Invasion of Iraq good or bad for War on Terror?

[Vympel]

I see Perinquus is breaking out the Sean Hannity "Sudanese Government had Bin Laden" bullshit.

Yeah, some preliminary looking into that reveals that it seems to be far from uncontroversial fact- and the guy who Hannity gets this story from, Mansoor Ijaz, likes to bill himself as the man who 'negotiated' for the Sudanese with the Clinton Administration- apparently, some people find it credible that the US government conducts diplomacy through private individuals, especially private individuals purporitng to negotiating for a known terrorist state.

[Edi]

And he's states clearly that he views operations against terrorists as more of a law enforcement matter than a military one,

Well, what else are counter-terrorism efforts if not a law-enforcement operation? Aside from absolutely clear-cut cases like the Taliban in Afghanistan who sponsored and supported the 9/11 attacks and refused any cooperation in bringing obvious criminals to justice, how do you conduct efficient counter-terrorism operations without the main effort being a law-enformcement one (an international effort at that, but law-enforcement nonetheless)? Going around blowing things up in unrelated places and killing people when you can't produce any meaningful evidence of their involvement is only going to sharply increase the number of people who will be very cross with you, and if those people happen to be of the bent that easily resorts to violence when crossedm you have just created a new bunch of terrorists who'll be out for your blood.

You might want to take a careful look at the way Europe has handled terrorism in the past 30 years, it has been, without exception, an issue of law-enforcement. Even in Northern Ireland where the Bristish brought in the army because they didn't have enough cops. To suggest that terrorism is something that can be solved militarily is ludicrous. You can temporarily suppress a known nest of terrorists with military force, but that is going to do nothing to remove the reasons for terrorism, which are societal, economic, polirical and/or religious.

That's how it was viewed by Clinton, and that precisely why we didn't get Osama Bin Laden when the Sudanese government offered to hand him over - treating it as a law enforcement matter, we didn't have enough to hold him. Clinton admitted this specifically, saying: "At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America".

So what should he have done? Accepted having bin Laden handed over and locked him up indefinitely without a trial, giving a visible martyr for the AQ cause and getting roundly castigated by the rest of the world? Or accepted and quietly have him killed, with the same results?

And now Kerry has stated that he wants to do what Clinton did - treat terrorism as a law enforcement problem. That approach cost over 3,000 Americans their lives on 9/11/01. It's a recipe for disaster.

No, incompetent intelligence handling, dismissal as impossible of the late 1990s plot to use airliners as terrorism vehicles (which should have clued in the intel services that it could happen) and absolutely laughable, fucked up airport "security" in the name of convenience (which made it especialy possible in America) was what killed 3000 Americans on September 11th, 2001, and saying anything else is just making excuses for those whose job it was to think about this kind of things.

Imagine we manage to caprute a terrorist either here, or abroad and we manage to get him back here. Then, treating it as a law enforcement matte, we duly appoint the terrorist an attorney and attempt to try him like a criminal - even though we realistically can't reveal a lot of our intelligence sources, which would throw out an enormous amount of evidence against the defendant, and most of the relevant witnesses may live in other countries where they could laugh at a subpoena to appear in a U.S. district court. Remember that in 1996, even after Al-Qaeda had been involved in the first WTC bombings, Bill Clinton still didn't believe we had a basis on which to hold Osama Bin Laden. He knew Bin Laden was responsible, but probably didn't think that they prove it in a court of law.

Oh, the horror of actually having to follow the laws even when it's inconvenient! I suppose it's completely okay to ignore the constitution then if it's only foreigners who don't like America that we're talking about? Or is it? Do you really want to explore the wider implications of what you're saying here? Tell you what, there is a solution that should have been used if extrajudicial measures were to be taken in any case, and that would have been a quick, quiet, competent assassination using whatever methods the CIA and the US military have at their disposal for such operations, and afterward not pretending to take the moral high ground but just citing national security grounds.

Sorry, this approach is wholly inadequate to deal with the threat.

If the law-enforcement approach is so insufficient (European history of successfully dealing with terrorism being evidence to the contrary ) and the military approach as taken in the case of Iraq being demonstrably ineffective, I suppose you have a working solution?

