I believed her. Would you?

I spoke earlier today with a woman who is a reserve Army officer. High up. Real high. She has been to both Afghanistan and Iraq. Her specialty is such that she's needed only from time to time and her typical callup lasts only a few weeks to a few months.

I've known this woman for many years. I have always found her to be largely apolitical. She's much more about doing what she does (the diametrical opposite of killing people) than questioning policy. I suspect she's been in the army for more than 30 years, but I can't say for sure. I've known her maybe 15 years.

She said, with no obvious exaggeration or hidden agenda, that we've captured or thwarted a lot more 'of them' than the public knows about. She said this in a small group discussion about something else entirely. I asked her about it after the discussion was over. She had little she could add, but says she knows first hand of several.

Do you find this reasonable? I know you don't know her, but assume she's a straight arrow? Does this sound believable to you?

I found it believable. Would you?

College friend's hubby was over there a couple years back, and he said the same thing about Afghanistan. Makes me wonder where they all are.

I want to know where all of the "detainees" from Iraq and Afghanistan are.

They've been brutalized, raped, tortured, and in some cases murdered. Yeah, this is really doing a heckuva job keeping us safe. Sigh.

Don't you wish that more people stuck to knitting and trying to actually do good for fellow human beings, rather than tromping around the world abusing other people and then patting themselves on the back for it? Sigh.

Power corrupts all of them. I mean, who would've thought that Cheney and those who agree with him would think that the lesson from the Cold War was to be more like Stalin. Gulags, Gitmo, what's the difference?

I do wish more politicians knit. See, in knitting, we can fix anything, and one of my students at the adult day care facility said today that she wished more of our leaders knit so they could see a way to fix anything, including scrapping a bad idea and starting over. I liked that, and I totally agree with her.

I have to conclude that most present-day Republicans are probably incapable of knitting. They are simply incapable of any form of higher function.

I wonder what would happen if we had a huge Knit and Hook-In in the Capitol and made them learn. Would their heads explode?

I assumed (quite on my own) that 'they' were people unfriendly to the US. Not that they don't like our accent or hot dogs, but that want to hurt us or at lest our surrogates elsewhere.

But again, that was **my** assumption. She never clarified.

We've caught a lot of "them", but we've also thwarted a lot of "them".
It fits.

those? Are there security reasons for not making public a terriost that we captured or thwarted?

I have no answer. But that lack of an answer does not cause me to think my friend was intending to bullshit me.

Assuming by "them" she's supposed to be saying terrorists.

Based on what?

I can understand "I'm leery of what she said" ..... or "I'm suspicious".

But "Fuck no"?

Whatever.

I once caught a fish THIS BIG! Do you believe me?

Would it help to know that I've served with the military for over a hundred and forty five years?

A justification for the war?

A justification for not ending the war?

the red cross, we are violating geneva

That is the only reason I'd expect anybody to say that

It was a comment from someone I've known a long time and have no reason to mistrust.

I got no sense whatever that she was trying to 'justify' anything.

for whatever reason, they didn't want them ready and available to tell tales? Perhaps people close to Saddam for instance.

"Captured or thwarted" would be cause for much bravado from the BushCo camp. I'd be interested to know who "them" are. When I hear of fighting between US forces and anyone else in Iraq, or Afghanistan, I think of the 7 - 12% that are al Qaeda, and the rest of them being citizens who are merely trying to save their homes.

And what exactly makes "them" "them" ? Does she "believe" these are terrorist because the powers that be say so? Or are they like some in Guantanamo, just suspects? I think she may believe what she is saying because she needs to to justify her job but as for being true? I wouldn't know and I could care less. It is just as likely false as it is true.

Yup, sometimes people say these things to convince themselves.

Its part time.

If you knew her, you'd now she has no need whatever to 'justify' what she does. Particularly not to me.

:shrug:

Seriously, this sort of statement is so ambiguous and subjective it renders it completely meaningless.

I'm sure they ALL want to believe that to be true and that it is somehow making a difference and keeping us safe. The truth is our current policies are creating WAAAY more terrorists (if that's the "them" she's referring to) than we could ever hope to capture.

Suppose we captured 1000 would-be terrorists but have created several thousand more? (Not too unlikely in my opinion.)

Look at how much good that did us.

Not to make light of you friends experience or info, H2S, but numbers don't really mean much as far as success or failure goes.

That is, unless the number is 0, and that's all the people your enemy has left to fight you with.

"those people"

What's the secret?

In the pipelines of secrecy the truth is often destroyed.

It wouldn't surprise me if anyone serving in Afghanistan or Iraq is grasping for some good reason, any good reason, to justify being there because it would be unacceptably awful to be placed in such awful circumstances by the nation you are sworn to protect for no good reason.

