"Eight Years After 9/11: Why Osama bin Laden is a Failure"

Discussion in 'Blazers OT Forum' started by MrJayremmie, Sep 11, 2009.

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  1. Denny Crane

    Denny Crane It's not even loaded! Staff Member Administrator

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    It's hard to see how Bin Laden or 9/11 can be considered a success.

    He effectively made 3000 martyrs.

    He's garnered little sympathy, except where it was politically beneficial to certain parties.

    He brought the wrath of the US down on two arab nations.

    His buddies, the Taliban, were thrown out of government in Afghanistan.

    There is now one more democratic arab nation in the region.

    His terrorist training camps have all but been wiped off the map.

    He probably lost 100K or more Al Qaeda fighters in Iraq alone.

    He lost a lot of sympathetic supporters in Iraq when the people tired of the terrorist attacks there (and turned the war our favor).

    He lives in a cave, and at any time an unmanned drone can pick him off.
     
    Denny Crane, Sep 11, 2009
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  2. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

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    They repeated the same celebration just last week when the Lockerbie Bomber was released from prison by cowardly Scotland for trade/financial considerations.

    Nothing has improved, the dead are still dead, more die every day, Halliburton continues to stack our tax money in piles.
     
    MARIS61, Sep 11, 2009
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  3. Ed O

    Ed O Administrator Staff Member Administrator

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    Actually, the Jefferson administration was quite involved in fighting against the Barbary states, but that was a bit west of the middle east.

    Your statement was some sort of broad sweeping pronouncement about our country's influence in the region, when we're just talking about a handful of decades. Not too much as a percentage of our country's existence and a drop in the ocean relative to the issues that have existed there for centuries.

    To me you're making a distinction without a difference.

    International politics has always been--and, I believe, always WILL be--about force or the implied threat of force.

    Whether it's economic or military is not relevant. States act in their own interests and both the carrot and the stick are ways to influence other nations.

    Ed O.
     
    Ed O, Sep 11, 2009
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  4. bodyman5001

    bodyman5001 Genius

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    I agree with the part about force, money might work but there are always other countries that don't share our goals that can provide that.
     
    bodyman5001, Sep 11, 2009
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  5. MARIS61

    MARIS61 Real American

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    Neither way is effective long-term, and both eventually breed resentment. :tsktsk:

    I have more faith than you in mankind and the astounding effect of education, and believe people will one day be striving toward the betterment of all people, not just those near and known to them. :wub:
     
    MARIS61, Sep 11, 2009
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  6. bluefrog

    bluefrog Go Blazers, GO!

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    I'd say Osama Bin Laden is mostly a failure. He's failed or mostly failed at all of his goals:

    U.S. expultion from the Holy Land
    - Fail, the U.S. still has a pressence in Saudi Arabia and has an even larger pressence in the Middle East

    Trigger an Islamic Civil war and extend the Islamic fundamentalist rule throughout the Middle East
    - Mostly Fail, He attracted thousands to his cause in Afganistan and Iraq but the majority of Arabs did not sypathize with his cause. The Al Qaeda, Taliban and Iraqi insurgents got their asses handed to them.

    Bring down the U.S. and western society in general
    -Fail, He killed a lot of people and caused economic hard ships but Western influence continues to expand and dominate global culture
     
    bluefrog, Sep 12, 2009
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