Rumsfeld let Bin Laden escape

[Zebo]

Can't stop Islam redivivus by capturing one man.. Capturing Osama, like killing upteen dozen supposed leaders makes little to no difference to the movement. Strangling them financially (why don't we have totally electrin cars by now?) and socially is the only way.

The accident of geology has given these backwards ass folks power and influence I think goes to the heart of the problems we are having.

 

[Zorkorist]

There's little to do for the average Muslim man, than to take his state, and teach him Christianity.

 

[Lemon law]

There's little to do for the average Muslim man, than to take his state, and teach him Christianity.

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Oh what a great idea, if anything Christians are far more vicious than Muslims. Read world History to find that truth.

To a great extent, Muslims nations happen to be the last vestige of European colonialism to throw off the yoke of colonial domination.

Blame not religion, blame human piggishness and a desire to cross oceans and distance to dominate others.

 

[heyheybooboo]

The report was prepared by staff members of the Democratic majority at the request of John Kerry. It is not an objective assessment.

U.S. Concludes Bin Laden Escaped at Tora Bora Fight
Failure to Send Troops in Pursuit Termed Major Error
Wednesday, 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.

Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora inside the cave complex along Afghanistan's mountainous eastern border. Though there remains a remote chance that he died there, the intelligence community is persuaded that bin Laden slipped away in the first 10 days of December.

After-action reviews, conducted privately inside and outside the military chain of command, describe the episode as a significant defeat for the United States. A common view among those interviewed outside the U.S. Central Command is that Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the war's operational commander, misjudged the interests of putative Afghan allies and let pass the best chance to capture or kill al Qaeda's leader. Without professing second thoughts about Tora Bora, Franks has changed his approach fundamentally in subsequent battles, using Americans on the ground as first-line combat units.

In the fight for Tora Bora, corrupt local militias did not live up to promises to seal off the mountain redoubt, and some colluded in the escape of fleeing al Qaeda fighters.....

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[shira]

Put Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush in the Hague.. but try terrorists captured on foreign soil in NYC.. Makes sense to me! Maybe we could actuall try them under Sharia law as well?

Besides, 9/11 was just a hoax anyway.. Osama is innocent just framed by Condi and Cheney.

As a diversion of this thread: Fail. As trenchant wit: Fail. As third-grade prose: Fail.

 

[Genx87]

I said Bush and his minions planned it all.

Of course back then you and the rest of you Republicans controlled everything so you sided with your buds, ow that you're on the outside looking in you complain?

Give me a fucking break.

Yeah and before Bush and his minions we had Clinton and his minions who refused to pull the trigger on confirmed sighting of OBL in Afghanistan in 98. It is a complete and utter failure of our countries leadership regardless of party affiliation OBL survived to mastermind 9-11.

 

[heyheybooboo]

..... It is a complete and utter failure of our countries leadership regardless of party affiliation OBL survived to mastermind 9-11.

Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the 'mastermind' of 9/11.




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[PokerGuy]

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Exactly not the point Farang, its not a matter of it being the partisan truth, its a matter of it being the actual truth or not.

As far as I am concerned, if anything it, the congressional report understates the real truth, but if you cast aspersions on the panels findings, the burden of rebuttal proof is now on you. Somehow screaming partisan does nothing to support your position. And you have offered nothing in the way of a rebuttal.

If a report is made by a partisan panel, it's not up to me to show that it's partisan, one can safely asume that it's partisan and take it's conclusions with a grain of salt.

 

[shira]

Put Rumsfeld, Cheney, Bush in the Hague.. but try terrorists captured on foreign soil in NYC.. Makes sense to me! Maybe we could actuall try them under Sharia law as well?

Besides, 9/11 was just a hoax anyway.. Osama is innocent just framed by Condi and Cheney.

if you cant understand how ass backwards your mindset is...no one can help you

we SHOULD hold our people to a higher standard...what the fuck is wrong with you?

What's wrong with him is that his brain function is limited to two states: asleep and confused.

 

[CaptainGoodnight]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091129/ap_on_go_co/us_tora_bora_bin_laden

Now the question is, how can we blame the previous administration, so we can distract the failures of the current one?

Fixed that for you.

 

[shira]

This is hardly new news, anyone who did their own critical thinking when it happened in Tora Bora realized the mistake then. And congress finally gets around to formalizing it only in the past few days?

