The experts warned Obama this would happen
#1
At least one of the Taliban 5, the terrorist dream team that was traded for Army deserter Bo Bergdahl, has returned to terrorism. This coming the same day that the WH said that the Taliban are not terrorists, they are an armed insurgency that uses terrorist tactics. WTF? At the same presser the WH spokesman was pressed about negotiating with terrorists. The spokesman said that we have not negotiated with terrorists, it was Qatar that did the negotiating with the Taliban in the Bergdahl swap. Another WTF?

Quote:Officials: Detainee swapped for Bergdahl suspected of militant activities

By Barbara Starr, CNN Pentagon Correspondent

Updated 1556 GMT (2356 HKT) January 30, 2015

Washington (CNN)The U.S. military and intelligence community now suspect that one of the five Taliban detainees released from Guantanamo Bay in return for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl in May of last year has attempted to return to militant activity from his current location in Qatar by making contact with suspected Taliban associates in Afghanistan, multiple officials tell CNN.

The development has led to an ongoing debate inside the administration about whether there is a new threat from this man, and potentially the other four.

This is the first known suggestion that any of the detainees involved in the exchange may be trying to engage again in militant activity. It comes at a politically sensitive time as the administration has quickened the pace of prisoner release in an effort to encourage the closure of the Guantanamo, and the Army must decide in the coming weeks whether and how to punish Bergdahl for leaving his post.

Who were the detainees swapped for Bergdahl?

Several U.S. officials across different agencies and branches of the U.S. government have confirmed key details to CNN. The White House referred CNN to the Pentagon.

Will Sgt. Bergdahl be charged for leaving his post? 03:41
PLAY VIDEO

The officials would not say which of the five men is suspected. But an ongoing U.S. intelligence program to secretly intercept and monitor all of their communications in Qatar turned up evidence in recent months that one of them has "reached out" to try to encourage militant activity, one official said. The official would offer no further details.

Under current law, this act placed the man in the category of being "suspected" of re-engaging in terrorist or insurgent activities. However, several officials say there is now a debate inside the administration that the intelligence may be stronger than the "suspected" classification. Some elements of the intelligence community believe the information is strong enough to classify the man as "confirmed" for returning to illegal activities. All five men are having their communications even more closely monitored right now, but the belief is there is no current threat, one official told CNN.

Pentagon press secretary Rear Admiral John Kirby tells CNN that in addition to its discussions with the Qatari government, the United States is working across its various law enforcement and intelligence agencies to address the issue.

"We have a strong security partnership with Qatar, and are in constant dialogue with Qatari government officials about these five detainees and we are confident that we would be able to mitigate any threat of re-engagement by any of these members," Kirby said in an interview that will air Thursday night on CNN's 'Erin Burnett Out Front.'

Under intelligence laws, the definition of "confirmed" for returning to militant activity is that there is a "preponderance of information which identifies a specific former GITMO detainee as directly involved in terrorist or insurgent activities."

The definition of 'suspected" is that there is "plausible but unverified or single-source reporting indicating a specific former Gitmo detainee is directly involved in terrorist or insurgent activities."

Released Guantanamo detainees in Qatar 01:03
PLAY VIDEO

Congress has been notified of the information but it has not been made public.

The precise terms of their release to Qatar -- and the Qataris promise to monitor their activities -- has never been made public. All five are believed to still be in that country, U.S. officials said.

The five, who mostly held mid- to high-level positions within the Taliban before their capture during the early days of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan, were detained because of their association with the Taliban, not because of any ties to al Qaeda.

One of the men was alleged to have been "directly associated" with Osama bin Laden, while another commanded the main force fighting the U.S.-backed Northern Alliance in 2001. Another of the men was a senior official in the Taliban intelligence service, while another served as head of the Taliban's communications effort, and also helped al Qaeda members escape into Pakistan.

The release of the five Taliban has been highly controversial and politically sensitive for the Obama administration. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel had to agree to the release, but his own staff has long noted his doubts.

President Barack Obama maintained he received assurances from the Qatari government about the five detainees before their release, but noted the difficult road ahead.

"I wouldn't be doing it if I thought that it was contrary to American national security," Obama said at a news conference in Poland a few days after the transfer.

"And we have confidence that we will be in a position to go after them if, in fact, they are engaging in activities that threaten our defenses," he said.

Obama defends Bowe Bergdahl swap 03:25
PLAY VIDEO

Kirby said Hagel was well-aware of the potential danger the five men posed.

