Why were some Dems afraid to attack lies on Tora Bora when it mattered?

[blm]

Ever notice that Bush and Cheney had no problem getting back up in the media for any of their lies and especially from other GOPs, yet Kerry had few in the media willing to let the truth get any attention, and few Dem lawmakers who would back him up on something so important?

This post at DemWatch showed how HUGE the lie created about Tora Bora, and how efficiently the media let Bush, Cheney and Franks do the lying. The whole post at this forum deserves a read. It's great fodder for those keeping track of Bush lies and WHICH of the two presidential candidates was the serious anti-terror leader.

Friday, March 25, 2005

Kerry Was Right: Pentagon Admits Bin Laden Escaped From Tora Bora


With the insane, wall-to-wall coverage of the Terri Schiavo situation, the media has apparently been too busy to alert the American public to what should be one of the biggest stories of the moment. Throughout last year's Presidential campaign, John Kerry repeatedly made the claim that the Pentagon 'outsourced' the assault on Tora Bora in late 2001 by putting Afghan warlords in charge and in doing so, allowed Osama bin Laden to essentially escape out the back door.

The Bush campaign enlisted none other than General Tommy Franks, who was in charge of the Tora Bora operation, to publicly denounce the charge, most notably in an opinion piece for The New York Times. (Emphasis mine...)

President Bush and Senator John Kerry have very different views of the war on terrorism, and those differences ought to be debated in this presidential campaign. But the debate should focus on facts, not distortions of history.

On more than one occasion, Senator Kerry has referred to the fight at Tora Bora in Afghanistan during late 2001 as a missed opportunity for America. He claims that our forces had Osama bin Laden cornered and allowed him to escape. How did it happen? According to Mr. Kerry, we "outsourced" the job to Afghan warlords. As commander of the allied forces in the Middle East, I was responsible for the operation at Tora Bora, and I can tell you that the senator's understanding of events doesn't square with reality.

First, take Mr. Kerry's contention that we "had an opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden" and that "we had him surrounded." We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001. Some intelligence sources said he was; others indicated he was in Pakistan at the time; still others suggested he was in Kashmir. Tora Bora was teeming with Taliban and Qaeda operatives, many of whom were killed or captured, but Mr. bin Laden was never within our grasp.

And of course both Bush and Cheney hit back at the charge as well. Bush used it in his stock stump speech to make it sound as if Kerry was both lying and criticizing American troops, rather than the Pentagon planners. And Cheney just flat out called Kerry a liar:

John Kerry harps away at phony charges. He says we took our eye off the ball at Tora Bora, a charge that General Tommy Franks, who commanded our forces, has totally refuted. Given a choice between John Kerry's opinion and General Tommy Franks, I'll go with General Franks every time.

>>>>>>>>>>>>

http://demwatch.blogspot.com/2005_03_20_demwatch_archive.html

[MH1]

1. This is a great reminder

of one of the major problems in 2004.

Folks who want to put all the blame on the candidate and "the campaign", although some blame rightfully belongs there, are missing one of the biggest problems - and the one that will sink us again in 2008 (and maybe some candidates in 2006) if we don't do a whole lot better as a party.

[blm]

2. Dem lawmakers AND the left media really failed to see the import of this

in respect to the whole terrorism issue AND as it related to the campaigns. Bush and Cheney saw immediately how important it was to attack Kerry as a liar on this.

Letting Bush , Cheney and Franks lie about this, and no voices backing up Kerry in 2001, 2002, 2003, and 2004 - every time he pointed the finger at BushInc on this COLOSSAL FAILURE for anti-terrorism - was a huge miscalculation on the part of lawmakers who didn't notice the significance or feared challenging Bush.

Now, some of these same lawmakers, like Biden, think that THEY are the ones to lead the fight on terrorism when they couldn't put two and two together on Tora Bora and figure out that Bush FAILED at Tora Bora.

[WildEyedLiberal]

3. I don't trust anyone who didn't back up Kerry on this

That sadly includes a very large percentage of left-leaning media and Dem politicians and pundits. They were truly asleep at the wheel.

[ProSense]

4. This is sickening!

And some of them are still doing it.

[karynnj]

5. Kerry was so on target on this

After the election, someone posted one of the earliest Kerry articles from 2002 from a magazine that I had never heard of. The author was spending a typical day in DC with Kerry. At one point, Kerry, Marvin and the author were driving (I guess to his Senate office). After describing Kerry's car, he was describing Kerry reading the NYT and calling someone in his office, complaining about what he was reading on how they announced they were using the Afghan warlords to guard the tough mountain passes. So, Kerry's insight that this was an atrocious idea was instantaneous. (The prevailing view was this was great and would save lives.)

