Obama repeated Bush line that Taliban refused to turn over bin Laden.

[Octafish]

Didn't the Taliban offer to turn over bin Laden to the United States?
All they wanted was evidence of his guilt in the attacks of September 11.



Unfortunately, this phrase from President Obama, first spoken more than eight years ago by George Bush,
creates the false impression that there was no alternative to invasion and war.

And that is wrong.

Bush rejects Taliban offer to hand Bin Laden over

Taliban demand evidence of Bin Laden's guilt

Staff and agencies
guardian.co.uk,
Sunday 14 October 2001 22.19 BST

President George Bush rejected as "non-negotiable" an offer by the Taliban to discuss turning over Osama bin Laden if the United States ended the bombing in Afghanistan.

Returning to the White House after a weekend at Camp David, the president said the bombing would not stop, unless the ruling Taliban "turn over, turn his cohorts over, turn any hostages they hold over." He added, "There's no need to discuss innocence or guilt. We know he's guilty". In Jalalabad, deputy prime minister Haji Abdul Kabir - the third most powerful figure in the ruling Taliban regime - told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US, but added: "we would be ready to hand him over to a third country".

SNIP...

Taliban 'ready to discuss' Bin Laden handover if bombing halts

The Taliban would be ready to discuss handing over Osama bin Laden to a neutral country if the US halted the bombing of Afghanistan, a senior Taliban official said today.

Afghanistan's deputy prime minister, Haji Abdul Kabir, told reporters that the Taliban would require evidence that Bin Laden was behind the September 11 terrorist attacks in the US.

"If the Taliban is given evidence that Osama bin Laden is involved" and the bombing campaign stopped, "we would be ready to hand him over to a third country", Mr Kabir added.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/oct/14/afghanistan.terrorism5

What the heck? Next thing you know, Obama'll be honoring Ronald Reagan or something.

[omega minimo]

1. He's already honored Ronald Reagan and praised his "trajectory" and GODDAMMIT we're still on it.

:evilfrown:

[Octafish]

5. Obama needs to jockey up on history.

He should be on the back of the dime, all right.

[Binka]

2. That Photo Of The Drunkard Bush Embracing Obama Sickens Me

Just a bit more than Obama's speech. Or maybe not.

[Octafish]

6. Believing Leura Canary over Don Siegelman got to me.

DOJ Against Siegelman Appeal to Supreme Court

That, and all the rest of doing what Karl Rove likes.

[chill_wind]

18. The FISA Fix was my first sobering moment.

[Octafish]

40. Siding with amnesty for the Telcos in NSA spying on Americans bugged me, too.

Where's the outrage that's not on tape?

[chill_wind]

64. Filibuster flip-flop not enough, voted for cloture.

Good times....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3591766#top


(link edit)

[Ghost in the Machine]

3. Iraq could have been avoided, too... Saddam offered to go into exile to save Iraq from war...

Saddam Hussein 'wanted $1bn exile deal'

Published: 3:42PM BST 12 Apr 2008

Saddam Hussein offered to go into exile for $1 billion (£500 million) one month before the invasion of Iraq, it has been claimed.

The revelation is contained in a previously unpublished transcript of talks between President George W Bush and the then Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar in February 2003 at the US leader's Texas ranch.


According to a report by the Spanish daily El Pais, Mr Bush told his Spanish counterpart that the Iraqi dictator had made the offer to leave through the Egyptian government, but added: "We'll be in Baghdad by the end of March."

The US President also reportedly referred to his relationship with Tony Blair, saying: "I don't mind being the bad cop if Blair is the good cop."
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/1564405/Saddam-Hussein-wanted-1bn-exile-deal.html


Two unnecessary wars still being fought because of the cowboy diplomacy of a wild-west wannabe...


Peace,

Ghost

[lapfog_1]

4. Worse than that...

Before we invaded, we went to the UN and demanded that Iraq "prove" that they had no WMDs. Iraq showed up, brought all of the documents they could find that showed the destruction of the WMDs that they did have after the end of the Gulf War, and offered to let UN inspectors in to snoop as much as they wanted. "Not good enough" cried Bush and the Neocons, "we think you will just mislead the inspectors or won't let them go anywhere they want to go!".

Then Powell went to the UN with the computer animation videos and test tubes with white powder in them... and lied his ass off.

[Octafish]

9. Same thing happened with consigliari James Baker and Poppy in Gulf War I...

Saddam, America’s Good Son



Treason's just another word for no country left to lose.