The thinking was why should our troops die when we could get let our Northern alliance allies to do the bloody fighting and dying to get Bin Laden. And then Rumsfeld discovered the Northern alliance had no grievance against Bin Laden and declined to die for us. But Northern alliance mission accomplished, the Taliban were chased out of Afghanistan, the Northern alliance then sped back home to get back into the drug and corruption business at their same old stands. And there is where we can trace the fact of why we lost winning the peace in Afghanistan. You can't win the peace when the government you give the Afghan people is run by corruption experts.

As for figuring out how to blame Obama for it, I will leave that job to Rumsfeld, neocons, and Dick Cheney. If I had my druthers, I would prefer they be otherwise be occupied telling it to judges at the Hague as they are sent to answer for the international war crimes they committed in Iraq, Afghanistan, and other places.

Good post. I do remember the Northern Alliance, and that their leader was killed.

I remember Tora Bora too... and how we all had hopes that this was it for Obama.

Alas, it was not to be.

Another huge fvck-up, not mentioned in the article, is a major lesson we failed to learn from the Soviet fiasco in Afghanistan: Seal the border with Pakistan BEFORE starting major military action. That would have required a lot more troops, true, but it would have greatly simplified the eradication of both Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

 

[ayabe]

Yeah and before Bush and his minions we had Clinton and his minions who refused to pull the trigger on confirmed sighting of OBL in Afghanistan in 98. It is a complete and utter failure of our countries leadership regardless of party affiliation OBL survived to mastermind 9-11.

You know the story, some of our friends were there with a lot of civilians. Hindsight is always 20-20. Yeah I know we need better friends....

Given the amount of heat that NATO airstrike caused in Sept, I can only imagine how angry people would have been if something equally "dirty" occurred prior to 9/11.

 

[rudder]

If we'd killied or captured Osama, then there wouldn't have been much point in sticking around in Afghanistan, other than fattening up military contractors... getting a lot of young service members shot up, maimed, killed...
..

Yeh because the taliban would have given up and al-qaeda would have stopped its man causing disasterist operations. A captured/killed bin laden would have raised just as much money as the missed opportunity "that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism."

I guess we would have been much better off sending a big force after bin laden and invading pakistan as he crossed the border...maybe the Pakistani population would not have noticed.

 

[heyheybooboo]

Yeh because the taliban would have given up and al-qaeda would have stopped its man causing disasterist operations. A captured/killed bin laden would have raised just as much money as the missed opportunity "that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism."

I guess we would have been much better off sending a big force after bin laden and invading pakistan as he crossed the border...maybe the Pakistani population would not have noticed.

If your post is not the most lame-ass apologist bullshit that has ever been posted at ATP&N, it at least has to be in the top 3.

 

[ayabe]

Yeh because the taliban would have given up and al-qaeda would have stopped its man causing disasterist operations. A captured/killed bin laden would have raised just as much money as the missed opportunity "that forever altered the course of the conflict in Afghanistan and the future of international terrorism."

I guess we would have been much better off sending a big force after bin laden and invading pakistan as he crossed the border...maybe the Pakistani population would not have noticed.

We had less than 100 men on the ground, I'd say there was plenty of room between that and a "large force".

Shit we probably could have done it with 200-300 guys, our guys, not the local militia.

 

[Wreckage]

Of course they let him escape. It's easier to sell fear with a bogey man out there.

Besides Bin Laden's ties to the Republican party run deep. He did them a big favor, giving them the perfect fear campaign to scare voters.

 

[Sclamoz]

Another huge fvck-up, not mentioned in the article, is a major lesson we failed to learn from the Soviet fiasco in Afghanistan: Seal the border with Pakistan BEFORE starting major military action. That would have required a lot more troops, true, but it would have greatly simplified the eradication of both Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

How do you think that could be accomplished?

 

[CADsortaGUY]

U.S. Concludes Bin Laden Escaped at Tora Bora Fight
Failure to Send Troops in Pursuit Termed Major Error
Wednesday, April 17, 2002





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So why did Kerry et al waste time and effort on this little "truth" report if the Bush admin stated early on that it messed up?

 

[wwswimming]

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Oh what a great idea, if anything Christians are far more vicious than Muslims. Read world History to find that truth.

To a great extent, Muslims nations happen to be the last vestige of European colonialism to throw off the yoke of colonial domination.

Blame not religion, blame human piggishness and a desire to cross oceans and distance to dominate others.

good points.

as far as Bin Laden, i was listening to Rush Limbaugh talk about this yesterday on the car radio. how in 1998 Clinton didn't seize the moment to 'take out' bin Laden via Tomahawk missile. but i forgot to mention is that in 1998 Clinton was being crucified for an extra-marital affair. the entire Congress, Senate, and President had their attention diverted from WAAY more important matters.