http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060926/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_afghanistan_16;_ylt=Ag_dj.hFY5wvPfH6yN_8wf5X6GM A;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Not that we don't have enough threads about the subject.:(

I think they're both right..... Al Quesadilla (how do you spell it anyways :') ability to organize, fund and carry out large scale attacks has been degraded by some prudent actions by this administration. The invasion of Afghanistan, the disruption of their funding, and the diplomatic victory in Libya being some.

Is Bush in "deNile" or is he looking at it differently?...i.e. their have been no successful attacks here in the US (though their have been some on allies, London for instance). The intelligence communtiy contends that the war has increased the overall number of terrorists or sympathizers, though (my opinion)that may be skewed with the increase due to Hezzbollah's "victory" in Lebanon.

I don't know..what do you think? Has the War in Iraq limited terrorism, had no effect, or furthered terrorism? Created more probelms or localized the problem?

..or just tell be to piss off because your sick of talking about Iraq. :)

I think from a logistics point of view, it makes more sense.
It's cheaper to sent fighters into Iraq, than it is to send them to America.
I think it has limited the attacks in the United States, but increased them overseas, in Iraq in particular.
As mean as it sounds, I'd rather have them fighting our military than slamming a jet liner into our skyscrapers once every eight years. Our soldiers have the resources and training to fight the terrorists. They tend to kill more terrorists than the terrorists kill soldiers.

I think they're both right..... Al Quesadilla (how do you spell it anyways :') ability to organize, fund and carry out large scale attacks has been degraded by some prudent actions by this administration. The invasion of Afghanistan, the disruption of their funding, and the diplomatic victory in Libya being some.

Bold statement. Expect the attacks on your character to be forthcoming....

Karzai said ahead of his visit here that his country would be "heaven in less than a year" if it received the $300 billion the United States had spent in Iraq.
There ya have it, Gibbors meh muh Phat lewts, and i will Roxxors joo untill november 08!!!

Expect the attacks on your character to be forthcoming....

God I hope note...I'm at least hopeful that these are things that just about everyone can agree on as being good actions.

The Taliban was clearly harboing and supporting terrorism - As well as other crimes.

Disrupting terrorist funding - darn good idea...as long as certain newspapers don't give away secrets. :o

...and libya coming out and, at least openly, dinouncing terrorism and cooperating in investigations.

Good things, right? :D

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/09/25/AR2006092500912.html
For instance, what specifically does it mean to say that the Iraq war has worsened the "terrorism threat"? Presumably, the NIE's authors would admit that this is speculation rather than a statement of fact, since the facts suggest otherwise. Before the Iraq war, the United States suffered a series of terrorist attacks: the bombing and destruction of two American embassies in East Africa in 1998, the terrorist attack on the USS Cole in 2000, and the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. Since the Iraq war started, there have not been any successful terrorist attacks against the United States. That doesn't mean the threat has diminished because of the Iraq war, but it does place the burden of proof on those who argue that it has increased.

Probably what the NIE's authors mean is not that the Iraq war has increased the actual threat. According to the Times, the report is agnostic on whether another terrorist attack is more or less likely. Rather, its authors claim that the war has increased the number of potential terrorists. Unfortunately, neither The Post nor the Times provides any figures to support this. Does the NIE? Or are its authors simply assuming that because Muslims have been angered by the war, some percentage of them must be joining the ranks of terrorists?

As a poor substitute for actual figures, The Post notes that, according to the NIE, members of terrorist cells post messages on their Web sites depicting the Iraq war as "a Western attempt to conquer Islam." No doubt they do. But to move from that observation to the conclusion that the Iraq war has increased the terrorist threat requires answering a few additional questions.

I can only give the administration partial blame for this.

In 1985 the height of the Afgan/Soviet War young men left home from all over the Middle East to fight an occupying force. The defeat of the Soviet Army was the shining point of their generation, as sure as we considered WWII and our "Greatest Generation"

After this, these Jihadists went home, and started to have families. The children of those fighters are entering their 20s now. They want to relive the glory of their fathers as viewed from an event that has been romantized and glorified ad naseum. These people arent necessarily terrorists, any more than the Muhajadeen were vs the Russians. There is a great desire to fight in Iraq however. We enter a damned if you, damned if you dont situation.
Deny the would be jihadists the opportunity to fight in Iraq that they crave, and they may very well look for other opportunities to wage war against the "crusaders", thus actually becoming terrorists.
Allow numbers to enter Iraq, and place our troops almost intentionally in a harms way, and allow for a permanently unstable Iraq.

