Al-Qaeda Arrest Shows The Cost Of Bush's Incompetence At Tora Bora

[DrFunkenstein]

Bin Laden Sent Suspect to U.S., Officials Say

WASHINGTON, Aug. 6 - American intelligence officials now believe that Issa al-Hindi, the alleged Qaeda operative now in British custody, was dispatched to the United States in early 2001 by the mastermind of the Sept. 11 plot at the direction of Osama bin Laden to case potential targets in New York City, senior government officials said Friday.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/07/politics/07terror.html?pagewanted=3

While we are certainly safer with Saddam Hussein behind bars, it remains to be seen if we are safer having abandoned Afghanistan and overstretched our military in a poorly planned invasion of Iraq.

We may be slightly more certain that it was, to put it politely, a tactical error to use warlords to capture Osama bin Laden ("smoke him out of his cave"), rather than engaging the most powerful fighting force on the planet - the might of the U.S. military.

This election is about competence, and the lack thereof - incompetence. Bush may talk big, but is he the most competent leader in the war on terror. These are the terms of the debate, none other.



"We had Osama bin Laden cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora. Rather than deploy the 10th Mountain Division or the 101st Airborne or the Marines, rather than use the best military in the world to go kill the world's number-one terrorist, what did we do? This administration held them back. They sent the Afghans up into the mountains who a week earlier had been on the other side, and they let him escape.

I think that I can fight a far more effective war on terror."

-John Kerry, Meet The Press (4/19/04)

http://www.yubanet.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi/6/9324

[NMDemDist2]

1. yup, I need to think up a protest sign for *'s "welcome" party that

says that very thing, shortly and sweetly

hmmmm

Tora Bora was your first mistake?


Why did you let Osama slip @ Tora Bora?


Tora Bora was your Waterloo?

help me out here folks...

[blm]

3. You BLEW IT at Tora Bora

Thanks To Your INCOMPETENCE, Bin Laden escaped at Tora Bora

Bush Blew It At Tora Bora

Bush Let Bin Laden Go At Tora Bora

BLAME BUSH FOR TORA BORA

BIN LADEN THANKS BUSH FOR TORA BORA

A REAL PRESIDENT WOULD HAVE NAILED BIN LADEN AT TORA BORA

[NMDemDist2]

4. EXCELLENT (with a simpson's MrBurns hand wring) n/t

[DrFunkenstein]

8. Bush Had Osama

-Bush Had Osama-
---At Tora Bora---
--Warlords Don't--
-Catch Terrorists-

Something like that?



Is this what we use to catch the man responsible for murdering 3000 Americans?

[Union Thug]

2. Ok, so how am I safer with saddam hussein behind bars???

I mean, were the Iraqi TERROR SHIPS going to sail into puget sound? Or maybe the remote controle TERROR PLANES were going to evade detection and attack us using their souped up x-box remote control units, or maybe it was the Iraqi soldiers that were going to march into our hosipital nurseries to throw babies on the floor, or maybe it was those mobile labs, or their hundreds of nukes and chemical tipped ICBMs...

[sallyseven]

5. bush does not want to get Osama.

The royal family doesn't want him caught. What is better oil or Osama? That is george's dilemma. He opted for oil.

[DrFunkenstein]

6. Well, I'm Willing To Concede The Point And Choose My Battles

It's dumb to get down into nuance for this type of crap. Looks like you're small time. We're beyond small time. We're not here to pick over details, we're here to whack that sombitch upside the head.

This is important for the progressive movement to understand - you don't have to keep arguing until people see the logic of your point. Americans don't come to politics logically - it's a visceral experience for them, and at some point you must respect that as the way things are. Even the Dean movement played largely at gut level. Maybe that'll all change someday, but we can't sit on our principals and huff.

So, while I agree with your point, I don't see the point of arguing it. There are larger battles to be won.

[KoKo]

7. Exactly, NYT's repeats "The Lie" about Saddam and then goes on to

weasel around that we should have stayed after OSAMA and used our MIGHTY MILITARY....I am just about to give up on the NYT's. There are better sources out there. It's nice that they pump Kerry...but in doing so they betray that they didn't do their job reporting on Bush's lies in the first place.

[DeepModem Mom]

9. kick