[Bolo Boffin]

7. Because it was the truth.

Your conspiracy theories about 9/11 have no place in GD, Octafish. You know where crap like this goes.

[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[greyl]

10. No, the Taliban agreed to turn over bin Laden.

The evidence is right there in the OP.

(Oh wait, no it isn't. It was only a false implication.)

[Octafish]

23. Show me otherwise or ''Give Him an F.''

The record shows the Taliban offered to turn him over, perhaps after the air strikes, but certainly before the United States invaded. And some have reported offers from the day George W Bush took office:

*** Secret Afghan Envoy Tells All ***

Give Him an "F" in the War on Terror

How Bush Was Offered Bin Laden and Blew It

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN
and JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
CounterPunch
November 1, 2004
CounterPunch Exclusive

George Bush, the man whose prime campaign plank has been his ability to wage war on terror, could have had Osama bin Laden's head handed to him on a platter on his very first day in office, and the offer held good until February 2 of 2002. This is the charge leveled by an Afghan American who had been retained by the US government as an intermediary between the Taliban and both the Clinton and Bush administrations.

Kabir Mohabbat is a 48-year businessman in Houston, Texas. Born in Paktia province in southern Afghanistan, he's from the Jaji clan (from which also came Afghanistan's last king). Educated at St Louis University, he spent much of the 1980s supervising foreign relations for the Afghan mujahiddeen, where he developed extensive contacts with the US foreign policy establishment, also with senior members of the Taliban.

After the eviction of the Soviets, Mohabbat returned to the United States to develop an export business with Afghanistan and became a US citizen. Figuring in his extensive dealings with the Taliban in the late 1990s was much investment of time and effort for a contract to develop the proposed oil pipeline through northern Afghanistan.

In a lengthy interview and in a memorandum Kabir Mohabbat has given us a detailed account and documentation to buttress his charge that the Bush administration could have had Osama bin Laden and his senior staff either delivered to the US or to allies as prisoners, or killed at their Afghan base. As a search of the data base shows, portions of Mohabbat's role have been the subject of a number of news reports, including a CBS news story by Alan Pizzey aired September 25, 2001. This is the first he has made public the full story.

By the end of 1999 US sanctions and near-world-wide political ostracism were costing the Taliban dearly and they had come to see Osama bin Laden and his training camps as, in Mohabbat's words, "just a damn liability". Mohabbat says the Taliban leadership had also been informed in the clearest possible terms by a US diplomat that if any US citizen was harmed as a consequence of an Al Qaeda action, the US would hold the Taliban responsible and target Mullah Omar and the Taliban leaders.

In the summer of 2000, on one of his regular trips to Afghanistan, Mohabbat had a summit session with the Taliban high command in Kandahar. They asked him to arrange a meeting with appropriate officials in the European Union, to broker a way in which they could hand over Osama bin Laden . Mohabbat recommended they send bin Laden to the World Criminal Court in the Hague.

CONTINUED...

http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn11012004.html

It's clear someone should've briefed somebody. Thanks for reminding me, greyl.

[Bolo Boffin]

32. The Taliban refused to hand him over unless their conditions were met. n/t

[Ghost in the Machine]

48. Yeah, the NERVE of those fucking Afghanis.. demand PROOF.. and stuff..

:eyes:

[Bolo Boffin]

55. And to try him in their own biased tribunals. Nonetheless, it was a refusal to turn him over.

Obama spoke the truth. Octafish is only trying to make Obama out to be a liar because it rankled his CT side.

[Ghost in the Machine]

70. "And to try him in their own biased tribunals." You think it would have been a sham of a trial?

Is that what you're saying.. that the Afghanis wouldn't have had a real trial for him??

[Bolo Boffin]

71. You think they really would have turned him over?

Is that what you're saying, that the Taliban had any intention of actually turning him over??

[Ghost in the Machine]

72. Just answer the simple question, ok? Can you do that?

Do you think that the Afghanis (Taliban) would have either NOT tried him, or given him a sham of a trial?

[Bolo Boffin]

74. Just answer the simple question, ok? Can you do that?

Do you think that the Taliban would actually have turned him over?

[Ghost in the Machine]

75. That's not how it works, bolo. I asked you a question, you don't answer with your own question...

.. you answer what was asked of you, *then* you get to ask a question.

Why do you fear answering a very simple question? Why do you engage in nuisance/distraction tactics instead of answering a very simple question?

