If anyone let OBL get away, it was the current administration, not any “liberals”. They farmed it out to local warlords and botched it - after promising in several rousing soundbites to hunt the mangy varmint down no matter where he went. Then during the presidential debates, Bush tried to wave it away as being unimportant. There are plenty of moderates and liberals who still hate OBL and would happily pull him apart (literally), including myself. This “speech” from Biden is nothing more than
shifting of blame away from where it should be and
Pure crap.
A way to make excuses for doing nothing, while blaming “someone” who has no involvement or ability to affect the outcome (scapegoat).
I don’t see the difference. In both cases it’s a non-answer to a difficult, hypothetical question. Was the question put to individuals face-to-face or to a group? Did you expect them all to respond in unison with your preferred non-answer? Isn’t there a chance that that’s pretty much what they were thinking?
I think there may be a somewhat different explanation for their reaction. The right has purposely beaten into the popular consciousness the (inaccurate) idea that the left is indecisive on important manners - the whole “analysis paralysis” meme. This meme of course ignores the fact that there are real problems in the real world that do in fact require analysis, and that analysis does not automatically cause paralysis. But, because of the incessant repetition of this meme, even many on the left believe it at some level. Thus, they were in fact hanging their heads in shame. But it was not shame at their unwillingness to use force, it was (unjustified) shame at what they believed was their own indecisiveness over the question. Their inability to instantly come up with a definitive answer to a complicated issue was perfectly reasonable, but they’ve been taught that it’s a weakness.
Can I take it that you would instantly choose to invade Pakistan with at least ten thousand soldiers (keeping in touch with the ‘up to 5,000 killed’ scenario) in order to get UBL?
Let me ask you one thing. We know Pakistan has nuclear weapons. We know that there is a considerable pro-Al Qaeda view among some Pakistanis (i.e., before 2001, the Pakistani intelligence service had undeniable links to UBL). We can reasonably conclude that an American invasion of Pakistan would be a very serious deal. We also know that Musharraf is still uneasy about his position at the top of the government of Pakistan.
From all these premises, we can reasonably conclude that there is a chance – no way to know how likely, but we must acknowledge that there is a chance – that fundamentalist, reactionary Muslims could hold a coup and gain control of Pakistan’s nuclear arms.
Are you still in favor of invading Pakistan to get UBL, cost be damned?
[QUOTE=chappachula]
So what would good liberals do when presented with a genuine chance to capture Osama Bin Laden?
NOTHING, apparently.
Senator Joe Biden tells this reporter about people he calls “really bright guys in my party” who think the US army should NOT hunt down OBL.
Wow, and Biden thinks we should just charge into a scenario like this?
To sum up, 500-5,000 dead US soldiers.
To me that would generally indicate about 1,500-15,000 [for some reason I recall the average death to wounded ratio as being about 3:1].
First of all with those kind of death tolls [on our side at least] we’re not talking a minor skirmish. This would be have to be a pretty major engagement. However, lets forget for a moment the issue of having a major engagement inside Pakistan without the goverments permission/assistance.
The real problem with this scenario that I see is that it would be handy over a serious matyrdom to OBL. Admittedly, he’s likely going to be turned into a matyr regardless but do we really want to give him his own rallying cry? Think of the propaganda that could be made from this.
“Osama bin Laden, it took 2000 [combining the figures above, insert whatever number from 2,000-20,000 that you prefer] American to take him out.”
Certainly we’d get OBL but if we took those kind of casualties just to take out one man we’d be giving terrorists a better tool then OBL ever was.
Can we get an acknowledgement from the OP that this is not an accurate summary of the situation? Because hunting him down in general is not the same as the specific scenario, with its potential huge costs in both casualties and international relations with an ally, proposed to these “liberals”. It is a false dilemma and there is no good reason to assume those who were presented with this question are soft on terrorism, or OBL.
I lower my head, unable to meet the gaze of such unremitting jingoist insanity, without screaming out obscenities.
Is five thousand soldiers for each new emergent terrorist leader gonna be the going rate? I think they have us outnumbered.
And, by the way, the last time it was supposed to be “minimal allied casualties” “shock and awe” and “mission accomplished” and all the other crap labeled as military intelligence.
You don’t engage single men with divisional maneuvers; unless you’re stupid, of course, which we are. And I would like to point out that no one even bothered to count probable deaths among the goatherds and farmers who actually live in that part of the world. But they don’t donate much to politics, other than blood, and news photography. Oh, and an occasional emergent terrorist leader.