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The Hunt for Osama bin Laden back on?Posted Wednesday, September 10, 2008, at 3:39 PM
I read a story on yahoo.com today in which the headline said "U.S. tries new approach in hunt for bin Laden". My immediate thought was are they actually going to start looking for him again. Still fresh in my mind is the sound of George Bush in late 2003 saying that he didn't really think about bin Laden. To this day I can't believe that the leader of this country really didn't care to find the man who was responsible for over 3,000 deaths on 9/11.
The fact that coming up on seven years after 9/11, there are still a large number of people who think Iraq had something to do with 9/11 is staggering. In June of 2007, a Newsweek poll found that 41% of those polled believed Saddamn Hussein and his Iraqi regime were directly involved in the 9/11 attacks. At the time that was nearly six years after that terrible attack. The more amazing stat out of that poll is that number is up 5 points from a similar poll in 2004 (http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Poll_41_of_Americans_believe_Saddam_0624.html). The simple fact of the matter is Iraq and Saddam Hussein had nothing at all to do with 9/11. The person responsible is Osama bin Laden and for some reason he is still uncaptured. Why is this? The American government dropped the ball. It is believed that we had him and his regime cornered in the mountains bordering Pakistand and Afghansitan when President Bush decided to take the majority of those forces in Afghanistan and put them into Iraq. We had no reason to go into Iraq. We were not asked to go into Iraq and liberate the Iraqis. They had no WMDs (and as some of you may remember in the lead up to the Iraqi War I said in a letter to this very paper that we would not find WMDs in Iraq and if we did I would eat my words and apologize. I have yet to eat those words. Violence in Iraq is down, but it is still a mess over there. And the rhetoric coming out of the White House over the past 6 years has run the gammit. They said that when the Iraqis stood up we would stand down. They have stood up, we have NOT stood down. They said that if the Iraqis asked us to leave we would. The Iraqis have asked us to leave, we have NOT left. They said we are not an occupying force. Until just recently this government was planning on building permanent U.S. bases in Iraq. Sounds like an occupation to me. They said time and time and time again that if we agreed to a timetable that the terrorists would just lay and wait. The White House has now, in principle, agreed to a timetable to withdraw troops. But back to bin Laden and 9/11. Bush, in he days after 9/11, vowed to track down the perpatrators of those heinous crimes until they had all come to justice. So the question is, why has bin Laden not come to justice yet. For that matter if the Bush Administration so wanted to invade a soveriegn country because they had ties to 9/11, why did we go into Iraq, a country that had NOTHING at all to do with the attacks, and not go into Saudi Arabia, where 10 of the hijackers came from and called home. I feel I know the reason, but I don't have facts to back me up so I won't expouse on them here. Comments Showing comments in chronological order [Show most recent comments first] |
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You are so wise Mike. For the life of me I can't understand why you don't have your own daily column, better yet you should run for president! You sound just like someone else with absolutely no experience that is running.
I am humbled.
Come on,do you all really not remember? The main reason we went into Iraq has to do with the UN sanctions that were imposed after the first Gulf war. They were refusing to allow the inspections,the UN sent us back in there to enforce them.
How can you quote a poll that you do not even know how the questions were asked? We all know that pollsters can manipulate the results by the way the questions are asked. I will caution you to use better judgement when you can't actually see the questions and the exact results that were used to publish their results. I followed the links, but never did find the exact polling data that was referenced.
Second point... WMD's were found in Iraq. Serin and mustard gas were found. The usefulness of the gas had more than likely deterioriated. The only thing is there wasnt't a mass amount of WMD's, but it was still WMD's. http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,2004...
and just to show you it is not a Fox News conspiracy... http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=...
Most members including those from the left and right, believed at the time that Sadam did have WMD's... which Sadam was found guilty of using on the Kurds after the first Gulf War. I doubt I have given you enough evidence to eat your words, but it at least it will give others info that you failed to provide.
