Bush let Osama slip through his hands at Tora Bora

Bush let Osama slip through his hands
at Tora Bora
Three years later, the top terrorist is back to taunt Bush and America.
OBL's proven he can run - and he can hide.
Great job, George Bush.

No matter what Bush's endorser Tommy Franks tries to feed you, Bush ( and Franks ) blew it at Tora Bora.

I found this discussion at Daily Kos:

The "OBL was never at Tora Bora" argument was a loser for Bush, but he never got pressed on it because the points weren't worth it...

..now, in light of Bush's shameful speech in Ohio, this must be broadcast throughout America.

[ "Unfortunately my opponent tonight continued to say things he knows are not true, accusing our military of passing up a chance to get Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora," an Afghan stronghold, in 2001, Bush told cheering supporters here. ]

Let's have the last 3 days over whether or not we let Osama go.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A62618-2002Apr16?language=printer

Allow me to quote the article directly, in case some of you may have forgotten:

April 17, 2002

The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge..

The Kerry Campaign said tonight, in response to Bush's shameful speech in Ohio:

"America deserves a national security debate on the merits rather, than a president who desperately resorts to distortions, falsehoods and untruths on a regular basis. John Kerry was very clear tonight that we will stop at nothing to hunt down and kill the terrorists and that all Americans - Republicans and Democrats - are united in the war on terror. George Bush wasted no time in dividing us again."

Here is journalist Peter Bergen's "What REALLY Happened at Tora Bora".

Excerpt:

Luftullah Mashal, a senior official in Afghanistan's Interior Ministry, told me that based on conversations he had with a Saudi al Qaeda financier and bin Laden's chef, both of whom were at the battle, bin Laden was at Tora Bora. In June, 2003 I met with several US counterterrorism officials who told me, "We are confident that he [bin Laden] was at Tora Bora and disappeared with a small group." And Palestinian journalist, Abdel Bari Atwan, a consistently accurate source of information about al Qaeda, has reported that bin Laden was wounded in the shoulder at Tora Bora. Indeed, in an audiotape released on al Jazeera television last year bin Laden himself recounted his own memories of the battle. "We were about three hundred holy warriors. We dug one hundred trenches over an area of one square mile, so as to avoid the huge human losses from the bombardment." In short, there is plenty of evidence that bin Laden was at Tora Bora, and no evidence indicating that he was anywhere else at the time.

That being the case: Did the U.S. military throw away a golden opportunity to capture or kill bin Laden, during the one moment in the past three years that his location was known?

"9/11 Equals Saddam"

"9/11 Equals Saddam"

General Wesley Clark, appearing on tonight's Real Time with Bill Maher, told a story about his meeting with Pentagon generals 10 days after 9/11.
It goes something like this...

"One of the generals called me in and said, 'I got a joke for you.' And I said, 'Please, you guys don't have time for jokes.' And he said, 'Oh no, you gotta hear this one...'

'9/11 equals Saddam,' he said. 'Doesn't matter if he did it or not, we're going to get him.' And this was ten days after September 11th."

LINK

Raw Story Exclusive: Bush Campaign Uses 9/11

Raw Story Exclusive: Using 9/11 - Bush campaign pulls out the stops, frightening Pennsylvania in last ditch effort to secure vote

SEE: Raw Story, 10/29/2004
In final hours, Bush mailings display images of burning World Trade Center







When we think about the ways the Bush administration furiously flipped and flopped while trying to avoid the formation of an independent 9/11 Commission, this newest flyer should make us particularly sick to our stomachs.

100,000 Here and Gone

100,000 Here and Gone

Some are saying there were close to 100,000 people at the Kerry rally yesterday in Madison, Wisconsin. Look at the photo below and imagine those 100,000 people suddenly gone, the street silent and empty. John Kerry and Bruce Springsteen standing on a stage speaking to no one on an October afternoon.

Now, imagine that 100,000 civilians were killed by coalition force bombings since the beginning of the Iraq war. Can you?
Actually, no need to imagine.
It happened.

Fundie Falwell Fries Fitfully on CNN

Fundie Falwell
Fries Fitfully on CNN


Warning: Hateful little crusader
under the JesusHat

"Blow 'em all away IN THE NAME OF THE LORD!"