I'm pretty sure I know why, I'm just giving you a chance to answer for yourself...quit dodging the question and just answer it already.

Ghost

[Bolo Boffin]

76. You left out the part where first you do nothing but attack me.

Which makes me quite unwilling to answer any damn question you ask me, especially stupid-ass questions like the one you're asking.

[Ghost in the Machine]

77. Drop the persecution complex and answer the question...

Asking you if you think the Taliban would have given bin Laden a fair trial or a sham of a trial is a "stupid-ass question"??

[Bolo Boffin]

78. Drop the persecution or at least fucking apologize. n/t

[Ghost in the Machine]

79. Stop hijacking this thread and answer the question. n/t

[Bolo Boffin]

80. You attack me, you refuse to apologize, you harass me with stupid questions

and I'm hijacking the thread?

It's time to release your periodic obsession with me.

[Ghost in the Machine]

81. Stop hijacking this thread and answer the question. n/t

[Bolo Boffin]

82. Goodbye, Ghost. n/t

[Ghost in the Machine]

94. Run away again, bolo.. I'll tell you why you refuse to answer, it's really quite simple..

A.) If you say that he *would* have gotten a fair trial, under Islamic Law, then you prove that your assertion upthread was bullshit and you were talking out of your ass, or

B.) If you say he would have gotten a sham of a trial (being protected by the Taliban) then you have to go and tell all of your buddies who, when asked why bin Laden denied responsibility for the attacks, claim that he denied it because he would have gotten in trouble because the ruling Afghan government didn't allow what he did that they are wrong.


You've exposed yourself once again, dude...
you can bury your head in the sand, but it doesn't change facts...


Ghost

[Name removed]

95. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Ghost in the Machine]

98. The only thing trapping you is your inability to honestly answer a question..

which you have still failed to do...

How surprising!

No one is obsessed with you, that just your delusions of grandeur coming out...

[Name removed]

101. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

103. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[chill_wind]

11. Seems not. n/t

[Bolo Boffin]

14. Au contraire. n/t

[Octafish]

12. The subject concerns Obama saying what Bush said.

Why you try to smear me as a "Conspiracy Theorist" is not.

[Bolo Boffin]

13. You are a conspiracy theorist, Octafish, and my previous post concerned the OP topic.

You know that this belongs in September 11th, not General Discussion. DU rules are really clear.

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[leftstreet]

16. So wikipedia is in on the conspiracy?

In the immediate aftermath of the attacks, the United States government decided to respond militarily, and began to prepare its armed forces to overthrow the Taliban regime it believed was harboring al-Qaeda. Before the United States attacked, it offered Taliban leader Mullah Omar a chance to surrender bin Laden and his top associates. The first forces to be inserted into Afghanistan were Paramilitary Officers from the CIA's elite Special Activities Division (SAD).

The Taliban offered to turn over bin Laden to a neutral country for trial if the United States would provide evidence of bin Laden's complicity in the attacks. U.S. President George W. Bush responded by saying: "We know he's guilty. Turn him over",<111> and British Prime Minister Tony Blair warned the Taliban regime: "Surrender bin Laden, or surrender power".<112>

Soon thereafter the United States and its allies invaded Afghanistan, and together with the Afghan Northern Alliance removed the Taliban government in the war in Afghanistan.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Qaeda

:shrug:

[Bolo Boffin]

19. How does that entry contradict what I've said? n/t

[leftstreet]

21. You said this poster is a conspiracy theorist

:shrug:

[Bolo Boffin]

22. How does the Wikipedia article address the topic of Octafish being a conspiracy theorist? n/t

[leftstreet]

24. How is Octafish a conspiracy theorist? n/t

[Bolo Boffin]

29. Take your pick.

JFK assassination, 9/11...

The list of conspiracy theories on those two subjects that Octafish promotes here are many.

[leftstreet]

34. You 9/11 uh...people use "conspiracy theorist" as a pejorative term

I don't like seeing it applied to a member who's posting information easily found on the web, at sites like wikipedia.

But whatever

[Bolo Boffin]

41. I use it as a description of fact.

Octafish is free to stop being a conspiracy theorist. He could easily stop promoting easily decredited and frankly irresponsible theories concerning various suggestions of conspiracies behind these events. Then he would no longer be a conspiracy theorist.

