08-06-2004, 05:46 PM
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Confirmed User
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Join Date: May 2001
Posts: 9,240
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Quote:
Originally posted by Quentin
Hmmm.
What exactly did Reagan do after Hezbollah bombed the Marine barracks in 1983, which killed 241 Marines? Did he attack and dismantle Hezbollah? No. Did he invade Iran (who is the biggest backer of Hezbollah)? No. What we did was pull the Marines out of Beirut. In fact, no one has ever been held accountable for that attack, or the subsequent kidnapping, torture and eventual murder of a CIA station chief assigned the area, either.
Why not? Well, for one thing, any military action was not likely to be supported by the American people, who really didn't give a damn about Islamic terrorism or what was going on in the Middle East at the time. Clinton faced a similar problem when he was president; realistically, how many voters do you think would have supported a full scale invasion of Afghanistan pre-9/11? For that matter, how many of our allies would have? And I think you could forget about having the cooperation of Pakistan or any of the other nearby "Stans" as staging points for an operation.
If you want to know the REAL reason why all American presidents from FDR forward don't delve too far into the realities of Islamic terrorism, though, and the REAL reason why the Saudis are pretty much free to give as much money as they wish to any terrorist group, without any kind of reprisal at all from the US, read a book called "Sleeping With The Devil" by ex-CIA agent Robert Baer..... that book will make your stomach turn, and it will make you think that it doesn't matter who is president when it comes to the war on terror, 'cause the real problem will never, ever, be addressed.
IMO, the bottom line is this - the war on terror will not end until our dependence on Saudi oil does. As it stands now, we are caught in a horrible Catch 22; on the one hand, we want to fight terror, on the other, the global economy cannot survive without a continued relationship with the world's leading financiers of terror.
There's a lot of history to all this folks... it goes way, way beyond the Clinton years. George W wasn't even born yet when the problem's seeds were sewn.
- Q.
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Don't quote facts to conservatives, it just makes them angrier. |
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