Talk of The Villages Florida - UK response to ISIS

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- - UK response to ISIS (https://www.talkofthevillages.com/forums/villages-florida-non-villages-discussion-93/uk-response-isis-125674/)

Quote:

Originally Posted by sunnyatlast (Post 933853)

Much too simple, given what was known and spoken by the U.S. at the U.N. Security Council in 2003.

Colin Powell's speech before the U.N. Security Council, Feb. 5, 2003:

"�..POWELL: What you will see is an accumulation of facts and disturbing patterns of behavior. The facts on Iraqis' behavior -- Iraq's behavior demonstrate that Saddam Hussein and his regime have made no effort -- no effort to disarm as required by the international community. Indeed, the facts and Iraq's behavior show that Saddam Hussein and his regime are concealing their efforts to produce more weapons of mass destruction��"

"��..But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the Al Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, an associate and collaborator of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaida lieutenants.

Zarqawi, a Palestinian born in Jordan, fought in the Afghan war more than a decade ago. Returning to Afghanistan in 2000, he oversaw a terrorist training camp. One of his specialties and one of the specialties of this camp is poisons. When our coalition ousted the Taliban, the Zarqawi network helped establish another poison and explosive training center camp. And this camp is located in northeastern Iraq.
(Slide 39)

POWELL: You see a picture of this camp.

The network is teaching its operatives how to produce ricin and other poisons. Let me remind you how ricin works. Less than a pinch -- imagine a pinch of salt -- less than a pinch of ricin, eating just this amount in your food, would cause shock followed by circulatory failure. Death comes within 72 hours and there is no antidote, there is no cure. It is fatal��"

Entire Speech Text:

http://www.americanrhetoric.com/spee...itycouncil.htm

==========================

Colin Powell backed off that assertion later.

http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3909150/ns...a-powell-says/

Amazingly he was still promoting the WMD's story.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chi-Town (Post 933863)

Colin Powell backed off that assertion later.

Powell: No

Amazingly he was still promoting the WMD's story.

Here are some quotes from the link that you posted:

Quote:

�I have not seen smoking gun, concrete evidence about the connection, but I do believe the connections existed,� he said.

Quote:

Powell himself made the case most strongly in February, when he urged the U.N. Security Council to back U.S. military action in Iraq. �Iraqi officials deny accusations of ties with al-Qaida,� Powell said then. �These denials are simply not credible.�
Powell defended those comments Thursday, even as he cast doubt on their conclusions. He said that at the time, he was referring specifically to the presence of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in Baghdad for medical treatments.

A terrorist organization existed in Iraq at the time under a different name. It was then thought to be an arm of al-Qaeda. When Sadaam was ousted this organization changed it's name to "al-Qaeda in Iraq."

Powell never denied the facts themselves. He only said that the evidence wasn't quite as concrete as he once thought.

This is hardly a denial:

Quote:

�I'm confident of what I presented last year,� Powell said. �The intelligence community is confident of the material they gave me. I was representing them. It was information they presented to the Congress. It was information they had presented publicly, and they stand behind it. And this game is still unfolding.

�

Quote:

Originally Posted by graciegirl (Post 933502)

Forget about what happened years ago...or one year ago or last week.

See what is happening NOW. OR what is NOT happening now.

It is always important to look at history. We need to learn from both the good and bad! Lambs to a slaughter, who is leading the charge?

Quote:

Originally Posted by TexaninVA (Post 933960)

Well, if we start off with a defeatist attitude and saying we can never win, we are indeed guaranteed not to win. But, yes, with the right leadership and informed public support we can win. It may take several generations to do it granted, but what�s the alternative � acquiescence?

I disagree and, as per my earlier post, think what we call this war is very important, psychologically and otherwise. A war against Radical Islam means we also root out radical mosques and imams here in CONUS as but one of many examples � it�s not all military by any means.

Actually, we do have a country to defeat in ISIS. It now controls a land mass approximately equal in size to the UK, with lots of oil fields to boot. To the extent other threats pop up, which they will, the whole idea is to obviate them while small. A grand strategy would allow that. One quick example, everyone in the Intel Community in the mid-1990s knew Bin Laden was a threat but we let him walk multiple times because there was then no grand strategy to combat Radical Islam nor any political will be they D or R.

And finally, I also disagree that there has been a strategy all along. There have no doubt been operational plans by which to fly drones, attack targets etc but that is not a strategy. When POTUS says we don�t have a strategy yet, I have to take him at him word. Besides, don�t forget, while the Intel Community and DoD is full of Americans who want to do the correct thing, they will always look to the top for guidance. That�s where the leadership part comes in, or is this case, does not apply

I don't think I have a defeatist attitude, simply a realistic one. How do you define "win". Can we eliminate every person in the world that believes in this radical view of Islam? Even if we could do you believe that no one would pick up the torch at some point and start it up again?

This land mass that ISIS currently controls is part of two sovereign nations. It is not their land. What we can do is similar to what we did when Sadaam invade Kuwait or when Hitler invaded Europe. We can only chase them out of those areas with the approval of those countries.

And don't forget, these people are citizens of one of those sovereign nations. They are allowed to live within the confines of those nations. They can go back home and blend in with the population and lay low until all the heat is off. Once we think we have won, they will pop out again.

As this is not a traditional war, I don't think that we can win in the traditional sense. We will not have an ISIS leader signing documents of surrender.

We can simply go in and take control of areas that belong to Syria and Iraq without the permission of those sovereign countries. Even if we drive them out of the land masses that they currently control, they would simply go and try to take over other areas that they consider part of Levant. They believe that they own this land. They believe that the Koran gives it to them and that the current government of these countries have no rights to them. Would you have us defeat and occupy all of the Middle East? That is the land mass that we would be talking about, not the little piece that they currently control.

And if we did, they would never stop fighting. Their children and grandchildren for the next hundred generation will continue fighting. This is not a war that is winnable in the traditional sense. It is the current and future state of the world from now on. What we can do is control and minimize radical Islam. And then, there are many non-Muslim terrorist groups in the world. According to the FBI database, there have been 318 terrorist incidents in the US from 1980-2005. That includes 209 bombings and 43 arsons. Out of those incidents, 42% were committed by Latino groups, 24% by Extreme Left Wing groups, 7% by Jewish Extremists, 6% by Muslim Extremists, and 5% by Communists.

Terrorism is something we will live with forever.