It is not inconceivable that terrorists could obtain a small nuclear device.

Given how even Saddam Hussein's Iraq and North Korea have had difficulty getting nukes (the former unsuccessfully and the latter only probably), with the resources of whole countries at their disposal, you will please provide some evidence to support this claim that scattered organizations like AQ with less resources at their disposal could get their hands on such closely guarded and monitored devices.

In an age where this kind of attack is not beyond the realm of possibility, I simply do not believe we can afford to follow this sort of unworkable strategy.

How is the law-enforcement approach, as evidenced by European experience, unworkable in teh face of terrorism? Oh, wait, it isn't...

I can just imagine someone in the CIA telling us, after a tramp steamer carrying a nuke blows up in New York harbor: "Well, yes, we did know who the terrorists were, and where their base was, but the administration didn't think we could make a case against them in court so we didn't take any action".

False dilemma. Not having enough evidence to hold up in a court of law does not prevent dealing with a terrorist base of operations by force, just better have some evidence that they indeed are the terrorists you claim they are if you want to have support (which was not the case in Iraq).

Bush may have fumbled diplomacy with some of our allies, but at least his approach - a military aproach - makes far better sense than Kerry's would.

Military approach against unrelated targets that are actually hostile to the same terrorists you want to apprehend (which Saddam was) makes sense? What the fuck are you smoking?

I'd far rather have an undiplomatic president aggressively targeting terrorists and taking military action, than a dovish president who takes insufficient action and allows the terrorists to stay at large and dangerous.

Tell me again, in the context of this thread, what the hell were the links between Iraq and AQ and where the fuck is the evidence? You had plenty of evidence against the Taliban and unsurprisingly got a lot of support in whacking them, unless your memory is that short, but this thread deals with the war in Iraq, so give me the relevant evidence or concede the damned argument.

Edi

[Iceberg]

I see Perinquus is breaking out the Sean Hannity "Sudanese Government had Bin Laden" bullshit.

Yeah, some preliminary looking into that reveals that it seems to be far from uncontroversial fact- and the guy who Hannity gets this story from, Mansoor Ijaz, likes to bill himself as the man who 'negotiated' for the Sudanese with the Clinton Administration- apparently, some people find it credible that the US government conducts diplomacy through private individuals, especially private individuals purporitng to negotiating for a known terrorist state.

When the CIA investigated Ijaz in 1996, they discovered that he was a businessman specializing in export - and the Sudanese exportation business was badly hurt by the sanctions imposed at the time. The Sudanese government disclaimed his story, so the US government dismissed his offer with no further negotiations.

[Vympel]

When the CIA investigated Ijaz in 1996, they discovered that he was a businessman specializing in export - and the Sudanese exportation business was badly hurt by the sanctions imposed at the time. The Sudanese government disclaimed his story, so the US government dismissed his offer with no further negotiations.

Oh really?

Just. Typical.

[Iceberg]

When the CIA investigated Ijaz in 1996, they discovered that he was a businessman specializing in export - and the Sudanese exportation business was badly hurt by the sanctions imposed at the time. The Sudanese government disclaimed his story, so the US government dismissed his offer with no further negotiations.

Oh really?

Just. Typical.

In this case, the "law enforcement" approach to counterterrorism that Perinquus derides saved the United States Government from the incredible international embarrassment that would have resulted from "negotiating" a handover with an illegitimate "envoy" who had no actual contacts or status with the government he claimed to represent.

[Perinquus]

I see Perinquus is breaking out the Sean Hannity "Sudanese Government had Bin Laden" bullshit.

No, I'm breaking out the "Clinton himself admitted the Sudanese offered to hand over Bin Laden" fact.

[Iceberg]

I see Perinquus is breaking out the Sean Hannity "Sudanese Government had Bin Laden" bullshit.

No, I'm breaking out the "Clinton himself admitted the Sudanese offered to hand over Bin Laden" fact.

Sources?

Because the honest sources I can find (read: NOT right-wing tabloids or Mansoor Ijaz himself) record that the CIA investigated Ijaz and his claims, found both to be equally bunk, and subsequently disregarded him and his further attempts to influence the United States.

