This is the first in what I hope will be several threads examining the key issues in the 2004 campaign. As best I can I will attempt to lay out my understanding of Bush's and Kerry's positions. President Bush said on MTP that he's a "war president" and indeed the war on terror is the central issue of his presidency. Bush suggests that in a post 9/11 world the best, no the only, way to effectively combat islamic fascist terrorists is to take them on in their own backyards, rather that wait for them to hit us again in the United States. in Condi Rice's words, "we can't let the smoking gun be Chicago." In pursuit of this policy the US has invaded Afghanistan, and Iraq, and pursued terrorists in the philipines. Since the invasion of Iraq, Libya has confessed to a nuclear program far larger than anyone suspected, and has agreed to dismantle it. Iran has agreed to accept more instrusive inspections of it's nuclear program, again a program much more advanced than previously imagined. After being presented with "mind-boggling amounts" of evidence from the US and being threatened with sanctions, Pakistan's Mushareff has acknowledged that his country, in the person of Dr. Khan, has sold nuclear technology to N. Korea, Libya, Iran, and others. They are now cooperating in demonstrating the full extent of the sales. Bush often cites the 1,000's of terrorists captured or killed, but perhaps the best measure of the success of his policy is the lack of attacks in the U.S., or on America interests around the world, since September 2001. Bush sees the war on terror as fundamentally a military operation, with input from the CIA, FBI, NSA, etc, and the intelligence agencies of other nations. In contrast, John Kerry believes terror can best be fought by enlisting the aid of the UN and international police agencies. He would use the miltary "where necessary" but it would not be the main anti-terror force. To be honest, I've been waiting for Kerry to profer a coherent anti-terror policy. Perhaps I've missed it, but I haven't heard it yet. anyone else care to share what his position is in detail?
Bush often cites the 1,000's of terrorists captured or killed, but perhaps the best measure of the success of his policy is the lack of attacks in the U.S. since September 2001. I'll try to respond with my thoughts in more detail later, but I wanted to comment on this real quick. I don't think the # of attacks on the U.S. since 9/11 is a measure of success. It can be a measure of failure - if there were several, we would certainly know that our efforts were failing. However, you can't tell success from it. For example, would you argue Clinton's strategy against terror after the WTC blast in 1993 was effective, since we didn't have any attacks for 8 years after that? Looking back, we now know that AQ was simply plotting and planning for their next attack years in advance. This time, we're only looking at 2 years, so even had we done nothing, we don't know that they would have been capable of launching another significant attack on us yet. The Bush policies may or may not have been successful, and there are ways to measure that, but attacks on U.S. during the past 2 years isn't really a good way to do it.
By the way, great idea to do a post on each of the many issues of the campaign - it will be good to see all the major issues laid out in an organized format, rather than the haphazard way we do it here normally.
Basso runs the Bush side and Major runs the Kerry side with each side alternating in picking the discussion topics?
That's what happens when you only read NRO and Opinion Journal. You miss things. http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/homeland/plan.html http://www.johnkerry.com/issues/100days/fp_facts.html
I agreed that the invasion into Afghanistan was necessary part of the war on terror. For that move Bush gets an 'A'. The handling of Afghanistan afterwards has been largely done without sufficient interest or help from Bush. I will grade him a 'D' on that one. Iraq was zero threat to the U.S. both in the role they play in international terrorism and as a direct threat. Iraq was already contained, and unable to reconstruct any type of WMD's nuclear or chemical. Lives and resources that could have been used to fight real terrorism were diverted in this giant diversion. Bush gets an 'F' Kerry believes that intel is more important in fighting terrorism, and I agree. Cooperation with other nations in a concentrated effort to track terrorism down to it's roots can only be done with the help of the international community. Using intel and enforcement is a way to stop more terrorism before it happens, and get to the root of these organizations. Kerry is not against using the military when needed to fight terrorism, but is wise enough to know that a good flow of intel internationally, and a cooperative effort works far better than being ham handed and alienating allies. Anytime a country might have ties to a terrorist organization adn invading that country would leave the U.S. ruling about half the world. Is that what we are after? If there is an ant mound in the back yard I don't burn down the house and a 3 acre radias around it. I go to the roote of the ant hill and destroy it, hopefully with the cooperation of the house owners and any neighbors who are also suffering. The ability to maintain good relations with those neighbors is essential. But these arguments are largely irrelevant because I don't believe Bush went into Iraq because of terrorism. After all Charles Taylor of Liberia had more connections to Al Qaeda than Saddam did.
Basso runs the Bush side and Major runs the Kerry side with each side alternating in picking the discussion topics? If I had the time and knew more about Kerry's views in detail, I would love to do that! More realistically, this would turn into a Basso running the Bush side and me running my own views and me disappearing from time to time as school takes me away!
