<p>There weren’t WMD? Saddam wasn’t responsible for 9/11?</p>
<p>Shooooooot. I know that’s what I’ve been told on teevee!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Your description of the “combination” bears out my point. I don’t believe luck exists per se. I believe luck is good preparation intersected with the opporutnity for that good preparation to bear fruit. What you described is exactly that - the execellent work of our government post 9/11 intersected with the opportunity for that work to yield results. I’m convinced those same efforts - including the mining of information that only the criminal among us should be concerned about - have protected us from a 9/11 redux - or more likely a 9/11X.</p>
<p>The straw man argument of “no contacts between Hussein and a-Qaeda” has finally come full circle. Those contacts were never the original justification for the invasion - at least not the primary one. Disarmament and regime change were - and those have been accomplished. The fact that WMD weren’t found in any large quantity may discredit the capabilities of the entire world’s intelligence capabilities, but it doesn’t discredit the reasons to invade. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Read with care the report that is the subject of the quoted WP article. It doesn’t say that the contacts didn’t exist - the WP would have you believe that’s what it says. It says direct contacts were limited. And what the WP story also doesn’t tell you is that there is no doubt that the Hussein regime was a state sponsor of terrorism - whether in direct league with al-Qaeda and OBL/KSM or not.</p>
<p>Look at the ease with which al-Qaeda and all type and sort of jihadists have established themselves in Iraq working with former Baathists and Hussein regime cronies. That tells me there was plenty of seed in the ground before we got there. I’m glad we’re there battling the weeds of islamist radical terror rather than reaping the whirlwind here at home. </p>
<p>Look, if [as HRC has so blithely offered], if we knew then what we know now, would we have gone to war in Iraq? Well, hindsight is a wonderful thing isn’t it? Most likely we wouldn’t. I don’t think we would’ve had the justification a great and moral nation like ours needs to employ our awesome power beyond our borders - in part because a nation like our requires a consensus of the governed to act in that way - unlike our very real enemies. But, there can [and will] be no doubt that if we don’t fight the fight we’re fighting in Iraq, we will [and will anyway] have to fight it elsewhere.</p>
<p>So, unless you are willing to accept defeat in this war [and I don’t mean the battle in Iraq - I mean the war against radical Islam], the question we should be asking isn’t “Should we have invaded Iraq?” Instead the question is, “Now that we have are we doing what it takes to achieve victory?” If you don’t believe that’s the question, then you are willing to accept our defeat. Our defeat in this war will be the defeat of our culture and society, and I’m not prepared to concede that. Are you?</p>
<p>How bad is Bush? </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSWLKQMN34Y[/url]”>http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PSWLKQMN34Y</a></p>
<p>…he’s BAD!</p>
<p>“Do you people really think its mere coincidence or luck that we haven’t had a repeat of 9/11 in the last 5-1/2 years?”</p>
<p>To what do you attribute the fact that there was a lull of more than 5 1/2 years between U.S. terror attacks PRIOR to 9/11?</p>
<p>(I’d also like to hear why terrorist attacks against our closest allies, like Britain and Spain, or on our embassies and ships abroad somehow don’t “count.”)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And next you’ll tell me that GWB:</p>
<p>Planned the first WTC attack
Planned the attack on the USS Cole
Planned the attack on the African embassies
Planned the attack on Kobar Towers
Planned 9/11</p>
<p>…and on and on and on</p>
<p>You’re so blinded by your hate for GWB that you don’t get that we’re in the fight of our lives. Hopefully it won’t take 9/11X to wake you and your fellow otriches to get it. But I’m afraid it will.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>What lull? My goodness, where were you? See my last post for a partial listing. [And you might want to pull out a calendar to remind yourself where those events came in the order of events…]</p>
<p>I’m talking about attacks on US interests. We don’t [yet] have the homegrown problem Britain has nor [thank God] the head in the sand approach taken by most of the rest of Europe.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>That certainly raises the level of the discourse. And you’re welcome to Michael Jackson as an advocate for your side of the argument. Just don’t have to your house for a sleepover.</p>
<p>Classic misdirection of the argument. The point is that America and GWB DID choose war, but not against the enemy who actually attacked us. Osama is alive and well. If your concern is the war between radical Islam and the West, there can be little doubt that our invasion of Iraq has strengthened the motivation and ranks of the jihadists, not weakened them. I have no idea how one can obtain “victory” in this affair, as there will be no signing ceremony on the bow deck of the Missouri, but it is not by mobilizing much of the world against us.</p>
<p>Naw, I’ll just say Bush planned the Madrid train bombing and the London subway and bus bombing. 
