Kerry: If Bush had unleashed the military to do the job at Tora Bora ...

[bigtree]

"If President Bush had unleashed the American military to do the job at Tora Bora four years ago and killed Osama bin Laden, he wouldn't have to quote this barbarian's words today," said Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass.

"Because President Bush lost focus on the killers who attacked us and instead launched a disastrous war in Iraq, today Osama bin Laden and his henchmen still find sanctuary in the no man's land between Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they still plot attacks against America."

http://www.pasadenastarnews.com/news/ci_4292969


Because Bin-Laden Says So

[bryant69]

1. Good response

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com

[Drum]

2. Kick n Rec!

:kick:

[whistle]

3. At least John Kerry is on record as believing that Osama Bin Laden

...is in fact alive.

[samsingh]

4. true

[NeedleCast]

5. Osama Wont Be Found

Except by dumb luck.

As an ex-army troop who was in Afghanistan for about six months and who has seen the terrain he's reputed to be hiding in...we're just not going to find him unless we get lucky.

Now that I am a civilian and work as a gov. contractor to DoJ, people often ask me "why can't we find him? Why does no one take the million dollar reward? Why don't they turn him in?"

First, the area he's supposed to be hiding in is some of the most brutal on the planet. High altitude forested mountains with little or no infrastructure. You can't search terrain like that in any real fashion. There aren't enough troops in the entire army.

Second, the rural population of Afghanistan can't understand the concept of a million dollars. These are people who don't care about new Nike's and 60" plasma HD TVs. They are, for the most part, content with life. They understand the concept/usefulness of a million dollars no more than my great-grandfather (a farmer) understood the need for the internet.

Finally, family ties in that part of the world are so much stronger than any other force. There are no borders. The borders are just lines the English drew in the sand when they left. It's about people and tribes, not borders. They do not identify themselves as Afghani or Pakistani.

[Viking12]

6. Interesting observations. Welcome to DU!

:hi:

[semillama]

8. indeed, welcome

Isn't there also a tradition of protecting guests as well in that region? I'm sure I heard about that when we were actually trying to do something in Afghanistan.

[NeedleCast]

10. You're correct

Yes. I took a took a two week course in middle eastern life given by a former US embassy staff member who served in both Afghanistan, Egypt and Iran and who spent the better part of 20 years living in the middle east. For those who havn't been, it is a very alien culture (I don't mean that in a negative way).

There are all kinds of social dos and donts. FAR more and far more intricate than you find in the west. For westerners it seems bizzare, for Afghanis it's business as usual.

I'll give you an example: I was one of the first of the US forces in Afghanistan and we worked quite a bit with the Norther Alliance and other warlords in Afghanistan. It was quite a bit of a nightmare, as we simply didn't understand how to work with them in many way. I remember one occasion where a particular warlord promised to run the taliban out this cluster of three villages if we would supply him with 5,000 gallons of fuel, which we did. We came back a few weeks later to check on his progress, which was nil...and he wanted more fuel. We asked what happened to the fuel we gave him, and he said he gave it to cab drivers, farmers, etc. In the US, that wouldn't float. If the Gov gave military post (X) 5,000 gallons of fuel, they better use it for military purposes, not to supply the local cab drivers, and that post commander would be held accountable. With the warlords, there was no way to hold them accountable and they didn't even bother to make excuses. You say "where's the fuel" they say "My friend, my friend, the fuel is gone." You say "where" they say "my cab drivers needed fuel, my farmers needed fuel for their tractors." Basically we had to re-write the rulebook.

A million dollars for Osama is nothing compared to losing respect in the tribe/community. People say "well, couldn't they just take their million and go somewhere else?" No. You're a sheep-herder in Afghanistan...where you going to go?

[SlavesandBulldozers]

9. they knew he was in Tora Bora though. didn't need a whole army

or a big search. they knew he was there and didnt have sufficient force to finish the job. And oh, quel surprise! the northern alliance didn't help all that much - shocked!

This was Kerry's point.

and of course: the CIA knows the area pretty well, since they built the fucking thing - so they could dig up their 20 year old maps and go to town:

"The outposts in use in 2001 were originally built by extending and shoring up natural caves, with assistance of the United States CIA in the early 1980s for use by mujahideen during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, but several may date back to earlier times, as the terrain has long been in use by tribal guerilla fighters."