[Perinquus]

That's an article from Freerepublic- with their hysterical tone and use of words "voted to SLAAAAAAASHHHHHHHHHH (followed by exceedingly piddly amount)" intact.

As well as not a single justification for why any of these votes were unconscionable! And of course, absolutely no mention of his voting for every single regular defense appropriations bill and authorization bill[ since 1997- that would be way too objective.

That is *not* his voting record, that's selective cherry-picking, and not even cherry-picking with justifications- clearly tailored for the Freeper mindset where anything but an increase in defense spending is viewed as some sort of stab in the back. What's more, all of this cherry picking comes from the immediate aftermath of the Cold War.

Let's proceed to deconstruct:

Cut the number of Navy submarines and their crews

Oh, the humanity! How many SSNs does the USA have again ... like ... more, superior submarines than the rest of the world put together? Are they still chasing down the massive Soviet submarine fleet? Or looking for Osama on the ocean floor?

Look you asked for a defense spending record. Not every military spending item, or even most of them will relate to the war on terrorists. So when you get evidence that Kerry wants to cut spending, it's kind of ridiculous of you to sneer because this particular item is not relevant to the war on terrorists. We're talking about Kerry's record on defense in general.

And the reason to oppose cutting the submarine fleet is that we have one shipyard in the US that can build nuclear submarines - the Electric Boat company at Groton CT. If they lose their contracts, and don't have anything to build, the skilled workers all have to go find jobs somewhere else in other industries. Then if the situation in the world changes, and we're faced with a powerful enemy with a strong navy, and we've let out ability to build subs evaporate, we can't suddenly reconstitute it so easily.

Reduce the number of light infantry units in the Army down to one

"Too light to fight".

Sorry, catchy bumper sticker slogans don't constitute an argument. This just proves you will sneer at anything, and apologize for anything done by a left leaning politician. I served in a light infantry unit, just for your information. I was in the 25th from 1997-2000. Light infantry units really do have a mission, and really can serve a useful purpose, snide comments like this notwithstanding.

Reduce tactical fighter wings in the Air Force

Oh, the humanity! How many fighters does the USA have again ... like .. more, superior fighters than the rest of the world put togehter?

Somehow, this strikes me as just a wee bit of an exagerration.

Terminate the Navy's coastal mine-hunting ship program

Yes, because we all know how CRITICAL this program is to the defense of the United States. After all, they're based in ... Texas.

And we all know how those ships could NEVER be deployed to another part of the world, like say, the Persian Gulf, to clear mines and make the area safe for US and other shipping.

Force the retirement of no less than 60,000 members of the Armed Forces in one year.

Reduce the entire armed forces by 60,000 men? No! What will America do now?

And when our global committments are up, why would you want to reduce the size of the armed forces by 60,000 men? I was in the army when our manpower went down dramatically, and the optempo went up. Suddenly we were all working 60+ hour weeks routinely, and often much more. Moral was down, and the military was having problems retaining key personnel because everyone was tired of not having any time for a life.

Yes, in the face of increased commitments, let's cut the size of the military even more, and make sure our power is stretched thinner. Great idea.

In 1993, Voted Against Increased Defense Spending For Military Pay Raise

And voting to increase military pay is by definition good, and voting not to is by definition bad? Or does justification for some of this shit not enter into the freeper brain .. at all?

Having eked out a living on meager military pay, I can attest to the fact that we don't pay soldiers enough. I had soldiers in my squad who were married and had children who had to get WIC checks because they couldn't feed their families and pay all their other bills on the paychecks. Does the this justification for raising military salaries not enter into the leftist brain... at all?

In 1992, Voted To Cut $6 Billion From Defense

Yup, there goes that crazy whacko peace dividend idea.

And there goes that crazy whacko let's maintain our numerical and technoligical superiority idea.

In 1991, Voted To Slash Over $3 Billion From Defense, Shift Money To Social Programs

How *dare* he, the filthy socialist! Clearly, he is committed to castrating the country!