Just because WMD's were or weren't found in Iraq means absolutely nothing to 9/11 and bin Laden. We didn't go over to Iraq to venge for the 3,000 + lives that were lost on 9/11...it was just a good excuse to make Bush look good and fight for more oil. His pockets were a little empty at the time. Hussein had nothing to do with 9/11 and Bush is taking credit for capturing the man. What a joke! bin Laden was the man who instigated 9/11 and he is the one that we should have been going after years ago.
I have to disagree with you bigmikey. The UN did not send us into Iraq to enforce any sanctions. They were against the action. The United States went in unilaterally. Oh and to add to that Iraq was allowing UN inspectors in, the problem was they weren't finding anything which went against Bush's agenda.
Proudconservative, WMDs that can cause no damage because they are so deteriated are not WMDs. We were told leading up to the war of MASSIVE WMDs including plutonium, we found none of those. Finding decayed mustard bombs that were probably hidden before the first Gulf War does not prove we found WMDs.
Remington once again proving a point I made weeks ago, when you can't properly refute someone's claims, attack them. But don't attack their position attack them personally. Congratulations to Remington for keeping the stereotype of Conservatives as being nothing more than attack dogs with no clear message alive and running.
I really don't know what you are talking about to be honest. I was offerring my opinion on this whole situation. Agree with it, disagree with it that's up to you. I just don't get the personal attack. Are you this afraid of someone who has an opposite view than you do that they only thing you know to do is attack, attack, attack?
You have done nothing but attack Obama for not having enough experience. Who makes this decision anyways? There is no expertise requirement in the Constitution. What exactly do you think he is not experienced enough in? What is it about him that you just don't like? I've explained why I am no fan of John McCain, why don't you share with us why you are no fan of Barack Obama.
WMD's are WMD's it doesn't matter how many you have as long as you have proven that you are going to use them. It only takes a little bit of the mustard and serin gas to kill.
Although the stashes that were found were degraded it proves that Sadam had them and thus proves the case for the WMD's.
But I thought the actual case for going into Iraq was to get the terrorists that had to attack us. Unfortunately none of the terrorists were from Iraq, Saddam Hussein didn't trust Osama bin Laden, therefore al Qaida was not there (until well after the invasion). Other than some very degraded WMDs that were found in a storage building that Iraq had forgotten about, Iraq posed absolutely no threat to the United States, in the Middle East and certainly not here.
The fact remains that President Bush's attack first and don't ask questions has largely failed. We invaded a sovereign country that had no threat to us, thousands of our men and women have been killed for that, Osama bin Laden is not only still alive but not captured, al Qaida is now as strong as they were when they attacked us on 9/11. But at least we are succeeding in Iraq. Congratulations to the Bush Administration.
But they will take any victory they can, for example, they continue to let us know every few months that we have not been attacked since 9/11 as if THEY are responsible. The simple matter of fact is they have no reason to attack us. They hate us for our freedoms, but the President, and Congress (both Democrats and Republicans) have stripped so many of our rights away we don't have that many freedoms left. I'm sure someone will find a way to twist my words into anti-American and anti-troop rhetoric. I guess it's left to you to actually read my words or read what someone else says I typed.
one question Mike; what right(s) have you lost that have negatively affected your life?
So Mike, first you claim that there was a case for the WMD's to go into Iraq. Now you are coming back and saying that it was because of Al Qaida after I disproved your WMD assertion. Which one is it?
We went into Iraq was to enforce the UN resolutions that were passed. Unfortunately, there were some countries that comprise the UN were against enforcing something they had voted for. In fact, Russia and France had been helping Sadam get around the oil for food program and fund his dictatorship. And how about Kofi Annan's son getting paid by the contractor with the contract for the oil for food scandal? Do we need to go into this for more reasons the UN did not really want to go into Iraq?
Don't forget there were more countries involved than the just the US and UK that comprised the coalition.