And as for a "big search" being necessary, well yeah NOW it is:

"Former CIA officer Gary Berntsen, who led the CIA team in Afghanistan that was tasked with locating Osama bin Laden, claims in his 2005 book Jawbreaker that he and his team had pinpointed the location of Osama bin Laden. Also according to Bernsten, a number of al-Qaeda detainees later confirmed that bin Laden had escaped Tora Bora into Pakistan via an easternly route through snow covered mountains in the area of Parachinar, Pakistan. He also claims that bin Laden could have been captured if United States Central Command had committed the troops that Berntsen had requested. Former CIA agent Gary Schroen concurs with this view.<2> Pentagon documents seem to confirm this account."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tora_Bora

But you knew that as a DOJ guy.

[NeedleCast]

12. DoJ /= CIA

Being DoJ has nothing to do with knowing what the CIA knows.

In the sixish months I spent if Afghanistan, we "almost" caught Osama more times than I can shake a stick at. The military camps were full of almosts and, at least once a week, someone would hear a "fact" that Osama had been captured, killed, push down the stairs, had his lunch money stolen, et. al.

I really don't put a lot of faith in anyone who says "we would have captured him except (insert excuse here)" because we alomst caught him on a weekly basis. I was over there, and while I was no general, I don't know that more troops would have been the answer.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

13. i didn't mean to come across as being insulting when I said that.

and welcome to DU by the way!

Perhaps there many close calls. But almost universally that moment in Dec 01 is known as THE close call. To lump it in with rumors and heresay, and anecdotes, is actually pretty unjustifiably dismissive and equivocating.

[NeedleCast]

15. Rumormill was in Full Swing

I guess since it was such a common occurance for the soliders on the ground to hear that Osama had been captured, was about to be captured or had been run over and killed by an ox cart, that it had a numbing effect. You're probably right about Tora Bora and perhaps I shouldn't lump it in as "just another rumor."

For the record, I worked in imagery intelligence while in the army. It was pretty ineffective in lot of Afghanistan because we spent a lot of time getting asked "what do you see" and responding with "trees, moutains and clouds." I was attached to an special forces unit there (but was not special forces myself), so I did plenty of ground pounding too, when I wasn't bent over computer screen in a dark room.

The problem wasn't number of troops. The problem was transporting troops to the location(s) in question in a high enough quanity to be effective. A lot of the mountains in Afghanistan are at a higher elevation than the operational altitude of many helicopters. Other than slogging up a mountain-side at 6,000 feet (which sucks, by the way), there's just no access. You need several divisions to search the area in question and moving a single company into the mountains takes a massive logistical task. Asking a company sized force (100ish troops) to search an heavily forested mountain for an individual is sort of like asking someone to find an individual fish in the Pacific ocean.

Thank you for the welcome!

[Homer Wells]

23. You might find him at one of our Fearless Leader's

barbecues down in Crawford. Look for the tall clean shaven Arabic looking man in the cowboy hat,with the plate of BBQ and couscous.
:beer:

[IronLionZion]

24. It took them 5 years to find Eric Rudolph in North Carolina

being harbored by radical right wing supporters can make things difficult even in this country.

[Hubert Flottz]

26. And the anthrax killer, or killers, are as free as a breeze too.

Bush's bring 'em back dead or alive hype was just more old Karl Rove political play acting bullshit.

[petgoat]

7. Why didn't he say that in the summer of 2004? nt

[sandnsea]

14. He was saying it in 2002

When Howard Dean was saying "I think it’s very easy to second-guess the commander-in-chief at a time of war. I don’t choose to engage in doing that."

Kerry has been on Bush's ass since the day he took office. It's the rest of the Dem Party who has been afraid to stand behind him or have undermined him for their own political ambitions. It's the same reason we've got no real movement on the Iraq withdrawal resolution.

[petgoat]

18. He let Bush paint himself as strong on security, when Bush

ignored a CIA director whose hair was on fire.

If it was decided not to use Bush's gross negligence (at best!)
about 9/11 as a campaign issue because it was tasteless to
politicize it, he should have criticized the Bush campaign
for politicizing it.

His campaign was so inept that the proposition that he threw
the fight is entirely supportable.

[sandnsea]

19. I guess he just had his finger up his butt for a year

To hear folks around DU tell it, he travelled around the country with crowds of 50,000 people - saying absolutely nothing.

