Elf Sternberg

Believe it or not, with only two full albums under their belt, if you go to Amazon you can find a "Best Of Tatu" album. It's in there.

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Bin Laden is a piker in the course of history: he's killed a few thousand Americans, making his success insignificant compared to the casualty counts of WW1, WW2

Yeah... OBL only killed a few thousand americans in less than a dozen coordinated, well funded terrorist attacks. That's nothing... We should have just ignored him after that.[/sarcasm]

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We should have ignored him after that.

We did ignore him. That's why he's a free man today.

Worse, where we have paid attention to him, we have made him into a James Bond villain on the order of Hugo Drax. He may be clever, but I'll bet my left testicle that he doesn't have the orbiting space platform and superhuman henchmen with which our goverment seems to enjoy threatening its citizens.

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We ignored him... right.

Thats an interesting version of history. It couldn't be that he was simply better able to hide than we were able to find him?

But wait... that doesn't fit with the Bush-bashing rhetoric, so it must not be true.

so... maybe we should have invaded Pakistan as well, even though at the time, they seemed to be cooperating with us. Or maybe we should have sent in thousands more to Afghanistan... No? Then what would *you* have done? What exactly would YOUR candidate have done in Bush's place that would have resulted in a different outcome?

I am not a fan of everything President Bush does(*), but he *is* our President for another 2 1/2 years. I am getting REALLY tired of the garbage coming out of the "hate-Bush" crowd just for the sake of hating Bush. Where's the actual logic behind your arguments that I am accustomed to hearing? Where's the reasoned, well thought out discussion?

Al I hear is "Impeach him" here, and "Bush Lied" there... all rallying cries without merit which when spread often enough gets believed by the masses. Use your brain... I *know* that you have a strong enough intellect to rise above the spin-doctoring and look at the *whole* situation, so why aren't you?

(*) I don't agree with Bush's religious rhetoric. I don't believe he is handling abortion or Stem-cell research issues properly. I don't beleive he is strong enough on our border problem (here in San Diego County, 1 in 6 are illegal aliens.). I don't think he should have encouraged Israel to enter into a cease-fire before the job was done. But I *do* think he is doing the best job possible with the war on terror, which from the start was stated that it wouldn't be easy, nor short... and economically he's kept this country in a very sound recovery after the Dot-Bombs and 9/11 combined to create a economic crisis that would have been worse than the Great depression had Gore or Kerry been in office.

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Thats an interesting version of history. It couldn't be that he was simply better able to hide than we were able to find him?

Hm. That's an interesting use of the passive excuse voice.

Better able to hide than who we were able to find him? Not me, not a lot of Democrats, not a lot of Penagon officials. bin Laden didn't hide better than them. Or, at least, we don't know if he would be better than them, because they were roundly shut out of the process of finding him.

There are a million references to how troops were pulled out of Afghanistan in order to prepare to invade Iraq as early as late 2002. This includes special forces troops and translators who were specifically assigned to the hunt for bin Laden. Bush thought that they needed to be pulled off of bin Laden and reassigned to Iraq. That's not 'hid better', that's 'we stopped looking'.

Impeach Bush. Do it now.

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What about the THREE times that the Sudanese government offered up OBL to President Clinton, and he decided not to take them up on it? How about the time a UAR vehicle followed OBL on camera at a country club, and Clinton decided *not* to launch a missile to take him out.

If you're going to pass blame, try doing it without a partisan filter. OBL is alive today by a combination of poor decisions, clever misdirection, and a lot of dumb luck. It's not all Bush's fault. (note: I'm not saying President Bush is faultless, but I have yet to see evidence that anyone else in his position would have acted in a way that would end with a better outcome)

...BTW, do you even know what "Impeach" means? It means to agree on a finding of an untruth. Impeachment of a person or piece of evidence doesn't have any direct effect, other than becoming a legal precedent for disbelieving other statements from the same source.

You are only crying "Impeach Bush" because the rest of the anti-Bush crowd is crying the same thing... you are a sheep, just following the flock, and I *challenge* you to think for yourself. The only reason the "flock" is crying for impeachment, is because their poster-child, Bill Clinton, got impeached when he was caught lying to Congress, and now the flock wants revenge... even though most people don't even know what impeachment is.

that's sad.

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OBL is alive today by a combination of poor decisions....

There's that passive excusive voice again....

Who's poor decisions would that have been again?

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Who's poor decisions would that have been again?

Like I said "a combination of poor decisions, [et.al]" which includes poor decisions by President Clinton a well as by President Bush.

If Clinton had acted on his intelligence, 9/11 would have been stopped. See the WHOLE picture, not just your partisan view that only makes Bush look bad.

