I’ve seen this idea bandied about in other threads and would love to hear the arguments. True to form, I’m asking for others to debate for my own edification as I don’t have a position yet.
Well at least Kerry wouldn’t invade countries with little relevance to terrorism. Bush is better when it comes to pissing off arabs, and arabs deserve a bit of pissing off IMHO. The problem is that they tend to respond with terrorism.
Dunno. Let’s put him in office and find out.
I believe Clinton was more active against terrorism than Bush was, myself.
And, barring the Afghanistan War, more effective. I’m going to assume the war, specifically, would have been handled in much the same way under either administration… there wasn’t time for ideology to get in the way of military planners.
Perhaps I should have put this in GQ because I was looking for answers that point to Kerry’s platform more than bipartisan sniping.
At least he hit more camels in the butt.
First place to look for candidate platforms is on their candidacy web pages.
Here’s a speech on this subject outlining Kerry’s proposed approach to dealing with global terrorism, given at UCLA on Feb 27, 2004. “Fighting a Comprehensive War on Terrorism”
Kerry’s stances on Iraq, homeland security and other issues can be found on the site as well: Issues
What does “tougher on terrorism” mean? That terrorist suspects will have yet fewer rights, and perhaps be assassinated outright in greater numbers? That non-US nationals will find it ever more difficult to enter the country? That Iraq will be dealt with even more severely?
Americans, please understand that “War on Terror” is just a phrase. One can no more declare war on a terrorist organisation than on a cartel of dodgy bookmakers.
Hiring intelligence operatives who can speak Arabic; now there’s a “tough” idea.
I never heard the word “Al Queda” while Clinton was president. Even though they existed and had already attacked the United States when they killed sailors on the US Cole. The planning for the second (and final) Twin Tower attacks certaining was on-going during that period.
[QUOTE=SentientMeat]
Americans, please understand that “War on Terror” is just a phrase. One can no more declare war on a terrorist organisation than on a cartel of dodgy bookmakers.
QUOTE]
Sigh . . . we know, we know.
Personally, I think Bush’s style is tough, maybe more so than Kerry’s, just not that smart. He emphasizes military might over law enforcement, and thinks that smashing terrorist-supporting states will solve the problem. What a crock–just ask the UK and how well they smashed the IRA.
Bush’s approach sells well with the electorate, I just don’t think it will work in the long term.
Somebody should ask GWB, “If you knew on September 10, 2001, what you know now, how much of the military would you have involved in stopping the attacks?”
I beg to differ. I had heard the words Al Qeida, I had even heard of OBL. (Though I still can’t spell Qeida.)
In fact, I remember some things about Afganistan, a medicine factory, a mission to kill OBL, and something about how it was ‘wagging the dog’ to chase after this terrorist guy while Clinton was on trial.
I seem to recall something about embassy bombings, too.
We knew who he was, we knew we had to hunt him… and I’m sure some democrat can supply the link where the dems gave the incoming Bushes all the data, only to be ignored till after 9/11.
I’m still pissed about that.
“All the data” on Al Queda? I certainly would like to see that link and hope it goes to a politically neutral site. Wonder how long the Clinton administration had “all the data” on Al Queda?
I sure as hell did. What’s really sad is Clinton had an opportunity to take him out but didn’t because he didn’t want his detractors saying his motivation was to deflect interest from the Lewinsky scandal. That’s just fucked up.
So Clinton could have dealt with Al Queda and taken OBL out but didn’t because he was concerned about politics? Look, I’m not thsat old but I’ve never heard that before. Was this discussed during that period? Or is this recent theory? I’m sure that if Clinton’s reasons for not dealing with Al Queda during its early and formative years was because of political self-interest - well that is a shame. I for one would love to see the link that was mentioned.
He didn’t say that the Clinton administration had a comprehensive file containing “all the data” covering *every * aspect of Al Qeida. He said that the Clinton administration handed over “all the data” to the Bush administration, as in “everything we know up to this point”.
OK, and that could be either next to nothing or almost everything or anything in between those two. The implication of the post was, however, that there was important information handed over to the Bush people that Clinton had. Wonder what that information was, could it be acted upon, and if so, what action the Clinton Administration took based on the information handed over. That’s all. If no one knows and can only say they handed over the intelligence they had - well who is going to disagree with that.
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,333835,00.html
Could 9/11 Have Been Prevented?
Long before the tragic events of September 11th, the White House debated taking the fight to al-Qaeda. It didn’t happen and soon it was too late. The saga of a lost chance
http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/africa/9808/22/air.strikes.follow/
The above are excerpts from a CNN article dated August 22, 1998.
The article both outlines the list of terror attacks that took place during the Clinton Administration and than indicates that they created a plan to “roll back” Al Queda by attacking in Al Queda inside Afghanistan. The article indicates that the Clinton Administration indicated that they took no action themselves because they didn’t want Bush to inherit the action in Afghanistan. I don’t see anything saying that 9-11 could have been prevented or even anything related to 9-11 other than terrorism generally. In addition, the indication seems to be that there was nothing known by the Clinton administration that could have prevented 9-11. If the Clinton Administration had this information than they were certainly remiss to take no action - or what they argued as ‘proper action’ as they indicated they didn’t do in regards to Al Queda in the final days of their administration.
There were opportunities, in the shape of terror attacks against US citizens during Clinton’s years. I suspect, better action during his years mayy have been more likely to affect Al Queda’s opportunties before 9-11 than an 11th hour briefing a couple of months before Clinton left office.
Tiger2B1
I think what many posters are arguing here is that before 9/11, Bush had a lot of information on al Qaeda, but chose to structure his foreign policy around “rogue states” like North Korea and pushed for things like National Missile Defense. Budgets before 9/11 called for reduction in antiterrorism spending. I will see if I can dig up a cite.
More importantly, to address the OP, one has to ask which things can be done to make Americans safer and which things can be done to make the world safer from terrorism. The obviously, easy things are being ignored, IMHO. Pakistan whores out nuclear secrets without condemnation from the US. Madrassas still pour out facist Islamic fundamentalism and indoctrinate children in anti-Western hate. Afghanistan was toppled, but the heads of the Taliban and al Qaeda escaped. Only recently does it appear that serious effort is being put in to find them. Iraq was toppled, but post-war bungling has let it join Afghanistan as a lawless terrorist incubator. Our ports remain insecure. Firefighters and emergency teams are underfunded and undertrained in regards to terrorism response. There is serious doubt whether airports are any more secure now than they were on 9/10. The list goes on and on. Jonathan Chait had an article in “The New Republic” called “The 9/10 President.” If you have a subscription, you should read it; if not, it is worth signing up for the free 30 day trial to get it:
https://ssl.tnr.com/p/docsub.mhtml?i=20030310&s=chait031003
Here is a article by Eric Alterman which talks about this article.
http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20030505&s=alterman
Bush has put the main focus of his war on terror on the marginal threat of Iraq. Islamic fanaticism has only gotten worse. An attack like the one that happened in Spain would be incredibly easy to perpetrate in the US. I would guess that a repeat of a 9/11-style attack would not be significantly more difficult. Nuclear material is flowing to questionable regimes and perhaps terror groups who can front enough cash and we aren’t doing a thing.
While I’m not sure how many of these things Kerry could address and correct, I think he would be far less distracted by the varying ideologies that have steered the easily-led Bush astray. I trust him to be much more focused in getting the country secure and going after the actual bad guys. This is mostly because I do not think Bush could be any worse.