-Jerry Foolwell Falwell on CNN today

Perhaps that wasn't the exact quote, but it was awfully close. Today in a debate with Rev. Jesse Jackson on CNN with Wolf Blitzer, Falwell said something which paradoxically proved him devoid of Christian sensibility: "Let's go over there to the Middle East, even if it takes over 10 years, and blow up those barbarians in the name of the Lord."

Crusades will not bring America to the doorstep of successful globalization.

Falwell melted down today in a Fundie fit. It isn't the first time that's happened. I'm sure it won't be the last. He's positively drowning in religion; it's blinding him to all common sense; and I just thought I'd bring that to your attention.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

UPDATE:


See: New ad with the names of 200 Christian leaders condemning Falwell's theology of war.

Frank Rich - Decision 2004

"After three years of nonstop thrills, Americans will just have to decide on Nov. 2 whether there could be fates even worse than spending the next four years being bored."

Frank Rich - Decision 2004: Fear Fatigue vs. Sheer Fatigue

Frank Rich hits the nail on the head with this one. It's all about America's short attention span.
I also think we should ask ourselves: Do we want to have terror as a nuisance or terror as the cause of Armegeddon? We really do have control over the issue, even though Cheney (Dr. Doom) and Bush would like to frighten us into submission in order to gain endless and futile warfare.

Excerpts:

"..The triumphalist cinema that had led up to it, culminating in the toppling of the Saddam statue, was, like "Mission Accomplished" itself, too slick. It whetted our appetite for sequels. But what came instead were pictures by upstart independent filmmakers hawking an alternative scenario to "Shock and Awe": the charred corpses of civilian contractors strung up in Fallujah, the beheading of Nick Berg, the tableaux vivants of Abu Ghraib, the neat rows of 49 slaughtered Iraqi recruits decomposing in the sun. The scenes the administration created to counter them all backfired."

"..There isn't a person in the world, including our enemies, who doesn't know that we have fewer troops than we need, now or in perpetuity, and that we're too broke to spring for more. As Mr. Bush said of the war to Matt Lauer in a rare moment of candor, quickly rescinded, "I don't think you can win it." Especially if you've so bought into the myth of your own invulnerable star power that you failed to secure nearly 380 tons of explosives destined to blow up American troops. So Karl Rove does what any director does to bolster a weak script - pump up the ominous chords on the soundtrack. He sends out Dick Cheney to keep telling us that it's only a matter of when, not if, a nuke will go off in the middle of one of our cities.."

The Humpty Dubya Presidency Nears an End

The Humpty Dubya Presidency Nears an End

....all the excuses
from all Dubya's men
couldn't get Dubya selected again.

Regarding the al Qaqaa missing explosives:

There's rhetoric...

It's the Iraqis' problem; We didn't know about it; They were gone when we got there; NBC News reported they were gone when we got there; The explosives were hidden, not looted; Explosives were not a priority; We've secured 400,000 tons of munitions..

...and there's reason and reality, which the Bush administration clearly disdains because it bursts their political fantasy bubble.

See a compilation of both fact and fiction-for-excuse at the Center for American Progress.

Paul Krugman discusses the Bush administration's Al Qaqaa excuse-wheel. He'd also like to remind us that Al Qaqaa is "hardly the only tale of incompetence and mendacity to break to the surface in the last few days." Mr. Krugman also points out that "the news media have spent the last few days discussing substance. And that's very bad news for Mr. Bush."

In the LA Times, Jonathan Chait says that, for Bush, it is far too late in the election campaign season to expect any honesty from him on the Al Qaqaa issue. ( What would possess him to start being honest now, anyhow? )

The Humpty Dubya presidency is nearing its much-anticipated end.

I can't wait until the bloviating liar and his pack of inept war-wolves, with the meat of 100,000 innocent Iraqi civilians and 1109 trusting US troops in their fangs, go back to the ranch to clear brush and ignore more terror warnings while John Kerry sends the best and most appropriate of our defenses ( along with genuinely solid multilateral international participants ) to go after the real terrorists (like that scummy little turd who threatened us on the most recent video, providing he isn't actually a Bush crony faking us out under that kaffiyeh ).

