Letters to the Editor
-
bin Laden is dead and has been for years
That's why the only plan is to foment enough fear to justify big war spending and constitutional roll backs.
Isn't anybody watching?
-
"GAO report finds the administration has no comprehensive strategy for eliminating al Qaeda sanctuary in Pakistan's tribal region"
That's because IRAQ is the CENTRAL FRONT IN THE WAR ON TERROR. Sheesh, doesn't everyone know that by now?
-
The whitehouse spin?
Geeze, it should be obvious by now:
Any reference to any plan is classified. Even acknowledging it's existence (which we aren't) would aid the the cold-blooded killers who want to do harm to the homeland like they did on 9/11. Why is it that you want to aid the terrorists? Why do you hate America?
-
What does bin Laden
Have to do with anything?
-
Because they can't talk about highly classified material
To acknowledge its existence or non-existence is JUST WHAT THE TERRORISTS WANT. And if we DO WHAT THE TERRORISTS WANT THEN THE TERRORISTS WIN.
Whatever - but I'll bet you lunch that that's the spin.
-
Astonished.
Wait, no- this is the same administration that handled Katrina, right?
-
Everyone's strategy has always been wrong in that region
Find a right strategy. I'm not sure one exists.
But this is the political season and I'm a Democrat, so I suppose I'm going to have to smile and act like whatever strategy my candidate comes up with is going to be the one that turns out to be different from all the previous strategies that people of various political persuasions tried that brought us to this point.
I mean really, people of every political persuasion under the sun -- from Marxist-Leninists to neoconservatives -- have had a hand in shaping policy in this region.
WHy is there an al Qaeda sanctuary in this region?
You can assemble a "blame team" that includes everyone from Eisenhower to Nixon to Carter to Reagan to Brezhnev and Andropov to Gorbachev to Benazir Bhutto.
And of course, add Bush's name to the list.
It's a long list.
It gets harder and harder to believe the list is ever going to end.
-
Can't harm the wayward son of a good friend
Perhaps the problem is, the bin Laden's are an important and wealthy family in Saudi Arabia and don't want Osama, their wayward son, harmed. "He's really a good boy, just going through a rough patch in his life?" A bit like a certain son of the Bush family a few years back. The Bush's and the bin Laden's go "way back" after all. The folks in the World Trade Center weren't all that important compared to the descendants of Prescott Bush and the bin Laden family. You know, a bit of the "you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours" on the part of longstanding internationally wealthy friends.
Then of course there's the reality that for Bush/CheneyCo. the "response" to the events of September 11, 2001 was never about anything but using a major crisis as a tool to enrich themselves and their friends. After all, you could cause yourself a lot of problems regarding national sovereignty and jursidiction between Afghanistan and Pakistan if you went after Osama bin Laden. Plus, if you actually caught him and locked him up, the world might settle down a bit and the price of oil would drop and Bush/CheneyCo. and their oil baron friends would lose a lot of money. We can't have that, now, can we?
-
Isn't Bin Laden in Iraq?
Oh, never mind then.
-
Like we didn't know that
The only one who's got a plan to "go after Bin Laden sanctuaries in Pakistan" is Barack Obama. It's called limited, targeted strikes in Pakistan. He advocated it, Bush and Co. made fun of it, the CIA did it, it worked.
But since he's under the magic age of 60, and daring to challenge the status quo in this country, his idea is not only roundly ignored but ridiculed by George W. Bush, John McCain and Hillary Clinton who are all, disturbingly, agreeing on increasingly more things every day.
-
Oh come on...
No one REALLY expected Bush to have a plan did they? He never had a plan before beyond plundering the treasury for his cronies. He was the first commander in history to go to war without a plan. Did anyone actually believe he had a plan to catch Osama bin Laden? Come on... Nobody is that dumb.
-
If you got your news from somewhere besides Salon.
You'd know that we HAVE struck inside the Pakistani tribal regions, using unmanned drones. And the CIA is pretty active in that area, probably conducting those fancy "black ops".
But here's the deal:
Pakistan will NEVER allow the US to send troops in there to search for Bin Laden. There would be a nationwide revolt (even worse than what's going on right now) and Musharraf knows it. Instead of pissing another Muslim country off, particularly one with nuclear weapons, the US has the Pakistani army conduct the raids, and the US does its stuff under the radar.
If Barack thinks he's just going to march the Army in there and find Bin Laden, he is mistaken. Good luck with that.
-
Here we go . . .
I agree that the White House spin will play up the classified angle with a possible nod to the "complexity" angle, stating that the issues surrounding the hunt for Bin Ladin are so complex that we lowly American taxpayers wouldn't understand it if we saw it.
As for the lack of a plan itself, the fact is that Bin Ladin is much more useful to them alive and at large than he would be eithe dead or captured.
Of course, that may change come October or so depending on the polls.
Let's face it, if we had 50 of the US military's best covert operations operatives on this case, they would be able to find, black bag and relocate Bin Ladin for a public capture in any country they could be legally operating in.
What I would like to see is an admission on the part of the White House that the current regime in Pakistan has not allowed us to conduct serious operations there. Then Bush and Co would have to explain their description of Mushareff as a friend and ally in the war on terror.
-
Of course there's no plan
Bush doesn't want to catch Osama because Osama is too useful as the Republican boogeyman. That's why we bungled the job at Tora Bora and then diverted attention to Iraq without finishing the job in Afghanistan.
-
I saw Bin Laden...
...in Cincinnati. He's had plastic surgery, changed his name to Carlos, and now works at the Kwick Car Wash downtown. You intel turkeys have been lookin' in the wrong place!