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Krauthammer's claims about Bush's "steely" resolve against Al Qaeda conflict with reported facts
Summary: Among the reasons cited by Charles Krauthammer that Al Qaeda has not and cannot "hit us" is because the Bush administration has waged an "incredibly effective war in Afghanistan" that he said has "expelled Al Qaeda and scattered it, and has kept it off-balance for six years now." In fact, the July 2007 National Intelligence Estimate concluded that Al Qaeda "has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability" including a "safehaven" in Pakistan. Krauthammer also credited "secret prisons and the interrogation which yielded and interrogated people like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed"; but even supporters of the CIA's interrogation and detention program reportedly acknowledge that much of the information that coercion produces, including information gathered from Mohammed, is unreliable.
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Posted by snoopy
The only group off balance for the last 6 years have been the republican party at the hands of the neocons who control them!
Posted Wednesday September 12, 2007 8:02:32 PM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by captfoster2 in reply to snoopy
Has anyone ever read this clowns columns?
This guy is to intellectual usefullness as a hole in the heart is to a healthy medical condition!
No wonder he's constantly asked to breath hot air on Fox Noise.
Posted Wednesday September 12, 2007 11:34:57 PM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by wzwriter in reply to captfoster2
Charles Krauthammer is consistent - consistently WRONG on a number of issues.
Posted Thursday September 13, 2007 8:30:52 AM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by mefirst
is that the same bush who said in 2002 that he didn't know where bin ladin was, he wasn't concerned about him, and he was not a priority. as for the "amazing achievment" of six years without an attack, we never should have had the attack on 9-11, because as bush told bob woodward, he was "not on point" about bin ladin before 9-11.
Posted Wednesday September 12, 2007 8:36:23 PM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by mefirst in reply to mefirst
bush: "i didn't feel that sense of urgency" about bin ladin. of course not, anything not involving vacation, 10:00pm bedtime, and bike riding is just too much to pay attention to.
http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=498
Posted Wednesday September 12, 2007 8:42:03 PM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by snoopy in reply to mefirst
No you didn't! I thought I was the only taylor marsh fan here!
Posted Wednesday September 12, 2007 8:50:19 PM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by mefirst in reply to snoopy
i've never heard her show. i just googled info and she came up.
Posted Wednesday September 12, 2007 9:03:22 PM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by captfoster2 in reply to mefirst
MEFIRST,
Lets not forget the fact that we were actually attacked six seperate times within two weeks of 9/11.
Unless of course we don't believe that anthrax tainted letters sent to certain media and the two democratic leaders that could have made huge waves as it pertains to the USAPATRIOT Act doesn't count as a 'terrorist' attack?
Or was biological/chemical attacks only a terrorist attack after Nov 2001?
Posted Thursday September 13, 2007 2:14:56 PM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by eweston8542983
Marsh is good. Feel free to link to him again, please.
Posted Wednesday September 12, 2007 9:04:52 PM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by snoopy in reply to eweston8542983
Link to her.
Posted Wednesday September 12, 2007 9:06:52 PM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by eweston8542983
Kay.
Posted Wednesday September 12, 2007 9:10:53 PM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by wolf kotenberg
As opposed to Krauthammers eternan bulls**t ?
Posted Wednesday September 12, 2007 10:36:42 PM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by nativeofsf
The big problem with Chuckie Krauthammer’s intellectual fawnings, as a distinct contrast to “Tweetie’s,” seems to be the former’s induced cerebral constipation unto the Trilby-like, “great decider” whilst the “little feathered pooper” merely discharges too much liquid verbiage. Thus one seeds while the other fertilizes and you get to decide…
Posted Thursday September 13, 2007 8:42:20 AM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by nerzog
Okay, let's concede his point, just for fun. Maybe we haven't been attacked here because of something Bush has done. Maybe driving them out of Afghanistan, though temporarily, put them off balance. More likely, our increased security efforts at home have made a 9/11 style attack more difficult. Even if we concede all of that...it has NOTHING to do with Iraq. In fact, it is probable that our little foray into Iraq, and the necessary diversion of our resources to that boondoggle, have allowed the situation in Afghanistan to deteriorate.
One man's steely resolve is another man's delusional tunnel vision. Captain Ahab had "steely resolve". Adolf Hitler had "steely resolve". It's not always a virtue.
Posted Thursday September 13, 2007 9:41:38 AM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by worrierking in reply to nerzog
GWB as a flip-flopping Ahab.
