Calif. Hunter
Active member
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/5279743/
An excerpt -
"That's the way war is. I've never really understood the idea that any American government, any American elected official is responsible for protecting civilians who are not Americans. My experience working against bin Laden was there was multiple occasions when we did not take advantage of an opportunity to solve the problem because we were afraid of killing a civilian, we were afraid of hitting a mosque with shrapnel, we were afraid of disrupting sales of arms overseas. Very seldom in my career have I ever heard anyone ask what happens if we don't do this.
My own opinion is we should err on the side of protecting Americans first. And if we make a mistake in that kind of action, I think the American people will accept that. It's — this is a matter of survival. This is not a nuisance anymore. No one wants to be bloodthirsty, but we're at a position in this war where we've cornered ourselves in many ways, to the point where only the military option is available to us. And if we don't use that, and we continue to pursue the policies we are pursuing, then it's a very dicey situation for America…that the war in Iraq was bin Laden's dream come true."
{{This CIA officer says that the war in Iraq was a mistake in that it gave Al Quaida the ammo to paint us as attacking Islam, besides supporting Israel, etc. He also says that we are mistaken in characterizing and treating Al Quaida as criminals or terrorists - that we are in a religious war. - - - -}}
"Bin Laden, I think, and al-Qaida and other of America's enemies in the Islamic world certainly saw the invasion of Iraq as a, if you would, a Christmas gift they always wanted and never expected to get. It validated what they all said about American aggressiveness against Islam. It made us the occupiers of the second holiest place for Muslims in the world. In fact, now we are occupying, in the eyes of our opponents, we're occupying the two holiest places, Saudi Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq, and the Israelis are occupying the third, in Jerusalem. The reaction of the clerical community to our invasion of Iraq was uniformly negative."
An excerpt -
"That's the way war is. I've never really understood the idea that any American government, any American elected official is responsible for protecting civilians who are not Americans. My experience working against bin Laden was there was multiple occasions when we did not take advantage of an opportunity to solve the problem because we were afraid of killing a civilian, we were afraid of hitting a mosque with shrapnel, we were afraid of disrupting sales of arms overseas. Very seldom in my career have I ever heard anyone ask what happens if we don't do this.
My own opinion is we should err on the side of protecting Americans first. And if we make a mistake in that kind of action, I think the American people will accept that. It's — this is a matter of survival. This is not a nuisance anymore. No one wants to be bloodthirsty, but we're at a position in this war where we've cornered ourselves in many ways, to the point where only the military option is available to us. And if we don't use that, and we continue to pursue the policies we are pursuing, then it's a very dicey situation for America…that the war in Iraq was bin Laden's dream come true."
{{This CIA officer says that the war in Iraq was a mistake in that it gave Al Quaida the ammo to paint us as attacking Islam, besides supporting Israel, etc. He also says that we are mistaken in characterizing and treating Al Quaida as criminals or terrorists - that we are in a religious war. - - - -}}
"Bin Laden, I think, and al-Qaida and other of America's enemies in the Islamic world certainly saw the invasion of Iraq as a, if you would, a Christmas gift they always wanted and never expected to get. It validated what they all said about American aggressiveness against Islam. It made us the occupiers of the second holiest place for Muslims in the world. In fact, now we are occupying, in the eyes of our opponents, we're occupying the two holiest places, Saudi Arabia, the Arabian Peninsula and Iraq, and the Israelis are occupying the third, in Jerusalem. The reaction of the clerical community to our invasion of Iraq was uniformly negative."