I think that we’ve stirred up the pot and the radical Islamists are much more interested in killing people than they were before. I don’t care that much whether there are more or fewer Americans.We’re all humans. Besides I think they are getting plenty of jollies killing Americans in Iraq.</p>
<p>"And next you’ll tell me that GWB:</p>
<p>Planned the first WTC attack
Planned the attack on the USS Cole
Planned the attack on the African embassies
Planned the attack on Kobar Towers
Planned 9/11"</p>
<p>No, that would be as ignorant as saying “America never chooses war [and GWB certainly didn’t choose this one]”.</p>
<p>Sorry, delusion is your bailiwick.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Actually, the FBI’s data mining had identified the London bomber mastermind as a MAJOR terror threat. They put him on a do-not-fly list when he attempted to travel to the US about a year before the London bombings. Apparently, they failed to share what they knew with their UK counterparts.</p>
<p>Hard to believe, but just as the Department of Defense releases further evidence that the WAS no link, Cheney reasserts it:
<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-06-cheney_N.htm[/url]”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2007-04-06-cheney_N.htm</a></p>
<p>Now the question: Does he believe that, and thus is delusional? Or is he knowingly promoting a lie and hoping some people will believe him (apparently including some on this board).</p>
<p>Even if GWB has finally admitted no link between Iraq and 9/11, Cheney has never admitted that, no matter what the accumulating evidence may say.</p>
<p>So… a lie or a delusion? Whichever is true, it’s not good.</p>
<p>How does “My Pet Goat” end, anyway? :o</p>
<p>I think initially Al Qada was thrown off bt the ferocity of they US response post 911 and were very much on the defensive. When they did brgin to regain their footing they decided to attack us in Iraq, but attacks against hard targets like military forces were too costly. </p>
<p>Al Qada then devised a new plan to stir a civil war by launching attacks on Shia civilians. That plan worked and coupled with Americas usual lack of staying power pointed to an eventual withdrawal and abig win in Iraq. Once they sensed an American pullout was only a matter of time I think they made a tactical decision to not launch any attacks in the US. All an attack here could do is stir up American resolve. Once a pullout happens I believe all hell is going to break out here n the US.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Stupid senseless name-calling is yours. Mine elevates the discussion yours denegrates it. You have children in college? Because you strike me as the sophomore.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s possible to stir a boiling pot, but it doesn’t make any difference.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Moral equivalence at its finest. All I can say is that I’m glad you weren’t around on 12/8 much less than in charge on 9/12.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>When the US leaves, the Sunni jihadists are going to have their hands full with al Sadr’s death squads.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Just proving the point that the islamist radicals can’t defeat us militariliy, it is only we who can defeat them. But we can much more easily defeat ourselves and that’s precisely what we’re fixin’ to do. I would urge anyone who is genuninely interested to study a bit of WWII history and take a look at where we were in the war’s progress just before Iwo Jima. Very eerily similar to where we are now. Had we lost our nerve then, only the darkest hours would have followed. We must not lose our nerve now or even darker times will arrive. </p>
<p>We didn’t want this fight but we had better want to win it.</p>
<p>It’s a pawned-off-by-Cheney-et-al stupidity to conflate the war in Iraq with the war against Islamist terrorists.</p>