Nice sneering dismissal. It doesn't erase the fact that all throughout his career in congress, Kerry has consistenly viewed defense as a low priority on his agenda, and has been much more focused on social programs. As I said, he is practically the stereotype of the soft on defense liberal who would rather spend the money on social programs. In more settled times, perhaps we could afford that. But right now, with terrorists being such a big threat, this is not the man I want in the White House. This country has a long and ignoble history of being less than adequately prepared for the ward it's had to fight, and politicians like Kerry are a big reason for it.

In 1991, Voted To Cut Defense Spending By 2%

Yup, there goes that crazy whacko peace dividend idea.

See above.

Has Voted Repeatedly To Cut Or Eliminate Funding For B-2 Stealth Bomber

Yup, those handful of $1 billion dollar a piece flying-procurement-fiascos were certainly a wise defense procurement decision that is immune from criticism. Obviously, explaining why cutting or eliminating funding would be a bad idea is above the moron who wrote this article.

Funny, I had heard that they were used to good effect in the last war. And of course, as the technology for stealth aircraft is improved, and experience with such aircraft gained, it should become possible to build stealth planes better and more inexpensively in future... if we develop the technology that is. Yes, let's make sure we never develop the capability. God knows we can be certain we'd never need it anyway.

Has Voted Repeatedly Against Missile Defense.

In a word: Good. Nice to see someone has a brain.

And the ability to defend against incoming missiles is bad because?

"Kerry in 1984 said he would have voted to cancel ... the B-1 bomber, B-2 stealth bomber, AH-64 Apache helicopter, Patriot missile, the F-15, F-14A and F-14D jets, the AV-8B Harrier jet, the Aegis air-defense cruiser, and the Trident missile system. He also advocated reductions in many other systems, such as the M1 Abrams tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the Tomahawk cruise missile, and the F-16 jet."

Ah, he said he would've voted to cancel, as a candidate- but hasn't actually voted against any of the weapons on that list that actually have been valuable. The only weapons he has specifically voted against are strategic systems where there *are* legitimate arguments to be made against their utility versus their cost.

And why would he make these statements in the first place? It tells you where his priorities are. He'd rather spend the money on something other than defense. And if he does allocate money for defense items, it will be rather grudgingly. It would be different if you could point to something like him saying "we need to cut money from high tech boondoggle programs so we can make sure not to shortchange our conventional forces" (like former presidential candidate Michael Dukakis did, for example), but I am not aware of any such statements Kerry has ever made. His natural inclination seems to be to place defense as a low priority on his agenda.

What did I expect him to do? Treat Bin Laden like the military enemy we already knew him to be, that's what. Take the Sudanese offer and apprehend a proclaimed enemy of the United States whom we already knew to be at least partly responsible for the 1993 attack no the WTC, that's what.

If they knew, how come they didn't feel it could come anywhere close to sticking? EDIT: And let's not even begin treating this supposed 'Sudanese offer' as uncontroversial fact, ok?

Why not, when Clinton himself admitted it?

Issue the CIA an order to eliminate the bastard, that's what.

According to Dick Clarke, that's exactly what Clinton did.

Then it's awfully funny that George Tenet and other officials in the CIA say this sure was news to them.

[Perinquus]

I see Perinquus is breaking out the Sean Hannity "Sudanese Government had Bin Laden" bullshit.

No, I'm breaking out the "Clinton himself admitted the Sudanese offered to hand over Bin Laden" fact.

Sources?

Because the honest sources I can find (read: NOT right-wing tabloids or Mansoor Ijaz himself) record that the CIA investigated Ijaz and his claims, found both to be equally bunk, and subsequently disregarded him and his further attempts to influence the United States.

newsmax

Sunday, June 22, 2003 2:04 p.m. EDT
Sandy Berger Defends Decision Not to Extradite Bin Laden

Former National Security Advisor Sandy Berger admitted for the first time on Sunday that the Clinton administration rejected the possibility of prosecuting Osama bin Laden in the United States after the government of Sudan agreed to expel him in 1996.