"He believes that the risk has been substantially mitigated through the assurances that we received through the Emir of Qatar," Kirby said at the time of the release. "I would remind you that these are assurances that the emir personally gave to the President of the United States. I'm not going to go into every detail on these assurances, but -- but the secretary is comfortable that the risk is mitigated through these assurances."

Congress receives a report every six months on the status of detainees transferred out of Gitmo. The latest report in September 2014, showed about 17% of detainees transferred out of Guantanamo Bay are confirmed by the U.S. to have returned to militant activity. About 12% are in the suspected category.
http://edition.cnn.com/2015/01/29/politi...index.html
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#2
So?
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#3
(01-30-2015, 11:13 AM)bbqboy Wrote: So?

...what.
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#4
Ridiculous. How many times has the US funded what turns out to be the enemy. AKA the Taliban, ISIS, whatever. We reap what we sow.
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#5
(01-30-2015, 10:17 PM)Tiamat Wrote: Ridiculous. How many times has the US funded what turns out to be the enemy. AKA the Taliban, ISIS, whatever. We reap what we sow.

How many times have we advanced freedom by helping the oppressed?
Don't act as if this great country hasn't helped perpetuate freedom just because we've made mistakes.
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#6
(01-31-2015, 12:01 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(01-30-2015, 10:17 PM)Tiamat Wrote: Ridiculous. How many times has the US funded what turns out to be the enemy. AKA the Taliban, ISIS, whatever. We reap what we sow.

How many times have we advanced freedom by helping the oppressed?
Don't act as if this great country hasn't helped perpetuate freedom just because we've made mistakes.

Until Tia gets time to respond:

Okay, lets have a look:

Korea. We defended South Korea and it eventually build a fully democratic government. (Had "Democracy lite before we arrived). We lost American lives and treasure and still spend lots of money and have thousands in harms way defending that DMZ. In short we didn't win or "perpetuate freedom"....North Korea is a land in bondage we failed to liberate and the South would fall in a day without our defense.

Viet Nam. We lost and looked bad in doing it.

Panama: We only protected our own interests until the treaty ended.

Granada: Simply a joke.

The Balkans: Still a tinder box and we didn't provide any lasting freedom.

Afghanistan: We gave the tribal leaders (many Taliban) millions in cash and weapons to run the Russians out. Then the Taliban used many of those weapons against us and are now running us out of that country that is by any definition, a mess.

The First Gulf War: We didn't make freedom or democracy happen anyplace but did protect a tiny little county and their oil we wanted.

Iraq: An unnecessary war to unseat a despot, we failed to "perpatrate freedom" and now it's again a hot-bet of violence that threatens the region.

We did get the job done against Japan and Germany. The difference: Those nation states were a clear and present danger to our county and had the means to attack our shores and occupy us. We did help them rebuild and form democratic institutions.

Texas: It will never be free and our only hope it to bomb it back to the stone age. Razz
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#7
(01-31-2015, 12:39 PM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(01-31-2015, 12:01 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(01-30-2015, 10:17 PM)Tiamat Wrote: Ridiculous. How many times has the US funded what turns out to be the enemy. AKA the Taliban, ISIS, whatever. We reap what we sow.

How many times have we advanced freedom by helping the oppressed?
Don't act as if this great country hasn't helped perpetuate freedom just because we've made mistakes.

Until Tia gets time to respond:

Okay, lets have a look:

Korea. We defended South Korea and it eventually build a fully democratic government. (Had "Democracy lite before we arrived). We lost American lives and treasure and still spend lots of money and have thousands in harms way defending that DMZ. In short we didn't win or "perpetuate freedom"....North Korea is a land in bondage we failed to liberate and the South would fall in a day without our defense.

Viet Nam. We lost and looked bad in doing it.

Panama: We only protected our own interests until the treaty ended.

Granada: Simply a joke.

The Balkans: Still a tinder box and we didn't provide any lasting freedom.

Afghanistan: We gave the tribal leaders (many Taliban) millions in cash and weapons to run the Russians out. Then the Taliban used many of those weapons against us and are now running us out of that country that is by any definition, a mess.

The First Gulf War: We didn't make freedom or democracy happen anyplace but did protect a tiny little county and their oil we wanted.

Iraq: An unnecessary war to unseat a despot, we failed to "perpatrate freedom" and now it's again a hot-bet of violence that threatens the region.

