The War On Terror--and Why We Haven't Found Osama bin Laden

The War On Terror--and Why We Haven't Found Osama Bin LadenByVerityINK

Every couple of days, I get some dedicated idiot (sorry Les Ismore) who whines 'we should've stayed in Afghanistan', or snivels out the question of 'why are we in Iraq?', or laments 'we haven't 'gotten' bin Laden'. Oft times, they tell me how devastatingly tough they are and how 'they'--or a Democrat president--'would've gotten him' (quite forgetting that a 'Democrat president' had numerous chances to 'get him' and thoroughly chickened out (as they wish to do now). The Democrats are 'tough' only in retrospect...

We haven't 'gone after' bin Laden because bin Laden isn't in Afghanistan--he's in Pakistan's northern territories. Pervez Musharraf does not rule there--Pakistani warlords DO--and they are the ones that have said no special ops/Americans can come in to look for him, nor take him out if they find him.

Musharraf leads, and is alive, only by the slimmest margin. The help he already gives us has put his life in danger; he has suffered MANY assassination attempts. Were he to help us any more/allow us into the north, there would very probably be a coup and he would be killed.

Pakistan has nukes--and they are always into it with India (who also has nukes) and who is allied with Britain (and thus with us, as well). Were there to be a coup in Pakistan, or were we to recklessly go into the north absent Musharraf's or the warlord's permission, someone could get jumpy and a nuke could fly. India could very well respond in kind. Thus, the entire Indian subcontinent could erupt in nuclear warfare.

Now, are we supposed to risk all of that simply to get bin Laden--or ANY one man? At this point, bin Laden, if he's even still alive, is contained, he is no threat.

The USA is trying to NOT be 'imperialistic', or selfish, in abiding the wishes that we stay out of the northern regions of Pakistan. Isn't that what you Demmies are always saying we should be?
THAT'S why President Bush has not 'gone after' bin Laden and, instead, chose to do other needed work--like against the Taliban in Afghanistan, and Saddam in Iraq.

This war on terror has many sides to it. As in any war, the battle is waged in many places. I do not understand how anyone on the Left can be so ignorant about warfare to not realize that.

You people would wage WWII in El Alamein, the Hurtgen Forest, Midway, Omaha Beach, Eniwetok etc. and not realize they were all part of the same war.

I am not so stupid.

Very simply, WWII was a war wherein the Allied powers (USA, the Commonwealth nations, various European exiles and others, and the Soviet Union, primarily) and the Axis powers (Germany, Italy, European annexed puppet states, and Japan) engaged one another. Battles ranged from Tobruk, Singapore, the Ardennes, the Solomon Islands, Okinawa, Dresden, Anzio, Kiev, Iwo Jima, Monte Cassino, Stalingrad, Bataan, Kasserine Pass, the Battle Of the Bulge, Manila, Vanatu, Corregidor, Messina, the Coral Sea, Aleutian Islands, Guadalcanal, etc. Find all those places on a map and you'll see just how disparate they are.

Think of our war on terror now. Think of the radical muslims as the Axis powers. Realize that we (and our allies/Israel) have to fight them in Afghanistan, Lebanon, Iraq, Iran, Somalia, Ethiopia, Madrid, London--wherever they are.

It is not so simple a matter that we need to engage them ONLY in Afghanistan. Our job is not to ONLY find bin Laden. Our job did not end with Saddam. Just as we did not fight WWII ONLY to avenge Pearl Harbor, or free Southeast Asia, or stop Hitler, or restore shipping lanes, or save London.

The present-day war on terror is not a case of either/or--with only ONE justifiable goal or objective--anymore than Dunkirk was justified but the Bastogne was not. Anyone on the Left who does not understand this is naive and most abjectly ignorant. Go study war and learn to fight for yourself. Be of some use to your society.