[SirNitram]

And once again, a discussion about Bush's failings has been hijacked by the Bushites to talk about Clinton and Kerry instead. The reasoning isn't even terribly valid:

'oh noe! he wuz gonna cut fundin fer the b2!!11 it wuld maen we kinnot reserch stealf!!!111'

Because of course we need billion-dollar babies that can be picked up by British radar(Nice job on the stealthing!) and do the jobs of B-52's in order to push research forward. It couldn't at all be done by researchers in labs and engineers in hangars, it has to be done by a group of pilots in the air.

[Iceberg]

In whose world is Newsmax.com not a right-wing tabloid, now, Perinquus?

Try again.

[Durandal]

The Bush apologists' standard response mechanism for criticism is not to defend Bush, but to attack Clinton. Does that disqualify them from being apologists?

[Admiral Valdemar]

The Bush apologists' standard response mechanism for criticism is not to defend Bush, but to attack Clinton. Does that disqualify them from being apologists?

You have to admire them for it, though. If they put half as much effort into finding reasons to back Bush's actions instead of digging up the dirt on the usual democrat ex-president (that is, Clinton), they'd likely be having a real debate now.

I never cared for Clinton either (I missed visiting the damn JFK in Rhodes thanks to him sending it to bomb some place) so contrasting Bush's downfalls to Clintons and saying the former is superior is bullshit with no validity in a reasonable debate.

[Perinquus]

And he's states clearly that he views operations against terrorists as more of a law enforcement matter than a military one,

Well, what else are counter-terrorism efforts if not a law-enforcement operation? Aside from absolutely clear-cut cases like the Taliban in Afghanistan who sponsored and supported the 9/11 attacks and refused any cooperation in bringing obvious criminals to justice, how do you conduct efficient counter-terrorism operations without the main effort being a law-enformcement one (an international effort at that, but law-enforcement nonetheless)? Going around blowing things up in unrelated places and killing people when you can't produce any meaningful evidence of their involvement is only going to sharply increase the number of people who will be very cross with you, and if those people happen to be of the bent that easily resorts to violence when crossedm you have just created a new bunch of terrorists who'll be out for your blood.

You might want to take a careful look at the way Europe has handled terrorism in the past 30 years, it has been, without exception, an issue of law-enforcement. Even in Northern Ireland where the Bristish brought in the army because they didn't have enough cops. To suggest that terrorism is something that can be solved militarily is ludicrous. You can temporarily suppress a known nest of terrorists with military force, but that is going to do nothing to remove the reasons for terrorism, which are societal, economic, polirical and/or religious.

I never claimed that military action alone will "solve" the problem of terrorism. But when a country can be proven to be harboring or supporting terrorists, I think military action against that country is appopriate. I do not think we should wait until after the next 9-11 to use military force.

That's how it was viewed by Clinton, and that precisely why we didn't get Osama Bin Laden when the Sudanese government offered to hand him over - treating it as a law enforcement matter, we didn't have enough to hold him. Clinton admitted this specifically, saying: "At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America".

So what should he have done? Accepted having bin Laden handed over and locked him up indefinitely without a trial, giving a visible martyr for the AQ cause and getting roundly castigated by the rest of the world? Or accepted and quietly have him killed, with the same results?

And this would have been worse that letting him plan and execute the 9/11 attack how?

And now Kerry has stated that he wants to do what Clinton did - treat terrorism as a law enforcement problem. That approach cost over 3,000 Americans their lives on 9/11/01. It's a recipe for disaster.

No, incompetent intelligence handling, dismissal as impossible of the late 1990s plot to use airliners as terrorism vehicles (which should have clued in the intel services that it could happen) and absolutely laughable, fucked up airport "security" in the name of convenience (which made it especialy possible in America) was what killed 3000 Americans on September 11th, 2001, and saying anything else is just making excuses for those whose job it was to think about this kind of things.

Like hell it is. When you have opportunities to get your hands on a proclaimed enemy, or have him quietly assassinated, but don't because you are not thinking in military terms, but only in law enforcement terms, and that enemy then goes on to carry out a massive and costly attack against you, your approach was the wrong one. If Bin Laden had been treated as a deadly military enemy back in '95 or '96, and taken out, there is a good possibility that 9/11 never would have happened.

