Posted in National Security, Terrorism/War on Terror

Topic of the Week: the war on terror

   May 7, 2011

The killing of 9/11 mastermind Osama bin Laden by U.S. military forces was (rightfully) big news this week, but I’d like to get your opinion:

What does the death of bin Laden mean in relation to the global war on terror?

Share:

Related Articles

3 thoughts on “Topic of the Week: the war on terror”

  1. America needs to begin drawing down all troops from Iraq and Afghanistan immediately. The call to do so needs to come from rank and file Democrats, who’ve been largely silent on the wars since Obama took office, and in particular from the Feminist Majority Foundation, which has supported the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan because of the Talibans treatment of women and girls.

    We invaded Afghanistan to root out Al Qaeda, not defeat the Taliban. The treatment of women and girls in Afghanistan is a matter for human rights organizations and the international community to address, not the American military.

    Iraq is still a war zone, no matter how many times Obama tells the nation the war is over. Obama should convene a commission, like he did the Deficit Commission and like the British did with the Chilcot Inquiry, to investigaate the decision making process that took us to war against Iraq. The commission should also attempt to discern the true nature of the devastation in Iraq, i.e numbers of civilians killed, wounded, displaced, etc.

    We may have forgotten the war in Iraq but the rest of the world hasn’t, and won’t. We, ( America) cannot restore ourselves in the eyes of the internationl community without such an inquiry.

    All of this madness, as Ralph Nader has called it, should start to wind down now for the sake of our troops, their families, the innocents abroad, and taxpayers here at home.

  3. It means that everyone knows that Americans finally have a leader who (1) says what he means, means what he says, and doggedly, not to mention, effectively translates what he says into action.

    Osama Bin Laden’s seeming “invincibility” emboldened terrorists everywhere and made them think that they, too, were invincible, capable of inflicting death, injury and emotional pain on America with impunity.

    President Obama, a Democratic President, took that away from them, and they will never be able to reclaim it. In doing that, he shook them to their very core.

    He also sent shock-waves through the Republican Party. Never again will the Republicans ever be able to convincingly portray President Obama or Democrats, for that matter, as weak-willed or weak on defense.

    Per Daily Kos contributer, BruinKid, Bill Maher laid out last night how the post-Osama Bin Laden era landscape looks for a Republican Party which had “blown it” in terms of bring Bin Laden to justice. Spoiler alert, it isn’t pretty (*laughing*). Here’s a part of it:

    “Bill Maher’s final New Rule on Friday night’s show laid bare the GOP’s excuses for why, well, they even exist as a party.

    [Excerpt from Bill Maher monologue:]. . .New Rule. Now that it’s become clear that the Republicans, the fiscally conservative, strong on defense party, are neither fiscally conservative nor strong on defense, they have to tell us what exactly it is they’re good at.

    Because it’s not defense. 9/11 happened on your watch. And you retaliated by invading the wrong country. And you lost a 10-year game of hide-and-seek with Osama bin Laden. And you’re responsible for running up most of the debt, which, more than anything, makes us weak. You’re supposed to be the party with the killer instinct. But it was a Democrat who put a bomb in Gaddafi’s bedroom and a bullet in bin Laden’s eye like Moe Greene. Raising the question, how many Muslims does a black guy have to kill in one weekend before crackers climb down off his ass? [End of Bill Maher monologue excerpt]”

    The text of the full monologue is definitely worth looking [AND laughing your ass off] at. Bill is right on the money. Further spoiler alert, progressives will definitely NOT hate it (*wink*). BruinKid included full text of it as a part of his Daily Kos post which can be found at:

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/2011/05/07/973910/-Bill-Maher-lays-out-GOPs-utter-failure

    In my view, Bin Laden’s death ultimately means that Al Queda and all other terrorist organizations will have to deal with President Obama until 2016. And that is a good thing for America, the world, and the “war on terror”.

Comments are closed.