[leftstreet]

46. Most of us read Octafish because he/she is a strong Leftist

Most of us don't spend time in the dungeons here, or give a shit about the 'conspiracy theories'

But apparently you do

[greyl]

52. Someone being a strong Leftist is no reason to believe everything they say without critical thought.

nt

[Bolo Boffin]

53. I probably agree with Octafish on his politics more than he'd care to admit

But what I see him promote here rather relentlessly are JFK-9/11 conspiracy theories. I prefer reality for the basis of my politics, and I don't like to see him calling Obama a liar because of his bias on the conspiracy theories.

Hate on the decision all you want. I don't much like it myself (although I'll be damned to see what better choice Obama had under the circumstances). But you don't need to make up reasons to hate on the decision.

[leftstreet]

65. You prefer 'reality' for the basis of your politics, but you hang in the dungeon?

:shrug:

[Bolo Boffin]

68. No, I hang out in Dallas, Texas. The "dungeon" is not a real place. n/t

[arcadian]

92. What are your thoughts on MKULTRA?

Was it a real program?

[Bolo Boffin]

96. Yes, it was a real program.

Yes, it is the subject of lots of conspiracy theories.

[arcadian]

97. Did the United States purposefully irradiate citizens of the Marshall Islands

during nuclear tests the 20th century?

[Bolo Boffin]

100. What is your freaking point?

Evidence of other conspiracies is not evidence of any conspiracy theory in particular. Do you understand what affirming the consequent is?

[Octafish]

51. So you're calling me a liar?

Show me where I've lied, Bolo Boffin.

If you want, you can start anywhere on this thread.

Then, you can go through my journal or the archives.

You may find a mistake or a broken link, but you won't find an intentional distortion, whether the subject is Poppy Bush was up to something in Dallas on the day President Kennedy was assassinated or wondering why the Bush family had longtime business relations with the bin Laden family.

BTW: I can't recall ever reading one your OPs in which you drop a bomb on the BFEE. Not that you're part of a conspiracy, or anything, can you post a link for me to see?

[Bolo Boffin]

56. More of your conspiracy theorizing. I've never said anything of the sort.

Please get factually accurate.

ETA:

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/Bolo%20Boffin/14

http://journals.democraticunderground.com/boloboffin/4

[newspeak]

88. Octofish save your breath

and thank you for your information on the Iran-Contra, BCCI affair. You know, one of those other conspiracy nut theories. So sorry journalists had to die to bring the truth to the American people. Apparently it was wasted on people who think it was another one of those damn conspiracy theories.

[Name removed]

93. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[greyl]

27. Wal-Mart agreed to let you take everything out of their store nearest you.

Head to your nearest Wal-Mart and start loading up. Tell them they agreed to let you take anything in the store.

Whatever you do, though, leave out the part about the "agreement" actually being conditional and you having to pay for stuff because that will ruin the fun.

[Bucky]

44. Bolo! Haven't seen you round here in a while.

Thanks for stepping in it in this thread. You're right; the talibanis are simply a less insane version of the al-Qaeda nutjobs. Any noise they made about "seeing the evidence" in 2001 was a delaying tactic. It's amazing that there are DUers who, after watching the Bush administration wackos employ the same delay, deny, obfuscate, and distract tactics for eight years, can't even recognize the pattern. Idealogues can't be reasoned with or negotiated with; they can only be defeated and discredited.

Obama's walking a tightrope in Afghanistan--and I don't like it. Not least because it's the kids I teach today who'll be marching off to that quagmire next year. I hope he's got a serious exit strategy in place. Seven years ago Colin Powell went to the impetuous manchild in the Oval Office and explained to him the grown up principle of "you break it, you buy it" and nothing has changed since. We, as a country, broke a lot of what was good in Afghanistan when we let our leaders neglect it for the diversion in Iraq. It's still our mess; but it just sickens me to think how it's my students who'll have to go off and pay the price.

[Bolo Boffin]

49. Hey, I've been around!

My goodness, what a breath of fresh air your post is.

A tightrope it is, agreed, agreed, but I don't think he's got a better choice. Pakistan cannot be allowed to fail, and giving the Taliban a safe haven in Afghanistan is just setting up Pakistan to fail, and then they've got nukes. God bless Obama for proceeding on out of Iraq, though.

[arcadian]

91. ...

[bleever]

15. Sometimes I miss "Error: You've already recommended that thread."

This kind of historical rigor is critical to getting it right.

