Warrior President takes down another al Qaeda leader

No. The Bush administration never did that. They never declared a war on terror. "War on Terror" is a MEDIA-propogated catchphrase used to describe the war against Al-Qaeda. The initial authorization against Afghanistan, after all, was designed to take down Bin Laden and his buddies, not something like "terrorism."

 

So you have mixed feelings about this particular drone strike. Can you elaborate a bit?

 

American citizens, collateral damage, foreign relations, terrorists all play roles

 

The President does not have the luxury of ambiguity.

 

Agreed, and I appreciate that you don't have a black-and-white view on it.

 

Why do you feel the need to protect terrorists? Do you harbor some nefarious anti-American sentiment that may be a danger to our country?

You seem so un-American in your desire to defend the actions of terrorists over the actions of your own country.

You used to seem like such a patriot. Sad.

 

weak trolling post

I'll be the bigger man and not stoop to this level

 

What? Is my sarcasm meter on the fritz?

"This crusade – this war on terrorism – is going to take a while, ... "

--George W. Bush, September 16, 2001

"Our 'war on terror' begins with al-Qaeda, but it does not end there. It will not end until every terrorist group of global reach has been found, stopped and defeated."

--George W. Bush, September 20, 2001 before a televised joint session of Congress

"Some have argued that confronting the threat from Iraq could detract from the war against terror. To the contrary, confronting the threat posed by Iraq is crucial to winning the war on terror."

--George W. Bush

"The war on terror involves Saddam Hussein because of the nature of Saddam Hussein, the history of Saddam Hussein, and his willingness to terrorize himself."

--George W. Bush

There are countless other WOT quotes by Bush, Cheney, and Bush administration officials, including many about the Dems being soft on "the War on Terror."

 

al qeada is just going to keep promoting somebody everytime we kill one of their "leaders". It isn't a set government, it's like a multi-nation fraternity where anybody can get promoted. learned much of this in govt class. So all we are doing is wasting our time basically because somebody else is going to get moved up to that spot of AQ leader.

 

So then let's not do anything, in fact, lets stop arresting gang leaders here in the states.

 

difference between stopping gang leaders here and then stopping "terrorists" overseas is that
a) doesnt cost hundreds of billions of dollars to do it here
b) is directly protecting people in the states, doing it overseas obviously is under the entire speculation that they will continuously bomb USA/attack us.
c) less lives are lost chasing down gang leaders as opposed to chasing down men hiding in caves in territories we are not very familiar of.

 

So it's either drone strikes or invasions. My bad.

 

You realize due process also determines who is and isn't a terrorist?

 

Shut up, terrorist.

 

This is true but you have to consider that each time Al Qaeda loses someone in leadership they are also losing that person's experience and abilities and there is no guarantee the next person that comes up will have that. It's like saying that even though Derrick Rose is out for the playoffs the Bulls have another PG to take his place. That's true but obviously that guy doesn't have the same ability as Derrick Rose.

Al Qaeda is amorphous but it's not like just anyone can become a leader in Al Qaeda. The people who are have a certain set of skills and experience to put them in that position. This is one of the things that we have found out from the raid that killed OBL that even he felt that drone strikes were taking a toll on the Al Qaeda's ability.

 

Just to point out a couple of things about this particular situation but al-Quso wasn't a US citizen (even if he was as has been pointed out many times citizenship isn't relevant when in service of a declared enemy on a battlefield), in regard to due process al-Quso had been indicted by a US Federal court and tried and convicted by a Yemeni court (he was secretly released).

I am not completely comfortable with drone strikes al-Quso's case was pretty clear cut. He was a declared enemy, operating outside of US territory, and also a fugitive from both US and Yemeni justice.

 

A great article on this point by Fareed Zakaria:

 

This is not even remotely true - the War on Terror, actually the "Global War on Terror" was a branding strategy applied by the Bush team from day 1 (so it would include IRaq, north korea, iran, etc).

They invented, used and own this terminology. See, e.g. the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal (conveniently created around the time of hte Iraq war).

Eventually it fell out of favor, and Obama expressly hasn't used this term and used "Al Qaeda" instead, so much so that it killed their brand and bin Laden apparently wanted to rename it, according to many reports.

 

Simply a galling double standard...