Yes, because that Bush has really made the world a safer place hasn't he. He's completely freed us from terrorists! Why, we had so much more problems with them nasty people before Bush. Thank you George.
This thread is the best reason why the US elections should be open to the rest of the world. After all, these other nations all have the same interests as the US. Furthermore, there really is no need to have the election since the world, which knows best, has already selected Kerry by a wide margin. What's really disturbing is that the US citizens are so out of touch with the rest of the world. Something needs to be done about that.
Well, terrorists had operated under much less scrutiny and consequence during the clinton administration and will surely do so if kerry is elected
piece of crap?? love or hate bush, you can't deny that he is tougher on terrorism than clinton ever was..
If scrutiny of terrorists is greater now than when Clinton was president that has to do with reactions AFTER 9/11 and not due to any foresight on the part of the Bush Administration. Their woeful testimony before the 9/11 commission made that abundantly clear. Your suggestion that a Democratic presidency would return to business as usual after what's happened is merely political cant and stupid political cant at that. As for consequences, what consequences--that Bush can be credited with--do you speak of? Of the thousands of detained under the Patriot Act how many have resulted in any kind of terrorist-related charges (as opposed to garden variety crime to which the Patriot Act has been applied)? And of the mere 2 that have resulted in trials that had anything to do with 9/11 one of those convictions is about to be thrown out. Wars? The war in Afghanistan was at least a response to terrorism but how effective has it been? Al Quaida is still operating worldwide, the Taliban are still operating in Afghanistan, and the country as a whole is suffering from neglect. And the best available evidence tells us the only thing the invasion of Iraq has had to do with terrorism, besides putting our troops closer to it, is to lessen our ability to confront it effectively by draining the budget and the post-9/11 support of most of the rest of the world. Despot though he was, Saddam Hussein was neither a military nor a terrorist threat to the US when Bush invaded Iraq.
The piece of crap referred to was your echoing Cheney's claim that a vote for Kerry made a terrorist attack more likely. Your reference to Clinton is a red herring.
i've had a good laugh here, the taliban are almost a veritable after thought as far as recent ACF incidents in afghanistan, the biggest issue is the occasional flare up from local warlords but those never last more than a few days and are few and far between. but congrats for talking out your ass.
Spare me, scuttlebutt breath. Incidentally, Hamid Karzai disagrees with you. http://www.boston.com/news/world/mi...ue_first_afghan_presidential_campaign_begins/ http://www.usmc.mil/marinelink/mcn2000.nsf/0/61D37EFECEF9BB6F85256F0800363D5E?opendocument http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3399031 http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=3266256 http://www.washtimes.com/world/20031220-101746-6513r.htm http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0627/p06s01-wosc.html
that's cute, but it's a couple of whispy articles you summoned from a google search on taliban, there's nothing in there showing the taliban are any more a threat than your local hood keeping it real with a knife for 5 bucks. and gee, who would guess that karzai would overstate the threat? not only that he specifically mentions local warlords (oh man! crazy! almost sounds like something i said) Cavanaughs audio piece is exactly what i'm talking about.... all you've got is one article from a marine page talking about a firefight with "taliban" insurgents, i'm sure they called a time out, asked if they were sure they were taliban then continued the fire fight. did you even read any of this or just post the notes at the top of the article. i'll scratch my comment and say kidney punch contest aside read this http://www.cia.gov/nic/PDF_GIF_2020_Support/2004_05_25_papers/insurgency.pdf it's not to shady, maybe you'll learn something, just make sure you READ the whole thing, it'll help incase you decide to post from it.
Actually I've been following the story for a while. The problem is that the Taliban are not particularly distinguishable from warlords and everybody else, which is not surprising because they largely melted away during the initial military action (you may recall that the vast majority of those captured were foreign fighters). The south in particular is problematic and has even seen some reinstitution of Taliban-style rules. Is their current status a threat to re-take the country? Almost certainly not, according to what I've read and heard. Is it a problem for the new democracy? Well...yeah, according to people who are paying attention. Is this a problem that would be here if Bush's handlers had not indulged in their Iraq non sequitur? I certainly think so. I notice you say Karzai "overstates" the threat, by the way. You will forgive me, I hope, if I treat him as a more reliable authority on the subject than you. Chalabi, he ain't. And since you have nothing but ad hominem crapola to offer, I'll bid you a lovely and peaceful (very sincerely, given where you are) good evening.
it's not that the taliban is not particularly distiguishable from the militias of many of these warlords, it's that the taliban cannot operate at a level to truely be on the map when you consider the current threat coming from provincial wardlords (who's militias contain many ex-taliban fighters) that severely reduces the concept that the taliban/al qaida are providing serious concern to coalition forces and hamid karzais interim govt. instead it's old "governors" with their privateers who are the threat simply because they know they will be secluded from the upcoming govt. most of the violence as of late has taken place in the Herat province (save kandahar what activity in the south are you talking about?) kabul and bagram still see activity from time to time most recently kabul, but most of that is in response to it's proximity to the pakistani border and coalition and pakistani efforts to eliminate remaining al qaida expected to be in that area. But afghan specific threats has been green on green fighting over provinces and of course what we all expected violence towards those registering to vote. after spinning it it comes back to where you started speaking of the taliban still operating in afghanistan, when you say something like that it's a trigger, people don't associate "taliban" with what it's become, disbanded, and a former shell of what it was and in many cases a lot of talk with little to no action. i'm just trying to put a touch of reality on your comment.