To the last, I grapple with thee, Bin-Laden.
To the last, I grapple with thee, Saddam.
To the last, I grapple with thee, American voters.
Posted Thursday September 13, 2007 9:56:25 AM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by wzwriter in reply to worrierking
Pretzelboy has enough trouble grappling with tying his shoelaces.....
:-)
Posted Thursday September 13, 2007 10:09:39 AM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by sundog in reply to worrierking
And all save one shall follow. So call me Ishmael.....Please! Because I want a ride home.
Posted Thursday September 13, 2007 10:24:58 AM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by dangrady
SAVE DEMOCRACY, VOTE FOR A DEMOCRAT!!
How often must a 'EXPERT' be completely wrong about everything, before Fox News reaches out for a real expert?? Answer: How often is not the issue, so long as it's their lies!
The Afghanistan Invasion was a plan RIGHT OFF THE SHELF, and Clinton could not invade Afghanistan without a 9/11 type event and any fool knows that.
The main difference between Bush/Cheney and Clinton/Gore is that when terrorist attacked the World Trade Center they were caught and are now in a Federal Prison as would Osama Bin Laden, instead of breaking off force deployed to capture him to send them off to an invasion against the wrong nation!
Krauthammer should be remember as cheap sausage on stale bread with moldy cheese!
Happy Thoughts;
Dan Grady
Posted Thursday September 13, 2007 10:37:38 AM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by DaisyDeadhead
Pretzelboy has enough trouble grappling with tying his shoelaces.....
If that's an anti-disability remark, that's pretty effed up.
There's enough to criticize about what he actually says, than resorting to that kinda crap.
Posted Thursday September 13, 2007 10:57:41 AM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by Brabantio in reply to DaisyDeadhead
I think that was referring to GWB, not Krauthammer.
Posted Thursday September 13, 2007 11:04:53 AM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by wzwriter in reply to Brabantio
Yes - I was referring to Bush.
Posted Thursday September 13, 2007 2:06:42 PM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by nativeofsf in reply to wzwriter
Don’t you think it’s a wee bit discriminatory against “Pretzels”?
Posted Thursday September 13, 2007 10:31:47 PM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by wzwriter in reply to nativeofsf
I refer to Bush as "Pretzelboy" in reference to the time when he allegedly choked on a pretzel while watching a football game on TV at the White House. Personally, I think he was drunk....
Posted Friday September 14, 2007 9:23:45 AM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by Big guy
REALLY....THERE IS NO WHERE ELSE IN THIS WORLD YOU CAN TELL 300 MILLION PEOPLE THESE LIES AND THE MAJORITY OF THE PEOPLE WILL BELIEVE YOU.....JESS...
WHERE ELSE IN THE WORLD DO PEOPLE FOLLOW SUCH INCOMPETENCE!! THEY COULD NOT SAVE OR PROTECT AMAERICANS AND THE PEOPLE STILL CHOOSE THEM TO PROTECT THEIR ASSETS AND CHILDREN.....
I DON'T CARE WHAT PARTY YOU BELONG TO AMERICANS WAKE UP...
THIS WHITE HOUSE HAS SOMETHING ON ALL GOP SENATORS..(HOMOS AND THIEVES) THAT'S WHY THEY BACK THEM.
Posted Thursday September 13, 2007 2:47:42 PM EDT / Flag this comment
Posted by HughG
Here's what I don't get: conservative Bushapologists like Krauthammer love to brag about the fact that we've gone six years without a major terrorist attack on US soil. Here, he says "We can never know how safe we are because we can be hit tomorrow, as we were unexpectedly on 9-11. What we can say is we've gone six years, and nobody expected we would go six weeks or six months."
The thing is, I don't think that fits the historical record. In the wake of 9-11--in the weeks and months that followed--I don't remember a chorus of experts, pundits, and opinion-mongers predicting frequent, large-scale terrorist attacks.
I think it would be interesting if somebody could do a search of news analysis and op-ed columns--perhaps starting with Krauthammer himself--to see what people were saying, in real time, about the likelihood of another terrorist attack hitting America soon after 9/11/01. My bet is that Krauthammer would be exposed as someone talking at variance with the facts, and that therefore, the claim that the Bush Administration's anti-terrarist strategery has been successful because it has "kept us safe" would be proved wrong, wrong, wrong.
Posted Friday September 14, 2007 6:13:53 AM EDT / Flag this comment