We did get the job done against Japan and Germany. The difference: Those nation states were a clear and present danger to our county and had the means to attack our shores and occupy us. We did help them rebuild and form democratic institutions.

Texas: It will never be free and our only hope it to bomb it back to the stone age. Razz

Your post about Korea seems to prove my point and you contradict yourself BIG TIME when you say. we didn't win or "perpetuate freedom" and then you go one to say....South would fall in a day without our defense. I don't know why you feel the need to show our failures to promote freedom. I didn't say we were perfect.

My repose was to Tia because here post whether intentional or not with the "we reap what we sow" comment seemed to imply we always fail.

And your comment about Afghanistan.... you said... We gave the tribal leaders (many Taliban) millions in cash and weapons to run the Russians out.

Well yes we did, WITH GOOD INTENTIONS TOO. Which also right or wrong explains our current involvement. The same is true for Iraq.. We tried.

And you didn't include our help we gave to Kuwait when Iraq attempted to invade their country.
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#8
(01-31-2015, 01:07 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(01-31-2015, 12:39 PM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(01-31-2015, 12:01 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(01-30-2015, 10:17 PM)Tiamat Wrote: Ridiculous. How many times has the US funded what turns out to be the enemy. AKA the Taliban, ISIS, whatever. We reap what we sow.

How many times have we advanced freedom by helping the oppressed?
Don't act as if this great country hasn't helped perpetuate freedom just because we've made mistakes.

Until Tia gets time to respond:

Okay, lets have a look:

Korea. We defended South Korea and it eventually build a fully democratic government. (Had "Democracy lite before we arrived). We lost American lives and treasure and still spend lots of money and have thousands in harms way defending that DMZ. In short we didn't win or "perpetuate freedom"....North Korea is a land in bondage we failed to liberate and the South would fall in a day without our defense.

Viet Nam. We lost and looked bad in doing it.

Panama: We only protected our own interests until the treaty ended.

Granada: Simply a joke.

The Balkans: Still a tinder box and we didn't provide any lasting freedom.

Afghanistan: We gave the tribal leaders (many Taliban) millions in cash and weapons to run the Russians out. Then the Taliban used many of those weapons against us and are now running us out of that country that is by any definition, a mess.

The First Gulf War: We didn't make freedom or democracy happen anyplace but did protect a tiny little county and their oil we wanted.

Iraq: An unnecessary war to unseat a despot, we failed to "perpatrate freedom" and now it's again a hot-bet of violence that threatens the region.

We did get the job done against Japan and Germany. The difference: Those nation states were a clear and present danger to our county and had the means to attack our shores and occupy us. We did help them rebuild and form democratic institutions.

Texas: It will never be free and our only hope it to bomb it back to the stone age. Razz

I want to respond and would do it in italics but you have said you find that hard to read so will do it in bold. (Please understand bold doesn't mean I''m yelling Smiling )

Your post about Korea seems to prove my point and you contradict yourself BIG TIME when you say. we didn't win or "perpetuate freedom" and then you go one to say....South would fall in a day without our defense. I don't know why you feel the need to show our failures to promote freedom. I didn't say we were perfect.

Saying that South Korea would fall without out troops does support my argument. It was already a fledging democracy so we didn't build that, and we failed to remove the dictatorship in the north that invaded. A stalemate at best, our costly efforts gained us nothing.

My repose was to Tia because here post whether intentional or not with the "we reap what we sow" comment seemed to imply we always fail.

And my response listed the times and places we did fail.

And your comment about Afghanistan.... you said... We gave the tribal leaders (many Taliban) millions in cash and weapons to run the Russians out.

Well yes we did, WITH GOOD INTENTIONS TOO. Which also right or wrong explains our current involvement. The same is true for Iraq.. We tried.

We tried? We tried what? Our NATION didn't go to war...we sent volunteers and trillions of dollars to fight a tribal war we can't win. Hundreds of years ago the British had learned that "Afghanistan is where empires go to be buried". We should have know better. And Iraq was was (to use military jargon), just a plain cluster fuck

And you didn't include our help we gave to Kuwait when Iraq attempted to invade their country.

Matter of fact I did: From my post: "The First Gulf War: We didn't make freedom or democracy happen anyplace but did protect a tiny little county and their oil we wanted.
[/b]

I messed up the post big time. Makes it appear that your response is mine, and mine yours...or something. Spend two minutes trying to fix it...that's my attention span.
Sorry 'bout that.
Reply
#9
Good response Wonky.