Correct me if I'm wrong (and I'm sure someone will) But the main difference that I see is that Kerry is more concerned in building a true global coalition to fight Islamic terrorism than the unilateral approach that Bush has taken. To me, that's the issue. Do we want to have the world community helping or do we want to go it alone?
We don't need anyone else to tell us who is and isn't a threat to us, who we can and can't attack, and afterwards, when we're proven wrong. we sure as hell don't need anyone else to remind us that they told us so while we're falling over ourselves talking about how it was an unavoidable mistake.
I love the idea of someone else offering the dem perspective, particularly since i'm probably not the best advocate! I'll try and be as honest as i can in each instance, and there certainly are areas where i disagree quite strongly with the administration. hopefully, we'll see some honest examples where democrats disgree w/ Kerry. I've edited my initial post to include or american interests around the world in the part about the success of Bush's policy. After the 1993 bombing of the WTC, there were attacks on americans in Saudia Arabia in 1995, the Khobar Towers bombing in 1996, the attacks on american embassies in africa in 1998, and the bombing of the USS Cole in 2000. I don't include attacks on US forces in Afghanistan or Iraq since we're there for the express purpose of engaing the enemy.
So wait, you won't count the Iraq soldier casualties? This is a direct refutation of what has been your (and others) mantra for over a year now: that the War on Iraq is a part of the war on terror. Pick one or the other. But anyway, you left out a few not related to that: (warning, I got this off of some nutty website so some of it might be suspect, but most of these I recall. 2003 October 15 Gaza Strip Remote-controlled bomb killed 3 Americans traveling in a vehicle convoy. Terrorists then stoned rescuers/investigators. 2003 August 19 Iraq - Baghdad Suicide bombing of UN Headquarters in Iraq; 23 Killed (3 Americans) Osama bin Laden Al-Qaeda 2003 May 12 Saudi Arabia - Riyadh Three separate bombings of American/Western residential areas - 34 Killed (8 Americans); Over 200 injured Osama bin Laden Al-Qaeda 2003 March 18 Yemen 3 Killed, 1 Injured; American oil workers shot Suicide Killer 2003 March 4 Phillipines - Bomb explosion at Manila airport 19 Killed; Moro Islamic Liberation Front 2003 January 21 Kuwait 1 Killed, 1 Injured; American contractors ambushed with assault rifles at a stoplight Unknown 2002 December 30 Yemen - Baptist Mission Hospital 3 Killed (American doctor and administrators); Shot and killed at the hospital Unknown 2002 October 15 Bali Nightclub 180 Killed (2 Americans); Remote-controlled bomb Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) 2002 July 5 Los Angeles CA - LAX (LA International Airport) 2 Killed (both Israeli's) killing on American soil; Egptian immigrant shot into crowd at El Al airlines Hessan Mohammad Hadayat 2002 January 31 Pakistan 1 Killed; American journalist decapitated; murder videotaped and released for publication Islamic Jihad The reasons for fewer attacks on American embassies abroad is that embasssis are much more secure now than they were years ago. Example, the American embasssy/consulate that used to be in isn't even in Istanbul anymore (or was it Ankara? I can't recall). They moved it out of town out to a hilltop in the suburbs, where it's basically a fortress, unlike the British consulate, which wasn't and got bombed.
Point taken. Am in a bit of a silly mood. I do, however, take issue with your reasoning, but you're right, you're trying to be even-handed here, and I was a bit of a twit.
I would give Bush D- on the whole of his handling of Afghanistan. The U.S. killed lots of innocent Afghan civilians and then didn't commit the troops on the ground to surround and capture Bin Laden in Tora Bora. Can any Bush supporter please explain why we didn't do this, but it was justified to invade Iraq with over 100,000 troops. The incompetence is mind boggling. Almost as mind boggling as the fact that this episode in the War on Terror has fallen down the memory hole.
There's a school of thought that the problem with the afghanistan campaign is that we now have too manytroops rather than too few. initial deployments were of small, self-contained, units that operated with considerable autonomy. As the operation grew, more are more ops were directed out of bagram air base, troops in the field would have to get approval from higher ups for every target, with the result that many targets escaped before we could attack them. with respect to tora bora, while there's been considerable speculation that bin laden was present, no knows for certain. moreover, the nature of the terrain, the enemy, and the campaign, argued against a large deployment of troops. as i said,this is one school of thought, and not being a military analyst i'm not qualified to judge it on it's merit. i did read a lengthy article about it a while back which i'll try and find.
Perhaps the hunt for OBL might be using too many troops. I'm not saying I agree, but I'm open to that possibility. But that there are too many troops there in general I disagree with. Considering that the President and the govt. that we put in place controls a very small portion of the country. I think we need more troops in there in order to help give the govt a fighting chance. Most importantly we need to help fund the reconstruction.