If you are not extraditing a terrorist because you don't think you have legal grounds, and that terrorist then goes on to kill large numbers of Americans, your approach failed. And lots of innocent people paid for it with their lives. Sure, other things could have been done to improve security. There are all kinds of things that conceivably could have foiled the 9/11 plot, and some of them are indeed law enforcement issues. But military action against a dangerous terrorist might well have forestalled the whole thing. Based on Kerry's record and his statements, I don't believe he would have taken the military approach back in '96, and more importantly, I still don't think he would take it today.

Imagine we manage to caprute a terrorist either here, or abroad and we manage to get him back here. Then, treating it as a law enforcement matte, we duly appoint the terrorist an attorney and attempt to try him like a criminal - even though we realistically can't reveal a lot of our intelligence sources, which would throw out an enormous amount of evidence against the defendant, and most of the relevant witnesses may live in other countries where they could laugh at a subpoena to appear in a U.S. district court. Remember that in 1996, even after Al-Qaeda had been involved in the first WTC bombings, Bill Clinton still didn't believe we had a basis on which to hold Osama Bin Laden. He knew Bin Laden was responsible, but probably didn't think that they prove it in a court of law.

Oh, the horror of actually having to follow the laws even when it's inconvenient! I suppose it's completely okay to ignore the constitution then if it's only foreigners who don't like America that we're talking about? Or is it? Do you really want to explore the wider implications of what you're saying here? Tell you what, there is a solution that should have been used if extrajudicial measures were to be taken in any case, and that would have been a quick, quiet, competent assassination using whatever methods the CIA and the US military have at their disposal for such operations, and afterward not pretending to take the moral high ground but just citing national security grounds.

Yes I've thought about the wider implication of what I am saying. The war with terrorists is a war. Or had that fact escaped your notice? Osama Bin Laden and his crew certainly regard it as a war, and they are waging it quite ruthlessly. Well in war you don't arrest enemy soldiers, you kill them. And when you capture them, they don't get mirandized, appointed a lawyer, and assigned a day in court. They just become POWs. This is war my friend. Just because it is not conventional war between nation states does not make it any less of a war.

And please don't tell me about how I am saying we should ignore the constitution in the case of "foreigners who don't like America", that is a ridiculous strawman distortion. I am talking about people who more than just "dislike America". I am talking about people who hate America with a fanatical religious fervor, who have stated their clear intent to attack Americans, even civilian Americans, as and when they can, and who plan and carry out these attacks when they are able to do so. I am suggesting that we treat these self proclaimed enemies as enemy combatants, not criminals.

Let me ask you something. Do you really think that it was right to let Osama Bin Laden go when we had a chance to grab him? I mean, knowing what we know now, and knowing that in a trial, it would be necessary to produce evidence that would certainly compromise our intelligence assests, and thus impair our ability to detect and apprehend the next Osama Bin Laden, who would take over Al Quaeda in his place, do you honestly feel that we must treat this as strictly a law enforcement matter?

Sorry, this approach is wholly inadequate to deal with the threat.

If the law-enforcement approach is so insufficient (European history of successfully dealing with terrorism being evidence to the contrary ) and the military approach as taken in the case of Iraq being demonstrably ineffective, I suppose you have a working solution?

Nice of you to conveniently ignore the fact that the military approach was not demonstrably ineffective in Afghanistan.

And the European approach has also not been as universally successful as you would like to think. If it is so successful, why are the British still dealing with the problem in Northern Ireland after more than thirty years? And how many civilian lives might have been saved if they had attacked Libya and taken out those IRA training camps that used to be there?

It is not inconceivable that terrorists could obtain a small nuclear device.

Given how even Saddam Hussein's Iraq and North Korea have had difficulty getting nukes (the former unsuccessfully and the latter only probably), with the resources of whole countries at their disposal, you will please provide some evidence to support this claim that scattered organizations like AQ with less resources at their disposal could get their hands on such closely guarded and monitored devices.

