What Would or Would Not Have Happened?

unleashed the dogs of hell on Afghanistan and kept the hammer down on them, focusing on nothing else... until he had, with the world support he has now squandered away, destroyed them utterly and set an example.

Instead, Iraq. Politics power and money trump everything again.

The BEST thing he could have done for America and the world would have been to continue drinking and snorting cocaine and stayed out of public life altogether but hey... too late for that.

Re: What Would or Would Not Have Happened?


He should have gone after OBL and not given up, not changed his focus, until he was caught and AQ eliminated.

He should have treated AQ for what they are - a bunch of criminals. This point should have been repeated a million times over; everything that could have been done to minimize AQ should have been. Instead, the opposite was done, and OBL's influence has grown exponentially due to this.

He should have ensured that ground zero was rebuilt pronto. None of this bullcrap about designs and personality issues. It's perhaps the strongest signal of our failure to date.

Talk about a f*ckup situation. The original response by Bush was not bad, but he took the whole thing as an opportunity to begin doing crazy and stupid ****.

Cycloptichorn

Gone after Osama, attack Afghanistan, and stay here after the Taliban had been chased from power, to ensure and protect proper, nationwide reconstruction instead of just a Kabul city-state for Karzai.

That way the Taliban wouldnt have been on resurging there now, making the country the most dangerous since 2002, and we wouldnt have gotten into the whole Iraq mess.

I'm sensing a pattern here....

I wanted to basically say that, but you've beaten me to it, because i was having a problem succinctly expressing it. Thanks, Habibi.

This generation is unlucky enough to have more than one very serious danger to address. Here are two separate dangers:

1. Agressive, imperialistic terrorism (for example, OBL's manifesto demanding that the US adopt Islam)

2. Keeping nuclear and bioweapons out of the hands of the world's worst dictators, despite the fact that progress in science is bringing the technology within the possible reach of less wealthy and sophisticated entities.

It makes no sense to say that because danger 1 is deadly serious, danger 2 should not be addressed.

here comes brandon to powder bushs' nose, wipe his ass and kiss his feet

Interesting, but what's your answer to the question?

Cycloptichorn

I believe that this administration's response to 9/11 was the right one to follow, and that even if a Democrat had been President the results would have been much the same. I think both the Taliban and Saddam were properly targeted, and the military force brought to bear was appropriate. The military achieved both objectives quickly and decisively.

Of course, errors were made. The military wasn't up to providing the full range of security needed in the aftermath of Saddam's defeat. In retrospect, the "nation-building" aspect of the operation wasn't adequate, nor should the military have been the lead agency for it. Iraq needed cops and specialist diplomats more than it needed the smash and destroy one associates with military operations. In retrospect, there was far too much time elapsed between military victory and effective occupation and normal policing. In retrospect, it was also a mistake to so totally disband the Iraqi Army. It needed purging, but it also would have been very useful in transitioning from Saddam's dictatorship to a more democratic Iraqi regime.

The Taliban were defeated and chased into some of the most forbidding mountains on earth. The terrain is difficult, rocky and steep where breathing by itself is difficult. There are countless hiding places where a fugitive accompanied by a small band could hide indefinitely. By moving frequently from hideout to hideout, while maintaining strict communications discipline, Bin Laden and his inner circle would be almost impossible to discover. To make matters worse, Al Queda and the Taliban are believed to be assisted by the local people on both sides of the Afghan /Pakistani border. The whole region is known for its radicalism and its lawless character. Bin Laden and his cohorts can easily move into Pakistan where the U.S. would have serious political difficulties if they follow to closely, or with the amount of firepower that ought to be used. Bin Laden is on the run and his effective control over terrorist operations has been greatly degraded, to the point where our resources can be better spent elsewhere.