I'm not really sure what posts of mine you are reading but if you just look at the case that the Bush Administration made for the war, my point is bared out. They first claimed that it was to find the WMDs that were in Iraq (and to be clear they were not talking about mustard gas, while it can kill it is not a Weapon of Mass Destruction. That end word is the key DESTRUCTION). Once it was apparent we weren't going to find any they made the claim that we went in to get al Qaida out. Yeah, small problem, al Qaida wasn't in Iraq until AFTER we went in. Once that point was proven false they made the claim that they went in to stabilize the Middle East. I'm not sure but if you were to ask around I think the only country that now feels safer with our presence there is Iran.
As for the UN deal. I wasn't arguing why they went against us. I was simply making the point to bigmike that we did not go in under the direction of the UN. Whatever their true "secret" reason for opposing action on Iraq was, their stated reason was that there was no evidence that Iraq had any WMDs. Colin Powell has even stated that when he addressed the UN he did not have all the facts.
But hey if you want to declare all this successful because we found small quantities of dacaying mustard gas, if that helps you sleep better at night, then go right ahead.
I gotta give it to you proudconservative you have already congrulated yourself for some victory over me based on twisting what I have typed. Kudos.
But to answer you first question which is it? It's both. Just rewatch the buildup to the war. As for the WMD claim? You haven't disproven me. I believe what you have seen is a document that made it's way through Congress a few years ago saying that we had indeed found WMDs. That paper has since been found to be false.
Mike,
You forget one very important part of the WMD's not being found in Iraq. So-dumb Husane had 6 months to ship out anything he didn't want found before we invaded. If he had them, which he probably did since he used them on his own people, he gave them to some other muslum rogue neighboring nation. So-dumb even bragged about having them and saying he was willing to use them. Sounds like he was asking to get his butt kicked to me.
Jim
Mike,
Destruction means to destroy... as in destroy life too. So a weapon of mass destruction doesn't just mean structural damage, but rather physiological damage as well. It wasn't just Mustard gas, there was serin gas as well.
You post these so called "facts" but yet have nothing to back them up. Please enlighten us as to your sources because I have seen nothing indicating that that paper was disproven. Yes, we are talking about the same one that was released from the pentagon.
I went back and did some more research on this, yes you are correct in the fact that the weapons were thought to be manufactured before 1991 so they would not be proof of an ongoing WMD program in the 1990s. But they do show that Saddam Hussein was lying when he said all weapons had been destroyed, and it shows that years of on-again, off-again weapons inspections did not uncover these munitions.
So take it as it is, it may not prove that there were mass amounts, but Sadam had used them in the past, and was bragging that he would use them again.
Lets not forget that we are now giving back control to the people of Iraq. Why? Because we are the United States of America. We gave 20 Million Iraqi's their freedom. In my book, that is successful. Even if we don't agree with everything that has gone on, the end result is a benefit for us all.
Thank you to all the veterans and their family's who sacrificed during this time, without you, we would not have the freedoms to have these debates.
I if i recall correctly, the Iraqi people really didn't want our "help" in the first place. There is a difference between giving somebody something and forcing it down someones throat. And if we are "giving control back", then why are we still there. Why does the bush administration insist on not leaving. Yes there has been a "timeline" set up but to what extent, and in all reality do you think they actually plan on following through with it? The only reason that we even have a timeline and havn't become a continual occupying force there (supposedly because we pretty much are) is because of the outpouring of response from the people that we are there "protecting" and providing freedom to, who want us out. We really have no business being there still, even if there was ample reason to be there in the first place. ( which i believe there wasn't) What is there to stop us from haphazardly invading whatever other country for whatever reason we want? why not invade korea? Kim Jong Il might be sick what a perfect time to strike. He DOES have WMD or at least the ability to produce them. Or Iran?
Here is what factcheck.org has to say about the WMD's of Iraq... The actual URI is http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/we...
