I’m sure Rufus can take care of himself but I’d just like to point out that the Bush Adminstration first resisted having an investigation, then put Henry “The Coverup” Kissenger in charge, have dragged their feet in providing the commission with requested materials — including over 70% of the materials voluntarilly provided by Clinton — and that Bush refuses to testify unless accompanied by Dick Cheney. So, I find your apparent presumption that Bush is eagerly awaiting the report so he can find out what really happend to be, shall we say, just a bit naive.
By the way, are you an executive at your company? Just curious.
Of course executives delegate. But to not act (and by ‘acting’, I’m including investigation, analysis, etc., not just irrevocable decisions) on serious matters until your subordinates press you to, isn’t delegation. It’s abdication.
The press asked some middlin’ tough questions, as well as some softballs. But the President of the United States, the Chief Executive, ought to be able to defend at least his major policies against pointed questioning, as long as the norms of civilized behavior are otherwise followed. Bush should have a sufficient grasp of his War on Terror and Iraq policies to be able to go into a roomful of reporters without fear, as long as he hasn’t fucked up. If he can’t do that, why should he be President?
That’s part of his job. But if he just sits around twiddling his thumbs while Iraq blows up, because he’s waiting for someone below him to give him the information and opinions he needs, that’s abdication, not delegation.
Well, that’s too bad for your company. I would contend that the President of the United States is supposed to know a bit about national security matters and overseas wars.
This topic could have been a great debate if the OP had questioned what the President has done so far in his presidency. Reading this reminded me of a WP article in December citing White House officials saying that some inside the house had come to view the last three years as “a period of lost opportunities”, meaning on the domestic agenda.
However, to say that Bush is passive on national security is hardly correct. After all, this is the guy who has engaged the country in two wars and intervened in others, created the Homeland Security Dep, launched the Patriot Act, and is the first president to call for a Palestinian State. We might debate whether these are good things or not (protecting bridges instead of biolabs and so on) or if he seeks out the information he should, but even I, who don’t agree with Bush, will not call his national security politic passive.
I think the OP meant Bush being passive… not “his” government. The Bush bunch is actually pretty aggressive… if being active without a proper objective were any good. But is Bush himself “passive” ?
I looked at your so-called site and it was just what I expected. An exerpt: "Without knowing when, where or how the terrorists would strike, the CIA “consistently described the upcoming attacks as occurring on a catastrophic level, indicating that they would cause the world to be in turmoil,” according to one of two staff reports released by the panel yesterday.
“Reports similar to these were made available to President Bush in the morning meetings with [Director of Central Intelligence George J.] Tenet,” the commission staff said.
Okay, let’s see now. The CIA told Bush Bin Laden and al Qaeda were out to get us and it was going to be a biggie. What you have had him do? He had no specific intelligence as to what they were going to do, nor how they were going to go about it. Furthermore, given all the shit he’s coming in for now, what would your response have been had he taken action then? I can just hear it now: “That idiotic nincompoop, with absolutely no justification, decides to take it upon himself to save the country, and in his typical cowboy style went blazing into foreign countries and began murdering people just because the U.S. intelligence agencies said they *perceived * a threat. What an asshole! He should be shot!”
I don’t think so! My dictionary describes nitpicking as follows:
Being overly critical; critisizing minor details.
Quibbling over insignificant details.
Leaving aside the fact that you don’t seem to disagree with my assessment that they were deliberately gunning for him, I don’t agree at all that my identifying their behavior for what it was was nitpicking. It was apparently important enough to them to keep them going back to it again and again, and since his answers and whatever they’re able to make of them could impact on the election, I would say the issue is quite important.
Au, contraire! I asked you rhetorically if that was what you expected. It is you are putting words in my mouth, not the other way around.
When did Bush ever say Saddam was responsible for 9/11?
What part of “All of our intelligence, as well as that of the United Nations and Iraq’s neighbors indicate that he either has or is developing WMD” don’t you understand? First you critisize him for not acting on PDBs, and then you attack him for acting on globally accepted intelligence.
Such as?..
Did I miss something? Not that I acknowledge he did any such thing, but all I heard were pleadings that he at least acknowledge *some * mistake, *any * mistake, you know?..Aw, c’mon, Mr. Pres… pretty-please?
Just so you know, I consider your response to be so hilariously clueless and incoherent that I feel no response other than this brief note is necessary. You have effectively discredited yourself. Thanks so much for finishing the job for me. Please be sure to drop me a note if you ever want to be deprogrammed.