You're asking me to prove a negative. You know that's impossible in this case. You also know that's a fallacious argument. I repeat, it is not beyond the realm of possibility. It is conceivable that Kim Jong Il will develop nukes, and then sell some of them to terrorists. You know damn well that intelligence agencies all over the world have envisioned this scenario. It's their job to think of such things and try to find ways to forestall them.

This is just like someone prior to 9/11 saying "you will please provide some evidence to support this claim that scattered organizations like Al Quaeda, with no flight training facilities could take over air liners and fly them into buildings".

In an age where this kind of attack is not beyond the realm of possibility, I simply do not believe we can afford to follow this sort of unworkable strategy.

How is the law-enforcement approach, as evidenced by European experience, unworkable in teh face of terrorism? Oh, wait, it isn't...

And as we have seen, it has been completely successful in eliminating terrorists from places like Northern Ireland. Oh, wait, it hasn't...

I can just imagine someone in the CIA telling us, after a tramp steamer carrying a nuke blows up in New York harbor: "Well, yes, we did know who the terrorists were, and where their base was, but the administration didn't think we could make a case against them in court so we didn't take any action".

False dilemma. Not having enough evidence to hold up in a court of law does not prevent dealing with a terrorist base of operations by force, just better have some evidence that they indeed are the terrorists you claim they are if you want to have support (which was not the case in Iraq).

It was the case with Osama Bin Laden. And we missed our opportunity to get him.

Bush may have fumbled diplomacy with some of our allies, but at least his approach - a military aproach - makes far better sense than Kerry's would.

Military approach against unrelated targets that are actually hostile to the same terrorists you want to apprehend (which Saddam was) makes sense? What the fuck are you smoking?

Excuse me, have you missed the part where I stated the approach in Iraq might have been counterproductive? Can you read?

Why is it that when I talk about taking military action against a country you assume I can only be talking about Iraq?

I'd far rather have an undiplomatic president aggressively targeting terrorists and taking military action, than a dovish president who takes insufficient action and allows the terrorists to stay at large and dangerous.

Tell me again, in the context of this thread, what the hell were the links between Iraq and AQ and where the fuck is the evidence? You had plenty of evidence against the Taliban and unsurprisingly got a lot of support in whacking them, unless your memory is that short, but this thread deals with the war in Iraq, so give me the relevant evidence or concede the damned argument.

Edi

No, because I have clarified in more than one post that the strategy of dealing with terrorists military rather than legally is smart and necessary in appropriate cases, and I was responding to Albino Raven's blanket assertion that invading countries that sponsor terrorists accomplishes nothing. He didn't limit his comment to the case of Iraq, and I was responding to that assertion, so get that straight or concede the damned argument.

[Keevan_Colton]

Per, thats some very very stupid shit....would you advocate shooting people who say they are going to commit some crime if they were americans?

Also, as this thread is about the effect of the invasion of iraq on the war on terror it is entirely natural to assume you're reffering to iraq when you do not state otherwise.

[Perinquus]

In whose world is Newsmax.com not a right-wing tabloid, now, Perinquus?

Try again.

Ad Hominem, dismissing evidence solely because of the source.

This does not mean they are wrong. In fact, I have another link to Newsmax, but this one happens to be an audio clip. You can hear Clinton state this in an interview.

"At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.

"So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan."

Clinton Interview

[Perinquus]

Per, thats some very very stupid shit....would you advocate shooting people who say they are going to commit some crime if they were americans?

Also, as this thread is about the effect of the invasion of iraq on the war on terror it is entirely natural to assume you're reffering to iraq when you do not state otherwise.

Do you not understand the difference between criminals and enemy combatants in wartime?

My whole assertion is that terrorists and terrorism are fundamentally different than ordinary crime. In light of that, why do you insist on drawing analogies with ordinary criminals?

And when I am responding to someone else's blanket assertion is it still reasonable to assume I'm refering to Iraq when I do not state otherwise? More importantly, why do people keep assuming I'm reffering only to Iraq when I do state otherwise?

[Keevan_Colton]

Look at the thread title.....

How do you decide who is entitled to due process?

What you dont get is that arbitrarily assigning these folk enemy combatant status to shoot them and not for matters such as PoW status is just about as fucking stupid as it can get.

