[primitive]

Originally posted by Perrin:

quote:

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Originally posted by primitive:
I would like to ask a question to among others; Perrin and the Wombat.

- Do you (still) believe that there was a link between Al Qaeda and Saddam and that by invading Iraq, the US could therefore hurt Al Qaeda in some way ?

If so, your Posts make perfect sense to me and I would be happy to discuss the facts. If not, please explain to me how the invation could be seen as a part of the "war on terrorism". I'm at a loss here

Yes I do believe that there is a link however I do not draw the line with Al Qaeda. I believe that there is a link between Saddam and Terror world wide.

We already know that Saddam was paying the families of Suicide bombers in Israel. Therefore if he supports those terrorist then why would he not support others? There were terrorist training camps in Iraq. These are places that Al Qaeda could train. Why would Saddam who hates the US not support others who were fighting against us? Even if it was only with money and weapons.

Did you know that members of the IRA have trained in camps in the Middle East? I do not see terrorist Groups as individual Groups anymore. I see them all as a plague upon all of Humanity.

And although there has been no direct link found yet between Saddam and Al Qaeda the fact that he refused to comply with the UN resolutions makes me very suspicious.

I will now ask the question that others who are on the other side have asked? Where are the WMD's?! The world knows that he had them. That is why the UN resolutions existed. He agreed to destroy them. But to this day know one know what has happened to them. If it was me and I was complying with the agreement to destroy something I would open my doors and invite all to see that I was getting rid of them. (Bonfire party at my place) If Saddam had done that he would still be in power today.

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Perrin,

You got to distinguish between local and international terrorism.

- Local terroirsm you can find many places. This ranges from the single nutcases (Unabomber, Oklahoma) to full out civil war (Colombia, Sri Lanka, Tetchenia (sp)). The Israeli/Palestinian conflict is by nature a local conflict. Sure, Saddam supported some of the Palestinian families, but so did/does almost every other Arabic leader in the region. Bad, but it's still a local conflict.

- Al Qaeda on the other hand is international terrorism. This is something new and completely different. Before 9/11 Al Qaeda was (according to public data) a small organisation and while capable of pulling of an exceptional attack, they never had the strenght to pull off wast numbers of attacks. Madrid was 2.5 years after 9/11 and also earlier there has been more than a year between their operations. The very fact they need to train (and brainwash) their grunts extensively to make them ready will always keep the number of attacks down.

The campaign by Bush to spread fear in the US population after 9/11 was quite astonishing to watch from the outside. There are (again from public sources) sill no indications that the Al Qaeda ever had plans for follow up attacs nor that they had the capability to launch lunch them. I'm sad to see the Bush fear propaganda is still working, and that the deliberate mixups with Saddam and local Palestinian terrorism continious.

I am not against taking the war to Al Quada. Safe heavens for this kind of scum should not be available anywhere. Given bases they have the opportunity to grow, forced underground they would/will eventually crumble away to nothing. This is why International law is so important, and unilateral actions only will be counterproductive. The invation in Afganisthan was a good move, and if the promises to the Afgan people had been kept it might actually have been of help in the long run. The invation of Iraq was a stupid move (for the war agains Al Qaeda) for at least 3 reasons.
- It gave Al Qaeda a new theatre of operations, with plenty of new fundings, recruits and training opportunities.
- It emasculated UN, who was the only organisation who would have had the chance to coordinate/enforce police style operations in rouge contries (without going to full on war)
- Using CIA to come of with lame excuses for the war destreoyed all cred they have in the area. Any claim the US makes of the Al Qaeda operating in these same rouge contries can now easily be dismissed.