There are plenty of moderate people in the US, but we waged a war for twenty fucking years after 9/11.
The Iraq war was plainly illegitimate, based on a tissue of lies. 9/11 was not a legitimate casus belli for invading Iraq, and the WMD thing was simply a hoax.
I am not so convinced about the Afghan war. 9/11 was a mass murder perpetrated by Al-Qaeda on American soil, and the Taliban were hosting and working with Al-Qaeda. However, the “nation building” efforts were never going to work.
After 9/11, the Taliban wanted to negotiate with the US in order to extradite Osama Bin Laden. Their demands were simple:
Stop bombing us.
Give us some evidence that Bin Laden is guilty.
Bush said ‘we dont negotiate with terrists lol’ and ramped up the bombing of Afghanistan, leading to the brutal invasion. Later we executed Bin Laden without a trial.
I’m not sure how you could consider any of that legitimate.
This is a pretty well-debunked canard. 1) The Taliban knew OBL was guilty since AQ had basically admitted it and whatever else you can say about them, they aren’t stupid, and 2) their offer was to extradite him to a third neutral country --no candidate was ever named – that would ostensibly put him on trial free of US influence.
I’ve seen this claim about “beheadings of babies” being circulated in the last day in regard to the Hamas/Israel situation. Biden “confirmed” it but then representatives walked back claims that he had even claimed to see proof. So again it’s one of these situations where thousands of lives are being sacrificed behind “proof” that the public cannot see. It may have happened, it may not have, but how on earth are we supposed to know without proof?
The mentality people have that we should just take it on faith is absolutely baffling to me. We have stringent standards for proof in the criminal trial of a single person, but when it comes to waging wars against countries of millions of people, the standards drop down to zero. There is so much danger in just entrusting people in power to dictate to the public what happened and what didn’t and not have any way to verify it. The stakes are beyond reasoning so the standard for proof to justify any actions should be absolute.
I’ve heard this notion before, but I’m unconvinced. My impression is that Osama bin Laden was a Saudi dissident, not a representative of the Saudi elite.
The Iraq war was plainly illegitimate, based on a tissue of lies. 9/11 was not a legitimate casus belli for invading Iraq, and the WMD thing was simply a hoax.
I am not so convinced about the Afghan war. 9/11 was a mass murder perpetrated by Al-Qaeda on American soil, and the Taliban were hosting and working with Al-Qaeda. However, the “nation building” efforts were never going to work.
After 9/11, the Taliban wanted to negotiate with the US in order to extradite Osama Bin Laden. Their demands were simple:
Bush said ‘we dont negotiate with terrists lol’ and ramped up the bombing of Afghanistan, leading to the brutal invasion. Later we executed Bin Laden without a trial.
I’m not sure how you could consider any of that legitimate.
Bush rejects Taliban offer to hand Bin Laden over - The Guardian
Fair enough. Bush is a war criminal, and no mistake. Still and all, Bin Laden did take responsibility for the attacks.
This is a pretty well-debunked canard. 1) The Taliban knew OBL was guilty since AQ had basically admitted it and whatever else you can say about them, they aren’t stupid, and 2) their offer was to extradite him to a third neutral country --no candidate was ever named – that would ostensibly put him on trial free of US influence.
The entire offer was absurd.
I’ve seen this claim about “beheadings of babies” being circulated in the last day in regard to the Hamas/Israel situation. Biden “confirmed” it but then representatives walked back claims that he had even claimed to see proof. So again it’s one of these situations where thousands of lives are being sacrificed behind “proof” that the public cannot see. It may have happened, it may not have, but how on earth are we supposed to know without proof?
The mentality people have that we should just take it on faith is absolutely baffling to me. We have stringent standards for proof in the criminal trial of a single person, but when it comes to waging wars against countries of millions of people, the standards drop down to zero. There is so much danger in just entrusting people in power to dictate to the public what happened and what didn’t and not have any way to verify it. The stakes are beyond reasoning so the standard for proof to justify any actions should be absolute.
The Saudi Royal family was behind it, and we never attacked them because of the petrodollar.
I’ve heard this notion before, but I’m unconvinced. My impression is that Osama bin Laden was a Saudi dissident, not a representative of the Saudi elite.
Aren’t there something like 15,000 members of the Saudi Royal family?
Here’s a couple of articles with details about the connections:
https://theintercept.com/2021/09/11/september-11-saudi-arabia/
https://www.propublica.org/article/long-secret-fbi-report-reveals-new-connections-between-9-11-hijackers-and-saudi-religious-officials-in-u-s