[blm]

6. Oh, dontcha know - Kerry never stood up to Bush - left media told me so

and most other Dems looked the other way and provided no backup.

I don't think Kerry had any back up on this issue unless Cleland got some airtime, and then when Clark stepped up. The crowd who calls themselves real anti-terror and national security Dems kept their mouths tightly shut when it so CRUCIAL to bringing Bush down as an incompetent LONG before Iraq issue came up. And they kept their mouths shut about Tora Bora throughout the entire campaign.

Look for any statements supportive of Kerry on Tora Bora - it's maddening. They just wouldn't do what it takes to give the man back up.

Funny - all the guys who served did. Maybe the others don't understand what it means to form a team.

[Adelante]

8. To be accurate

While Clark certainly spoke out on Tora Bora while he was campaigning for Kerry, it was an issue Clark was extremely vocal about throughout his own campaign in 2003 and wrote about in his book. Clark stepped up for Kerry, certainly, in every way, but he had stepped up on Tora Bora well before when it wasn't about backing up Kerry. Just saying.

[blm]

10. I was referring to senate Dems, WesDem.

It should be when a Dem goes out there and opposes on an issue so crucial, the other senators should provide back up where they can. Clark was still a CNN aanalyst then, so of course it wasn't in his job description to bolster the Dems against Bush. He really maintained professionalism and stuck to his job.

[FrenchieCat]

14. Wes wrote about Tora Bora as one of Bush's failure

in his book....Winning Modern Wars written in the late summer of 2003.....

Page 113: "Going after Saddam Hussein was "a hobby-horse" for Bush's security team that drew attention away from the more vital task of going after terrorists. Letting Osama Bin Laden slip across the mountains of Tora Bora was one of "many missed chances." - Wes Clark

Here's a book review of his book....
Review | posted November 20, 2003
A Soldier's Story
Frances FitzGerald
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20031208/fitzgerald/3

In the next section Clark takes on Bush's conduct of what he calls "the real war" on terror.
At the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001 and in Operation Anaconda the next spring, US forces and their Afghan allies failed to fix and destroy the massed Al Qaeda and Taliban forces. In the wake of the initial conflict, the United States simply did not have enough troops on the ground, and the Afghan tribes allowed Osama bin Laden and his allies to slip away. The Administration then failed to commit the resources necessary to stabilize the country and refused to permit its NATO allies to help out, except in Kabul. As a result, Al Qaeda and Taliban remnants were able to use the territory on either side of the Pakistani border to hide, to recruit and to mount a guerrilla war.
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20031208/fitzgerald/3

=======
So why did Bush agree to a 30-hour truce at Tora Bora? Why did Bush allow plane after plane to land and take off in the area where bin Laden was?

Wesley Clark talked about this again and again, I taped his speech in OKC, but nobody wanted to hear it and the Bush-friendly American whore media refused to mention it.
http://www.bartcop.com/1518.htm

November 20, 2003
NEW YORK, NY
GENERAL WESLEY K. CLARK: (Applause.) Jim, thank you very much. And it’s a real pleasure to be here with you all at the Council today.
Snip...
AUDIENCE QUESTION: The work going on in Afghanistan. Could you critique the administration’s policy there?

CLARK: Oh, I think the administration’s policy in Afghanistan has been a world class bait-and-switch. The president promised us Osama bin Laden, dead or alive. But it seems clear from the record, at least that portion that’s emerged, that even before the first bombs had fallen on Afghanistan, the administration was planning to go after Saddam Hussein instead. And during the time when General Tommy Franks should have been planning how to finish the job in Afghanistan against Osama bin Laden by putting in the right number of U.S. forces with the right missions to box off Tora Bora and take him down, instead, apparently he was dusting off the plans to go after Iraq, and preparing to brief them to Pentagon or perhaps to the White House. http://www.cfr.org/publication/6545/restoring_americas_alliances.html

Clark on Meet the Press, January 5, 2004
"I support the action in Afghanistan up to the point at which the
president didn't follow through and get Osama bin
Laden. We should have gone after the Taliban. We
should have stayed there. We should have worked
Afghanistan. We had Osama bin Laden in a box, and we
should have stayed there in the spring of 2002 and
finished the job against him. But four months
afterwards, we didn't. That was the point at which the
United States of America began to cut back its
resourcing and direct all of the internal intention to
going after Saddam Hussein.

