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Saturday, Oct. 30, 2004 1:46 p.m. EDT Kerry Endorsed Bush's Tora Bora Strategy After Osama bin Laden released his pre-election video yesterday, John Kerry repeated his criticism that President Bush let the terror kingpin get away by "outsourcing" the job to Afghan forces when we had bin Laden cornered in the Tora Bora mountains. But it turns out that in December 2001, when the Tora Bora operation was under way, Kerry endorsed Bush's tactics during an interview with CNN's Larry King. Kerry said the Bush plan to get bin Laden "is having its impact, and it is the best way...

After Osama bin Laden released his pre-election video yesterday, John Kerry repeated his criticism that President Bush let the terror kingpin get away by "outsourcing" the job to Afghan forces when we had him cornered in the Tora Bora mountains. But it turns out that in December 2001, when the Tora Bora operation was underway, Kerry endorsed Bush's tactics during an interview with CNN's Larry King. Kerry said the Bush plan to get bin Laden "is having its impact, and it is the best way to protect our troops and sort of minimalize the proximity, if you will." Lest anyone...

COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) - Osama bin Laden's sudden reappearance on videotape sent President Bush and Democrat John Kerry into a sharp final round of argument over which one can defeat terrorism and make Americans safe, the transcendent questions of the campaign. The presidential candidates responded with reflexive gestures of unity to the sight of America's deadly foe on video, but those were swallowed up in the lunge for advantage in the campaign's closing days. Kerry declared, "I can run a more effective war on terror" and revived his charges that Bush was responsible for letting bin Laden slip away. The...

In the 1990s, Afghanistan was allowed to fall to the Taliban and become the global center for the training, indoctrination and seeding of jihadists around the world -- including the mass murderers of Sept. 11, 2001. This week, just three years after a two-month war that destroyed the Taliban, Afghanistan completed its first free election, choosing as president a pro-American democrat enjoying legitimacy and wide popular support. This represents the single most astonishing geopolitical transformation of the past four years. (Deposing Saddam Hussein ranks second. The global jihad against America was no transformation at all: It existed long before the...

HOLY @#%^@#$&!!!! Joe Lockhart was trying to spin the myth that W let UBL escape from Tora Bora and citing retired AF (I think) General McPeak's statements that are negative about the war. Gibson pointed out that Gen. Franks himself has said that Kerry has his facts wrong about the situation in 2001 at Tora Bora. John Gibson: "Mr. Lockhart, you aren't questioning Gen. Frank's credibility are you?" Lockhart: "What I'm not doing is questioning Gen. McPeake's credibility...Gen. Franks has had two years to get his story straight about Tora Bora and he's out there doing the President a political...

A few items mentioned by John Kerry during the debates so concerned me that I felt compelled to write papers regarding them. This related his statements regarding Afghanistan and the construction of our military. These statements alarmed me as a veteran because they demonstrated an obvious misconstruction on the part of Senator Kerry regarding military operations and the organization of our forces - a dangerous factor in a candidate for our nations Commander-in-Chief. During the debates, when these statements were mentioned, I felt they received very little clarification from the main stream media. For anyone to make such statements, as...

A few items mentioned by John Kerry during the debates so concerned me that I felt compelled to write papers regarding them. This related his statements regarding Afghanistan and the construction of our military. These statements alarmed me as a veteran because they demonstrated an obvious misconstruction on the part of Senator Kerry regarding military operations and the organization of our forces - a dangerous factor in a candidate for our nations Commander-in-Chief. During the debates, when these statements were mentioned, I felt they received very little clarification from the main stream media. For anyone to make such statements, as...

A few items mentioned by John Kerry during the debates so concerned me that I felt compelled to write papers regarding them. This related his statements regarding Afghanistan and the construction of our military. These statements alarmed me as a veteran because they demonstrated an obvious misconstruction on the part of Senator Kerry regarding military operations and the organization of our forces - a dangerous factor in a candidate for our nations Commander-in-Chief. During the debates, when these statements were mentioned, I felt they received very little clarification from the main stream media. For anyone to make such statements, as...

NYTrogate, Tora Bora, Put Kerry Back In His Element: Slamming the Military There's an old saying that you can't teach an old dog new tricks. Well, there's a reason that sayings become "old sayings". Mainly because they've basically been proven correct over time. After listening to John Kerry for the last few days, never has the "old dog" adage been more fitting. What we're talking about specifically here is John Kerry's slander and criticism of our armed forces. As everyone knows by now, upon his return from Vietnam (John Kerry served in Vietnam, did you know that?) Kerry aided and...