[Postman]

17. Yes. They offered to hand him over to a third party for trial if the US had proof of involvement..

[Bolo Boffin]

20. Otherwise they would not - in other words, they refused to hand him over. n/t

[Postman]

25. They offered to hand him over if the US had proof....

What part of that don't you understand?

In Afghanistan it is their culture to protect their "guests" as Osama was.....if the US had proof they would have handed him over...

[HuckleB]

28. To whom?

Can you link us to a legitimate source of your claim?

Thanks.

:hi:

[Postman]

37. Here's a link.....

http://archives.cnn.com/2001/US/10/07/ret.us.taliban/

[HuckleB]

42. Doesn't that link basically show what I posted below?

They wouldn't hand him over. They wanted him "tried" under their form of "Islamic" law.

Hmmmmmmm.


:shrug:

[Postman]

57. Because he was a "guest" in their country.....

[HuckleB]

59. So?

If Bush had evidence that Bin Laden had committed international crimes, how would that matter?

[Postman]

67. Okay. I stand corrected.

They wanted him tried under their law....

[Bolo Boffin]

33. In other words, they refused to hand him over.

"if the US had proof they would have handed him over"

I would like to see you prove that statement.

[Octafish]

31. No. The Taliban wanted to know what evidence Bush had. Bush had none, did he?

If Bush did have evidence linking bin Laden to the attacks of September 11, he did not wish to share it with the Taliban.

Had he done so, or said, "Turn him over to The Hague," we would have saved thousands, or perhaps even more than a million, innocent lives.

[Bolo Boffin]

36. They refused to hand him over, otherwise.

Which is what Obama said. They refused to hand him over.

The evidence today of Osama's guilt is rather strong.

[Postman]

47. What evidence?

What evidence of direct involvement of Osama Bin Laden is there?

KSM planned it. Money came from Pakistan ISI. Hijackings by Saudi nationals, mostly

Sure, Osama belongs to Al Qaeda but what was HIS involvement?

[Bolo Boffin]

62. Check out The Looming Tower by Lawrence Wright.

Available at fine bookstores or your local library.

[Postman]

89. Explain this....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r-hYorNi0nA

[Bolo Boffin]

102. All right.

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050620/bergen/single

It may be that Al Qaeda is less organized and monolithic than George W. Bush would have us believe, but it is a fierce and determined organization that has spawned a global ideological movement led by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, whose influence and plans we have every reason to be deeply concerned about.

...In support of this view Curtis relies, in part, on an interview with the British journalist Jason Burke, a friend of mine who has written an excellent book on Al Qaeda. Burke tells Curtis: "The idea...that bin Laden ran a coherent organization with operatives and cells all around the world of which you could be a member is a myth. There is no Al Qaeda organization. There is no international network with a leader; with cadres who will unquestioningly obey orders, with tentacles that stretch out to sleeper cells in America, in Africa, in Europe." However, in his 2003 book, Al-Qaeda: Casting a Shadow of Terror, Burke is less dismissive of the idea that Al Qaeda was an organization than this soundbite suggests. Burke wrote that while the "al-Qaeda hardcore" consisted of relatively few people, "by late 2001, bin Laden and the men around him had access to huge resources, both symbolic and material, which they could use to project their power and influence internationally"--that sounds suspiciously like a "coherent organization" to me.

Indeed, there is an excellent example of how this global organization operated that, for obvious reasons, goes unmentioned in Curtis's documentary. In December 2001 Singaporean authorities arrested thirteen operatives of Jemaah Islamiyah, the largest Southeast Asian terrorist group, for planning to blow up the US Embassy there. It transpired that those operatives had videotaped the embassy as part of their preparations for attacking it and had sent a copy of the tape to Mohammed Atef, Al Qaeda's military commander in Afghanistan, so he could give the operation his blessing. In addition, a man who went by the alias of Hambali was simultaneously Jemaah Islamiyah's operational commander and a member of Al Qaeda's shura council, or deliberative body. Although Burke in his book was correct to emphasize that lumping together all the jihadist groups from around the world as "Al Qaeda" is a serious oversimplification, that does not change the fact that there was an Al Qaeda organization (an organization that has now largely been replaced by the militant jihadist ideological movement from which Al Qaeda first sprang and to which Al Qaeda has now given a tremendous boost).

