After the London bombings I wondered if Blair would try to convince his countrymen that invading and occupying Pakistan was the only course of action acceptable to take.

Maybe as he is getting older he is getting wiser.

Posted by Buck on July 28, 2005 12:18 PM Link to comment

Perhaps you should read Boortz in complete context.

Boortz was/is against using law enforcement as the primary approach to combat terrorism exactly because of what happened in London on 7/7. Don't know if you noticed or not but terrorists -- including people from outside of England -- were successful in blowing up trains and a bus. They were successful in trying again 2 weeks later -- though with weaker results.

Law enforcement has done an nice job of tracking down at least some of the perpetrators and perhaps (verdict is still out) preventing them from acting again but wasn't so successful in preventing the attacks in the first place.

Using solely law enforcement prevent attacks is guaranteed to be unsuccessful. The planning and resources necessary to create an attack such as 9/11, Madrid, or London is outside the scope and capability of standard law enforcement.

m

Posted by m on July 28, 2005 01:27 PM Link to comment

m,

So, its ok for Boortz to take Kerry "out of context", but if Boortz sees the value in a law enforcement approach, I have to make assumptions that he also sees value in other approaches as well?

Buck,

I think Blair may be of a mind of, "fool me once, shame on you... fool me twice, you can't get fooled again".

Posted by smijer on July 28, 2005 02:08 PM Link to comment

m...do you think that the army, the navy, the air force and the marines should be the "primary approach to combat terrorism"?

I think what McVeigh did to the Murrah building was more impressive than what was done to the London trains. Who or what could have been used to stop him or how do you think he could have been stopped?

I agree with you. Law enforcement is an after-the-fact entity that generally fills out paper work and interviews witnesses. I am not convinced that many of the guys being rounded up and arrested by the London police now had a damn thing to do with the London bombings. If it is possible to kill a guy who had nothing to do with the bombings it is certainly possible to arrest guys who had nothing to do with them.

I am clueless as to how to successfully fight terrorism. The only difference in me and Blair and Bush is that I will admit it.

Posted by Buck on July 28, 2005 03:06 PM Link to comment

Smijer,

Perhaps Kerry was in context, than out of context, than in context, .... Actually, Kerry's references to using our legal system to prosecute the war against terrorism were a bit concerning. The idea of prosecuting Osa Bin Laden using American law, courts, and circus is not an ideal way to address the type of terrorist or terrorism that Osama represents.

m

Posted by m on July 28, 2005 04:03 PM Link to comment

Buck,

I certainly think there is value in prosecuting the war on terror outside the US where the terrorists are. Our armed forces are certainly one tool. Intelligence agencies are another. When fighting an international enemy such as Al Queda, we will need both an external and an internal focus.

For terrorist activities inside the US -- such as McVeigh -- this is a bigger problem. The armed forces and intelligence agencies have neither the correct focus or the legal right to conduct operations within the US. Thankfully we don't see to many folks breaking out an RPG or other small arms here in the US so the type of environment you have in Iraq / Afghanistan is a bit different than here and the tools to prevent terrorist activities are different.

I think the department of homeland security was created to address some of these issue but the overall level of security provided along with the integration of intelligence data has not changed significantly. Our airports are not one bit safer since 9/11 despite spending billions on the TSA. Unfortunately we are going to need to take another smack to the head before politics loosens up and allows change to occur.

In terms of your knowing more or less than Bush & Blair, I am sure you have opinions and ideas about ways to make the country safer. I'd also bet that some of your ideas would work and some wouldn't (and not necessarily for the reasons you'd expect). I'd also bet that some of the information you would base your opinions on is wrong (like Bush saying Iraq has WMD but not being able to find any -- which be the way we know he had because he had them in 1991 when we blew some of them up, and he had them in 1994/5 when we still had inspectors there, but somehow they just disappeared....odd, they just got up and walked away?)

Do Bush and Blair not know anything because things haven't worked out exactly as hoped or because you disgree with their approach from the outset?

