Fred Stone <fston...@earthling.com> wrote:

Anyhow, psycho breath, news of the Taliban
regrouping and taking control of large areas
inside Afghanistan is already years old.

So you've been ignoring everything for years.

April 2007:

http://tinyurl.com/2k8mwe

They're also looking at a poppy crop which will
surpass last years record high:

http://www.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/05/21/afghan.drugs.ap/index.html

Pretty interesting, huh? They're expected to
exceed last year's 407,000 acres by 20%.

| Afghanistan accounts for more than 90 percent
| of the world's heroin supply, and a
| significant portion of the profits from the
| $3.1 billion trade is thought to flow to
| Taliban fighters, who tax and protect poppy
| farmers and drug runners.

Hmmm.... "Long since driven out" from "Only
launched an offensive last month."

You are truly insane, "Fred."

On 29 May 2007 16:03:25 GMT, Fred Stone <fstone69@earthling.com>
wrote:

Dubh Ghall <puck@pooks.hill.fey> wrote in
news:mdbo53l2ith2a298bbccpb5hqpaotjp4dq@4ax.com:

On 28 May 2007 23:34:56 GMT, Fred Stone <fstone69@earthling.com>
wrote:

Dubh Ghall <puck@pooks.hill.fey> wrote in
news:n5pm53p7d7t05t6gcikfdgruhoh19ts61u@4ax.com:

On 25 May 2007 11:21:30 GMT, Fred Stone <fstone69@earthling.com>
wrote:

JTEM <jtem01@gmail.com> wrote in news:1180063859.696220.188010
@h2g2000hsg.googlegroups.com:

Fred Stone <fston...@earthling.com> wrote:

Oh, obviously nothing changed between 9/12/2001
and 5/3/2003, did it, Daniel? There were no
intervening events that might have altered
priorities a bit?

That's right, "Fred," not a single one. In fact,
Bush had to go out of his way to invent a "Higher
Priority."

Right. No invasion of Afghanistan.

The invasion of Afghanistan, was supposedly to apprehend Osama bin
Ladin, who was hiding there, and operating from there, supported
by the Taliban.

It failed.

al Qaeda was routed from Afghanistan and had to flee. They lost all
their resources there, lost their training camps and bases and their
financial networks were broken up. Hundreds of their people were
captured or killed. That is not failure.

You found one magazine.
As for the training camps, they just rolled up their tents, and
moved on to the next site.

So you admit that they're no longer in Afghanistan.

No Fred, I don't.

Like you, I don't know where they are.

snip

Afghanistan is no longer run by the Taliban. That is no failure.

The Taliban is still there, and fighting.

A shadow of their former selves.

So you say, but if that came from the same source as "Mission
Accomplished", then you will forgive my scepticism.

That is NOT, crushed.

When you go from running a whole country to running *away* from single
villages that is crushed.

Not a single thing.

The capture of Osama bib Ladin, was Bush's first priority, in
September 2001.

A year later, Bush had lost interest in bin Ladin, he was not a
priority.

A year later, bin Laden was not the same threat that he was before.

False.

Not false.

If bin Ladin was not a threat, a year after 9-11, then he was not a
threat, the day after, either.

Your refusal to take account of intervening events makes your analysis
of no value.

The man who was responsible for the deaths of three thousand
civilians, on US soil, was not a priority.


Amazing.

Priorities change.

We know, and Iraq had been a thorn in America'a hide, for the better
part of the twentieth century.

And unlike the lion in the fairy tale, we don't need a little mouse to
come along and pluck out thorns for us.

Yea, I think that you would be more like the scorpion, in the story of
the frog and the scorpion.

The shrub had aspirations to be a "War President", A few lies about
Iraq, gave him the opportunity.

A fine example of the "Post hoc ergo propter hoc" fallacy.

Demonstrate it.

...And what a pig's arse he's made of it.

What would be really amazing is if the President of
the United States became as obsessed with that one terrorist leader
as you are. al Qaeda is more than just bin Laden.

Oh but it is.

As has been reported many times, by the various media, al Qaeda, is
only a lose assortment of small, ineffectual, terrorist cells,
without the finance and organisation which bib Ladin supplies.

And you believe everything that you read in the papers.

IIRC, it was originally, an announcement made by your own White House,
and based on CIA intelligence.