Bruce Rocks with Kerry and 80,000 in Madison

Bruce Rocks with Kerry and 80,000 in Madison







Credit:AP photos



Credit: NYT

Wesley Clark Blasts Giuliani for Blaming Our Troops

Wesley Clark Blasts Giuliani for Blaming Our Troops
Kerry/Edwards blog

"For President Bush to send Rudolph Giuliani out on television to say that the 'actual responsibility' for the failure to secure explosives lies with the troops is insulting and cowardly.

“The President approved the mission and the priorities. Civilian leaders tell military leaders what to do. The military follows those orders and gets the job done. This was a failure of civilian leadership, first in not telling the troops to secure explosives and other dangerous materials, and second for not providing sufficient troops and sufficient equipment for troops to do the job..."

Read more at link above

See Wesley Clark's statement from October 27th about Bush's own very compelling and thoughtful argument for why he should not be reelected -

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Juan Cole also skewers Giuliani and others who blame the troops:

A new low was reached in the Republican Party, out of panic at this story, by Rudi Giuliani, who blamed our troops for the al-Qaqaa catastrophe, saying, ''No matter how you try to blame it on the president, the actual responsibility for it really would be for the troops that were there. Did they search carefully enough? Didn't they search carefully enough?" So let's get this straight. Bush sends only 100,000 US troops to Iraq, when 500,000 are needed to secure the country. Then when the troops don't have te personpower to do their jobs properly, you blame them? The refreshing thing about Giuliani's remark is its honesty. Surely a lot of fatcat Republicans who are always draping themselves in the flag and exploiting the heroism of US troops actually view them as little more than kitchen help, who can be blamed if the banquet doesn't come off as brilliantly as hoped. Remember the images of Bush in white tie toasting his "base" among the super-wealthy, in Fahrenheit 9/11? It is not the corporals in the US army whom he was toasting.

100,000 Iraqi civilians dead

100,000 Iraqi civilians dead, says study
Guardian Oct 29, 2004
Sarah Boseley, health editor

It's nothing but a God-forsaken shame.
100,000 Iraqi civilians - half of them women and children - have died in Iraq since the invasion, mostly as a result of airstrikes by coalition forces.

Knowing the war was unnecessary, and knowing our leadership lied to get us into it, we should all be losing a hell of a lot of sleep.

In a nation where we're free to choose our leaders, we share culpability.

Bush/Cheney, simply, must go.

Sinking

sinking

That ABC terror video

That ABC terror video

Drudge is screaming (in his predictable sky-is-falling fashion) about the terror tape looming out there in the hands of ABC.

I can't help but think that Drudge and his ilk are rather disappointed we haven't had a terror attack before this election and he's hoping that peddling the fear that accompanies these terror-warning videos by these complete shitheads (in this case the turd known as Adam Pearlman) might drum up a few more cheap votes for his man, Bush.


Turd

Are we going to allow Adam Pearlman, a deadbeat America-hating dude from Southern California, to dictate the results of the American election?

The Bush administration is hoping Adam will be the next big TV star.

How will ABC handle this?


UPDATE: A CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR REPORTER HAS SEEN THE TAPE
"..he's clearly a sophisticated news consumer - quoting sources ranging from BBC's Arabic language radio to US comedian Bill Maher." Hmmmmmm.......

UPDATE: Drudge has his little flashing-light icon above a headline saying that ABC held back part of the terror tape from the CIA. Drudge (along with FOX) is apparently (and most likely) fed this information by a federal official from the Pentagon. ( We can safely assume ABC wouldn't tell him a thing ). This only leans toward proving this is a political stunt, and I wouldn't even be surprised if the Pentagon made up the terror tape themselves or at least engineered the timing of this whole thing to scare voters away from the polls. It's sad to hear me saying something like that, because there's nothing more I'd appreciate, in this age of terror, than to be able to trust American leadership. The hard truth is that more than half this country see Drudge, FOX, Bush, and the Pentagon as unworthy of our trust. The Bush administration has lied before, and I truly believe they are so desperate to hold onto American power that they would do anything - and I mean anything - to keep it.