He was there. He was in Tora Bora and he
was boxed in. And what I would have done before I
started the operation in Afghanistan is look for a
success strategy. After you've had experience with
military planning and the way political military
actions operate, you know that you have to start at
the back end and work forward. So it's: What are the
conditions you want to have achieved when the
operation's over? What I would have said is, "We want
to take the Taliban out of power and we want to bag
Osama bin Laden and the top leadership in al-Qaeda."
http://www.mindspace.org/liberation-news-service/archives/000427.html

March 2004,
CLARK: Well, Neil, you have covered a couple of points here. First, the administration did go after the Taliban and Afghanistan. But it did not have a success strategy to take out Al Qaeda.

And, in fact, instead of putting the American troops in that were required to finish the job against Usama bin Laden when he was boxed in, in the mountains of Tora Bora, we were already at that point. This country was already thinking about going into Iraq against Saddam Hussein.

So we limited our commitment in Afghanistan, and the result is that two years later Al Qaeda is still alive, its morphed a little bit. It is a little bit different now, and even perhaps more dangerous.
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,114945,00.html

[karynnj]

30. Except Kerrey -who disputed it

[MH1]

7. The punch line

(from the blog post you linked)

But as for me, rather than taking either man at his word, I'll trust the recently declassified Pentagon report that clearly states that Osama bin Laden did, in fact, escape from Tora Bora.

A terror suspect held at Guantanamo Bay Naval Station, Cuba, was a commander for Osama bin Laden during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s and helped the al-Qaida leader escape his mountain hide-out at Tora Bora in 2001, according to a U.S. government document.

The document, provided to The Associated Press in response to a Freedom of Information request, says the unidentified detainee "assisted in the escape of Osama bin Laden from Tora Bora." It is the first definitive statement from the Pentagon that bin Laden was at Tora Bora and evaded U.S. pursuers.

[Jai4WKC08]

9. Not all of the Dems

Clark in Youngstown Ohio, Sept 12 2004:

"All America - the whole world - was on our side in that fight (against OBL)," Clark said. "But when we had Osama bin Laden and his top leadership boxed up in the mountains of Tora Bora, what did George W. Bush do? He told the military to start planning for a war against Saddam Hussein."

"That was a presidential-level mistake," Clark continued. "It was bad judgment. He let Osama bin Laden get away."

[blm]

11. Heh - Read my post 6.

Beat ya to it - I never forget how Clark stood up.

[Jai4WKC08]

12. So ya did

Missed that, or it posted while I was looking for my reference.

I think you have a point about the military experience teaching people how to be team players. Not that there aren't other experiences that do the same thing. But not everybody gets it. Or they forget when their own interests take priority.

[blm]

20. I also think the guys who were running were DEAD SERIOUS about the damage

being done by BushInc and would contribute whatever they could to defeat him. You never got that same sense of urgency from Dem spokespeople and Dem officeholders at the time. I thought Bill Clinton was always sending the wrong message when he would get on tv and talk about supporting Bush on one issue or another while bemoaning partisanship getting in the way of what's good for the country. He also never supported Kerry on Tora Bora.

[Jai4WKC08]

28. Yeah, but in fairness to The Big Dawg

He had a lot more credibility on other issues than he would have on Tora Bora or any other military failure. When he campaign for Kerry, it made a certain amount of sense for him to focus on how much better the economy would be with a Democratic administration, more jobs, etc. And if he often took a bi-partisan line or failed to go on the attack, so did Kerry himself.

I dunno. I was never a big Clinton fan during his administration (before I saw how bad it would get after anyway). And I blamed him for the Lewinsky thing. Sure, the Repubs and the media were gunning for him, but he knew they were and handed them the ammunition. And sure, if not Lewinsky, they'd have found somthing else, but that doesn't absolve him for how he actually contributed to the case against him. I want to cry sometimes to think about what he could have accomplished, and where the country might be now, if he'd been just a little more circumspect.

But I've pretty much forgiven Clinton, and in large part because of what he did for Kerry's campaign. He had very serious health problems and still seemed to go all out. From how he looked to me, at no little personal risk. He didn't have to. His heart problem provided a perfectly legitimate excuse to lay low. If he were half as conniving as some people seem to think he is, he would have sat back and done nothing, or covertly worked against Kerry, and I honestly don't think he did.

[FrenchieCat]

15. Actually, Clark stood up EARLY and OFTEN......on the Tora Bora issue

As I cite in my previous post......Before he entered the primaries even....and throughout the primaries, and after the primaries, and even last week.

[blm]

18. I know - but, my point was about pols not providing backup when it matters

Clark was not a politician when Kerry first stood up publically with the truth about Tora Bore right after it happened, and throughout 2002 he was on his own.