...There is substantial evidence that Al Qaeda was founded in 1988 by bin Laden and a small group of like-minded militants, and that the group would mushroom into the secretive, disciplined organization that implemented the 9/11 attacks. Two years ago the minutes of the founding meetings of Al Qaeda (which had been discovered in Bosnia) were described in court documents in a trial in Chicago. Those meetings took place in August 1988 and involved bin Laden and Abu Ubaidah al-Banshiri, who would later become Al Qaeda's military commander. The participants in the meetings discussed "the establishment of a new military group" consisting of a "qaida," or "base." In a handwritten organizational chart of the new group, bin Laden, who then went by the alias of Abu Abdullah, is at the top.

In a 2001 interview with the Arab News, Hasan al-Seraihi, a militant Saudi cleric who had recently been released from jail, gave a description of Al Qaeda's beginnings during the late 1980s: "Al-Banshiri turned to me and started speaking in a quiet voice: 'You know that Brother Osama has spent a lot of money to train and buy weapons for the Arab Mujahedeen. We should not waste this investment after the jihad against the Russians. We should reorganize them under an Islamic army with the name al Qaeda. The army should be always ready to uphold the cause of Islam and Muslims in any part of the world.'" Similarly, Nasser Ahmad Nasser Al-Bahri, a bin Laden bodyguard who is now living in Yemen, recalled in an interview earlier this year with Al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper that when bin Laden "returned to Afghanistan in 1996, he...opened branches of the al Qaeda organization in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and elsewhere."

[HuckleB]

26. Wasn't their demand that he would be tried by "Muslim" judges, possibly of the Taliban's choosing?

[Postman]

30. I had not read or heard that reported...

[HuckleB]

38. Here's one link on it.

http://news.indiamart.com/news-analysis/afghanistan-taliban--6303.html

[Octafish]

84. Interesting article, but it refers to extradition related to the African embassy bombings.

The dateline indicates it's from Feb. 12, 2001.

Very good information, however, as it helps explain why elements within the government of Pakistan "work" with al Qaeda to destabilize Kashmir.

[ShamelessHussy]

35. That Narrative is CRITICAL to the meme (me tarzan, u jane) it will never go away

but it is always useful in noting, thanks for sharing :toast:

[HuckleB]

43. BS...

Thanks for the propaganda.

[Bolo Boffin]

45. Are you seriously saying that Obama is perpetuating a racist Tarzan-monkey meme about bin Laden?

Seriously?

[ShamelessHussy]

50. nope

just that he will carry on in the tradition of american imperial exceptionalism... we are the good guys in the white hats coming to save your backwards self.

[HuckleB]

54. Aren't cliches fun!?

:eyes:

[ShamelessHussy]

58. nope

just noting another perspective on the situation, which is tragic, imho, and most certainly not 'fun'.

[HuckleB]

61. Perspective is not served by ludicrous cliches.

Sorry.

[ShamelessHussy]

69. as i stated in my original post, some perspectives are not allowed

however that doesn't change the fact that they exist, and from the cheap seats we are entitled to our own.

sorry, if that clashes with narrative.

[Bolo Boffin]

63. Are ass-saving edits fun? n/t

[The_Casual_Observer]

60. Pretty much was a speech about how they hate us for our freedoms.

It was more bullshit. Count on another 8 years of this, unless the USA collapses first.

[greyl]

66. This transcript should help clear that up:

http://www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/12/01/obama.afghanistan.speech.transcript/index.html

[Contrary1]

73. Having just stepped into the cesspool known as Free Republic...

I found it interesting that the Freeps are blasting away at Obama.

"Bush would have done it better".

The only way it could possibly have been better was if Obama was Republican, they just can't bring themselves to say it.

[yellowwood]

83. Ten Year Olds

Maybe 9/11 is fresh in our minds and can recreate the feelings that we had then. But many of the kids who are dying in Afghanistan were only around ten years old when it happened. Bin Laden isn't even there anymore.

[G_j]

85. +1000

[blindpig]

86. Well, imagine that.

k&r

[G_j]

87. kick

[bobthedrummer]

90. Not holding the parties that LIHOP accountable continues...kick

[bvar22]

99. I caught that too.

Obama was dead wrong about that claim last night.
The Taliban did indeed offer to turn OBL over to a neutral country for trial if the US could provide evidence of guilt.

That IS the standard for International Law.

I would expect nothing less from ANY country in The World.

On Edit:
K&R for the truth.

[Octafish]

104. USA refuses to extradite CIA killer-terrorist Luis Posada Carriles.

Poppy’s CIA warned about terror plots and did not stop them

We are no longer in the United States. And I refuse to live in Oceania, where war is peace and freedom is slavery.