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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (25360)	7/28/2006 9:16:43 AM
From: KonKilo	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 540820

I wasn't really drawing an analogy to 9/11 but rather to the Cole attack. The Cole attack was an act of war, and sterner measures than us launching a few dozen cruise missiles at empty tents would not have been an act of aggression by the US. No one is arguing that a military response would have been inappropriate. But the $64k question remains, "Against whom should it be directed?" In GW4, it is essential that we shoot the right dog. Killing and bombing works well against naked aggression from an enemy that shows itself and wears a uniform, but far less well against shadowy phantoms who strike and then melt into the neighborhood. Police work and highly focused intel is essential. Iraq is more of its own situation than a direct response to 9/11. There is no doubt that the PNAC crowd wanted an Iraq invasion for decades; they even sent Bill Clinton a letter asking him to do so, early in the '90s. The problem that I and so many others have with our administration's rationale for invasion was the rank dishonesty of trying to tie it to the 911 attacks. Even a casual observer can see that this is a stretch that requires suspension of disbelief to make it work. Not very sensible of them to wonder about that because it {forgetting about bin Laden} didn't happen. Tim, your arguments are typically sound, but this is breathtaking in its naivete. W went from saying things like "dead or alive" to "I'm really not concerned with bin Laden" to disbanding the unit that was charged with tracking him. Please, please for your reputation's sake, retract this stunning turn-a-blind-eye, blinkers-on statement.