Matthew Yglesias writes:
TAPPED: September 2004 Archives: THE CHARGE NOT ANSWERED. The main thing that lends debates -- as opposed to normal speeches -- some interest is that even when the candidates aren't allowed to directly address one another, they still set up their charges in such a way as to clearly imply that the other guy ought to be responding to his opponents' attacks. In that light, it's worth highlighting one charge Kerry made several times that Bush never responded to directly -- namely that the reason Osama bin Laden is at large threatening the United States rather than dead on the battlefield was the Bush administration's decision to "outsource" the battle of Tora Bora. I've never heard any of Bush's allies offer a convincing defense of this decision, and it's a critique Kerry's been leveling on-and-off ever since the day it happened. Tonight, Bush didn't even try. A tacit admission, perhaps, that Kerry was right. I think that means Kerry ought to press the assault forward and start bringing this up more often. Force the president to either admit he was wrong and puncture his self-cultivated mystique of infallibility or else offer some kind of defense. I don't see what he could possibly have to say for himself.
Come on. It's obvious what he has to say for himself. In the administration after September 11, those who worried too much about bin Laden or Zawahiri or Al Qaeda or Ansar Al-Islam were girlie men. Real men worried about Iraq, and Saddam Hussein.
Posted by DeLong at October 2, 2004 06:25 PM | TrackBackI've noted many times that what history will judge bush most harshly on is the failure at tora bora. In addition to his unwillingness to commit sufficient american troops to get the job done (at a time when he had 90% support), the bush and his team turned down NATO's offer to help in afghanistan, so there were two ways he could have had sufficient reliable troops to accomplish the task.
Posted by: howard at October 2, 2004 07:22 PMSadly, it's worse than that.
Real men - still! - worry about, and want to go to, Tehran.
Something else to consider as you cast your ballot in November.
Posted by: Dave L at October 3, 2004 04:26 AMGoing after AQ is merely "swatting flies". Real men do missle defense, even if it doesn't wotk.
Posted by: ESaund at October 3, 2004 06:16 AMOne thing that has bugged me is that well before Tora Bora, there was a point where the Taliban said "OBL is a guest of ours, and we won't hand him over to you unless you show us that he did this terrible thing". Unlike Iraq's WMD, it doesn't seem like it would have been very difficult for us to come up with reasonable evidence of bin Laden's complicity; granted, they may very well have reneged on that promise, but I don't see what harm would have been done by trying. Instead of offering evidence and taking the chance of actually getting our man, we simply put on the white bedsheets and went in, managing to conveniently lose him in time for Iraq.
Posted by: Dave at October 3, 2004 09:12 AMNot only did Bush fail to catch bin Laden at Tora Bora, but that he failed or refused to kill al-Zarqawi, who was in the Kurdish controlled area of Iraq, and who could have been killed either before or after the war. Instead, having screwed up the Turkish route into northern Iraq, he landed a few troops in the north, who simply chased that murderous scum into Iraq, from which he returned with deadly effect. Now Bush has to rely on the "hard work" problem, how unfairly hard it is to catch people like these two.
Why anyone thinks Bush has a clue about running a war is a total mystery to me. It does give me new respect for the power of lying.
Posted by: masaccio at October 3, 2004 10:48 AMmortgage leads
Posted by: mortgage leads at October 4, 2004 11:27 PMMasaccio the US has been trying to kill Zarqawi. The problem is according to msnbc they failed to try for political reasons before the war started.
Jim Miklaszewski on March 2, 2004. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601/
“News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger. ….. Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.
The United States did attack the camp at Kirma at the beginning of the war, but it was too late — Zarqawi and many of his followers were gone. “Here’s a case where they waited, they waited too long and now we’re suffering as a result inside Iraq,” Cressey added.
And despite the Bush administration’s tough talk about hitting the terrorists before they strike, Zarqawi’s killing streak continues today.”
Posted by: koby at October 5, 2004 03:09 PMMasaccio the US has been trying to kill Zarqawi. The problem is according to msnbc they failed to try for political reasons before the war started.
Jim Miklaszewski on March 2, 2004. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601/
“News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger. ….. Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.
The United States did attack the camp at Kirma at the beginning of the war, but it was too late — Zarqawi and many of his followers were gone. “Here’s a case where they waited, they waited too long and now we’re suffering as a result inside Iraq,” Cressey added.
And despite the Bush administration’s tough talk about hitting the terrorists before they strike, Zarqawi’s killing streak continues today.”
Posted by: koby at October 5, 2004 03:09 PMMasaccio the US has been trying to kill Zarqawi. The problem is according to msnbc they failed to try for political reasons before the war started.
Jim Miklaszewski on March 2, 2004. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601/
“News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger. ….. Military officials insist their case for attacking Zarqawi’s operation was airtight, but the administration feared destroying the terrorist camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against Saddam.
The United States did attack the camp at Kirma at the beginning of the war, but it was too late — Zarqawi and many of his followers were gone. “Here’s a case where they waited, they waited too long and now we’re suffering as a result inside Iraq,” Cressey added.
And despite the Bush administration’s tough talk about hitting the terrorists before they strike, Zarqawi’s killing streak continues today.”
Posted by: koby at October 5, 2004 03:10 PM