TVg, you seem to want to make excuses for our failures and the trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives that have been lost by falling back on alleged good intentions.
Remember, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions...".
Reply
#10
(01-31-2015, 02:34 PM)gapper Wrote: Good response Wonky.

TVg, you seem to want to make excuses for our failures and the trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives that have been lost by falling back on alleged good intentions.
Remember, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions...".

It may have seemed like that but that was not at all my intention.I was only trying to point out that yes we have armed and helped people in the past based on what was happening to them AT THE TIME.
Seems to me like I remember when the Russians were slaughtering Afghanistan civilians is when we started arming them.
Who knew then what would happen later when a bunch of Afghan thugs took over the country.
And then Wonky's post made it seem ( IMO) that all we have ever done as a rich powerful country is screw up.
Reply
#11
(01-31-2015, 01:42 PM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(01-31-2015, 01:07 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(01-31-2015, 12:39 PM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(01-31-2015, 12:01 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(01-30-2015, 10:17 PM)Tiamat Wrote: Ridiculous. How many times has the US funded what turns out to be the enemy. AKA the Taliban, ISIS, whatever. We reap what we sow.

How many times have we advanced freedom by helping the oppressed?
Don't act as if this great country hasn't helped perpetuate freedom just because we've made mistakes.

Until Tia gets time to respond:

Okay, lets have a look:

Korea. We defended South Korea and it eventually build a fully democratic government. (Had "Democracy lite before we arrived). We lost American lives and treasure and still spend lots of money and have thousands in harms way defending that DMZ. In short we didn't win or "perpetuate freedom"....North Korea is a land in bondage we failed to liberate and the South would fall in a day without our defense.

Viet Nam. We lost and looked bad in doing it.

Panama: We only protected our own interests until the treaty ended.

Granada: Simply a joke.

The Balkans: Still a tinder box and we didn't provide any lasting freedom.

Afghanistan: We gave the tribal leaders (many Taliban) millions in cash and weapons to run the Russians out. Then the Taliban used many of those weapons against us and are now running us out of that country that is by any definition, a mess.

The First Gulf War: We didn't make freedom or democracy happen anyplace but did protect a tiny little county and their oil we wanted.

Iraq: An unnecessary war to unseat a despot, we failed to "perpatrate freedom" and now it's again a hot-bet of violence that threatens the region.

We did get the job done against Japan and Germany. The difference: Those nation states were a clear and present danger to our county and had the means to attack our shores and occupy us. We did help them rebuild and form democratic institutions.

Texas: It will never be free and our only hope it to bomb it back to the stone age. Razz

I want to respond and would do it in italics but you have said you find that hard to read so will do it in bold. (Please understand bold doesn't mean I''m yelling Smiling )

Your post about Korea seems to prove my point and you contradict yourself BIG TIME when you say. we didn't win or "perpetuate freedom" and then you go one to say....South would fall in a day without our defense. I don't know why you feel the need to show our failures to promote freedom. I didn't say we were perfect.

Saying that South Korea would fall without out troops does support my argument. It was already a fledging democracy so we didn't build that, and we failed to remove the dictatorship in the north that invaded. A stalemate at best, our costly efforts gained us nothing.

My repose was to Tia because here post whether intentional or not with the "we reap what we sow" comment seemed to imply we always fail.

And my response listed the times and places we did fail.

And your comment about Afghanistan.... you said... We gave the tribal leaders (many Taliban) millions in cash and weapons to run the Russians out.

Well yes we did, WITH GOOD INTENTIONS TOO. Which also right or wrong explains our current involvement. The same is true for Iraq.. We tried.

We tried? We tried what? Our NATION didn't go to war...we sent volunteers and trillions of dollars to fight a tribal war we can't win. Hundreds of years ago the British had learned that "Afghanistan is where empires go to be buried". We should have know better. And Iraq was was (to use military jargon), just a plain cluster fuck

And you didn't include our help we gave to Kuwait when Iraq attempted to invade their country.

Matter of fact I did: From my post: "The First Gulf War: We didn't make freedom or democracy happen anyplace but did protect a tiny little county and their oil we wanted.
[/b]

I messed up the post big time. Makes it appear that your response is mine, and mine yours...or something. Spend two minutes trying to fix it...that's my attention span.
Sorry 'bout that.

