Posted on 03/22/2004 12:10:34 PM PST by Oldeconomybuyer
The reason it makes sense to say this is because of all of those post-9/11 terrorist attacks against the American people. Such as the one on... um... well, you know, the one where.... wait. Hmm.
"Bush has not reduced the terrorist threat" is easy to say. That's because it's based on absolutely nothing. You may as well say "Bush has not reduced the Martian threat". The objective, quantifiable evidence is the same for each.
...the administration "failed to act prior to September 11 on the threat from al Qaeda despite repeated warnings."
That's true, they did. Clearly what they should have done was to propose, out of the blue, say in July 2001, that we invade Afghanistan.
I'm sure that would've gone over well. And Mr. Clarke would have been one of the most prominent spokesmen in favor. ;-)
The administration's singular focus on Saddam Hussein led to "an unnecessary and costly war in Iraq that strengthened the fundamentalist, radical Islamic terrorist movement worldwide,"
The reason it makes sense for him to say that it has "strengthened" the movement is because of the increase in... um... I mean, the movement is Stronger because we measure Strength-of-Movement by the statistic... wait. Dang.
Try as I might, I just can't figure out how to make sense of these assertions.
What's even funnier is that apparently our invasion of Iraq strengthened radical Islam. Even though Iraq apparently had nothing to do with radical Islam. By this logic, an invasion of Sweden would have REALLY strengthened radical Islam.
While the cabinet-rank "principals" were meeting at least weekly on terrorism during the Clinton administration, the first cabinet-level meeting on al Qaeda occurred ...
Is this Clarke's code way of complaining that he was no longer considered "cabinet-level"? "Waaa, the other President had meetings with me and listened to my words. My beautiful, beautiful words. But this one didn't have meetings with me."
After Sept. 11, 2001, the administration used the terrorist attacks for political and ideological gain.
What in the heck is "ideological gain"? How do you "use" something for "ideological gain"? Sounds so sinister. But is this saying anything other than "after 9/11 Bush argued that a different way of thinking was warranted"? Oooh, how sinister.
As for "political gain", don't make me laugh. Lefties say stuff like "Bush wanted to invade Iraq to shore up his numbers". Yet his numbers sink all the while he's doing it. Sometimes I don't know how peoples' heads don't explode from the things they think.
Clarke reveals that on Sept. 12, 2001 President Bush ordered him to, "Look into Iraq, Saddam,"
How dare President Bush order someone to look into whether the most prominent belligerent state on September 10th had something to do with an attack that occurred on September 11th!!!
despite clear evidence that al Qaeda was behind the attacks
There was "clear evidence" on September 12, 2001 that Al Qaeda and no one else was behind the attacks? News to me. So why on earth then did we spend six weeks debating whether to attack Afghanistan? And why did I have to listen to oodles of lefties question the Al Qaeda link? (REMEMBER folks, it was really only when a certain videotape of Osama discussing the attacks surfaced, that most lefties conceded AQ's involvement. EVEN THEN there was questioning of e.g. the CIA translation of his words!)
Frankly, to stand there on September 12, 2001 and say "there's NO WAY Iraq had anything to do with those attacks yesterday" is FAR MORE IRRESPONSIBLE, if not downright negligent, than to order an underling to look into the possibility.
and despite the lack of any credible link between Saddam and Osama bin Laden.
That's right: there are links, just not "credible" ones. And the definition of "credible" is "believed by lefties".
The administration immediately used the tragedy and outpouring of public support to shift attention to its decades-long agenda of ousting Saddam Hussein
That's right, they did. After all, they invaded Iraq a MERE year-and-a-half later!!! And in the meantime it's not like they invaded Afghanistan or anything like that. No, they "immediately" went after Hussein 19 months later. Those opportunists!
The administration's misguided war against Iraq diverted critical focus from al Qaeda.
Ah yes, this "focus" thing. Because remember, our government can't possibly walk and chew gum at the same time. We only have a finite number of Focus Points (tm) to allocate, and any FP's spent on Iraq are FP's not spent on "Al Qaeda" (regardless of what that "focus" consists of or how applicable the resources we applied in Iraq would have been to "fighting Al Qaeda"). Call it the D&D approach to national security.
The administration's disingenuous and inept handling of Iraq is now fully exposed.
Yes, after all Iraq is a "fiasco" and a "quagmire". It's not like there's a provisional constitution, dwindling insurgent attacks, and a captured Hussein or anything. FIASCO!!!
Instead of focusing on bin Laden and al Qaeda,
Again with this "focus" thing!!
Just once I'd like someone to explain, in English, what "focus" actually entails.
The Bin Laden Hunt, for the record, is by its very nature a job for special ops type forces combined with intelligence (and, statecraft i.e. handling Pakistan carefully). Having GIs and tanks on the ground in Iraq takes NOTHING away from the B.L.H. because those things would not be particularly useful in the B.L.H. in the first place.