Q: Were there really weapons of mass destruction in Iraq when the U.S. invaded in 2003?
I have friends in Texas, Seattle and Tennessee who say President Bush was right that there were weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. They claim that the weapons were hidden in caves in the mountains, and are still hidden there, but we have not found them yet. Where did they get such ideas, and is there even the slightest chance they are right, and if so why wouldn't Bush have said this? How did such a belief get started, and is there a way I can dispel them of the idea?
A: No. The Iraq Survey Group determined that Iraq had abandoned its quest to develop chemical, biological and nuclear weapons and that it had already destroyed all of its existing stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
As for how you dispel your friends' notions that Iraq really did have stockpiles of chemical or biological weapons when President Bush no longer makes such claims himself, we suggest ridicule. If that doesn't work, you may be out of luck.
After the invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Bush administration formed the Iraq Survey Group and tasked it with the job of locating WMD stockpiles in Iraq. The ISG was staffed with hundreds of intelligence analysts and military personnel from the United States, the United Kingdom and Australia. The group scoured Iraq, searching for deposits of weapons. But that was actually only part of the ISG's focus.
According to the ISG final report, the search for WMDs actually began during the invasion phase of Operation Iraqi Freedom. A military task force was deployed to investigate suspected WMD sites on the theory that the Iraqi military might otherwise employ those weapons against coalition troops. After the invasion, the ISG was established to conduct "a more systematic collection of evidence to build an understanding of Iraqi WMD programs." In other words, the ISG did not simply look for WMDs. The group also looked at Iraq's WMD capabilities and examined evidence relating to past WMD stockpiles.
During its investigation, the ISG reported that "[a] total of 53 munitions have been recovered, all of which appear to have been part of pre-1991 Gulf war stocks based on their physical condition and residual components." These isolated discoveries received significant media attention, and it's likely that these overhyped reports contributed to your friends' beliefs that Iraq really did possess WMDs. But the finds were rare, and the ISG concluded that they were not part of a significant stockpile of weapons. Indeed, after nearly two years of investigation, the ISG concluded that:
"Saddam Husayn ended the nuclear program in 1991 following the Gulf war. ISG found no evidence to suggest concerted efforts to restart the program."
"While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter."
"In practical terms, with the destruction of the Al Hakam facility, Iraq abandoned its ambition to obtain advanced BW [biological warfare] weapons quickly. ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes."
Experts from the three nations failed to document any existent biological or nuclear weapons and discovered only a few random chemical weapons. The ISG concluded that contrary to what most of the world had believed, Iraq had abandoned attempts to produce WMDs. In his congressional testimony, the head of the ISG, Charles Duelfer, admitted, "We were almost all wrong" on Iraq.
The ISG report was sufficient to convince the Bush administration that there were no WMDs to be found; they called off the search in 2005. If that doesn't convince your friends, we're not sure what else might do the trick. Anyone who believes something without any positive evidence and in the face of evidence to the contrary is no longer acting on the basis of reason.
-Joe Miller
Sources
CNN. "Official: U.S. Calls off Search for Iraqi WMDs." CNN.com, 12 Jan. 2005.
Iraq Survey Group. "Iraq Survey Group Final Report." 30 Sept. 2004. GlobalSecurity.org, 14 Feb. 2008.
Priest, Dana and Walter Pincus. "U.S. 'Almost All Wrong' on Weapons." The Washington Post, 7 Oct. 2004.
Outside of this whole ridiculous argument about WMDs, we invaded a sovereign nation that did not attack us, was no threat to us. We attacked a sovereign nation whose people never asked for our help. Thousands of our men and women have died in this war.
This President has said the two most disgusting, distasteful, and offensive things I have heard in my life. In 2003, he was asked what his thoughts on Osama bin Laden were and his response was that he really didn't think about bin Laden anymore.
So the man that was responsible for attacking us on 9/11 wasn't the focus of our president.
