This whole thing just seems sad to me. I totally get that we lost 3,000 lives with many more injured as a result of the September 11th attacks. Obviously that's incredibly sad, but I don't believe an American life is worth any more (or less) than the civilian lives our country has taken in this wild goose chase. It's incredibly depressing to me that this country has become so bloodthirsty and revenge-obsessed that they'll chase someone like Bin Laden to the ends of the earth, regardless of costs or collateral damage. Is it really any wonder why these people hate us so much? Per http://costofwar.com taxpayers in The United States have paid $445.1 billion for Total Afghanistan War Spending Since FY01. For the same amount of money, the following could be provided: 228.1 million Children Receiving Low-Income Healthcare for One Year OR 6.8 million Elementary School Teachers for One Year OR 7.8 million Firefighters for One Year OR 58.6 million Head Start Slots for Children for One Year OR 100.8 million Households with Renewable Electricity - Solar Photovoltaic for One Year OR 268.8 million Households with Renewable Electricity-Wind Power for One Year OR 57.1 million Military Veterans Receiving VA Medical Care for One Year OR 91.5 million People Receiving Low-Income Healthcare for One Year OR 6.7 million Police or Sheriff's Patrol Officers for One Year OR 56.5 million Scholarships for University Students for One Year OR 80.2 million Students receiving Pell Grants of $5550 None of that is worth it though, as long as we've got Bin Laden, right? And freedog, go post somewhere else if the only thing you have to add to this thread is about your arsenal of firearms. I know it might be very difficult for you to understand, but that has nothing to do with the topic at hand.
I agree with your points about the costly war hodapp, and I also didn't mean to continue pissing off libs.
That's just it, we didn't. If we HAD chased Bin Laden down to the ends of the earth without faltering, we would have gotten him years ago and all this other bullshit wouldn't have happened. Instead, Bush led us down a dark detour with the Iraq war.
Steve Coll: "The initial circumstantial evidence suggests the opposite is more likely -- that bin Laden was effectively being housed under Pakistani state control." McCain Opposed Going Into Pakistan In July 2008, Larry King asked Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), "If you were president and knew that bin Laden was in Pakistan, you know where, would you have U.S. forces go in after him?" McCain said he would not. "Larry, I'm not going to go there and here's why: because Pakistan is a sovereign nation." "If we have actionable intelligence about high-value terrorist targets and President Musharraf won't act, we will." Senator Obama in August, 2007. "You know, John McCain likes to say that he'll follow bin Laden to the gates of Hell, but he won't even follow him to the cave where he lives." Senator Obama at the convention 2008
Well all this putzing around in the Middle East wasn't started by Bush, and despite campaign promises, I doubt it will be ended by Obama. I just think the whole situation is incredibly unfortunate, and entirely too expensive. When you look at the kind of cash we've spent to get the pathetic results we've seen, I really can't help but wonder where we'd be as a country if we invested that in ourselves instead of playing the role of Team America World Police. If we spent the trillion dollars that has been wasted since '01, it's quite literally unfathomable to think of the benefits we'd have reaped from that. Hell, I think if we would have decided to spend that trillion bucks on alternative energy, we wouldn't even need to fight over Middle Eastern oil because oil would be entirely irrelevant.
Foreign countries captured bin laden before the 911 attacks, but after the other bombings he did to the U.S. in the 90's. They offered to turn him over to the U.S. Bill Clinton, who was president at the time, said the U.S. didn't want him. So they let him go.. and then 911 happened.
Or keep Booch138 employed at Head Start instead of laying him off due to budget cuts. On another note, you basically summed up my thoughts Hodapp. Nice read.
FYI the 9-11 Commision found no reliable evidence that happened. http://www.factcheck.org/askfactcheck/did_bill_clinton_pass_up_a_chance_1.html "So even if the Sudanese government really did offer to hand bin Laden over, the U.S. would have had no grounds for detaining him. In fact, the Justice Department did not secure an indictment against bin Laden until 1998 at which point Clinton did order a cruise missile attack on an al Qaeda camp in an attempt to kill bin Laden." Meanwhile "Revisiting GOP attacks on President Clinton Some conservative pundits try to erase the history of Republican criticisms of Clinton's military actions." http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2006/09/25/clinton_2/index.html The impeachment hearings were more important to the GOP than fighting terrorism.
From someone who has been overseas I can tell you one thing, I think it's about Iran... Slowly we are building bases at strategic locations right along the border and to me they seem to be fairly permanent fixtures.. I don't see us pulling out of the MEast anytime soon, unfortunately..
Clinton admitted it himself during news interviews. He said he didn't believe he had "solid enough" evidence to take him into U.S. custody, so the country that offered him let him go soon after.
Here you go Dave.. http://www.infowars.com/saved%20pages/Prior_Knowledge/Clinton_let_bin_laden.htm Even MSNBC, a liberal only station, told the story of how Clinton was offered him but let him go.
The fact that you think that MSNBC is a "liberals only" network explains a lot about your skewed perspective. The facts are simple: there is no evidence that Sudan ever offered Osama to the US, but even if they had, there would have been no legal grounds to hold him. I guess you could argue that we should have nabbed him anyway, but then again, in those dark, socialist days of the Clinton adminstration we were not in the habit of detaining folks without legal process .
Freedog if you want to have an intelligent conversation with people online regarding current events I suggest dropping the whole "argh liberals!!!" thing you've got going on. It's incredibly telling, and just makes you look silly.
You're talking about a terrorist who bragged around the middle east everytime he did something. Clinton just let him go without even having the U.S. question him.
hahahahahahaa. You obviously have never seen Joe Scarborough before. Thast dude is one of the craziest rightous right-winged media folks I have ever seen. And I still like to see his perspective on things from time to time. Theres a problem with what you have posted. You said MSNBC is a LIBERAL ONLY station, not Liberal Leaning. I'll give you the fact that it tends to lean more to the left, but not as much as FOX leans to the right You on the other hand, just simply have a horrible view on us "Liberals". But that's fine. Keep bashing us, we love to read the funnies of TouchArcade ^.^
That station is like 99% liberals, would you deny that? Every sentence you hear from their reporters is an effort to bash a republican. I don't watch the channel although everytime you occasionally flip through it you can see what its all about. That station also has the poorest ratings of any cable news channel by a lot.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1382011/Bin-Ladens-great-escape-How-worlds-wanted-man-fools-elite-troops-whod-trapped-mountain-lair.html Bush let him escape by not committing enough American troops to do the job.