Smiling I hear ya.
Reply
#12
(01-31-2015, 03:14 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(01-31-2015, 02:34 PM)gapper Wrote: Good response Wonky.

TVg, you seem to want to make excuses for our failures and the trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives that have been lost by falling back on alleged good intentions.
Remember, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions...".

It may have seemed like that but that was not at all my intention.I was only trying to point out that yes we have armed and helped people in the past based on what was happening to them AT THE TIME.
Seems to me like I remember when the Russians were slaughtering Afghanistan civilians is when we started arming them.
Who knew then what would happen later when a bunch of Afghan thugs took over the country.
And then Wonky's post made it seem ( IMO) that all we have ever done as a rich powerful country is screw up.

Hey, make no mistake...I'm all in favor of a strong military and willing to pay taxes for it.
But in the examples I listed above I think it's clear we have screwed the pup too many times and gotten bogged down in places we should not have. It's been costly in both treasure and lives.
Now, having said that, there is a line I don't know about or understand.
We can agree, I'm sure, that anytime we face "a clear and present danger" we turn our powerful military loose and God help 'em when we (THE ENTIRE COUNTRY) get behind that action.
But, what about these "police actions"? Bosnia for instance? Do we jump in in ALL cases of genocide or in Bosnia but not Rwanda?

National defense is getting more and more murky.
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#13
(01-31-2015, 03:14 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(01-31-2015, 02:34 PM)gapper Wrote: Good response Wonky.

TVg, you seem to want to make excuses for our failures and the trillions of dollars and tens of thousands of lives that have been lost by falling back on alleged good intentions.
Remember, "The road to Hell is paved with good intentions...".

It may have seemed like that but that was not at all my intention.I was only trying to point out that yes we have armed and helped people in the past based on what was happening to them AT THE TIME.
Seems to me like I remember when the Russians were slaughtering Afghanistan civilians is when we started arming them.
Who knew then what would happen later when a bunch of Afghan thugs took over the country.
And then Wonky's post made it seem ( IMO) that all we have ever done as a rich powerful country is screw up.

OK. That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.
You're right we aren't ALL bad.
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#14
War is not about freedom, war is not democracy. Very few it any exception can be found. It is about money and power. This is why we don't bring democracy and freedom to Africa?
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#15
(02-02-2015, 01:11 PM)Willie Krash Wrote: War is not about freedom, war is not democracy. Very few it any exception can be found. It is about money and power. This is why we don't bring democracy and freedom to Africa?

Could be, Willie.
I wonder however if we can see all wars as the same. Our war of liberation from the king of England was about more than money and power. The terrible tragedy of our Civil War may have had it's corruption of money and power but at it's core was an ideal that kept our Union together, and our great strength came because we held united.

Africa is a very different story...and changing very rapidly. Democracy may find a foothold in Africa after the tribal traditions break down when the development of natural resources are guided by homegrown talent.

But I agree that almost without exception war is about money and power. I hope we can steer our way through the land mines of troubles in the Middle East and around the globe without getting bogged down in more war.

I think our misadventure in Iraq could be a object lesson if only we would study it. My personal opinion is that a good place to start with that is "Fiasco" by Tom Ricks.
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#16
(01-31-2015, 12:01 PM)tvguy Wrote:
(01-30-2015, 10:17 PM)Tiamat Wrote: Ridiculous. How many times has the US funded what turns out to be the enemy. AKA the Taliban, ISIS, whatever. We reap what we sow.

How many times have we advanced freedom by helping the oppressed?
Don't act as if this great country hasn't helped perpetuate freedom just because we've made mistakes.

Where am I acting like that? I'm simply replying to what the "experts" have to say. That's ridiculous.
Reply
#17
The way I see it. while they were locked up in quntonomo we couldn't kill them. Now they are back out in the wild, and open targets. You think they might have homing devices for the drones?
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#18
(02-02-2015, 05:10 PM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(02-02-2015, 01:11 PM)Willie Krash Wrote: War is not about freedom, war is not democracy. Very few it any exception can be found. It is about money and power. This is why we don't bring democracy and freedom to Africa?

Could be, Willie.
I wonder however if we can see all wars as the same. Our war of liberation from the king of England was about more than money and power. The terrible tragedy of our Civil War may have had it's corruption of money and power but at it's core was an ideal that kept our Union together, and our great strength came because we held united.

Africa is a very different story...and changing very rapidly. Democracy may find a foothold in Africa after the tribal traditions break down when the development of natural resources are guided by homegrown talent.