Zarqawis plan was never to have the US leave Iraq, it was to keep us there as long as possible.. Tie us down like a Gulliver from a wave of Liliputians.

Zarqawis plan was never to have the US leave Iraq, it was to keep us there as long as possible.. Tie us down like a Gulliver from a wave of Liliputians.

And, it was announced today (in the St Paul Pioneer Press) that they would be extending more troops past the date they were told they would be shipping stateside, and adjusting rotations, due to a lack of active duty available Army personnel; the only alternative would be to rotate others back before they had their 12 month rotation stateside, as they were "promised".

We are either going to have to reinstate the draft, or face the prospect of dwindling military resources to fight this "war on terror", which many will be jumping to point out will be an example of how the terrorists have won.

And yet the military continues to exceed new recruitment and re-enlistment goals.

And yet the military continues to exceed new recruitment and re-enlistment goals.

I don't believe that is true.

And yet the military continues to exceed new recruitment and re-enlistment goals.

But, how long does it take to get them up to speed for deployment? In other words, basic training, and advanced individual training take a minimum of 4-6 months. And, not all those signing up for military service are in MOS's that would necessarily put them in Iraq front line deployment.

Well.....

We sure are getting out $550,000,000,000 worth!

Oh, and 2,600 dead.

And the only reasoning seems to be so they will fight us there, rather than here. I guess if Iraq is a success, by that logic, we will immediatly become less safe! Unless we plan on staying there forever.

So we are fighting to either make ourselves less secure, or create a permanent bleeding wound in order to avoid harm... the logic is truely dizzying.

http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htatrit/articles/20060414.aspx
April 14, 2006: In the last six months, the U.S. Army is seeing 15 percent more soldiers re-enlist than expected. This continues a trend that began in 2001. Every year since then, the rate at which existing soldiers have re-enlisted has increased. This despite the fact that 69 percent of the troops killed in Iraq have been from the army. New recruits continue to exceed join up at higher rates as well.

There was an AP article a couple of weeks ago that stated recruitment and reenlistment goals had been exceeded (again) for the 2006 period. I couldn't find it... which is proof it exists, because had the military failed to meet those goals, you can bet your ass we would have still been reading about it.

We've pretty much always met the goals save for a few months after they increased the quotas. Even though they recruited more than ever even so, it fell below the goals so the media jumped on it as a big sign we're losing. Imagine that.

And the only reasoning seems to be so they will fight us there, rather than here. I guess if Iraq is a success, by that logic, we will immediatly become less safe! Unless we plan on staying there forever. Per the now partially declassified NIE...

The Iraq conflict has become the cause celebre for jihadists, breeding a deep resentment of US involvement in the Muslim world and cultivating supporters for the global jihadist movement. Should jihadists leaving Iraq perceive themselves, and be perceived, to have failed, we judge fewer fighters will be inspired to carry on the fight. It's cool how the "leaked" version somehow left that last sentence out.

Oh and pay attention L2, we're training the Iraqis to do the fighting so we can invade Iran.

Well.....

We sure are getting out $550,000,000,000 worth!

Oh, and 2,600 dead.

And the only reasoning seems to be so they will fight us there, rather than here.


3,001 dead as of today's paper.

But it's still not 10,000 dead, like we were told there would be in the invasion phase.....

Military recruitment fell short of goals in 2005, but re-enlistment has been pretty strong the last couple years. I'm curious what role our new recruitment standards (e.g., lower education requirements, older ages) have played in stabilizing 2006 recruiting.

Found this:



It had a goal of bringing in 80,000 new soldiers in the financial year that ended on 30 September 2005.

It finished that year with just 73,000 recruits.

This year the army appears to be on target to reach the 80,000 goal but to do so it has had to double the top enlistment bonuses for recruits from $20,000 to $40,000.

It has also had to loosen medical standards, forgive more minor criminal offences, raise the age limit for new recruits from 35 to 42 and accept more people who did not finish high school.



But still, they are meeting recruitment goals...though I have seen some ubsubstaniated reports that the goals themselves are being lowered. Haven't found anything to back that up other than statements by people with an agenda....but then who doesn't have an agenda anymore. :(

Added in edit:

It is my understanding that the army’s goals are set to what they determine as a realistic and likely estimate – there is no point of setting a goal too high. Instead, setting it to what you’d expect makes it easier to plan ahead which is vital.

Found this in another board...seems reasonable even if the above is true.