Kerry wants to make Tora Bora screwup top issue - Bush lies - media silent

[scottxyz]

When the Pentagon believed "with reasonable certainty" that we had Bin Laden holed up at Tora Bora, we screwed up: a decision was made to "outsource" the job of nailing Bin Laden (using too few, non-US sources) when it seemed very likely we had him.

Top military officials have acknowledged publicly - in the media, on the record - that our decision to "outsource" Tora Bora was a major screw-up in the war on terrorism.

Kerry has been trying to make this the outsourcing of Tora Bora into the centerpiece of his endphase campaign. Bush has responded by lying - simply denying it happened that way, denying what is common knowledge.

The media could easily expose this lie, simply by making reference to their own reporting from earlier. However, the media is being silent on this - instead treating it as another case of "he said / he said."

Why is the media helping Bush lie on one of the most crucial points of this campaign? And what can we about it?

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_10_17.php#003770

[senseandsensibility]

1. You mean the media

isn't jumping right on this and holding the idiot in chief's feet to the fire? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.

[Carolinian]

2. Cut off TV news. Go to newspapers, internet, and Cspan.

Pressure the sponsors of hate radio and cable news to require integrity in reporting news. Encourage debate to replace hate.

[creeksneakers2]

3. Kerry needs to run ads and make this his central talking point

Not just this, but all the ways Bush ignored terrorism, since "I'm tired of swatting at flies." There is no way Bush should be winning on this issue.

Kerry has pretty much written the issue off.

[Nicholas_J]

4. It was very clear from the intelligence they had at the time

That either Bin Laden or Al Zawahiri was in the area in Tora BOra that they were searching in. Capturing either would have been a major blow to Al Qaeda, as both these men togetther are the heart, soul, and brains of AL Qaeda, and in fact, it may be that Al Zawahiri is more responsible for Al Qaeda planning than bin Laden is. Bin Laden is more like the spiritual leader of Al Qaeda, and more involved with the financial end, while Al Zawahiri is the brains and planner of the operations, a person who has brought a global structure to terrorism that did not exist before he became involved with the organization.
Before Al Zawahiri joined forces with Al Qaeda, it was really just another terrorist organization similar to those that existed before, BLack Spetember, Al Fatah, etc. Regional in action and limited in scope. It was Al Zawahiri who started using Al Qaeda to forge links with other extreme Muslim organizations. Given that Al Qaeda did not have firmly established training camps, or standardized training procedures prior to Al Zawahiri joined the organization it is obvious that his influence on the organization was great.

Having belonged to one of the oldest fundamentalist Muslim Groups in the World, the Muslim Brotherhjood, which is the model for every extremist Muslim Organization in the World, Al Zawahiri was the perfect person to set up a world wide model for Islamic Terrorism.

If you notice that the first attack on the World Trade Center was performed by a member of the same organization that Al Zawahiri belonged to, and the first bombing was planned by an Egyptian Cleric who was part of that organization, you can see how AL Zawahri's influence and planning relate to the events of September 11th. A similar plan, same target, using nationals from bin Laden's Saudi Arabia, rather than Al Zawahiri's Egypt.

It seems that these men together have had a synergistic effect on their planning and on terrorism as a whole. Letting them escape was a mistake that may result in the war on terror being extended for decades. Had they been captured, we would be a lot closer for terrorism shrinking back to the regional problem that it constituted prior to the war in Iraq.

If you look at what has happened since going into Iraq, you will note that the invasion on Iraq has given Al Qaeda the means to expand its membership, but attracting Iraqi's who were much less prone to fundamentalism than Muslims in any other predominantly Muslim population. From the recent figures we are given about the size of the insurgency in Iraq, The membership of Al Qaeda has expanded by at least 15 percent, just due to the linking of the insurgent to Al Qaeda and Bin Laden which was done in the last few weeks.

There were roughly 60 thousand people trained by Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, and an addition of 13,000 more people to their ranks was no small occurance. All the fault of George W. Bush for opening a second military front in Iraq, when there was only one in Afghanistan before.

We can be sure of one thing. If their is another terrorist attack on the U.S. in the near futre, the people at the head of the planning and financing will have nothing to do with Iraq, and everything to do with Bin Laden, Al Zawahiri, and the Al Qaeda operations in Pakistan.
Any future lives lost on U.S. soil will directly be related to the failure to capture either of these men, or both, when the opportunity presented itself. Iraq will prove to have been a major mistake and an additional cause for any future attacks on the U.S.

[scottxyz]

5. Bush Admin contradicts itself - Kerry points this out - media silent

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A62618-2002Apr16¬Found=true

WaPo, 16 April 2002: The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military officials with first-hand knowledge.

Hey, Washington Post - instead of reporting just "Kerry said / Bush said" - how about you also mention what "The Washington Post said"?