I'm not at all sure what, exactly, the war on terror was supposed to be.

Invading Iraq was doomed from the get go and I said so at the time. I said we did not have the required knowledge to effectively reorganize iraqi society. That turned out to be true in spades. We invaded, we disbanded the Iraqi armed forces, and left the country a sitting duck for disorder which spiraled out of control. It did nothing to quell the terror; indeed, it set the stage for worse to come.

Was Afghanistan a required player in the attack on the WTC? Weren't the main operatives Saudis? Did the pilots learn to fly in Afghanistan? No. Maybe the terrorists trained in effectively deploying violence -- it seems like Afghanistan would be a good place to practice.

Does the Theater of Security being conducted at airports prevent terrorists from operating? It might keep people from getting on planes with explosives in their shoes and underwear, but there are other ways to blow up a plane. Airport drama has not/could not prevent the various attacks in France, UK, Spain, Norway, Germany, and US that have happened since 2001.

I'm far more worried about non-terrorist loyal Americans running around with guns, legal and not and shooting up bars, cafes, concerts, high schools, et al. With loyal citizens like ours, who needs terrorists?

9/11 won't happen again (I predict). Trucks mowing down people gathered for events are much more likely to happen. Explosives will probably come into play again. Gunfire, of course. Maybe something biological will be tried (already has been with anthrax and ricin (Japan).

The war on drugs and the war on terrorism are both sham operations which set up new profit making operations.

Was Afghanistan a required player in the attack on the WTC? Weren't the main operatives Saudis? Did the pilots learn to fly in Afghanistan? No. Maybe the terrorists trained in effectively deploying violence -- it seems like Afghanistan would be a good place to practice. — Bitter Crank

My memory is a bit fuzzy on the matter; but, I believe Afghanistan was the home turf for where Osama Bin Laden was radicalized via what Brzezinski orchestrated (I know he fought together with the Mujahideen against the Soviets). He did that and after the Soviets were defeated or withdrew, he next aimed at America. He took the Mujahedeen ideology and turned it into jihadism via Al Qaeda.

As to why almost all of the suicide bombers on 9/11 were Saudis is a mystery to me. They seem to have also been radicalized in Afghanistan or elsewhere (Pakistan?).

Bin Laden is Saudi. Well, was. Is but was. is was... too confusing.

I don't remember a lot about the Soviet / Afghan war. Thanks for added info. I should probably reread some coverage from back then

The Wahhabi sect of Sunni Muslims are more fanatic than the Iranians Mullah's. Bin Laden was a Wahhabi as is al-quiada.

Afghanistan has never been truly conquered in it's history. Armies invade but can never make it work, the Soviet occupation failed and so will the American one.

My mind is drawn back to the crusades where Richard the lion heart was reluctant to take Jerusalem. He knew that it was easy as a military target but he also knew his people had no long term capability to stay there and rule the place. US policy today is quite similar to the crusader policies as I see it.

The crusaders occupied, fortified, ruled and then left all of their conquests within a few generations. The natives know this about us and only need to be patient. So little has changed since the Roman times.

Anyway, how is the war on terror progressing? — Wallows

Some of that is in the cyber realm these days. Have you ever been approached by a recruiter online?

Some of that is in the cyber realm these days. Have you ever been approached by a recruiter online? — frank

Oh, wow. I've never been approached by anyone, thankfully. How about you?

I'm not sure. Could have just been friendly Muslims looking for online friends. My anti-social reflex kicked in. :nerd:

Brzezinski did what he had to do following the book: help Muslim factions kill each other. Islam is a fire, and we have been giving fuel to that fire in industrial amounts since the start of the Oil Age more than a century ago. This was the real price of free energy, together with global warming, population bomb, and massive loss of diversity. A way to fight that fire is to bring it upon itself, by arming different factions that hate each other more than they hate the infidels. However, the approach was short-sighted as best. Perhaps it would have been better to arm a secular, anti-islam faction, and negotiate with China and Russia the set up of a regime neutral to all powers. Democracy would not be an option, because the country is run by tribes and democracy doesn´t work on a tribal and patriarchal network. A citizenship would have be slowly built, women would have to have less children, an internal cultural revolution (based on the pre-islamic past, like we did in Europe in the Renaissance) would need to be supported. Two more generations, and until them, the doctor prescribes an authoritarian transition to keep peace and order and to make changes possible.
This is what I would have done! I don´t know if it would have worked, but what was actually implemented did not work so...

a country is conquered when it is invaded quick and with resistance. If you are patient, you don´t need to conquer; you have demographic jihad and subsequent hegira to non islamized regions. It is the same approach many Germanic tribes followed in the Roman Empire: they simply emigrated to the Roman provinces until the Roman societies could not assimilate them anymore and turn them into Roman citizens, as they did with Spaniards after two centuries of resistance (from then on Spaniards became as Latin as you get)

"The war on drugs and the war on terrorism are both sham operations which set up new profit making operations." Bitter Crank, making a conflict profitable is a crucial part of winning a war; because usually wars are lost when you go bankrupt, like the USSR in the final eighties. Or Germany, that 30 years later would have probably won WW2 (as the Arab world, including Turkey, were Hitler´s allies and petrol and other resources would have continued to go to the Reich, as well as volunteers).