I disagree! I believe investigation, analysis, etc. is exactly what was going on. If he had taken any other action at that time I’m sure everyone here who is currently pillorying him would have been even more critical and outraged.
Frankly, after watching last night, I can understand how you could feel this way. But I don’t believe it’s so much a question of his not being able to defend his major policies against pointed questioning as it is his trying perhaps too hard to answer while trying simultaneously to envision what misrepresentations and outright lies could be made of whatever he said.
I think most of the people here would grant that Warren Beatty is a very intelligent, knowledgeable and accomplished person. But he is the worst interview in the world. He stammers and evades and equivocates and looks like a fool. I always wondered why someone as bright as he is always looked so bad whenever he had to speak on his own. It turned out he was always unsure of what to say because he never knew how it would misstated, miscontrued or lied about. My guess is that Bush last night fell prey to the “Warren Beatty” syndrome. He also appeared, if not exhausted, at least very tired, and I’m sure that played quite a role in his stammering around last night.
But I digress…
It’s one thing for civilized and reasonable men to sit down and discuss policy, it’s another to stand in front of a roomful of people who are just frothing at the bit to make you look bad and have a reasonable and sensible discourse on policy. I don’t think there’s a person here who disapproves of Bush who is in the least interested in his beliefs or reasoning other than to look for things to become incensed over.
It goes to show that no matter what course of action he took, people of your ilk would still be looking to discredit him. It goes to your anti-Bush mindset and greatly negates the validity of your critisisms.
He had an off night. Nothing more. And if what I’ve been seeing on television today is any indicator, the belligerent press did themselves more harm than good with their performance last night. Apparently something like 9 out of 15 questions contained the premise that Bush had already done *something * wrong, and was he gonna admit it? Fortunately, people are seeing right through this and it didn’t work.
Unbelievable. Where has anyone said that we should have invaded anyone. As for what to do, how about what Clinton did - have high level meetings about the threat,. and have the trees shaken to see if they could find out more. It stopped the Millennium plot.
No, instead of that he went on vacation. And said, I’m sure that ultra-competent FBI is working on it, and will let us know if anything important shows up.
So your idea of the proper job of the press is to tell the President what a great job he’s doing? Hard questions are just gunning for him? Maybe there are a few questions that some of America would like answers to, such as how could you be so wrong about WMDs.
Maybe, you, kike Bush, don’t read the papers much. You do know he mentioned Saddam and terrorists in the same breath running up to the war (though he has reluctantly admitted since there is no connection.) You know that a large proportion of the American public thought there was a connection? How could that be? The liberal press?
Yes, everyone thought there were WMDs, but before the start of the war the inspectors were finding nothing at the sites US intelligence was identifying for them. This made Hans Blix change his mind. Did Bush not know this? Maybe the response should be to postpone the invasion until we find if there really are any WMDs, not accelerate it to make sure the truth hasn’t come out yet?
BTW, what is your opinion? Has Bush made mistakes or not? Oh, I have been a manager, and Bush is a perfect example of an out of touch manager, who waits for people to come to him, who is reactive not proactive, and then blames everything on someone else. They are the kind of manager whom disaster follows - and it’s never their fault.
And where did I say anyone said that we should have invaded anyone. I asked what he was supposed to do and posed that as a scenario.
And you say my responses are unbelievable. Doing what Clinton did (eviserating the CIA, weak responses to terrorist attacks that killed hundreds of Americans, governing by poll) is what got us here in the first place!
True. A singular success amid 8 years of weak-kneed action.
Are you not aware the President gets full briefings and intelligence even when on vacation?
Hey, any lack of competence on the part of the FBI (and the CIA, as well) can be layed squarely at the feet of Clinton. (You’re the one who brought him up.)
Approx. 9 out of 15 questions, all with the premise that he had made *some * mistake and was he gonna 'fes up, hardly constitute a fair and reasoned way to find out the Presidents assessment of his policies.
Why is this so confusing? As I’ve said before, the U.S. intelligence agencies, the United Nations and most of its members, and Iraq’s neighbors all believed he had weapons of mass destruction. And after all, he had clearly shown the propensity for developing and using them. As we all know, he killed his own people with them. (And, like Dr. Phil says: "The best way to predict future behavior is past behavior. )
Doesn’t disturb me in the least. (I think of them in the same breath myself.) Al Qaeda is a terrorist organization that hates America, among others; Iraq (under Saddam) was a country that hates America, has used WMDs, has fired SKUD missles at Israel, and has blatently supported terrorism by guaranteeing payments to the families of suicide bombers in order to remove an impediment to suicide bombings. In my opinion, any government that supports or engages in terrorism and the murder of innocent parties as a tactic to effect a political objective not only deserves to be but should be destroyed. (And spare me the hooey that we’re doing the same thing. There is no comparison between military action and terrorist activity.)