Thanks for not throwing stones and instead giving an honest, albeit conflicting, reply.

It could be that. However, in the context, I suspect that's not the case. But even though I was there and you weren't, your notion seems as valid as mine.

Who are "they" and more than what?

Are "they" supposed to be "suspected" terrorist, or insurgents, or enemy combatants?

As for the more than, did she mean more than the official numbers claimed to be held in "detainment?"

I assume that it's something along these lines but I'd rather be know for sure before I comment on if I think she's being honest or not.

I never questioned what she meant by 'more, but I came away with the sense that is was a small number she was specifically referring to .... 1 ...... 5 ....... 20 ..... like that. Again .... she never said. I assumed.

plots they've supposedly thwarted? If there was something substantial they've interrupted, I'd think they'd be yelling that from the rooftops.

I can make up some seemingly plausible reasons why, but I know no facts.

perhaps they took care of the immediate "problems" right away, and now they need to continue manufacturing reasons to stay there.

Remember, most Americans (albeit stupidly and naively) thought it would be shock and awe, and then bang we're out, like it was with Desert Storm I.

I have a friend that's been in the Army for over 20 years and he told me one evening that the army helped Ken Lay relocate to Switzerland after his supposed heart attack. And he wasn't joking. :shrug:

or if it is speculation.

Personally, I put nothing past this administration. Nothing. They've admitted to appalling things. They clearly have no conscience, no souls, no compunction about lying.

on edit: dang it I meant Paraguay not Portugal.

Osama been Forgotten. Mission Accomplished!

...... and makes said comment with no reason or need to deceive.

Okayyyyyy ..........

who wish the United States harm. Some of them wished us harm before we invaded. Many more now wish us harm. I'm sure that the military captures and kills would-be "terrorists" every day.

The question is - is this really an effective way to "keep us safe?" And how many of those would-be terrorists would be terrorists if we had not invaded and pillaged their country?

It seems like capturing and or killing all these "terrorists" would be feathers in their caps. Presuming this lady is correct, these were people that they don't want anybody knowing about.

who is "them"?

It is obvious from the known rolls of those at Gitmo that most of the "them" we've captured so far were schmucks, not terrorists.

Would law enforcement have thwarted "them" too? How many of "them" really could have pulled off bona fide successful acts of terrorism against the US? How many of "them" were just planning to attack the fascist occupiers of their country?

I don't buy it at all. Believing her is not the issue. Knowing what the hell she is talking about, really, is the issue.

who just returned from his third tour in Iraq. He's a republican and when he came home this time he told my friend at a neighborhood party that he is absolutely convinced Bin Laden is working for the Bush administration. He also said he has no idea who the enemy is and most of the soldiers under his command shot at anyone they wanted to. He also said his unit had requested language translators, but their request was denied.

Do you believe him?

units don't have them

To the bin ladin, circumstancial evidence may or may not point there

And lack of force discipline... yep force morale is that poor

What I wonder is, will he still vote republican

The Osama stuff ........ ? Not so much.

that this republican officer would even venture into that territory.

but she probably believes it

It's not always the case, but I think it is in this particular case. So the US has killed a couple of "terrorists." What does that mean? Nothing, because the people who we label as terrorists are mainly just people who are sick of the West and defending their homeland.

Mmm. Interesting.

in brainwashing...

Real Americans(tm) are the Product of Fear...F.E.A.R. training via video games...http://www.xbox.com/en-HK/games/f/fearxbox360/details.page/

Nothing to see here...move along...

Truth to those who are asleep seems like a dream...or a nightmare.

No Fear.

He quotes army intelligence and the International Red Cross for these statistics.

So if by "them" this officer is referring to those Iraqis arrested and detained by American forces, then she must know that a vast majority of them were innocent civilians. Maybe that's why their capture or "thwartedness" were kept from the public?

As for foiling actual plots and arresting the terrorists involved, I might suggest that this has been going on for decades. There have always been terrorists and we have always combated them with intelligence and counter-terrorism. And these "battles" and "victories" do not always make it to the public scene. Except when Bush wants to frighten us. That's why 9/11 is so suspicious: How 19 "terrorists" so close to the Bush Family could avoid American intelligence and detection and invade US territory to kill 3,000 of our citizens is beyond belief.

anyway?

After all, we keep capturing or killing the "seconds in command" or "leaders" or what have you, and another two pop up to take his place. It is like battling the proverbial hydra. Even the information that we get from these people is virtually useless, for any good guerilla fighter will completely change tactics and routines once a higher up has been compromised.