I don´t think the war on drugs or on terror are shams, because they respond to very real phenomena such as the dangerous cárteles in Colombia, México, Venezuela...and Islamic terror started in the VII century and it is global. However, it is true that the strategies followed have not worked at all.

Brzezinski did what he had to do following the book: help Muslim factions kill each other. — DiegoT

What book is that? Something spawned from the pits of hell?

the Gaul Wars, by Julius Caesar. He conquered this vast and very hostile region for Rome, and then wrote a best-seller. We used to read it in high school for Latin practice

Also the Sun Tzu´s Art of War would help to conceive the same strategy

Hmm. I haven't read too much from those authors. I'm thinking more along the lines, of treating those people with such contempt, which is ridiculous due to our own actions that spawned their existence.

I have heard from my Afghan side of my family that the situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating. — Wallows

That very likely is the truth. The war hasn't gone anywhere, for example this year the US and the small Afghani Air Force have dropped more bombs in Afghanistan than any other year of the war. And a lot of the country isn't controlled by the government.

Anyway, how is the war on terror progressing? Are things getting better or worse? Is it mission accomplished for America? — Wallows

As the US Military can (or could) fight a low intensity insurgency in a land blocked country basically without no end in sight, there is no need for American politicians truly to think what the real objectives are and what would be "mission accomplished". No politician has to think about this war, that's the basic problem. Trump hasn't even visited Afghanistan or any other frontlines and can easily just lie about the situation.

Just think a little about the present reasoning for the US being in Afghanistan: The Americans are in Afghanistan because if left to it's own, those fighting the current government could overthrow the present government and possibly provide a safe haven for terrorists that want to attack mainland US.

Now think how many ifs there are in this reasoning. And notice that the reasoning has absolutely nothing to do with Afghan objectives or take them into account. Neither what Pakistan or any other country has on it's agenda for Afghanistan and/or for the overall region is given any thought. And this creates the huge SNAFU here: the current strategy and objectives are made just for the American domestic political scene and doesn't take into account the realities on the ground in Afghanistan. This is basically the same thing that is wrong with the War on Terror altogether, be it in Mali or Somalia, Yemen or Iraq.

I have heard from my Afghan side of my family that the situation in Afghanistan is deteriorating. The government there seems to be in shambles. — Wallows

I'm sorry to say this, but it appears the Afghans have had 20 years to get their act together and have been unable to do so. And now America has run out of patience is about to bail. It's sad, but it seems that in many parts of the world only the psychopaths can put together a stable government.

you don´t need actual personal psychopaths, but a system that acts like one when it is needed. Which is Law: Law is a psychopath, because it cares not for feelings, or offending people with sentences, and is concerned only with its self-preservation.

the actions leading to the creation of the Taliban were spawned by other factors. We can follow the lead all the way back to the Big Bang. A society begins to improve when they don´t put the blame on others. Here in Spain we could totally blame Russia, Germany, communist volunteers everywhere for the Civil War in Spain and the great divide it allowed to open and it is still bleeding. But that would be "empowering" only from a feminist or victimist point of view. I´d rather think that Spanish people can help themselves instead of blaming others.

I'm sorry to say this, but it appears the Afghans have had 20 years to get their act together and have been unable to do so. — Jake

This is presumptuous. The reason is that of foreign affairs and interest (interference) in the region.

I'm going to flat out ask, why has Afghanistan been such a failure in terms of the normal progression of affairs in the region? Is it because of the constant wars, lack of natural resources, geographical location?

What's the reason (not a sole factor; but, factor(s)).

Simply put it, Afghanistan has been extremely weak and divided after the civil war erupted after the Saur revolution in 1978. And not only it has been the neighbours that have wanted to influence the outcome of the war, but also the Superpowers during the Cold War too. This has been one of the worst outcomes for any Third World country: to have a civil war that the Superpowers were involved through their proxies. Angola suffered the same fate, but the Civil War finally ended after the Cold War ended. Not so with Afghanistan.

Unfortunately the Taleban regime gave a safe have to the wrong people and the war has dragged on. Now if Osama would have still been in Sudan, then naturally the US would have gotten itself involved with Sudan and invaded the African country, not Afghanistan.

