Dear President Bush, as the 6th anniversary of 9-11 approaches ...

mission accomplished, hondo. good work.

 

Osama Bin Laden's freedom will be this administration's greatest failing. No country would have condemned us if we invaded Afghanistan in the days after 9/11/01 and got OBL.

Instead, we invaded a country that had nothing to do with the murder of 3,000 Americans.

 

I meant to add one of those points to my post. We had the world's good will (and help) after 9/11. They were with us in Afghanistan.
We lost them in Iraq.
Is there any doubt that we would be more likely to catch OBL with other countries helping than without?

 

This exchange is an exercise in issue obfuscation. This thread's not about the failure to "take Afghanistan" as the Soviets, Brits, and Khan sought to do. It's about the failure of history's most powerful military force to take out JUST ONE MAN who was supposedly hidden in a cave in Afghanistan (and, for all we know, may still be) when this mess began.

And, btw, the Soviets, Brits, and Khan didn't have technological advantages such as global position satellite systems that can instantly get a pinpoint picture of any speck of dirt on the globe they choose, or today's laser guided tracking systems that can then drive a missile right into that chosen speck with astonishing accuracy.

In short, apples to oranges.

 

Absolutely, we would have caught OBL. But this administration is more concerned with settling old scores.

I had posted a Washington Post story awhile ago--maybe February or early March--that said we do not have sources in the Middle East and that high ranking members of the intelligence community believe we will never get OBL.

It boggles the mind. How do you piss away the collective goodwill of the world in less than six years?

 

Which is why I believe it's not incompetence that he's still outside of US custody, but the intentional act of a morally and intellectually corrupt administration.

Unless someone can make a better case that we are better off with him out there, than in custody, somewhere.

 

This article really tells it all. I had been avoiding it because it's 14 (web) pages long. But it's worth it.

Here's the nut graf:

With all its spy satellites and aerial drones, killer commandos and millions in reward money, why can't the world's greatest superpower find a middle-aged, possibly ill, religious fanatic with a medieval mind-set? The short answer, sometimes overlooked, is that good, real-time intelligence about the enemy is hard to come by in any war, and manhunts are almost always difficult, especially if the fugitive can vanish into a remote region with a sympathetic population. (Think how long—five years—it took the FBI to track down Eric Rudolph, the Atlanta Olympic bomber, in the wilds of North Carolina.) That said, the U.S. government has made the job harder than necessary. The Iraq War drained resources from the hunt, and some old bureaucratic bugaboos—turf battles and fear of risk—undermined the effort. The United States can't just barge into Pakistan without upsetting, and possible dooming, President Pervez Musharraf, who seems to lurch between trying to appease his enemies and riling them with heavy-handed repression.

 

No, I'm not saying that, and there's nothing in my post to indicate that.
Trying to find one man in the mountains is hard. Ask the FBI about Eric Rudolph.
Just wondering what kind of military/intelligence/special ops/geopolitical background do you have to paint such broad strokes?

 

It never was there to begin with.

Jeez, some of you are extremely naive.

 

Oh, and your proof for that is what?

 

Amen...the rest of the world hates us, except when they're trying to get a green card or sneak in illegally. That's the price we be for being the No. 1 superpower, which hasn't changed, despite some of the best efforts of some on this board to think otherwise.

 

The proof on you is every time your open your mouth or tap on the keyboard.