Mora Bora: Reader D.P. notes that the Kerry Edwards Web site, responding to Bush's charge of Monday morning quaterbacking on Tora Bora, has posted the following citation to a November 16, 2001 television interview Kerry gave to John McLaughlin:[snip] First, I'm not sure this does the trick. Are "rangers" and "Special Forces" what you would use to block escape routes in a large mountainous area? Don't you need lots of troops for that--hence the need for Afghan proxies?Second, the Kerry camp may regret calling attention to that McLaughlin transcript.  Earlier in the interview--which, remember, took place two months after 9/11, in the...

Is Osama bin Laden alive or dead? And if Osama is alive, where is he? "President Bush knows damn well that (bin Laden) has been dead for quite some time," said former Navy SEAL Matthew Heidt, echoing the sentiments of many in the special operations community. "(Bin Laden) has not been heard from since Tora Bora despite developments in the Global War on Terror that make it unthinkable for him to remain silent," Heidt said in his web log, "Froggy Ruminations." The last audiotape purportedly from bin Laden (but not authenticated) was issued on May 7th of this year. But...

On Kerry, Bush and bin Laden By B Raman In his campaign for election as president of the United States, Democratic Senator John Kerry has been blaming incumbent President George W Bush for the failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden during the battle at Tora Bora in Afghanistan toward the end of 2001. According to Kerry, the US failure was due to the fact that instead of using US troops in the battle, Bush outsourced the job to the Afghan warlords, who let bin Laden escape. Kerry's claims are partly true and partly incorrect. They are true to...

In his campaign for election as president of the United States, Democratic Senator John Kerry has been blaming incumbent President George W Bush for the failure to capture or kill Osama bin Laden during the battle at Tora Bora in Afghanistan toward the end of 2001. According to Kerry, the US failure was due to the fact that instead of using US troops in the battle, Bush outsourced the job to the Afghan warlords, who let bin Laden escape. Kerry's claims are partly true and partly incorrect. They are true to the extent that the US military did use Afghan...

I'd always figured Kerry was on relatively strong ground criticizing the "outsourced" approach at Tora Bora because he must have criticized it at the time. But Tom Maguire of JustOneMinute has come up with a transcript of a "Larry King Live" broadcast on Dec. 14, 2001, during the month-long battle, in which (responding to a question about why we weren't up in the caves using "napalm or flamethrowers"**) Kerry appears to actually endorse a play-it-safe, minimize-U.S.-casualties approach: But for the moment, what we are doing, I think, is having its impact and it is the best way to protect our...

Here it is, folks. The president should be all over this one. From LARRY KING ALIVE on Dec. 14, 2001 --- CALLER: Hello. Yes, I would like to ask the panel why they don't use napalm or flamethrowers on those tunnels and caves up there in Afghanistan? KING: Senator Kerry? ...KERRY: Well, I think it depends on where you are tactically. They may well be doing that at some point in time. But for the moment, what we are doing, I think, is having its impact and it is the best way to protect our troops and sort of minimalize...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The former commander of U.S. forces in Iraq and Afghanistan on Tuesday disputed Democratic presidential candidate John Kerry's charge that the Bush administration let Osama bin Laden escape Afghanistan in 2001. "I was responsible for the operation at Tora Bora, and I can tell you that the senator's understanding of events doesn't square with reality," retired Army Gen. Tommy Franks wrote in a commentary published by The New York Times. The Kerry campaign took issue with the retired general's comments. "Franks is a patriot. But in his attempt to campaign for President (George W.) Bush, he's letting...

China denies hiding Osama bin Laden Beijing, China, Oct. 19 (UPI) -- China's Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Zhang Qiyue Tuesday sharply denied that Osama bin Laden was hiding in Chinese territory near the Pakistan border.

The Two Johns: So What Do You Want for Lunch? (election levity) Written by Gregory Borse Sunday, October 17, 2004 A new reality television series is being launched by Al Gore's fledgling cable channel. Titled ''The Two Johns,'' the series will capture the riveting behind-the-scenes action as two rich, white liberals plot their run for the White House during the 2004 presidential campaign. While the series is still in production, a special screening of previously filmed footage was made available to the press for review. Here's a snip: John: ''So what do you want for lunch?'' John: ''You know, we...

Geraldo will discuss Kerry's complaints about failure to capture Osama Bin Laden at Tora Bora.

As John Kerry tells it, Tora Bora is the place where President Bush let Osama bin Laden get away.... Well, that's not the way the battle's commanders remember it. The Afghanistan war was led by Gen. Tommy Franks, commander of U.S. Central Command, and his deputy, Lt. Gen. Michael "Rifle" DeLong.... To them, Mr. Kerry's version of the battle of Tora Bora is revisionist history. ...Gen. Franks, on the campaign... for George W. Bush,... said it's wrong to assume that bin Laden was hiding out in Tora Bora. Some intelligence reports put him there, he says, but others placed him...