Meanwhile the war will grind on and on, and the question comes down to "Is it worth it?" Is it worth killing all of the innocents, is it worth bankrupting our country, is it worth making ourself into a pariah state, is it worth destroying ourselves over?

In my opinion, no.

to be a good thing. That means exactly nothing as far as reality is concerned.

but the reality is that if we'd stopped anything real as far as terra terra terra goes, it would be all over the media

you can believe a person and accept that person is not lying to you and still be aware that the person in question is a political naif

I could jump into a conjecture, e.g., insert that perhaps she's talking about major terrorist operatives or something, but even so, there's a disconnect on what about and why the OP is asking us to judge this.

Please go back and supply the missing information.

:shrug:

...

or did we turn them into a them when we got there?

They're more like they are now than they were before...

The person I know who has been to both Afghanistan and Iraq as well (the same person I would trust with my life) has said the same. This person is also mostly apolitical. To be completely honest though, he has said this mostly from his experiences in Afghanistan.

if such information came from a known, trusted source.

I'd wonder this: with all of the other political maneuvers our government has been willing to engage in to continue this war, why would this be a "secret?" Why wouldn't they be leaking it to the press, using it to crank up the public fear and compliance?

.... someone does some actual good work and captures, an actual live threat. And lets speculate that if public knowledge of that threat's capture could somehow undermine an actual intelligence operation then yeah, it wouldn't be in the press.

Again, every bit of that is rank speculation unfounded in any fact whatever.

But is *is* plausible.

"they're out to get us" pov. I know that there are all kinds of groups in the world, and that some of them may mean the U.S. ill; more, probably, since 2000 than before.

I've always assumed that U.S. intelligence tracked such groups and were aware of them, and I think we can all agree that such "intelligence" is not shared among the general public.

I just think we are more likely to reduce the number of individuals or groups out to get "us" by focusing on learning how to respect our neighbors and cooperate with them than by "getting them." That cycle only feeds more attempts.

The only real benefit is to those who use it as a political tool to get the general public to comply and concede the constitution. That's why I wondered why, if this is so, it isn't "leaked" to us. It's no use as a tool, otherwise.


I also don't buy for a moment the idea that Democrats fail to act in Congress in the manner we would like them to because "they know things we don't, and they are REALLY protecting us" when they don't support and defend the Constitution, end the war, etc..

is that Army reservists whose job is the opposite of killing people don't have any more access to top secret intelligence about thwarted terror plots than I do.

But I've never known her to give in to flights of hyperbole.

And I know hyperbole well. I **am** hyperbole all too often.

There may have been quite a few battles won.

But the war - the basic objective of "victory" has already been lost.

that is pretty vague.

I'd double check with a more reliable source.

Respectfully, she needs to either put up or shut up.

and we've bungled more than we know, too. 99% of any war never gets uncovered, CNN or no.

I would much rather believe a bunch of anonymous web posters than someone I've known for 15 years. :sarcasm:

As a former infantry officer, I would consider the source.

I'm sure there is a LOT of stuff happening that we never hear about. I was part of some pretty big combat operations that never made the papers back home.

ANY operation in Iraq is not serving the security of the United States. That is an unjustified war/occupation, and every day it continues, it hurts our national interests.

In Afghanistan, I think most of the fighters are fighting us because we are in their country. The people who are a threat to the United States, Bin Laden et al, escaped during the Tora Bora operation, because the oil cabal had their sights on Iraqi oil. Bush would not spare US divisions to fight the real enemy and the enemy escaped into Pakistan.

So it's nice this reserve officer feels good about what she is doing. If she is doing a good job supporting the front line troops, I salute her!

:patriot:

If we have captured so many of them, why is afghanistan going down the tubes?

I think she is right...

I still oppose the Iraq war and think it was a mistake that makes us less safe.

prisoners, she's probably been told that the prisoners are Al-Q, insurgents, whatever. Maybe the people she spoke to believed that they were "them" and told her so. The reality might be that upon further review, they were actually civilians caught in the middle or victims of revenge. Look at the folks at Gitmo. I'm sure the military there believe that 100% of those incarcerated are "them" but when reality sets in, a much smaller percentage are actually "them".

So I believe her perception of reality is that a much larger number of "them" are being captured, but I would bet that the reality is much different. I think the PR value would be way too much for the * cabal to pass up.

Not to mention, it's easy to lose perspective when you're just looking at your own little area of the world and what may seem like a lot isn't really that much in the broader perspective.

You qualify her assertions.

You then ask us to assume, just for the sake of argument...FWIW, I have never found that a reasonable request to make of anyone.

When propogating FEAR in the masses it is necessary to convince the masses that there really is a boogey man.

No Fear.