Quote from dddooo:
He had always been in the cave to begin with. Ralph Nader would have attacked Afghanistan after 9/11, let alone Kerry. It was a no-brainer. And either of them would have finished the job too. Just because Bush came out swinging and attacked irrelevant country does not make him a great war president and a mortal threat to Al-Qaeda, maybe quite the opposite.
You think way too highly of Nader and Kerry. I can tell you exactly what would've happened: Kerry/Nader would lobby hard for a resolution in the UN to denounce the Taliban and threaten "dire consequences" if they didn't hand over Bin Laden. The Taliban would thumb their colective noses at the UN. Then, when faced with the decision to act, Kerry/Nader would anguish over the fact that the Taliban and the innocent Afghanis were not directly responsible for the 9/11 attack (this being a "law enforcement" issue and all). There would be months of denunciations, deliberations, and negotiations, maybe some sanctions, which would only help the Taliban strengthen their grip on the populace. Kerry/Nader would implore Pakistan to help lean on the Taliban, sweetening the deal with some nuclear technology. Pakistan would agree, only to let Bin Laden knowingly escape while leaking their newly acquired nuclear secrets to North Korea, Libya and Iran. Kerry/Nader would order some Tomahawks to be launched at the known Al Qaeda training camps in Afghanistan, but only after giving three days warning to minimize collateral damage (because Kerry has seen too much innocents killed in Vietnam, and because Nader is concerned about damaging any natural wildlife in the area). Then, in a stroke of diplomatic genius, Kerry/Nader negotiators manage to secure a promise (unverifiable, of course) from the Taliban to not support Al Qaeda, all in exchange for $500M/year of aid from the US and a seat back in the UN! Kerry/Nader declares victory for the US and the international community and is given a Nobel Prize for Peace. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda, with all of its finances and organization intact, first look at each other in utter disbelief, then decide to lay in wait for the next several years planning for the next attack...
Not plausible? It's certainly more so than your idea of a "no brainer" invasion of Afghanistan by either Kerry or Nader.
OBL wanted to spread fear and cause financial damage, but he could not possibly have expected us to abandon the constitution (the Patriot Act) and run up a disastrous budget deficit, spending money of our grandchildren. And that's exactly what he achieved.
For all the vacuous complaints that have been made of the Patriot Act (which passed 98-1 in the Senate) as "trampling on the Constitution" I have yet to hear of any egregious cases of civil liberties violations. Please, somebody help me and point to specific
substantiated complaints that have arisen directly from the administration of the Patriot Act. As for the budget deficit, they are normal during times of recessions and wars. Plus, the way I view wartime deficits is that it's simply the amortization of the costs of addressing today's problems over multiple generations, since all future generations benefit from shutting down terrorism today.
BTW I can bet you in the last 2 years they had less "Bush alerts" in the caves then we had "orange alerts" in the states.
That statement is just patently unfair. Let's see, the US government is responsible for protecting over
300 million residents in a country with large borders, while trying not to sacrifice any liberties, and Al Qaeda is only worried about protecting and hiding one man who happens to have over $200 million in a region that's one of the poorest in the world?
The jury is still out, whose winning the war on terror.
Of course the jury's still out! This is a long term project that requires patience and determination. To think that Al Qaeda would've been stamped out by now is way too unrealistic.