Clark was still a CNN analyst at that point and was limited - the senators and Dem spokespeople who refused to add their voice were not.

[Generic Other]

13. I recall seeing him on CNN after the fall of Kabul

They showed the clip numerous times and claimed the tall guy shrouded in a hood was Mr. Second-in-command (forgot his name). When they finally caught that guy later, he was a fat dumpy short guy, not tall and skinny. Hmmm... So who was the tall guy who walked right past some embedded CNN photographer during the retreat of the Taliban from Kabul? They let him go over the Khyber Pass along with the rest of the retreating crowd. He stood heads above others. At the time it seemed obvious that it was Osama.

Am I the only one who remembers this?

[eridani]

16. Good point, except for what it omits

What did we NOT outsource? In our eagerness to dictate the governmental structure of Afghanistan, we ignored the advice of 1000 anti-Taliban leaders who unequivocally slammed a bombing campaign, and advised us to do it their way, namely just giving them enough money to bribe critical clan leaders out of supporting the Taliban. But no, we couldn't even let them have the head of state they wanted, which was the former king, not Karzai.

We should have let the natives take care of the Taliban and stayed the fuck out of their government formation process.

Focusing on capturing Osama would not have required doing anything at all about the Taliban, just putting the troops in to chase him down. We should have outsourced the formation of their own government to the natives, and kept going after OBL in house. Instead, we did the exact opposite.

[DoYouEverWonder]

17. We didn 't let Osama walk out of Tora Bora

the US sent a helicopter in and flew him out.

[blm]

19. That's what I am most inclined to believe.

.

[DoYouEverWonder]

21. I got this story

from a very reliable source and it was told to me before Sy Hersh's story came out.

Specials Ops teams from Fort Bragg, NC went into Afghanistan within weeks of 9-11. There was one Special Ops team that finally found Osama in Dec and had him cornered. They were ready to go in for the capture/kill when all of a sudden the big brass showed up. The big guns took over the operation and that's when the helicopters showed up. Osama walked onto one of them.

There was a cluster of 'suicides' at Fort Bragg soon after some of these Special Ops teams came home.

[FrenchieCat]

22. That would explain BartCop's comments just that much more....

So why did Bush agree to a 30-hour truce at Tora Bora? Why did Bush allow plane after plane to land and take off in the area where bin Laden was?

Wesley Clark talked about this again and again, I taped his speech in OKC, but nobody wanted to hear it and the Bush-friendly American whore media refused to mention it.
http://www.bartcop.com/1518.htm

[DoYouEverWonder]

23. Rumsfeld tried to deny it in this interview

but read his words carefully, because he doesn't deny it at all.


January 20, 2002

Russert: "The New Yorker" magazine revisited a subject that we talked about in December, and they insist that in November, and this is the article, "In interviews, American intelligence officials and high-ranking military officers said that Pakistanis were indeed flown to safety in a series of nighttime airlifts that were approved by the Bush administration. The Americans also said that what was supposed to be a limited evacuation apparently slipped out of control, and, in an unintended consequence, an unknown number of Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters managed to join in the exodus."

The point being in November, Pakistan was able to airlift people out of Afghanistan. Did that happen?

Rumsfeld: I do not believe it happened. I can't prove a negative, but our people have checked to the extent that it is possible to check. We have had enormous numbers of aircraft and intelligence sensors in various ways watching that area. No one that I know connected with the United States in any way saw any such thing as a major air exodus out of Afghanistan into Pakistan.

I have read these stories, I've heard these stories. I've never been able to run them down. No one has ever been able to run them down and prove them, and I doubt them. I think they're not true.

http://www.dod.gov/transcripts/2002/t01202002_t0120sd.html

[FrenchieCat]

24. Yeah....one can always depend on that Rumsfailed!

"I can't prove a negative, but our people have checked to the extent that it is possible to check."--

To always be there to answer with a non response.

[DoYouEverWonder]

25. Read his lips

No one that I know connected with the US in any way saw any such thing as a major air exodus out of Afghanistan into Pakistan.

This is an old trick I use to use on my mother all the time. No I didn't have a cigerette, (I had a whole pack).

So what Rummie is really saying is that, even though he personally knows no one that was connected with a MAJOR air exodus, that MINOR air exodus was definitely a US operation.

[FrenchieCat]

26. At this point, I don't listen anything that guy has to say.....

He's too creepy!

[blm]

29. People WOULD want to know it if the media would TELL them. The way the

corporate media handled Tora Bora was a serious indicator that they were in it for the long haul to support BushInc no matter what.

[eridani]

27. Wouldn't it be great if we could actually get documentation on this?

I know you can't, but still----