Maybe Murtha will support redeploying our troops to Iran.
Seems like the burden is on the USA to demonstrate the quality of our intelligence next time, but that should be the only burden.
Unfortunately, there is a greater burden that will not easily be overcome. This is the burden of division that has been established by the political left in our country. They are now challenging the whole concept of a War on Terror, whether we have been attacked, and whether we are really in one.
They are promoting 9/11 as a freak event spurred by a small and fragmented terror group rather than the first strike by a large, coordinated terror group operating under the protection of certain states.
This may sound like I made it up, but in our local papers, the Dem activists have been pushing this for months now in the letters-to-the-editors section. They quote Nueremburg trial statements to the effect that Bush has used 9/11 to create a sense of fear so that he can take over our country ala Hitler. Farenheit 911 has been absorbed by many and now is a perpective from which all facts are considered.
Its gonna be a much harder slog in the future.
Faulty intelligence was also apparent in the Clinton Kosovo intervention. MANY serious and fatal mistakes were made due to inaccurate intelligence, before and during our illegal involvement there. Where are Clinton's apologies??
The President is feeding into the media's, our ally's and our enemy’s notion, that the U.S. has to be perfect before its officials opens their mouths. The logic is so putridly flawed that Americans should be choking from the stench. First, the art of intelligence orbits around "reasons to believe" not "certitude". If American officials and agencies were "Hollywood" smart, every threat to the planet would be averted by some gun wielding, conundrum solving blend between Steven Hawkins and Rambo. Americans, like everyone else are real people with real abilities. Second, if the burden of moral and intellectual perfection were on the authors of the Declaration of Independence, it never would have been published. “..All men are created equal..” yes, but back then, slaves were men and they were not born equal. Correcting that discrepancy was a bloody ordeal but its correction was, in part, a result of that founding document.
The president took action in Iraq on “reasons to believe” and the world is a better place for it! It was a leap of faith that could’ve been more graceful yes, but the fact that he took it, his administration took it, places G. W. alongside those who fundamentally changed the way mankind looks at the world. Our intelligence on Iran is far better than what we had on Iraq but the burden of perfection is an ill conceived and wrong headed approach to the issue. The actual burden is on Iran to demonstrate that it is not trying to develop nuclear arms and it has yet to do so. Is President Bush to blame for that?