The usual response is "but they could help Look For Bin Laden". "Look" where??? Without knowing where he is, it'd have been idiotic to send huge divisions of our armed forces out to construct bases, and then stew in them, in the middle of Afghanistan waiting for a Bin Laden sighting or rumor (which is what such "looking" would actually mean). It's also a question of resource allocation: how crucial is Bin Laden as a strategic target, really? He's a tall dweeb who played sugar daddy, he's not a military mastermind. We want him for the revenge/justice factor to be sure, but at some point diminishing returns sets in, and you gotta figure pouring 40% of our armed forces into the Afghan wilderness to sit there without a particular location or anything else to go on wouldn't have made a whole lot of sense in the first place.
(But of course all that detail goes out the window if you subscribe to the D&D foreign policy theory of generic "Focus Points".)
key Bush administration officials chose to follow up on their long-term dream to overthrow Saddam.
Yes indeed they did. And that is a crime, because in this country you are not allowed to have certain opinions, like "Hussein should be overthrown". Some opinions are verboten and that is one of them. Everyone knows that!
And the administration deceived the American people by promoting a war in Iraq that has failed to address the real terrorist threat.
The "deception" being... um...
The "real terrorist threat" the administration should have gone after instead is located in.... wait...
Sorry, still doesn't make any sense.
By this I take it that you don't think our embassies or ships count for squat. Nice!
Lies, eh? Just about everyone on both sides of the aisle in this country, and most foreign countries, including the French, believed that Saddam had WMDs. But you parrot the left-wing lied that Bush lied. I suppose you'll next say that Bush claimed the threat was imminent when it was not.
I wonder if they are even capable of comprehending it.
This from someone who is unwilling to honestly frame the debate and resorts to lame, threadbare Dem talking points.
Thanks for playing, the mods have a parting gift for you.
Try changing the corrupt governments that rob them of their hope. Oops, we did that in Iraq. But you said Iraq was all about lies and was a sideshow in the terror war.
Looks like you have some contradictions to work out in your positions. But, then again, if you didn't have such contradictions, you wouldn't be a liberal.
Changing the "hearts and minds" of "disenfranchised" Arab youth is a noble and strategic goal. However, America has as much tactical control of these wahaabi-infected jihadist-wannabe's as I have control over my neighbor's beligerant children. Arabs, Arab governments, and islamic clerics created the cesspool of hate that infected their "hearts and minds" - not America or the West.
It will take generations to reverse the hate in the Arab world against the West. Any real change must come from within. The West can influence Arabs and show them a roadmap to democratic principals -- Afghanistan and Iraq being the models. However, I'm not willing to sacrafice another innocent civilian life waiting for Arabs to solve their longterm social problems.
However, during that time Clinton did very little to combat the rise of al Qaeda - whereas Bush, since 9/11, has taken out their home base, hunted them down wherever American troops are allowed to go and pressured other countries to assist in the hunt, and changed the entire dynamic of Arab politics by taking out Saddam - by carrying out a policy initially approved by Congress and Bill Clinton but never carried out, namely regime change in Iraq.
Agreed. My point is that length of time between attacks on the U.S. isn't a good indicator of progress.
I don't believe we'll see the end of terrorist attacks against the U.S. anytime soon.
"so many"???? Name ONE.
Your question springs from an idiotic premise. It's actually impossible, not "important", to answer. As would be the question "why does 2+2=5?"
Not only is the task of keeping weapons of mass destruction out of the hands of those who would do us harm an impractical, if not impossible, job
It's difficult, I'll grant. To say it's "impossible" is ridiculous. "Impractical" just connotes a value judgment that you don't think it's worth necessary costs and efforts to do it. The question then becomes why you are so unwilling to pay that cost/effort, and why you would bizarrely assume that the rest of us are somehow required to share your lack of interest in defending the country?
on a personal level, I am no more afraid of being blown up by a fission bomb than I am of being shot with a gun or pierced with a knife.
That's swell. Thanks for sharing the fascinating autobiographical remarks. I guess you've then answered the first part of my preceding question above. The second part, however, remains unanswered.
Al Qaeda will kill Westerners with or without weapons of mass destruction.
Not if we prevent them from doing so (by killing them before they can, for example).
The "War on Terror" should have been called something closer to the "War on Al Qaeda" from the beginning.
I almost agree, although "war on Al Qaeda" would have also been misleading because in reality there's no such thing as a well-defined, clearly-delineated organization called "Al Qaeda"; rather it's a loose association of like-minded groups.
It should be called the "War on Radical Islam" (or "Islamofascism" as some style it). Because that is what it is. All things considered it's probably best, for political/PR reasons, that our leadership not use this phrase however; hence the invention of the flawed, vague, but less offensive phrase "War on Terror".
