s claiming to tell it. Sorry, but I do see the fight against Al Qaeda as a black and white issue. They chose to forgo diplomacy to express their discontent with us, why should we know use diplomacy to deal with them? Do you really think it will work to sit down with them and discuss our differences??? There is no justification for what they did anymore than there is any justification for what Hitler did. Yes, everyone should have the right to protest injustices, but no one, IMHO, has the right to slaughter innocents.

[inventagod2]

Oh - I thought the headline said ''Bu$h OK''d Secret 9/11 NYC Attack''... nevermind...

[brianp55]

"The U.S. military has conducted nearly a dozen secret operations against al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in Syria, Pakistan and other countries since 2004"....

They should be continued and expanded.

[nycsense]

richwl1,

I also shop everywhere you just stated and also drive an SUV (but its a hybrid). I am not generalizing at all. I am including myself in this mess as well. We all had our part in it. The difference is, I am not going to contiue living with blinders on anymore. I want to see the good and the bad. I want to hear everyside, and not just ours, because I feel it''s my responsibility as a citizen of this country to be informed, and know when someone is blowing smoke up where the sun doesn''t shine. Understand?

[nycsense]

richwl1,

I''m not excusing anyone of any atrocities, because our government have also comitted some pretty horrible and nightmarish atrocities in the middle east as well. In addition, I will take the word of a Washington insider who was there and understands the reasoning behind all the actions over someone making it up as they go along. The time of resivionist history is over and we can have the truth of what has occurred and what is occuring instantly now. Doing my own research, besides this book, gives me a much clearer understanding of why they attacked us and the various reasons behind it. As you may already know, in situations as complicated as this one, there are no black & white answers. There are ALWAYS, many reasons behind the actions but it''s up to us to choose to listen to them all, no matter how ugly they may get.

[richwl1]

Oh, and just as a counter argument, just because a person shops at Whole Foods and drives a SmartCar doesn''t make them better informed or less blind. Generalizations can be applied to any group and are often very inaccurate. People are allowed to disagree without being insulted. I drive an SUV (not an oversized one though), shop at Whole Foods and Walmart sometimes (although I prefer Costco), and I''d put my knowledge up against yours any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

[promaclaura]

I expect President Obama to follow this same policy, chase terrorist''s wherever they go. If we don''t then all the troops in the world on the Afgan/Pakistan border will not matter, terrorist''s would happily reside in Pakistan''s tribal regions. I''m glad they went after al qaeda in Syria/Iraq border, Syria''s continued supply line of insurgents and weapons in Iraq may be hindered now. Does anybody really want safe havens for terrorist''s? Barack Obama will need to do this as well, and the NY Times is not helping him by hindering his ability to conduct such operations. Terrorist''s are not going away just because we change President''s, so get ready Barack, terror is gunning for us come h ell or high water.

[richwl1]

nycsense-Thank you, but generally I find that "telling it like it is" actually means "telling it like I think it is or like I want it to be." I''m sure it''s informative if for no other reason than to hear another''s opinions (honestly I''d be surprised if I needed a dictionary to read it though). I''m not saying that we should fight a war with Syria; I''m saying that we should have focused more resources on Syria than on Iraq. And what I really mean by that is conducting these types of missions which in comparison to fighting an all-out war cost very little. The fact is, whenever a country participates on a global scale in anything other countries will disagree with what they do. The world loves to hate us, but always asks us to help them. Many countries choose not to "meddle" at all. We have made and will continue to make mistakes on the world stage. But I do feel that we are for the most part very generous and well-intentioned. A huge part of the reason that we are hated in the Middle East is our support of Israel. I actually see both sides of the argument though I will never agree with the methods of extremists. Palestinians have some very legitimate gripes given that their land was essentially taken from them when Israel was established. This does not, however, excuse Al Qaeda for the atrocities they have committed.

[brianbwb-2009]

So, Rumsfeld wrote the document that posited that the US should violate international law, and bush signed off?

Hard evidence. Start the war crimes and treason trials.

[krescera]

This is apparently one of the series of parting shots of NYT meant for George W.Bush. We can be fully assured that no such NYT revelations by "anonymous sources " would be publishedd by the paper under the Obama regime.Everything will be sacrosanct under the messiah.

[nycsense]

Man you people are dense! Do you people even bother reading the previous posts before you give your opinions? This report is hardly military intelligence if it already happened years before. This is one of the problems with this country, no one wants to know what''s going on. You all just want to continue with blinders on, shopping at Walmart and driving your oversized SUVs. There is an old latin saying that says "Know thy enemy, know thy self". In other words, we are our own worst enemy. What we do to ourselves is far greater than what Al Queda can do to us, and they''re banking on that. Inform yourselves, that report that you read here is only the tip of the iceberg. Do your own research aside from what the media is telling you.