The Iraq War: Pretty much the opposite of a war on terror

It doesn't seem as though you've been reading the posts, as the facts have been mentioned numerous times:
dog428 summed up pretty much everything that you refuse to acknowledge:
Following our attacks on Afghanistan, al Qaeda was on the verge of complete defeat. Over 80 percent of its members were dead, its leaders were on the run and the one country which offered the group a place to train and live was no longer welcoming them.

Instead of closing the deal, we went to Iraq. And in less than four years, al Qaeda has an estimated four times the number of members, controls a large province in the very country in which we're fighting this war on terror and has convinced the Muslim world that the US's goal is to rid the world of Muslims.

There's a difference in fighting a group of radicals who are trying to spread their brand of hate and helping that group of radicals to spread that hate with our fighting. A big difference.

How do you respond to that?

 

When your sighting Dog 428 as your "expert" no further response is necessary. Dog - the man who still wants to see the rebel flag flying .

 

Here's another story for you indiansnetwork that pretty much says the SAME thing: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/T/TERRORISM_INTELLIGENCE?SITE=IADES&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

The war in Iraq has become a "cause celebre" for Islamic extremists, breeding deep resentment of the U.S. that probably will get worse before it gets better, federal intelligence analysts conclude in a report at odds with President Bush's portrayal of a world growing safer....

 

Yes, and if it wasn't Iraq, they'd have "deep resentment" about something else. We weren't in Iraq on Sept. 11, 2001, were we?

 

"You were given the choice between war and dishonor. You chose dishonor and you will have war."

 

"War is an instrument entirely inefficient toward redressing wrong; and multiplies, instead of indemnifying losses. "

 

Maybe you didn't figure this out but when groups of people are killed they tend to run and hide. Al Qaeda is no exception to this and ran to Iraq and Northern Africa to regroup. Secondly, how can people that want to cause massive destruction and death not be considered terrorists.

 

How can't they not? Damn, how does such a short string continue to tie itself in knots?

 

Does the phrase "No-Fly Zone" ring a bell?

 

Every day, in every way, I realize more and more that Heinlein may have had a very good idea in his novel Starship Troopers. This proves it.

INCONTROVERTIBLE FACT: Afghanistan, not Iraq, gave safe harbor to Osama Bin Laden and Al Qaeda.

ANOTHER INCONTROVERTIBLE FACT: Iraq was not a harbor of Islamoterrorism under Saddam.

FACT: Saddam rebuffed overtures from Osama because the dictator didn't trust the religious nut, and Saddam's government was the kind of secular government Osama despised. http://www.cfr.org/publication/9951/osama_bin_laden.html#16

FACT: Iraq became an absolute beehive of Islamoterrorism after American forces invaded Iraq and deposed Saddam. And only after.

FACT: If the Bush administration had kept its focus on al Qaeda and not commited the mistake of giving in to its irrational obsession with Saddam, what was left of al Qaeda's central leadership would have been irrevocably destroyed on the ground in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

FACT: The core of al Qaeda still is not in Iraq. In fact, it was never in Iraq. Our forces there are starring in an elaborate sideshow that has allowed both the American people and their elected government to forget about the main stage.

FACT: Because of that, the Taliban is resurgent in both Afghanistan and Pakistan today.

 

The enemy of the enemy is my friend.

http://www.nysun.com/article/39631

http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040624-112921-3401r.htm

 

Point one, troop levels in Afghanistan have not changed since the war in Iraq nor has the primary strategy. The problem was that al Qaeda laid low because they didn't have a strategy to advance their cause. Once the new strategy was formed they went on the recruiting path again. The network now had spread out to other countries because they were forced out of Afghanistan. Due to this splitting of the forces new leadership was formed and new techniques were gained. You do not know like I do from first hand accounts that al Qaeda is in Iraq. You didn't have to deal with their strategies or read about how they disguised themselves as ordinary citizens. Truthfully most of the terrorists coming into Iraq were coming in from Iran and Syria. These Islamic fundamentalists were hell bent on destroying America and our way of life.

We have inadvertently created a perfect playground for these radicals to practice and grow their causes. While this on a whole has increased the Islamic extremist because of the tenets of their religion, in time this will be a positive because it will deter further underground growth which is far more dangerous. Just because you don't see or hear radicals does not mean that they don't exist. You seem to support the idea that we had won the war on terrorism because of our silencing of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. That would be a serious victory if that would have happened because it would have set a record for crushing a extreme group of fundmental radicals. Silence is one of the first signs that a group is regrouping and in hiding. Us leaving Afghanistan and/or Iraq is exactly what the al Qaeda and other terrorist groups would want because it would give them time to regroup, recruit and rearm. The fact that we are still in Afghanistan and Iraq is a good thing because it doesn't allow them time to regroup, recruit and rearm. Unless there are underground weapons shops, the supply of arms is slowly dwindling. The ultimate goal is to stop the flow of weapons and money to the terrorist but the only way to do so is to hunt down and kill the suppliers. We can not hunt down and kill the suppliers from the United States so we have to go to where they live which is much better than them coming to where we live.