That all being said, I hope you don't get the idea that criticizing the phrase "War on Terror" constitutes a substantive foreign policy criticism of some kind.
Perhaps if it had been [called the War on Al Qaeda], the reasons why the Iraq war was such a mistake would be more apparent.
Heck, if it had been called the "War on Jerry Falwell" then the reasons why the Afghanistan war (and indeed any war against anyone other than Jerry Falwell) was such a mistake would be more apparent. Sorry, but your foreign-policy-argument-by-semantics is less than convincing.
As has been discussed numerous times, not only was there no credible link between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda,
Right, no "credible" link, just links. Where "credible" is defined as "believed by lefties".
the ensuing chaos of the invasion and occupation
"chaos"!
has actually allowed Al Qaeda to gain a foothold in Iraq.
Oh yeah they have a real "foothold" all right.
our eagerness to invade Iraq illustrates a disconnect in the administration's ability to perceive where Al Qaeda's legions of recruits come from and what motivates them.
Do tell, O expert on Al Qaeda people, where their legions of recruits come from and what motivates them. Since you have such insight into the personalities of these people and all.
If, immediately after September 11, 2001, we had been told that our pursuit of the perpetrators of the event would have been met with almost certain violent retaliation against the citizens of the Western world, the citizens of the Western world, not just the United States, would have been ready to make that sacrifice.
???? We were told that!!
On September 12: "Freedom and democracy are under attack.... This enemy hides in shadows and has no regard for human life. This is an enemy who preys on innocent and unsuspecting people, then runs for cover, but it won't be able to run for cover forever.... This battle will take time and resolve, but make no mistake about it, we will win.... We are operating on heightened security alert. America is going forward, and as we do so, we must remain keenly aware of the threats to our country.... This will be a monumental struggle of good versus evil, but good will prevail."
On September 20: "night fell on a different world, a world where freedom itself is under attack.... These terrorists kill not merely to end lives, but to disrupt and end a way of life. With every atrocity, they hope that America grows fearful, retreating from the world and forsaking our friends. They stand against us, because we stand in their way.... And they will follow that path all the way, to where it ends: in history's unmarked grave of discarded lies.... This war will not be like the war against Iraq a decade ago, with a decisive liberation of territory and a swift conclusion. It will not look like the air war above Kosovo two years ago, where no ground troops were used and not a single American was lost in combat.... Americans should not expect one battle, but a lengthy campaign, unlike any other we have ever seen. It may include dramatic strikes, visible on TV, and covert operations, secret even in success. We will starve terrorists of funding, turn them one against another, drive them from place to place, until there is no refuge or no rest.... This is not, however, just America's fight. And what is at stake is not just America's freedom. This is the world's fight. This is civilization's fight."
And on and on. I'm sorry that (rather straightforward if you ask me) speeches like this confused you as to what was ahead. I do have to wonder what you thought he meant by all those words. That we would have an easy, short fight? That radical Islamists would never strike back? That 9/11/2001 was the last terror attack? That's an odd reading.
The fact is we WERE told (as if we needed to be "told", as if it wasn't obvious to anyone who wasn't an idiot) that (1) this would be a long, hard fight, (2) that it was not just America's fight but civilization's. You are here asserting that upon being "told" this (we WERE told this!), "the citizens of the Western world...would have been ready to make that sacrifice."
Well guess what? Facts aren't exactly on your side. France, Germany, Belgium, and (now) Spain ARE NOT ready to make that sacrifice. They have made the exact OPPOSITE calculation you are here claiming they would: they have said, time and time again, (and Spain said last week), that if America going on offense would lead to reprisals from Islamists, then they DON'T want to fight with us - they want to prevent us from fighting.
However, the imperative after September 11, 2001 was to eradicate those in the Muslim world who actively engaged in killing our civilians for no other reason than their country of citizenship.
You may remember a little thing called the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan.
Yet, to this day, we still do not understand why so many people in the Arab and Muslim world who may not be actively engaged in the murder of our civilians at least consider it fair game.
Personally I think a lot of 'em are wacko. Why? What's your theory?
there are more approaches to achieving this goal than the military ones that have been almost exclusively deployed thus far.
such.... as....? Don't be shy, tell us your strategy.
The best weapon that we have in this "war on terrorism" is that these people are rational and are moral, despite the fact that most Westerners, myself included, find their rationality and morality abhorrent.
Speak for yourself. I don't see anything the least bit "moral" about them. Most of these people are just a bunch of damn nihilists.
I think a lot of people get fooled by the beards.
By making plain to them that if they do, they die.
This says it all. "Liberals" aren't liberal. Thus, the sarcastic quotation marks.
I don't believe we'll see the end of terrorist attacks against the U.S. anytime soon.
Would you please refresh my memory?
Muslim terrorism will not be eliminated in my lifetime, I'm afraid.
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