Rush Limbaugh appeals to the lowest common mental denominator by telling his talk-radio audience that "numerous terrorists are on record here endorsing John Kerry and admitting that they're doing everything they can to harm George W. Bush."

An Iraqi Weighs In on the American Election

An Iraqi Weighs In on the American Election

At Baghdad Burning, you will see a most unusual endorsement of John Kerry. Since Bush brought Mr. Allawi here to our Rose Garden to give a rousing campaign speech for him, I figure it's fair game to present another side.

Life's Final Lesson

Life's Final Lesson
A Mother's Final Message to the World



I was surfing on BlogExplosion today and came across something that stopped me in my tracks. I wanted to share it with you. It's a woman's final words to the blogging world. She has a limited amount of time left to enjoy life and wanted to share some wisdom and advice with us before it comes her time to go. If you think you have troubles, they may seem smaller after reading this. It's really a beautiful message.

Common Sense (2004)

Common Sense (2004)
by my fellow Daily Kos diarist 'kid oakland'

Excerpt:

In the media snow storm of these last days of the campaign....we would do well to listen to someone from our history...he has some words for us to take to heart today:

"The sun never shined on a cause of greater worth. 'Tis not the affair of a city, a country, a province, or a kingdom, but of a continent--of at least one eighth part of the habitable globe. 'Tis not the concern of a day, a year, or an age; posterity are virtually involved in the contest, and will be more or less affected, even to the end of time, by the proceedings now. Now is the seed time of continental union, faith and honor. The least fracture now will be like a name engraved with the point of a pin on the tender rind of a young oak; The wound will enlarge with the tree, and posterity read it in full grown characters."

- Thomas Paine, Common Sense 1776

A must-read for election week.

Vote in U.S. inflames Europeans

Vote in U.S. inflames Europeans
International Herald Tribune

"PARIS One would think it was their leader being elected - and many Europeans believe it is, in a way. In a tremendous show of interest unseen in previous U.S. presidential campaigns, Europeans on both sides of the Channel have been riveted by the coming American vote, obsessing about the future of the United States as if it were their own..."

Bush, Russia and the Explosives

Bush, Russia and the Explosives

Drudge has his front page smeared with rantings about a blame-the-Russians Washington Times piece. John A. "Jack" Shaw, deputy undersecretary for international technology security is quoted as having "reliable information" that Russia is behind the 342 tons of missing explosives from al Qaqaa.

Since trust is an important factor in this campaign season, you should know that John Shaw is not the poster child for trust. After disguising himself as an employee of Halliburton Co, Shaw urged government officials to fix the alleged problems he found when he got access to a port in southern Iraq, directing multimillion-dollar contracts to companies linked to his friends, without competitive bidding. According to an LA Times story of July 6, 2004, Shaw has also tried to steer a contract to create an emergency phone network for Iraq's security forces to a company whose board of directors included a friend and one of Shaw's employees. The inspector general's office has turned over an inquiry into Shaw's actions to the FBI.

Knowing that Shaw used the rebuilding effort in Iraq to reward associates and/or political allies makes him less than a credible source, especially in the last week of the presidential campaign season. I think Shaw is doing it again. He's lying again while trying to secure a great job for one of his cronies. This time it's George W. Bush.

At a time when Putin is practically campaigning for Bush, it's interesting that anyone in the Bush administration would make these accusations about Russia. You would think this would be a time when the administration would be particularly sensitive toward Russia. After all, Russia has suspected the U.S. has supported anti-Russian Chechen forces in an effort to keep Russia pinned down. After the Beslan incident, Pres­idents Putin and Bush could have been holding an anti-terrorism summit and the two coun­tries could have been expanding security cooperation with a focus on anti-terrorism. British prime minister Tony Blair has understood the importance of playing a leading role in developing a strong relationship with Russia after the Beslan terror attack. It is not so with the Bush administration. The Bush campaign has found it politically necessary to accuse Russia of ripping off the 342 tons of explosives. Another Bush International Affairs blunder.