How much do you have to say "Down with america" before it's the .50 solution time?

[Iceberg]

In whose world is Newsmax.com not a right-wing tabloid, now, Perinquus?

Try again.

Ad Hominem, dismissing evidence solely because of the source.

I reject articles from Newsmax for the same reason I'd reject articles from the National Enquirer or the Weekly World News. Their articles might have a grain or two of truth in them somewhere, but they're so heavily overlaid with opinion that it's difficult to winnow the facts.

This does not mean they are wrong. In fact, I have another link to Newsmax, but this one happens to be an audio clip. You can hear Clinton state this in an interview.

"At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.

"So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan."

Clinton Interview

I'm not seeing what's so wrong with this. He's stating a fact: United States law did not allow him to bring in Osama Bin Laden because we don't have a basis on which to hold him. You're glossing over the fact that he tried to persuade another government which had the legal power to bring him in to do so, and that government failed to do so.

Would you have had Clinton break both American law AND international law at the same time, for something that (as of 1996) might happen in the future?

[Keevan_Colton]

Ice, Per doesnt distinguish between action and intent for people who dont like the US....so probably the answer is yes.

[HemlockGrey]

So, let's see, not only did the Sudanese not offer bin Laden, the Saudis didn't even take him in, despite Clinton asking them to. So we all now see the relevance of Clinton to the original topic.

[Perinquus]

Look at the thread title.....

How do you decide who is entitled to due process?

What you dont get is that arbitrarily assigning these folk enemy combatant status to shoot them and not for matters such as PoW status is just about as fucking stupid as it can get.

How much do you have to say "Down with america" before it's the .50 solution time?

Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't realize it wasn't allowed to address a point brought up by someone else.

And as for due process. Since most of these people are not US citizens, and most of their crimes are not carried out on US soil, and most of the witnesses against them are not US citizens and thus not subject to US subpoenas, just how the hell are you going to give them due legal process, as a practical matter?

[Keevan_Colton]

Alright, taking all that shit into account, what the fuck matter is it of the US to go kill them then?

If for example the british government shot everyone that gave money to the IRA in boston etc, I suspect you and the others over there might get a bit pissy about it.

[SirNitram]

And as for due process. Since most of these people are not US citizens,

Due process is not limited to US citizens. I consider myself an authority on this relative yes/no question because I am not a citizen, yet I am afforded it's proctection.

[Perinquus]

In whose world is Newsmax.com not a right-wing tabloid, now, Perinquus?

Try again.

Ad Hominem, dismissing evidence solely because of the source.

I reject articles from Newsmax for the same reason I'd reject articles from the National Enquirer or the Weekly World News. Their articles might have a grain or two of truth in them somewhere, but they're so heavily overlaid with opinion that it's difficult to winnow the facts.

This does not mean they are wrong. In fact, I have another link to Newsmax, but this one happens to be an audio clip. You can hear Clinton state this in an interview.

"At the time, 1996, he had committed no crime against America so I did not bring him here because we had no basis on which to hold him, though we knew he wanted to commit crimes against America.

"So I pleaded with the Saudis to take him, 'cause they could have. But they thought it was a hot potato and they didn't and that's how he wound up in Afghanistan."

Clinton Interview

I'm not seeing what's so wrong with this. He's stating a fact: United States law did not allow him to bring in Osama Bin Laden because we don't have a basis on which to hold him. You're glossing over the fact that he tried to persuade another government which had the legal power to bring him in to do so, and that government failed to do so.

Would you have had Clinton break both American law AND international law at the same time, for something that (as of 1996) might happen in the future?

We already knew he was a bigwig in Al Quaeda, and that Al Quaeda had been involved with the WTC bombing in 1993. We knew he was organized, well financed, well trained (partly by us unfortunately), and we knew he was actively plotting more acts of terror against American targets. In short, we knew he was seriously dangerous. Just how long are you supposed to let an enemy like that run around before you do something about him? How hard would it have been to have ordered his assassination? And spare me the shocked "we can't do that!" How many powerful nations have not eliminated people that they thought were sufficiently dangerous? Bin Laden was a viper. We knew it. We should have got him when we had the chance.