Good grief, man (or woman)! How were we supposed to do this? 12 years of thwarted U.N. attempts at inspection had failed; Saddam was known to play hide-and-seek with his weapons; he could very easily have had the assistance of Syria in hiding them as well. Bush is doing exactly what you claim to have wanted all along: assessing the danger and taking action before it’s too late. And don’t forget: Bush gave Saddam an out. Had Saddam and his scum sons left the country when they had the opportunity Bush gave them, there would have been no war. You can argue that Bush knew fully well that Saddam wouldn’t leave, but nevertheless, war would have been avoided had he left. So much for Bush the war-monger. He could have just attacked outright and without warning, which probably would have been the more advantageous thing to do in regard to capturing or killing Saddam and his sons.
I believe every person on the face of the Earth has made mistakes, and I’m sure Bush has made some. I’m just as sure *anyone * would have made some. Has a war ever been managed flawlessly? Of course not! Unlike you, however, I realize that I don’t have anywhere near the information I would have to have to be able to recognize what mistakes were made.
I simply don’t agree…and you don’t, either! Is not Iraq proactive? Is not Afghanistan proactive? Is not the Dept. of Homeland Security not proactive? It is Bush’s proactiveness that you are complaining about.
I’ll respond to this quickly, just to show why I agree with braintree and will then follow his example.
OK, we’ve got presumably credible intel that bin Laden is gonna do something big, and it’s coming up fairly soon. You don’t know what or where, although it could involve hijacked airplanes, explosives, and buildings in New York and Washington. But you’re told that the FBI’s looking into it, so you let them do your work, and don’t check up on them until about 9:16am on September 11.
Can you say, “shake the trees”?
It’s funny how much more everybody feels the urgency when the boss calls everyone in and says, “we’ve got a problem, and by this time tomorrow, I want you to tell me what your agency is going to do about it.” Tomorrow you meet again, and everybody critiques everyone else’s plans, and the day after, you meet with everyone again to make sure they’re doing it. And so forth.
But Bush went on vacation. If someone else with less authority was working on it, that would do, even if it might not get the same results. Even if he only had a line on paper saying that’s what was being done, and hadn’t even had the chance to query the author to see what that line really meant.
No guns blazing, just “what can we do to try to uncover this plot before they blow something up like with those embassies three years ago.” Maybe they could have unraveled the plot in time, maybe not. But what’s sad is, no serious attempt was even made.
People have been trying to pretend for weeks now that Clinton never did this, and Clarke never talked about it. Nice bandwagon of deliberate ignorance you’ve jumped on. We fight ignorance here.
So nice of you jump in with a quickie before you bail.
OK, we’ve got presumably credible intel that bin Laden is gonna do something big, and it’s coming up fairly soon. You don’t know what or where, although it could involve hijacked airplanes, explosives, and buildings in New York and Washington. But you’re told that the FBI’s looking into it, so you let them do your work, and don’t check up on them until about 9:16am on September 11.
Can you say, “shake the trees”?
It’s funny how much more everybody feels the urgency when the boss calls everyone in and says, “we’ve got a problem, and by this time tomorrow, I want you to tell me what your agency is going to do about it.” Tomorrow you meet again, and everybody critiques everyone else’s plans, and the day after, you meet with everyone again to make sure they’re doing it. And so forth.
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A very excellent point, I’ll grant you. And I know that I’m also addressing a point later in your post, but first of all, how do you know that he didn’t do exactly that? And if he didn’t, how do you know the information he was receiving was sufficiently critical that he felt a sense of urgency? How do you know it wasn’t just one among hundreds of similar threats?
Again, how do you know…and how do you know it appeared to be an immenent threat?
The rest of your post is reasonably expressed. And while I thought insults were verboten here, I think I’ll just ignore this. (But then again, you aren’t still here anyway, are you?)
You put up a nice strawman - all Bush could do was invade someone, and then all the liberals would yell. Rice said something quite true in her testimony - the invasion of Afghanistan was not politically feasible until after 9/11. Neither Bush nor Clinton could have done it. Bush could have treated the threat a bit more seriously, though.
