To John – TMF: Sorry, but you’re one tripping up back-asswards over GOP talking points. I have similar discussion going on over at the “Eight Years After…” article thread, so I’ll just repost my responses here:
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I’m tempted to make another snarky comment at yet more boneheaded comments about Obama, but there are a few more reasoned comments here than is usual for PJM. After a very bitter and very divisive election, 9/11 did very much unite almost everyone of all political stripes and philosophies. This wasn’t some complicated, arguable politics-ridden misadventure involving Latin America, Africa, the Middle East or such, but a bold, no-nonsense, in your face attack on not just US soil, but on its symbols. It was a time for all political BS to be put aside and get serious. And at first that’s what we did. An ultimatum to the Taliban to give up Bin Laden, pressure on Pakistan to cooperate, and when the Taliban didn’t cooperate, a call to arms and a swift beat down on both the Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in Afghanistan. And as to the site of the fallen World Trade Towers, there were all these bold plans to replace them with something even more soaring to become an even greater symbol of America. But roll ahead several years, and….
Another bitter election with even more divisive politics, although in a near complete reversal in philosophy and sides of the first one, a revived and wearying war in Afghanistan thanks to the prior administration not exactly keeping its attention there, delays and cutbacks in vision regarding getting anything done at the World Trade Towers site, permanent and eyerollingly inefficient delays at airports, and bin Laden still on the loose. What have we learned?
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To Scott: You’re doing an awful lot of supposing and guesswork there, most of it not supported. Yeah, Iraq drew in a lot of bad guys wanting to get in on the party, but look at the consequences in terms of US casualties and especially those of Iraqi civilians, as well as US prestige. And never mind the evidence or lack thereof for justifying the invasion in the first place. Afghanistan, though, was a fair bust — nobody but nobody begrudged us going in because it was legitimate: we were hit bad and the guy primarily responsible was in Afghanistan and protected by the people ruling Afghanistan, and they weren’t giving him up. Nothing complicated in that scenario. The ferocity of our attack really took them by surprised and they basically just scattered. *That* was when we should have put our full resources into hunting them all down, and if we had, it would have been a virtual gimme that bin Laden would have been captured or dead by now, and more certainly al-Qaeda virtually destroyed as any sort of real threat.
But….we didn’t do that, did we?
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To Scott: it *is* guesswork, and not too logical — the Iraq war not only gave al-Qaeda greater area to work from outside of their Afghan and Pakistani bases, but apparently actually helped al-Qaeda with its recruitment. And it was *not* “also generally accepted by most intelligence communities that Saddam possessed WMDs and was pursuing nuclear weapons” especially so after the Afghanistan invasion when intel gathering ramped up and pretty much all of it was pointing away from Iraq as not only having no WMD program, but also no ties to any terrorist groups outside of the Palestinians. What Pelosi, Kennedy or whoever *thought* might have been the case is utterly irrelevant to what Bush and his people thought, and they easily had the best, most up to date intel, and that intel apparently put a lie to their BS claims.