The Russian embassy in Washington has rejected John Shaw's current claims as "nonsense", saying there were no Russian military in the country at the time. "I am unaware of any particular information on that point," said Larry Di Rita, Pentagon spokesman.

The Russian Defense ministry calls Shaw's claims "farfetched".

Russia has called for the United Nations Security Council to discuss the return of UN weapons inspectors to Iraq following the disappearance of the 342 metric tons of high explosives in the country. U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Danforth, did not back new UN involvement in weapons searches in Iraq. Danforth said the most immediate need was to find out when the explosives disappeared and what happened to them. He said this was a job that would be best carried out by the CIA-led Iraq Survey Group.

U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage said he was shocked by the report of the missing explosives, adding: "Looks to me like somehow the multinational force didn't stay on top of this." Mr. Armitage agreed the missing explosives had created a dangerous situation, according to a transcript of his Monday interview with the Arab-language newspaper al-Hayat released by the State Department.


Bush remains mum about the missing explosives. He is concentrating upon publically accusing John Kerry of milking the story in the heat of the presidential campaign, avoiding any accountability, action that has become the hallmark of Bush's lack of character.

This story is the unintended October surprise. I'd been expecting the surprise to come from the other side.

Karl the Goliath Rove has been taken down by a systematic dismantling of the myth he'd created. It was the myth of Bush's great leadership.

The October surprise is simply the truth catching up with Bush's lies, ineptitude, hubris, and secrecy.


UPDATE: Guardian - Islamic Group Claims to Have the Explosives

Amish Partisans

Woo woo! You go, you wild barn-raisers!
Amish veterans?! Pacifists voting for a warmonger?
Well, I never!
Why, that's the last Amish hat I'll ever buy from you.

Faces of Failure

In These Times

A Jagged Hole in the World's Heart

I have been struck by how many foreign dignitaries have begged me lately for news that Bush will lose. This Bush team has made itself so radioactive it glows in the dark.

Thomas Friedman: Jagged Hole in Heart of the World
NYT October 28

..How do we begin to repair this jagged hole? There is no cure-all, but three big things would help. One is a different U.S. approach to the world. The Bush-Cheney team bears a big responsibility for this hole because it nakedly exploited 9/11 to push a far-right Republican agenda, domestically and globally, for which it had no mandate. When U.S. policy makes such a profound lurch to the right, when we start exporting fear instead of hope, the whole center of gravity of the world is affected. Countries reposition themselves in relation to us.

..When the world liked Bill Clinton and Ronald Reagan, America had more power in the world. When much of the world detests George Bush, America has less power.

...If the Bush team wins re-election, unless it undergoes a policy lobotomy and changes course and tone, the breach between America and the rest of the world will only get larger. But all Mr. Bush and Dick Cheney have told us during this campaign is that they have made no mistakes and see no reason to change.

...The real question is, What if we get a new Iraqi government but the same old Bush team incompetence? That would be a problem.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Friedman's article reminded me of "The Deeper Wound", something I read by Deepak Chopra shortly after 9/11:

"All this hatred and anguish seems to have religion at its basis. Isn't something terribly wrong when jihads and wars develop in the name of God? Isn't God invoked with hatred in Ireland, Sri Lanka, India, Pakistan, Israel, Palestine, and even among the intolerant sects of America?

Can any military response make the slightest difference in the underlying cause? Is there not a deep wound at the heart of humanity?

If there is a deep wound, doesn't it affect everyone?

When generations of suffering respond with bombs, suicidal attacks, and biological warfare, who first developed these weapons? Who sells them? Who gave birth to the satanic technologies now being turned against us? If all of us are wounded, will revenge work? Will punishment in any form toward anyone solve the wound or aggravate it? Will an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, and limb for a limb, leave us all blind, toothless and crippled?

Tribal warfare has been going on for two thousand years and has now been magnified globally. Can tribal warfare be brought to an end? Is patriotism and nationalism even relevant anymore, or is this another form of tribalism?

What are you and I as persons going to do about what is happening? Can we afford to let the deeper wound fester any longer?

Everyone is calling this an attack on America, but is it not a rift in our collective soul? Isn't this an attack on civilization from without that is also from within?"

- Deepak Chopra