Getting a briefing on an imminent threat, and then going fishing, does not exactly send a message that the President thinks the threat important. As for the FBI, Ashcroft, at least, knew about the problem. In the long term you fix it, in the short term you work harder at getting them to deliver. Ever manage an underperformer? You can get good stuff out of them, but it takes a bit more effort.
Perhaps much of the American public thinks he made a mistake, and aside from the lovely joke, they’ve never acknowledged being less than perfect. The Administration position seems to be that they did everything right. Too bad we suffered the worst terrorist attack in history. It’s all someone else’s fault - they wouldn’t have changed one little thing. I think that if they admitted being wrong in any aspect the press wouldn’t have brought it up. I’m sure his handlers could have figured out something for him to say. But I think the major reason it gets brought up is that not only do they not admit they made mistakes in words, they do it in actions also. They had no contingency plan for resistance after the invasion, and one wonders what they have for a plan after the turnover June 30.
So you would invade Saudi Arabia? Saddam was not the only person giving support to the families of suicide bombers (which is hardly the worst thing anyone has ever done in the Middle East.) Lots of people hate us - lots more now than right after 9/11 for one thing. But for all your evasions, there is no connection between Iraq and our attackers. In fact, by pulling resources out of Afghanistan, Bush made it easier for bin Laden. Bush’s psychotic focus on Iraq is a big reason why bin Laden is alive and well today. And setting a moral equivalence between sending money to the orphans of an evil man and mass murder is just sick.
I agree, by the way, that terror and military action are very different. I am far from being a pacifist. However, those who call insurgents rising up against an occupying army terrorists are making exactly this connection. They may be trying to set up an evil dicatatorship, but they are not terrorists.
Don’t make me laugh. The UN was in, with basically unrestricted access. It’s not that easy to move big WMDs around under continual surveillance. Remember, finding just one would have gotten the world behind us. And, give me a cite, beyond Bush’s blather, that Iraq was an immediate threat to us, ever. That is utter crap.
Saddam certainly miscalculated - he thought Bush was sane. And there was no way there could be a surprise attack after the troop buildup. Get real, please.
If Bush really thought there were WMDs, all he had to do was to wait for the inspectors to find them. But all our vaunted intelligence (much from that crook Chalabi, no doubt) turned out to be wrong. An indication that there was no immediate threat? No - just a reason to attack sooner.
An attack after finding WMDs would have been with UN support, and with a lot more foreign troops and money. That would mean compromise, perish the thought. For an example of how to do it right, all he had to do was ask his daddy and his secretary of state. GWI was a masterful example of the benefits of diplomacy.
Sure, Bush was not a warmonger because he only made an unreasonable demand and didn’t do a Pearl Harbor number on them. Another non-war monger then was must not use the H word…
And who is complaining about invading Afghanistan? Not I. Hardly the same thing, was it? A real attack on us, versus an imagined threat. But being proactive is not responding after an attack, it is doing something before an attack. Invading Iraq was not a proactive response to the war on terrorism either - in fact, since the plans have been made for years, one would say it was probably not even Bush’s idea.
Wouldn’t it have been nice to have kept enough troops in Afghanistan to finish off the Taliban, who are now resurgent? To catch bin Laden? And I think we have plenty of information to recognize that mistakes were made - and plenty of bodies for that matter. No mistakes, everything is hunky dory in this best of all possible worlds.
Umm, because I’d rather expect they’d be all over the 9/11 commission with meeting records if they had? Because Dick Clarke would have known about it? They did meet, right - the week before 9/11, if I remember.
And if they were in fact receiving hundreds of such credible threats, the need for action would have been even greater.
How imminent does it have to be? Do you think it is right to leave known terrorist cells operating in your country because there is no proof they won’t attack next week? And the comparison of the “imminent” threat from Iraq and this one is just too amazing to even comment on.
Rufus is exactly correct. Anyone else here ever been involved in crisis management in a business? You meet every day or every other day, because that shows the boss thinks it is important. You meet at 7 am or 7 pm if you have to. And the stakes are far less important than they were in August 2001.
Has Bush ever really managed anything? Really, I mean, not just be a figurehead. It doesn’t seem like it to me. Remember how Ken Lay admited he didn’t know what was going on? Republicans say they run the country like a business - too bad they didn’t tell us the business was Enron.
