According to a CNN breaking news report just a few minutes ago, the CIA ordered an airstrike on several buildings in a small village in Pakistan, near the border with Afghanistan. The Pakistani authorities are already on the scene and there are (I believe) dozens of reported casualities. It’s also been reported that the target of the attack was Al Qaeda’s #2 man, Al-Zawahiri. It has yet to be confirmed whether or not they were successful.
Good, I hope they got him. As much as I’d love to see him tried for his crap I don’t think there’s any way we’ll get him alive, so I guess blowing him up is the only thing left to do. (disclaimer about how some other nut job will take his place – I know but it’s still progress!)
Yet another brilliantly conceived and executed exercise by Blunderbush and the trigger-happy and incomptent US military. Wrong intelligence and 18 civilian dead on the soil of another sovereign nation; this time a key ally in “The War Against Those Against Me”.
What a bunch of idiots! Is it any wonder at all why the US is increasingly isolated in the eyes of many. Being a law unto itself is just not good enough or acceptable.
How do you think the US would have reacted if the Brits had bombed a Boston suburb in the 80’s to take out a Noraid donor? Huh?
Bush attacking Pakistani villages is pure terrorism. Using their own warped logic, anyone bombing the White House in return would be justified.
Well done Bush! You’ve just made life more difficult for your own mentally beseiged citizens.
Roll on you legion of quote-happy neo-con apologists…
BroonAirstrike
[quote=“BroonAle”]
How do you think the US would have reacted if the Brits had bombed a Boston suburb in the 80’s to take out a Noraid donor? Huh?[/quote]
I’m not aware the UK has the military capacity to hit targets in Boston. Anyway, get out of Northern Ireland and your problems will be over. 
And…al-Zawahiri has to be lucky everytime…we only have to be lucky once. 
[quote=“BroonAle”]
How do you think the US would have reacted if the Brits had bombed a Boston suburb in the 80’s to take out a Noraid donor? Huh?
Bush attacking Pakistani villages is pure terrorism. [/quote]
The attack would have had the approval of the Pakistani government so it is not a terrorist act. In addition, that same CNN report mentioned that AZ has issued death threats against the pakistani president so the government there is unlikely to have had a problem with the air strike beforehand.
If the Brits wanted a man in Boston they would have asked the FBI for help. There would be no need for them to do the job themselves.
Bollocks. The Pakistanis are up in arms about it and the U.S. ambassador has been summoned. You sanctimonous self-righteous trigger-happy (especially that half-German spawn, Comrade Stalin) incompetance apologists just can’t admit when you screwed up can you? Anyway, you as taxpayers in the U.S. (and outside if you want your passport renewed :roflmao: suckers!) will be paying compensation to the Pakistanis for a while to come for this one
All that money in the CIA budget and you still can’t get it right. Why would we want to trust the FBI, when they are just a bunch of wannabe super-cops who failed the Langley entrance examinations and, I hazard a guess, failed even to find Langley on the map. 
Useless. That’s what they[color=green]*[/color]are.
Salam Aleikum
BroonAfghan
Bollocks. The Pakistanis are up in arms about it and the U.S. ambassador has been summoned. You sanctimonous self-righteous trigger-happy (especially that half-German spawn, Comrade Stalin) incompetance apologists just can’t admit when you screwed up can you? Anyway, you as taxpayers in the U.S. (and outside if you want your passport renewed :roflmao: suckers!) will be paying compensation to the Pakistanis for a while to come for this one
All that money in the CIA budget and you still can’t get it right. Why would we want to trust the FBI, when they are just a bunch of wannabe super-cops who failed the Langley entrance examinations and, I hazard a guess, failed even to find Langley on the map.
Useless. That’s what they[color=green]*[/color] are.
Salam Aleikum
BroonAfghan[/quote]
Bombing the wrong target is a screw up, no doubt. But I still object to preening leftists like yourself using debased rhetoric to make their points.