But I agree that almost without exception war is about money and power. I hope we can steer our way through the land mines of troubles in the Middle East and around the globe without getting bogged down in more war.

I think our misadventure in Iraq could be a object lesson if only we would study it. My personal opinion is that a good place to start with that is "Fiasco" by Tom Ricks.
Liberation from England? Boston Tea Party? Both side wanted the money. Taxation w/o representation. It was all about money.

Civil war was about money. Keeping the union together was the rationale but it was over money. A highly industrialized majority putting dictates on an agrarian society. Threatening their economic interest. Money. Some call it a Tariff war.
Just an opinion.

as far as Iraq goes, think Vietnam.
Reply
#19
(02-03-2015, 03:07 PM)Willie Krash Wrote:
(02-02-2015, 05:10 PM)Wonky3 Wrote:
(02-02-2015, 01:11 PM)Willie Krash Wrote: War is not about freedom, war is not democracy. Very few it any exception can be found. It is about money and power. This is why we don't bring democracy and freedom to Africa?

Could be, Willie.
I wonder however if we can see all wars as the same. Our war of liberation from the king of England was about more than money and power. The terrible tragedy of our Civil War may have had it's corruption of money and power but at it's core was an ideal that kept our Union together, and our great strength came because we held united.

Africa is a very different story...and changing very rapidly. Democracy may find a foothold in Africa after the tribal traditions break down when the development of natural resources are guided by homegrown talent.

But I agree that almost without exception war is about money and power. I hope we can steer our way through the land mines of troubles in the Middle East and around the globe without getting bogged down in more war.

I think our misadventure in Iraq could be a object lesson if only we would study it. My personal opinion is that a good place to start with that is "Fiasco" by Tom Ricks.
Liberation from England? Boston Tea Party? Both side wanted the money. Taxation w/o representation. It was all about money.

Civil war was about money. Keeping the union together was the rationale but it was over money. A highly industrialized majority putting dictates on an agrarian society. Threatening their economic interest. Money. Some call it a Tariff war.
Just an opinion.

as far as Iraq goes, think Vietnam.

In all fairness, Willie, I did say "Our war of liberation from England was MORE than money or power...of course money and power are always components of any war. But you will have to agree that our freedom allowed a great democratic experiment to take shape, and it has changed the way government is seen all around the globe: Imperfect perhaps, but with a great and wonderful potential.
And the little reading I've done about the history of the civil war clearly suggests that Mr. Lincoln and his "team of rivals" wanted, above all else to keep the union of states together under one flag.
I respect your opinion but don't agree, at least in total.
And it makes little difference except for the old bromide that "those who don't understand history are doomed to repeat it". We are facing the temptation of war(s) far from our shores and it will will require a alert and aware citizenry to keep us from blundering into more misadventures.

We are increasing the numbers of troops we are inserting into Iraq.
We are on the brink of sending tanks and other heavy weapons to The Ukraine.

At some point we are going to have to let regional conflicts work themselves out unless we think it directly effects our national security. We have "wars" here at home yet to be won.
Reply
#20
at the end of the Iraq occupation alquaida was decimated. Iraqi occupation was over. Iraqi leaders said they were ready to go it alone. The US puts a very rosy picture of the end of Bush's war and and it's outlook. Yet, quickly things went sour. The sunni /shiite troubles continue unabated. The US put the the powers that be in place. This see saw between the Sunni's and the Shi ites' has been everlasting for years. Who's on top? The sunni's? the Shi ites? It's the flavor of the month. We support a regime to promise political inclusion and create a new Iraq.The political groups use the US to meet their desires and changes. But what changes? The eternal struggle continues. People are still marginalized and isolated. This Arab Spring...the Sunni insurgency was broken....and yet....not all. Now we have fighting against the shities. We have a breakdown now of the Coutnry of Syria. ISIS has found it's home in Syria. There, they are able to find the traction and audience of war and resistance against the shiites. and it take off like fire. The purge of Sunni's continue.We are looking at hundred of years of cultural dissent. Do we expect our foreign interference is going to create the significant change the US desires? Most expert feel that Bush's Iraq was a mistake. This is the outcome. It's the reaping of what we sowed. The truth is, that in spite of US or other western interference, the middle east is set on it's own self determination. And no one has gambled this outcome correctly from a western point of view. Pure ignorance and arrogance.
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