It's interesting how parallels can be drawn to what happened in Syria fairly recently compared to Afghanistan.

It's interesting how parallels can be drawn to what happened in Syria fairly recently compared to Afghanistan. — Wallows

Not just these two countries.

When some country disintegrates to civil war, there has been this lure historically (and still is) for other countries to get involved in the conflict to further their agenda and objectives and to back up their favorite side. Happened with DiegoT's Spain when it had it's civil war and happened in Africa with the First and Second Congo War with African countries picking their sides. Hence this is not only something that Great Powers do, but basically an universal phenomenon.

Why do countries do that? Hasn't it been demonstrated ad infinitum that this is simply the wrong strategy to implement in trying to accomplish a goal? Or is it a sound and successful strategy? I'm not quite sure if, in the long run, it's a sound strategy to implement.

Why do countries do that? — Wallows

Suppose Canada (which wasn't a country yet) had territorial designs on the United States back in the mid-19th century. Suppose they wanted to seize the northern tier of states (Oh, would that they had!!!). What better time to make a grab than at the Union's low point during our Civil War?

Hasn't it been demonstrated ad infinitum that this is simply the wrong strategy to implement in trying to accomplish a goal? Or is it a sound and successful strategy? — Wallows

Sometimes, if you back the winning side of the war. Of course it's a delicate thing to handle as people in the intervened country can have a long memory.

I'm not at all sure what, exactly, the war on terror was supposed to be. — Bitter Crank

When I break down the idea of a "war on terror" I read that we are essentially trying to eliminate that feeling of being 'terrorized' from our experiences of 9.11 here in America or the Charlie Hebdo attacks in Paris.
From our own personal experiences we can point to an event that made us feel so vulnerable, so unsafe, so under personal attack that we are "terrorized" to the inner core of our beings.
That same place within us where our heart holds our family safe, our sacred pledge of worship is free to bare, our deep interpersonal connections with our friends are strong and by extension our community thrives.
Which makes it seem like an impossibility to remove, declare "war" on or try to wipe off the face of the Earth, a human need that resides in all of us. I realize it might sound hokey but what is being "terrorized" is our place of safety, security and inner peace, not the actual Twin Towers or the head office of a satirical news paper.
I guess what I am trying to say is that to think that a "war" on a human experience is something that can be "won" would be to believe in folly. ssu is right in that both parties have very long memories and so I ask, who drew first blood and what is the score?

What exactly would constitute a victory in the 'war on terror'? That terrorist attacks are no longer being carried out, or that terrorist attacks are no longer effective?

If the first is the case, then one need only look at Europe to realize that terrorists have simply switched to an easier target which doesn't require one to cross hundreds of miles of ocean. In other words, Europe is reaping the "benefits" of America's war on terror.

If the second is the case, then I guess the 2015 Paris attacks would provide a counterargument. In fact, given how easy it is to attain weaponry (and turn common objects into them) I find it miraculous that attacks haven't been worse.

Yes, terrorists are not primarily arsonists intent on destroying buildings. They are out to destroy symbols and affective features of life, such as the sense of security, collective invulnerability [we are safe], and such. Non-ideological terrorists, like the ones who shot up a gay bar in Florida or opened fire from a hotel room in Las Vegas, accomplish approximately the same thing, whether their intent is ideological or psychopathological.

Some defense is necessary. What I think would be more effective at airports are more intelligence operatives looking for certain types of behavior. People removing their shoes, getting personally scanned, swabbing hands, and manual frisking (as pleasant as that is) is just plain nonsensical. It's theater.

Perhaps allowing more proactivity on the part of prosecutors would help: Terrorists are often on various watch lists. But prosecutorial proactivity can be a problem too. Certainly intelligence gathering directed toward detecting plots is necessary.

Otherwise, I think people do need to get on with their lives, knowing that they are most unlikely to be the victim of terrorism. Overestimating ones personal risk is easy to do, of course. There are many more likely risks which we live with quite comfortably.

So Merry Christmas, or Glad Yule, or reasonably satisfactory late December days--whatever works--and Happy New Year.

all countries, when are in trouble, suffer foreign interference. The whole purpose of defending borders and keeping a national state is to prevent it; but the moment this fails, foreign powers and invaders do their thing. However, this is no reason to think that a society is hopeless and in the hands of aliens. There are many nations that managed to shake off that interference by getting citizens working together under a common project. So many examples: Modern Israel, Spain in the XV century, the 13 American colonies, India in the XXth century (and other periods), etc. Afghanistan needs such common vision. I propose a post-islamic, civilized (not religious, not tribal) vision for all Afghans. Invent a new national meta-narrative and sell it to the people.