And two points: I am a Canadian, so my tax dollars will not be affected by this; and you are really stretching credulity to suggest that I am a Bush apologist.
I have to agree with Broon Ale on this one. It does seem that the word ‘Intelligence’ :loco: is abused so often when it comes to the CIA/FBI and I will add in our own MI5 and 6 for that matter! This is yet another classic blunder that will do Al Queda no harm at all! Just what are we trying to do? Does the US/CIA etc actually want to turn this so-called war on terror into a proper war? Down right crazy!! :fume:
[quote=“Muzha Man”]Bombing the wrong target is a screw up, no doubt. But I still object to preening leftists like yourself using debased rhetoric to make their points.
And two points: I am a Canadian, so my tax dollars will not be affected by this; and you are really stretching credulity to suggest that I am a Bush apologist.[/quote]
What makes you think I am a preening leftist? It might be that I reserve my ire solely for the Bush Administration and the people who support it.
I will happlily substitute “you” in my post above for “those that support Bush” if that would serve to separate you from your southerly neighbours and of course out of respect for Canadians. With regard to the ‘debased’ rhetoric you refer to; what exactly is debased about it? It is language chosen to insult and inflame those who support Bush. One hears similar language and reads similar language everyday. Politics is a subject that lends itself well to a bit of jibing. So what? Comrade Stalin has a pretty thick skin, if his mother’s elephantine hide is anything to go by.
BroonAlberta
Alright, come on.
Everyone, get off of one another’s mothers.
:fume:
Jaboned’er[color=green]
I
[/color]ronic, [color=green]
P
[/color]lease[color=blue]M[/color]ove[color=blue]O[/color]n, it’s [color=blue]D[/color]one.
Done.
Comrade, can I give you her dollar in person? The repo-men seem to have taken away her bedside table…again. 
Keep the change for your trouble.
BroonActs 
Done.
Comrade, can I give you her dollar in person? The repo-men seem to have taken away her bedside table…again. Keep the change for your trouble.
[/quote]
Make it a Guinness, tightwad.
Repoman? She said it was you who ripped it off…seems you’re refurnishing your little pied’a terre in Banquiao.
PS: Jaboney…Mom says “Hi!”
:roflmao:
Red white and blue
drop a bomb.
Turn on the pooter
hide behind mom.
They must be competent at something. They tell your country what to do 
They must be competent at something. They tell your country what to do [/quote]
:roflmao:
That was [i]cold![/i]
Okay, two points- mixed reports coming out of Pakistan; yes, there were women and children killed, but also claims that “foreign fighters” were in the village at the time, and their bodies were quickly taken out and disappeared.
Not too far-fetched- it’s an absolute known fact that al-Qaeda is operating out of that area and using Pakistan for refuge.
Secondly, the Pak gov’t is playing a tight game here, given that Musharaff has been twice targetted by the Fundies, and has to at least appear to cooperate with the US while not inflaming his own population, particularly in the tribal areas. Did they know about the raid? Is this just ‘credible deniability’?
The CIA has an extremely high threshold of what constitutes “credible intelligence” before it can launch an attack on foreign soil, which means they had very good reason to believe they were shooting at Al-Zawahiri. According to reports last night on CNN’s Late Edition, they had been monitoring this particular town for several days, which would have given them plenty of time to clear it with the Pakistani gov’t. Both the Republican and Democratic senators who were on the program agreed that this was unquestionably the right decision. Mistakes happen, that’s a fact of life.
Sure, and bombings that do NOT get mucked up go reported and are forgotten quickly.
Umm, like ensuring they are targetting the right place?
Seems to me they’ve just created a shitload more enemies. The “sorry, but we had it on good authority” argument might appease US senators, but it doesn’t tend to go over particularly well among those at the cutting edge as it were of US foreign policy.
HG
You could have made that statement before March, 2003 with some credibility but it’s an incredible statement in light of events since then.