Obama stands up to McCain

[mmarsh]

Therise21 and Senojekips

We use drones in Afghanistan, but we are not allowed to launch strikes within Pakistan without authorization from the Pakistani government. The Pakistanis are very tight in the buttocks about their sovereignty, they don't allow us to do anything on our own, thats exactly the problem. Also remember that the Pakistani government and military is filled with Al-qaeda sympathizers, so even when Pakistan gives an OK the terrorists are usually warned ahead of time. The terrorists know this thats why they set up their base there.

Putting bounties has already been tried and it has failed most spectacularly. Look at Osama, his bounty has gone from $10 Million to $25 Million after 9/11 to almost $50 Million today. Nobody has claimed it. Same goes Al-Zawariri, and all the senior management. The top 20 people of Al-qaeda all have bounties of $10 million or more, to my knowledge not a single bounty has been paid.

I don't mean to pick on you guys, but this is exactly the flawed reasoning of Bush the past 5 years ago. The West has been so corrupted by money they automatically assume that everybody else has too. These are very simple people, A family of 4 lives in Wiristan on $20 a Month, they don't give a damn about money, if they did Al Qaeda would have been dead a LONG time ago.
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13th Redneck

No, fear tactics only work against the uneducated such as the Afghans. Remember fear is a uncertainty of the unknown, thats much more prevalent amongst people the most susceptible to the unknown. The educated either find ways to resist such tactics or they flee. Take Iraq, all the educated people (Sunnis and Shiites) fled after the Civil War started. And the fall of Roman Empire happened when the empire was a pale corrupt shadow of its former self. The barbarians only gave it the coup de grace. Same can be said of the Han Dynasty when the Mongols attacked, it was a very large empire made of paper.

 

[A Can of Man]

No, fear tactics don't work against educated people with a strong tradition of independence. They work brilliantly against an educated people with a strong tradition of compliance and obedience.
At work for example, the fear of getting fired prevent millions of people from doing the right thing. They see corruption and they let it go. They see the system screwing either them or the customers over badly and they do nothing because of the fear of losing their jobs. The fear of losing the means to survival... the fear of not being able to land the next one. Seen it time and time again. Not just in the civilian world, seen this in the military as well.
Now if people don't do the right thing out of fear of being fired, what makes you think they will do the right thing in the face of a bullet to the back of their heads?

 

[Easy-8]

That is my joke!

 

[senojekips]

Putting bounties has already been tried and it has failed most spectacularly. Look at Osama, his bounty has gone from $10 Million to $25 Million after 9/11 to almost $50 Million today. Nobody has claimed it. Same goes al-Zawariri, and all the senior management. The top 20 people of al-qaeda all have bounties of $10 million or more, to my knowledge not a single bounty has been paid.

I feel that the bounties haven't been paid in the case of people like Bin Laden, not because bounties don't work on these people (the potential informants), but more likely that Bin Laden's security is very tight and those in the general population who might otherwise try to claim the bounty genuinely do not know where he is, and his close supporters have the moral backbone to not be influenced by the offer, after all Bin Laden still has access to large amounts of money himself.

Members of the population who stumble across Bin Laden in his travels, are too isolated to be able to pass the information to the authorities in time for it to be of any use.

However this does not preclude the use of bounties against local supporters etc., closer to the occupied areas. After all, how do you think Gitmo was populated?

Yeah,... there were problems there, as the informants were given the money before the people they fingered were found guilty leading to just anyone being picked up off the streets (so to speak) and denounced. This has since bitten us on the bum wasting a lot of time and money, not to mention getting us a lot of bad press around the world.

 

[mmarsh]

Senojekips

That's just my point, I am not saying there isn't anybody in Pakistan who wouldn't collect on the bounty, what I am saying are that those very few who are in the position to betray bin Laden would never do so, at least not for money.

Also remember that he is hiding in an area where the local tribes are more sympathetic to him than they are to the Governments of America, Pakistan, or Afghanistan.

Bin Laden security is tight because his followers are absolutely loyal to him. These people view bin Laden as a Prophet, there is no way they would betray him for money, espicially not American Money.

I am not saying the CIA shouldnt try and flip one of his supporters, what I am saying is that they are using the wrong bait. One way, would be to use Islam against him. Get some of the other Imams in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia to openly and publically declare him an infidel, and have them condemn him and ever sermon they give. If his followers begin to think he is a heretic THEN they will turn on him. There have been a couple of Imams to do this, but most are either sympathetic to him, or reluctant to do so.

As for how Gitmo got filled, that's the entire problem of Gitmo. Nobody really knows who the detainees at Gitmo are. They US has defined 20% of the Gitmo population as hardcore al-Qaeda (which probably means less) the other 80% is abit of a mystery that the Bush Administration doesnt want to discuss.

 

[Del Boy]

One of the problems re. tackling Bin Laden stretches much further back than current issues to the 1870's. He is seen by his supporters as for practical purposes just about the political re-incarnation of the Mahdi in Sudan, for whom Islam rose to bring about the Islamic Caliphate and rule the world. So for many he is a somewhat spiritual figure, through the Muslim Brotherhood line.

He probably sees himself in that role and has the necessary financial resources to back himself, so his ambitions would have made him very difficult to avoid colliding with no matter what.

He is mounting a mighty religious and historic challenge as far as he is concerned, so he is difficult to unseat without laying hands on him.

Perhaps talk of the anti-christ is not as ridiculous as it may seem, but I am not promoting that idea, except as an example of what we face in Osama.