Oh, sure…now you post! And not only that, but it’s late and your post has so many holes in it that it looks like a net. Oh, well, I guess I’ll soldier on as best I can.
Frankly, I don’t know what this means.
Funny, I seem to recall hearing that Clinton was offered Bin Laden four times while it was his watch and he demurred each time…and this despite hundreds of U.S. deaths caused by Bin Laden and al Qaeda.
I’m glad you’re so proud of your management experience, and yes, I’ve managed underperformers and I turned some of them into my best employees. But still, the FBI alone had some 70+ al Qaeda investigations going on, and a great many other investigartions regarding a great many other threats were ongoing as well, I’m sure. I would imagine white supremacists here at home were under investigation, for example. And who knows how many other groups, domestically and abroad in Europe, Asia and the Orient were the subjects of ongoing investigations at the time. There was simply no way for Bush to know micromanage (or even keep up with) all these investigations. Not to mention that his was a new presidency with an entire country to run. It’s easy in hindsight to say he should have been goosing people daily to do more, but no one thought so at the time, not even you…and you seem to expect the ability to foresee the future as part and parcel of the human experience.
Perhaps they do. The problem I’m having with this mistake and admission business is that no one seems to know just what the mistakes were. The press and television media are who have created the public perception that mistakes have been made, but neither the public nor the press and media can point to what they are! So they heckle Bush during a news conference by repeating questions that have a false premise to begin with, and then expect him to fill in the blanks to complete their false premise.
So you want the President, conducting a war and engaged with our enemies, in an election year, to walk right into a trap being laid by the media to try to get him to admit mistakes or wrongdoing so they can trumpet it to the skies, reinforce foreign stereotypes of Bush, and hand Kerry the major attack and talking points for the rest of the campaign, and do it all willingly just because someone asked? As I’ve said before, the inability of Bush’s attackers to define just what mistakes they are expecting him to “admit” to, only goes to show their bias and negates the validity of their position.
Yeah, it is too bad. Take it up with Clinton!
Oh, please!!! As I just said, they would be trumpeting it for all the world to hear…over and over again for the next seven months, and even longer I’m sure if he were to be reelected.
How on earth do you know what plans they had or didn’t have? You don’t! This is just your opinion based on how it looks to you because you don’t like how things are going over there. War is a messy business. Contingency plans are made, revised, abandoned and reconstructed according to need and the ever changing tide of battle. Same for the period of occupation and reconstruction. I’m sure someone with your intelligence (or hell, *any * intelligence) knows this.
Don’t know. I’d need more information.
Are you serious? What if he was giving support to the families of the 9/11 terrorists? I can’t believe you would say such a thing.
Exactly! This is why we should have acted sooner.
Evasions? I must ask for a cite.
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But again, you have no actual first-hand knowledge of anything regarding any relationship or lack thereof between Iraq and al Qaeda.
But it seems reasonable to me that, given the fact that Bin Laden and al Qaeda are on record as being desirous of causing the U.S. to suffer catastrophic loss of life and that Iraq has had (and used) WMD in the past, was believed to have had them at the time, and at the very least was trying to gain even more WMD technology, it doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch to me that they were very likely to get together. Bin Laden and al Qaeda for the obvious reasons, and Saddam to get even for being driven out of Kuwait and getting his ass kicked by Bush, Sr. Not to mention the no-fly zones, sanctions and U.N. inspections he had to put up with. In fact, by pulling resources out of Afghanistan, Bush made it easier for bin Laden. Given that the U.N. and most of its member nations believed Iraq had WMD, and that our intelligence agencies believed it posessed WMD, and that Iraq’s own neighbors thought it had WMD, and that Saddam continued to defy U.N. resolutions time after time, the only logical conclusion was that Iraq did indeed have WMD, and if it did that it was only a matter of time until they found their way into al Qaeda’s hands (or who knows, maybe even the Pallestinians who would use them on Israel. But then, based on what you’ve said regarding Saddam’s payoffs to the families of suicide bombers, you don’t seem to think killing Israelis is that big a deal. Surely you didn’t mean to come off that way, but you did.
Good grief, man. I’m beginning to doubt my previous assessment of you as an intelligent person. Do you honestly think the military of this country is incapable of handling Afghanistan *and * Iraq, and that Bush has therefore let Bin Laden go free in order to concentrate on Iraq? Puh-leese! With a lot less technology and firepower than we have today we defeated Japan and Germany and held the Soviet Union in check for 40 or 50 years. Give me a break!