What exactly would *you* have done differently if you were president? Cite some examples, and I'll cite possible outcomes that could be potentially worse that the position we're in now.

You have yet to show me any evidence that you are other than a sheep belching out the same mindless rhetoric that the rest of the anti-Bush crowd is spewing. Give me a reason to think better of you, and I promise that I will.

I don't hate differing opinions. I hate mindless ones.

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Hey, look, it's contemporary reporting!

March 23, 1998 - "Clinton SecDef Cohen criticizes 'wag the dog' characterization"

But let it not be said that I don't give both sides; March 1999 in "The Phyllis Schlafly Report", "Clinton's Post-Impeachment Power Grab" Damn Clinton's successful efforts to distract the nation from his blowjobs with 'national security'. Doesn't he realize, like this essay does, that we must not "provok(e) terrorist attacks" from bin Laden? What does he think he's doing, this crazy 'fight them there so we don't have to fight them at home' strategy?

December 31, 1998; "Wag The Dog?" It's good that solid conservative citizens are watching out for presidental overreach in war making powers.

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Reminds me of Clinton's attempt to revise FISA, and back in 1999 the Freepers went ballistic. My favorite quote: "Any chance of Bush rolling some of this back? It sounds amazing on its face."

Yeah, go ahead. Pull the other one.

Reminds me of this picture. How did kids in 1892 salute the flag?

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Yeah, the FISA debates of the late 90s are a great source of quotes for people interested in seeing how Republicans' views on executive power have... evolved from 1998 to 2005. I didn't bring them up because they're not directly relevant to the thread's obstensible purpose, but if we cared to debate the 'impeach Bush' aspect, they're certainly relevant. Personally, I feel that Bush's admission that he ignored both FISA and Geneva constitute prima facie grounds for quick and sure impeachment.

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you are a sheep, just following the flock

You only want to believe that. You're just as sheepish behind your keyboard.

Regardless of what Bill Clinton may or may not have done, the Bush Administration really screwed the pooch on deciding to prosecute the war in Iraq without justification or cause. The Senate today released documentation indicating that at the time we went to war there was no reason at all to believe that Hussein and Bin Laden were in any way connected. That has been the conclusion of every group, partisan or otherwise, that has looked at the issue.

Iraq remains a war of choice, not of necessity. In prosecuting that war, we drained ourselves of the necessary resources needed to achieve any sense of justice or closure against the perpetrators of 9/11.

Iraq remains a war of choice that has ballooned our deficit. Bush had the gall to go on the air and claim that he has reduced the tax benefit for everyone and has reduced the deficit, and there's no pony in that pile of bullshit because as long as we continue to spend money like there's no tomorrow, the tax bill that comes tomorrow will be Hell on our children and our children's children.

Meanwhile, I remain skeptical of this administrations ability to do anything with prinicple or moral forethought.

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mundens.livejournal.com

Heh, the bit of "not looking" i like is Bush explicitly telling the FBI to lay off the bin Ladens, in the year leading up to 9/11, because the bin Ladens were resposible for Bush earning his first million.

When Clinton did not take p Sudan on theor offer, bin Laden was still on the CIA pay-roll so it would have been a bit silly of Cinton to act against Amerrican assets wouldn't it? And that was also why the Sudanese "offered him up", they didn't llke having CIA-funded terrorists in their nidst.

Also, even if bin Laden had been an enemy at that point, unlike certain presidents, Clinton probably thought that international law and the soverignity of foriegn nations are importan princples that shouldn't be violated just to take a potshot at someone yuo don't like.

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You are sadly misinformed.

1) How exactly is it that the "Bin Ladens were responsible for Bush's first million?" That must be some conspiracy theory B.S. not even suited for the inside pages of the National Enquirer, cause I've never heard of it. I bet you heard that from a caller on Air America... and since those callers are all well-informed sources, it *must* be true.

2) When Clinton was president, OBL was not on the CIA payroll. OBL had been named the man who funded the FIRST world trade center bombing, the Attack on the USS Cole, and about a dozen other terrorist attacks. He was public enemy #1 as far as the CIA was concerned, which is why a Drone UAR vehicle was filming him in the first place.

3) Clinton had no problem with the sovereignty of other nations when he sent a cruise missile into an aspirin factory in Iraq... during the height of the Monica Lewinski debacle, and only 1 months after "Wag The Dog" hit the theatres, which probably gave him the idea in the first place. (ok, that last part was a cheap jab, and probably isn't true, but can you see how easy it is to spin mistruths?)

Be better informed, or risk looking like an idiot.

