Uhhhh, did you read the article? Apparently not! Had you done so you would have already known that this particular al Qaeda terrorist has been on the wanted list since 1998. If my math is correct (and I know it is), that would mean that he was on the wanted list throughout the entire 8 years of George W. Bush's Presidency.
Did I mention that GW lost focus on al Qaeda when he authorized the ill fated and ill advised spring of 2003 invasion of Iraq?
Originally Posted by bigtex
I did read the article and you're still wrong.
I never said this guy was recruited after Dubya left office, as you implied. I simply pointed out that we are playing whack-a-mole with Islamic fundamentalists, including Al Qaeda and others.
The whole "Bush lost focus on Al Qaeda by invading Iraq" is also a horseshit liberal talking point. The invasion of Iraq was wrong, but for a whole lot of other reasons.
Had we never invaded Iraq, we would STILL be fighting Al Qaeda - and the Taliban. Before Obama came into office, we had already decimated the majority of Al Qaeda's senior leadership, with the exception of the No.1 (Bin Laden) and No. 2 (Al Zawahiri) guys. And those two guys were effectively cut off from the day-to-day operations of Al Qaeda, which is why it took so long to get Bin Laden and we still haven't gotten Zawahiri. Both became figureheads, rather then actual operatives.
The No. 3 guy in Al Qaeda is the one who ran the show and that is the guy we kept hunting and killing. Or as Bill Maher said, the No. 3 guy always has a No. 2 in his pants.
But Al Qaeda effectively went completely underground during Bush's administration. Since 9-11, they have run fewer and smaller operations. But they still don't die off. Because they can still recruit from the religious schools of Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Somalia, Yemen, and now more frequently from Egypt and Libya.
We aren't going to win this by killing 20-somthing year olds that are building bombs. There are too many of them and they are too spread out.
Obama has been at this for five years now and he is no closer to finishing Al Qaeda than Bush was. His strategy of ramping up troops in Afghanistan has yielded what exactly? The Taliban are still in control of certain parts of the country and are as strong as they were (if not stronger) than when Obama took office. When we leave, it is just a matter of time until the Taliban takes control of the country again. The Afghan army will fall apart the same way the South Vietnamese army did in the two year period after we left Vietnam.
I think Obama's strategy now is to prop up the Afghan government until he leaves office and let it finally collapse on the next President's watch. And Obama sycophants, rather than admit Obama didn't know what he was doing either, will actually blame the next President for the loss of Afghanistan.
We have to do business only with moderate Muslim countries that have secular governments and we have to cut off relations with Islamic states. And the rest of the world must do so also.
That's why I can't wait until the advanced nations develop fusion energy or some other clean, cheap alternative. We need to spread that tech to the rest of the world and destroy the economies of the oil states. Reduce the world wide need for oil by 90% and let the remaining 10% come from fracking operations in North & South America, Russia, Europe, and other non-Muslim countries.
When the day comes when the rest of the world embargoes Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, and other Gulf States, we will finally see some results. When they give into world wide demand to give women universal suffrage and non-Muslim minorities equal rights OR ELSE, then they will finally put those religious schools out of business and we will finally see Islamic terrorism wane.
That may take at least 30 more years. I believe that in one of his speeches after 9-11, Bush warned that we may not see the fight won for over a generation (or in our lifetimes - I can't find the exact cite). He was right.
We are in this for the long haul.