Again…give me a frickin’ break!!! Poor orphans, my ass. He wanted to provide prospective suicide bombers (and those who would recruit them, I’m sure) with assurances that their families wouldn’t suffer financially if they killed themselves attacking Israelis. Now listen closely…this means he was making it easier for innocent Israelis to be killed. He was supporting terrorism! So why on earth would any reasonable President not think he would draw the line at supporting terrorism against the United States.
Damn, I can’t believe what I’m seeing here!
I don’t believe I ever equated the insurgents with terrorists, though some of them undoubtedly are. When I use the term “terrorists,” I’m speaking of non-military activists who do not represent a particular government and who attempt to acheive their ends through the (ususally mass) murder of innocent people who had nothing to do with creating their grievances for the purpose of achieving their particular goals. Nowhere did I equate insurgents or so-called freedom fighters with terrorists, although like I just said, some undoubtedly are.
Then what was the reason for the 14 or so U.N. resolutions?
Give *me * a cite where I ever said Iraq was an *immediate * threat, or Bush for that matter. I can’t recall ever hearing from him that an Iraqi attack was imminent.
Not worth comment.
Man, you are loosing it. Where did I speak of a surprise attack? And if Saddam and his sons had bailed, the troops could have been called back.
Can you say, naive? And what if while playing hide and seek with BlixCo, despite 14 U.N. resolutions stating Saddam was in violation of the inspection agreement and other conditions he had agreed to, Saddam had turned some sort of WMD over to al Qaeda? You and your ilk would be sceaming that he should have foreseen the danger and taken action but didn’t.
I refer you to the above.
Think so? I’ll tell you what I think. The U.N., France, Germany, et al would have claimed that the inspections were working…after all, they found that one, right?..and that Iraq had been contained anyway and the inspectors should be given a chance to complete their work. And on and on it would go. The U.N. has shown itself to be completely gutless and would never have taken the right course of action unless and/or until a nuclear bomb had gone off in Washington, D.C. And I’m far from convinced even that would do it. Hmm…I can see it all now. The U.N. in its cautious wisdom would want to conduct investigations to see just who had planted the bomb, and just who they got it from, and whether it was an old bomb that Iraq didn’t even know it still had and which had been supplied by rogue officers of Saddam’s government, etc., etc., ad infinitum, ad nauseum!
Funny, I don’t recall lots of huzzahs coming from the segment of society you seem to represent.
Uh…and leave Kuwait, is that what you mean? And that he disarm and quit murdering his own people in the north and south of Iraq? You’re right…Bush, Sr. was unconscionable!
What the hell are you talking about?
Excuse me, but Afghanistan didn’t attack us. Plenty of your cohorts didn’t want the U.S. to take action against Afghanistan. It’s just that they perceived themselves as being on somewhat shaky ground and overwhelmed by the support for it. The media, and the Democrat party, had yet to figure out how to attack Bush in the face of this overwhelming support, but thought they found the answer in Iraq.
Precisely! Thank you. Is this not what I’ve been saying all along is what Bush is doing in Iraq?
First you propose a baseless premise, i.e. the war in Iraq was not a response to terrorism, and then claim as proof the fact the war was years in the planning. Do you not think our military has devised battle plans for a great number of contingencies involving countries that are a threat to us or our allies?
Some resurgency. I don’t see the Taliban in charge of anything, much less the country. And didn’t most of the Taliban flee to unreachable parts of the mountains and into neighboring countries? We are more than capable, as I said above, of dealing with Afghanistan and Iraq simultaneously.
Yes, you have plenty of information to recognize that mistakes were made, you just don’t have enough information to know what they were, right?
Let’s see if I can sum up your position here, okay?
"Dammit, Mr. President. You’re an asshole and you fucked up! Just how, I couldn’t say, but I know you did and I want you to admit it! I mean…just look at all the *dead * bodies!
"Yes, sir, I know it’s a war. Yes, sir, I know dead bodies happen in war. Yes, sir, I know this has been the case since time immemorial. But still…
I think you’re an asshole and you fucked up! And I wanta know when you’re going to admit it and when you’re gonna tell me what it was!"
I see you’ve been haunting me even while I was writing my exhaustive reply to your exhaustive previous post. Sorry, I’ll have to wait to reply until I return tomorrow.
Have a good night, my estimable opponent. (your harsh and inhumane comments regarding suicide bombers notwithstanding, that is.)