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technoshaman.livejournal.com

I love the British attitude after the bombings there of late...

"I've been shot at by a better class of bastard than this...."

... and get on with life

And of course Scotland Yard nabs fourteen guys within two weeks....

And when it turns out they had one guy wrong, they let him go.

And when Tony Blair screws up too much, he sets a timetable to STEP DOWN.

It's enough to make one want to become an expat.

If this next election doesn't throw at least some of the bastards out, I'm going to do something drastic. I'm not sure what, but I'm going to do something drastic. Whether it's learn French or take up long-range target shooting, I haven't decided yet. Although the latter has a definite appeal. And it means I don't have to move.

Did I mention I hate moving?

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mundens.livejournal.com

Also they discovered and nabbed those guys using good old fashioned policework, without using any of the draconian "anti-terrorist" powers.

The ring leader was a teenager whose dad had been "accidentally" killed by American soldiers while working in Iraq, so it certainly emphasizes the cause of continued violence.

If Scotland Yard hadn't stopped that group (and if their bombs had worked, the advice I've been given is that it was highly unlikely they'd have done anything more than setting themselves on fire) then the deaths of the people on those planes would have been directly traceable back to the decision to invade Iraq.

Even without them succeeding, it certainly shows that invading Iraq has not made Americans safer.

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tagryn

If Pakistani patrols were not making much of an impact in the Hunt For Bin Laden anyway, what difference does it make?

Furthermore, if there's no Pakistani presence in those areas, who's going to be enforcing the U.S.-stay-out edict? The Taliban? I don't see the Pakistani military riding to their rescue after being humiliated like this.
Obvious provocations like cruise missile attacks won't be tolerated, but covert things like Special Forces ops should be easier, if anything, now that the Pakistani military isn't watching the border closely anymore.

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omahas.livejournal.com

Furthermore, if there's no Pakistani presence in those areas, who's going to be enforcing the U.S.-stay-out edict? The Taliban? I don't see the Pakistani military riding to their rescue after being humiliated like this.
Obvious provocations like cruise missile attacks won't be tolerated, but covert things like Special Forces ops should be easier, if anything, now that the Pakistani military isn't watching the border closely anymore.

Really? You've got the Hezzbollah on one side of Pakistan, you've got the Taliban on the other, and a very fragile pro-American Pakistani government in between, becoming more fragile by the minute. Oh, and a bunch of nuclear bombs. Not tools to make them...they are ready to go.

So, go ahead and send in your Special Forces against the Taliban...assuming that George Bush allows any to be taken away from Iraq (did we forget how many forces he took *away* from the search for Bin Laden to go into Iraq in the first place?). Meanwhile the Hezzbollah rush the Pakistani government into oblivian. Then both *terrorist* organizations get to decide who gets the nuclear bombs first.

Did I mention Pakistan had nuclear bombs? Yeah, those things that Bush keeps on saying that Bin Laden wants and hasn't gotten yet. Methinks that he's getting closer and closer to them all the time...meanwhile, we are still stuck in Iraq, where we never should have been in the first place.

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tagryn

Given their history, its more than a bit of a reach to think Iran and the Taliban are going to be cooperating in a grand scheme to take down Pakistan anytime soon. If you're refering to the Kashmiri radicals, they don't appear to have enough strength to control even that region, much less the whole of the country.

The "Special Forces" hypothesis refers specifically to using them as small covert teams targeting Bin Laden (which might be a futile thing to keep doing anyway - look how long Eric Rudolph lasted without being found, and that was inside the USA, not the other side of the world). Nobody's talking about using SF to directly confront the Taliban; being used as basic infantry like that isn't their raison d'être, especially without a Northern Alliance-like force to serve as the boots on the ground.

Are the Taliban and the Islamists inside the military and the ISI one monolithic force operating in unison? When it comes to providing aid, probably. When it comes to yielding ultimate control, that's something else entirely. There's many Islamist sympathizers in the Pakistani army, and the ISI still sees the Taliban as a client to be nurtured. But its a looooooong way from that to thinking the current Pak powers-that-be would be interested in turning ultimate control + their nuke arsenal over to them, regardless of what happens to Musharref.

I also think India would have a rather large say into whose hands the Pak bombs ended up, if they thought the current situation there was about to fall into chaos. Think they're going to stand by twiddling their thumbs if it looks like the guys they've been fighting in Kashmir for decades are about to get the bomb? Doubt it.

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fallenpegasus

What would you have done, instead?

I myself would have immediately told Greenpeace to fuckoff, started building nudes, and then started blasting every hardliner mosque in Islamistan into small pieces, but somehow I doubt that that would be any more popular.

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