Seems to me much of the chatter about how bad things are going are based upon political positioning, media hype and hystericalism, historical revisionism, and 20-20 hindsight.

m

Posted by m on July 28, 2005 04:36 PM Link to comment

What chaps my cheeks is not that they were wrong about WMD in Iraq (and, at this point, it's pretty clear that they were wrong... I don't know if they voluntarily destroyed them after '91 under the inspectors' direction, or if our '98 Operation Desert Fox finished them off, or what, but there's universal agreement from David Kay and others who have investigated there that the pre-gulf war WMD are gone and they haven't built any new ones since the '90's)...

Being wrong is forgiveable. Being wrong, shutting down the one legitimate process for checking your facts, as your case is becoming less and less convincing in light of the investigation, and then blowing up tens of thousands of people and risking a civil war in a country like Iraq... that's unforgiveable.

By the way, this wasn't just hindsight on my part. I wasn't blogging when Bush pulled the trigger on Iraq, but I hoped, up to the very last, that he would do the right thing. I just didn't know there was anything like a blog for sharing that opinion and hope with others at the time. My friends and family knew I was rooting against invasion. At the time I gave Bush enough benefit of the doubt to believe that he might allow the weapons inspectors to stay and do their job, instead of rushing to a war of aggression, without the existence of a clear and present danger to American security, without a clear plan for winning the peace, and without legal justification.

Posted by smijer on July 28, 2005 05:05 PM Link to comment

Buck,

I don't think W rushed into a war of agression (this is one of the historical revisions that kind of gets me).

We had been persuing the same policy toward Iraq since the 1991 Gulf War and truthfully it wasn't working. We were not impacting Saddam one iota and were creating a group of Iraqi's that had every reason to hate America / Americans.

The UN had passed something like 17 resolutions that essentially said "Saddam, please get with the program or else". Only there was no "or else". Don't feel like complying with the terms of the peace agreement, no problem. Don't feel like having inspectors, no problem. Don't feel like providing actual documentation on your WMD program or how you disposed of your WMD's, no problem. The answer to each no problem was another meaningless resolution.

Along comes 9/11. This changes the entire outlook of how the Bush administration reacts to terror threats. We move from a reactive "come and get us" stance to a proactive "we will bring the war on terror to you" stance.

While the idea of Al Queda and Iraq working together on 9/11 has been discredited, there is evidence that Iraq and Al Queda had no problem sharing some information and resources and refuge.

Covering your last couple of points....Based on the UN resolutions we had a legal justification to attack Iraq. The original estimate was that we would lose over 10,000 forces in Operation Iraqi freedom and that it would be the "Mother of all Battles". Thankfully things turned out a little better than that. We still have work to do, but the things that we said we would do are being done -- train Iraq to defend themselves, create a constitution, and allow for a transition to freedom and democracy. We'll see if we are successful in the "big picture" goal which is to create a democratic government that is friendly to the United States and is a stabilizing nation in the region.

m

Posted by m on July 28, 2005 06:17 PM Link to comment

m...as it has turned out Hussein seems to have been telling the truth. "had" WMD's and "has" WMD's are two different things.

The Project for the New American Century had the ousting of Saddam as one of their goals over 10 years ago. Since Gulf War I Saddam had essentially been the mayor of Baghdad. He could not get in a plane and fly over his country much less govern it. His ass was grass 12 years ago and all we were looking for was an excuse. The current administration used 9/11 as that excuse.

Concerning the big picture, I wonder if we spend billions of dollars training and arming Iraq and then invade or bomb Iran will Iraq be our enemy or our ally is that scenerio?

In fact I can see both countries combining together to form The National Socialist Peoples Republic of Islamic Theocracy. NSPRIT. Kinda has a nice ring to it doesn't it ;-)

Posted by Buck on July 29, 2005 08:35 AM Link to comment

Buck,

Yep -- have and had are two different things. The open question is did they get destroyed or did they get shipped out of the country or just hidden extremely well.

Nice acronym. The idea that Iran and Iraq will simply merge as one huge nation that hates us more the either nation alone is certainly something to be concerned about.

m

Posted by m on July 29, 2005 05:12 PM Link to comment