The second, one his horrid attemtps at humor, was the video shown at a dinner where George Bush is mocking our troops by looking under the Oval Office for WMDs. How does that not spark outrage in Americans but something that a Democrat says is? I don't get, probably never will.
Oh and the media is absolutely besides themselves that Obama has taken the lead over McCain again.
Hmmmm, ekimsitruc, spoken like a true dumbocrat.
Go Palin/McCain!
Jim
Saddam had nothing to do with (9/11). Bin Ladin did not associate with the Iraqi government nor nation, because he believe in a harsher misinterpetation of Islam. My only concern Mike, is that we have bases in England. Are we occupying that country? The Iraqi government has not asked us to leave, but you are correct when you say they do not want us to stay. I was told that they were happy we were there, but when things got better we would have to leave. Find me something that says the Iraqi Govt opposes LSA Anaconda remaining. I would love to see it.
First off, I have to apologize for my absence on replying to your posts, I have been busy paying for the welfare cases (aka work) along with stimulating the economy (vacationing in Vegas) If you ask me, the economy is not as bad as the media wants us to believe. Even though we are in this "terrible economy" there was still a lot of money changing hands in the casinos.
Even if we didn't find the WMD's as we have disputed... And I appreciate you citing your sources brianhoag we cannot forget the war was based on other factors as well which have been previously discussed and not just WMD's.
Let's get your opinion on a segment of a speech that was given by a seated President…
"Part of the challenge is just to get rid of as many weapons of mass destruction as possible. That's why we got the states of the former Soviet Union outside Russia to give up their nuclear arsenals, and we negotiated a world-wide treaty to ban chemical weapons. That's why we forced Iraq to sell its oil for money that can go to food and medicine, but not to rebuilding its weapons. And I think the other countries of the world that are willing to let them spend that money rebuilding their weapons systems are wrong. And I hope that we can strengthen the resolve of the world not to let Saddam Hussein rebuild the chemical weapons network and other weapons systems that are bad."
"It's why we negotiated a freeze on plutonium production with North Korea. Now, dealing with terrorists is harder, as we have seen in the tragedy of the USS Cole. Why? Because terrorists, unlike countries, cannot be contained as easily and it's harder to deter them through threats of retaliation. They operate across borders, so we have got to strengthen our cooperation across borders. We have succeeded in preventing a lot of terrorist attacks. There were many planned during the millennium celebration that we prevented."
"We have arrested a lot of terrorists, including those who bombed the World Trade Center and those who were involved in several other killings in this country. And make no mistake about it: we will do the same for those who killed our brave Navy personnel on the USS Cole."
If I were to tell you that none other than Bill Clinton gave this in his address at UNK would you believe it? If he was so concerned about Bin Laden and terrorism, why did he not do anything about it. Source: http://www.argumentations.com/Argumentat.... I was there at UNK that day… mainly out of respect for the position, even though Clinton didn't seem to have respect for the American people. (no citation needed, this is my opinion)
Your wonderful hero of the democratic party, Bill Clinton, had his own opportunities to get Bin Laden, which would have bypassed any of the previous discussions. Bill refused Sudan's help. He failed to act, I even recall, even if I cannot cite a reliable story, that there was a story floating around that a sniper had Bin Laden in his sights, but yet Clinton did not give the order to terminate. My opinion is that Clinton needed a poll to determine if he should have sent the trigger pull message. Instead Clinton sent a cruise missile into an aspirin factory. Where is the disgust in that? (Sources: http://www.infowars.com/saved%20pages/Pr..., http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?p..., http://www.opinionjournal.com/columnists... )
Your disgraceful observations about Bush seem a little less disgraceful since Clinton had his chances to get rid of Bin Laden. Even if I agree with you that Bush may have not used the best judgement.. We can't forget that Clinton had Osama in his sights but did not want to make the call for the assassination, which would have made most of the controversies that have happened since 9/11 null and void.