[blm]

21. He's been saying it since Jan 2002, but most Dems on tv sided with Bush

even as Kerry tried to get Bush's failure at Tora Bora onto the media radar throughout 2002-3-4.

Bush always had plenty of name Dems willing to LIE for him on camera, while Kerry rarely had a name Dem willing to back him up on the TRUTH.

No Clinton, Biden, Reid, to back him up on his call for Rumsfeld to go in 2003 and 4, either. Giuliani, McCain and Dole were everywhere almost every day for Bush's lies.

[_dynamicdems]

22. He said it over and over and over again in 2004 but nobody believed

him. They laughed at him when he said the administration "outsourced the job." Then last year, the military backed up Kerry's previous statements by saying they were told to hold back and let the Afghans go after Bin Laden.

I blame our media for siding with the Bsh Administration on everything Kerry claimed during the 2004 election. If I had a dollar for everything Kerry said in '04 (and earlier) that he was right about but that the media covered up or ridiculed, I could buy myself a Repug Congressman (one of the cheaper ones).

[Raffi Ella]

11. Hell Yeah.Kerrys gotten tougher lately.

I like it.

I am really surprised Bush is invoking the name Osama Bin Laden since everyone remembers what he said about him not too long ago: "I'm not worried about him,we've marginalized him.I really don't think about him all that much"...or something to that effect.

Give'em hell Kerry!

[Scriptor Ignotus]

16. I wish Dems would say something to this effect every day

because it bears repeating.

Then they should QUOTE Bush saying he doesn't think about Bin Laden that much.

[Raffi Ella]

17. David Gregory did just that this morning on MSNBC

It does bear repeating.It is extremly effective imo.

[Jawja]

20. I like the way the Democrats

are responding to the daily terror campaign by * as he goes about making the same speech over and over and over about the boogie man.

Kennedy and Reid were good yesterday; and today Kerry comes out swinging.

[CollegeDUer]

25. You know john you shouldn't have voted to authorize this "disastrous war"

Just saying.

[bigtree]

27. it's bullshit to claim that he voted to 'authorize' what Bush did.

just sayin . . . (as if that hasn't already been run into the ground here)

That type of swipe only serves to deflect responsibility away from the ones who are ultimately responsible for the preemptive invasion and occupation which disregarded the intentions of Congress in the IWR, the American people in the lack of restraint and preparedness, and the international community in pushing past the Security council that Bush uses as justification for his unilateral militarism.

[CollegeDUer]

28. He was a very vocal supporter of the war and voted for the IWR

I'm sorry but when it comes to waging illegal wars, I'm not much for Johnny-Come-Lately.

[bigtree]

29. blah blah blah . . . same sour grapes bull the republicans like to spout

There is NO ONE more responsible for what is occurring in Iraq than Bush. NO ONE.

'Johnny come lately' is a childish taunt which signifies NOTHING about John Kerry. If you have some specific criticisms I'll be more than happy to debate them with you. ON YOUR OWN THREAD.


edit: IWR and Kerry-- http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=364&topic_id=1016990

[Mass]

30. Vocal supporter of the war? LOL.

He was wrong to vote for the IWR, but he certainly did not support the war. He said that loudly from 2003 all the way to now.

[newspeak]

32. well, I doubt this mock-o-rama

is going to say anything about Tora Bora, or show Ashcroft stating that terrorism was down on his priority list, because golly gee, those bong smokers and prostitutes are the real harm to our country. Hey, and that naked lady in the Justice Department needs covering cause it insults my sensibilities. Maybe the mock-a-drama can show when the May meeting occurred before 9/11 to change chain of command during emergencies or they could show * vacationing at the pig farm being delivered the august PDB report or they could show that meeting with the Taleban before 9/11 or they could show a scene with Colleen Rowley attempting to reach someone's ear in the FBI on somethings going down or they could show a scene with Sibel Edmonds being waylaid in translating some terrorist communications or they could show a scene where Clinton's former administration is warning them that terrrorism will be *'s number one priority, or they could show scenes where the military decided to have the maneuvers on 9/11, leaving the nation practically defenseless (and whose call was that?), or they could show a scene of * sitting in that classroom after being told we are being attacked, and then the scene when * opens his mouth and says he saw the first plane hit and thought "boy, was that a bad pilot." ABC could show all of those scenes, but they don't have the guts!!!!

[Imagevision]

31. Marines asked for 600-800 more rangers, The Pentagon never respondeded