What might have happened if a Democratic President failed to vigorously strike back? A few long-range cruise missiles would not have been effective, and the President would have been under tremendous pressure to use the powerful military assets within his power. Afghanistan is a landlocked country were access is difficult at best. Moving large military formations there is a major problem. It was much easier to utilize the goodwill we have with the Pakistani President and some of the newly independent countries to the North. Still it was a daring departure from the Powell Doctrine. A less daring President might have dithered, or tried to deal with the Afghanistani situation by airpower alone, or by moving large formations through Iran or Pakistan (whoohoo).

Saddam had done his best to undermine, divert, and violate every condition of the Cease Fire. He snubbed his nose at objections to his behavior, and publicly supported terrorism. Saddam's regime was clearly guilty of mass murder of Kurds, and his secret police tortured and killed without compunction. Saddam created the illusion that he both had weapons of mass terror, and that he would use them if directly confronted. There was ample reason to believe that he still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons. Iraq is near the geographic center of what radical Islam regards as their territory. Located between Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, a secular and democratic Iraq with humanistic values would clearly have been a major blow to the Radical Islamic Movement. Good strategy, but "a bridge too far". I believe that a Democratic administration would also have approved the use of military force to topple Saddam, and probably would have made pretty much the same mistakes this administration made. A Democratic President might have opted for a larger military operation involving many more troops, but that would have taken far longer to accomplish ... and time was of the essence.

The number of serious problems facing both America and the World in the first decade of the 21st century is much larger than the two problems mentioned by Brandon. I don't understand how the Bi-Polar Bear construes Brandon's observation as toadying to President Bush. Both of Brandon's "problems" are real and have to be dealt with regardless of which political party occupies the White House. Some folks just can't seem to help themselves from blaming everything they think is wrong with the world on the President. That the majority of the one-note haters are overwhelmingly at least nominal Democrats is enough to damage their credibility with the middle-road American voters.

Ash,



Sorry, I don't agree that this



Is a problem for the US at the moment. I haven't seen any evidence that 'adopting Islam' is an actual goal of OBL at all. His pronouncements on the issue are similar to the US speaking about democracy in the region; nice words, but very little action to back it up, so not of any great consequence.

In fact, the Bush admin has done everything it can in order to give OBL and Islaamic terrorism more power and influence; a disastrous mistake.

And this is too funny -



Maybe so, but at least they have some credibility left with middle-road American voters. The Republicans currently have none. Polls show that the mainstream voter trusts the Dems to handle issues, over the WH, by a factor of 2-1 - including Iraq and terrorism. And let's not even bring up the last election - the largest landslide in American congressional electoral history . Hard to match that up with your pronouncements of 'damaged credibility.'

Cycloptichorn

Asherman's thesis assumes that invading Iraq was a rational response to the September 11th attacks. However, he provides no basis for making such an assumption. The government's September 11th commission did not find any evidence of a connection between Iraq and those attacks, nor has anyone ever provided a rational basis for asserting as much. The original question concerns itself with the Shrub's response to the September 11th attacks, and absent any evidence that Iraq were involved, that invasion stands a monumental mistake, which has cost hundreds of billions of dollars, tens of thousands of lives, and which has accomplished nothing, other than to enrich the corporate buddies of this administration.

I would have pursued both objectives, terrorism, and preventing WMD from being acquired by the worst of the worst dictators, simply because I don't believe there's a choice.

I might have done some things differently to try to win decisivly in Iraq, such as disarming the country immediately, and using more aggressive tactics against insurgents, but I don't really know the difficulty of the problem. It's very difficult for me to tell whether president Bush is doing the best job possible or not, because I don't know what's involved.

Your remarks imply that Hussein was the worst of the worst dictators. Kim Jong Il might take exception to that.

I don't think that the invasion of Iraq was intended as, or should have been intended as, a response to the 9/11 attack. Didn't Bush repeatedly say that the purpose of the invasion was to resolve the WMD issue?

Kinda slow today, aren't ya, Brandon? Read the first post again.

Oops.