Reality of Afghanistan: On 11/27/01, CIA fighters, special forces & Northern Alliance was chasing al Qaeda/bin Laden into Tora Bora, along Pakistani border. That day, Central Command discussing support when Rumsfeld told them he wanted them to focus instead on Iraq strategy...1
..the battle of Tora Bora began three days later, involving the CIA team (Jawbreaker), special forces, and Northern Alliance. There was bombing support. Jawbreaker leaders asked Pentagon for one battalion of Army Rangers dropped behind al Qaeda's position to trap them and then..2
...trap them before launching a massive bombing campaign. Al Qaeda would have been destroyed. Bin Laden would have been surrounded - captured or killed - just months after 9/11. The perpetrators of the massive terror attack would have paid the ultimate price...3
....but there was a problem. This wasn't a "made here" operation. This was a CIA operation, not a Pentagon one. The military would have played a very small role. Rumsfeld would have received none of the glory and, ever the bureaucratic beast, he wanted to..../4
...use his hammer - the military - against the only nail in Afghanistan - the Taliban government. So, al Qaeda fled into Pakistan, we launched a war against people who had *not* attacked us in Afghanistan, and then against other people who had *not* attacked us in Iraq. We...5
...allowed egos and arrogance to override any sense of goals or strategy. It was all about national building - the Wolfowitz Plan - which had nothing to do with 9/11. Thus began two decades of war. And al Qaeda, which could have been destroyed in 12/2001, lives on.
end
end
• • •
Missing some Tweet in this thread? You can try to
force a refresh
