[Nitpick]
Bartlett doesn’t call for a thousand deaths for every American death. In that scene, he’s just learned that a close, personal friend was killed in a state-sponsored terrorist attack. Angry, he says that in the days of the Roman Empire, a Roman citizen could walk from one end of the empire to the other, and nobody would touch him. Leo points out that the Romans could do that because they had a policy of killing a thousand people for every Roman citizen killed, and is that how Bartlett wants to run US foreign policy? Which gets Bartlett to calm down and consider more realistic options.
[/Nitpick]
I’m curious if you even know why Al-Qaeda targeted us in the first place.
30 years of wanton Imperialism on four continents?
And invading Iraq totally worked. We know this, because since that happened, terrorism has completey stopped.
According to some posts in this thread, they attacked in order to provoke us into passing the Patriot Act.
Okay, then, Plan C.
Is there a reason you neglected to mention Reagan’s inaction after the Marine barracks was bombed in Lebanon?
BTW, I believe Clinton came close to killing bin Laden in Afghanistan after the African embassy bombings. Just so you know.
“Dysfunctional” does not mean “fictional”. And a “tyrant” who balks at the UN’s inspection demands is no excuse for dropping bombs on people who had no say in it. More than a hundred thousand civilian deaths is hardly collateral damage, although it does provide an excellent reason for the survivors to hate America.
Ah, now I see that you’re only interested in perpetuating your biases, not in learning anything.
I stand corrected. Still, the way Jeb behaved when angry would have made him a nightmare without Leo to keep him tethered, more than once.
I submit that in real life, Dick Cheney didn’t have a Leo to talk him down–or got rid of his Leo.
What’s that, bow before the “caliph” of Daesh and commit mass suicide?
Do you think that when Clinton ordered the cruise missile strikes in 1998 and Republicans accused him of doing so for the sole purpose of distracting attention from Monica Lewinsky, that Republicans were doing an even greater disservice to the threat of Al Qaeda?
I mean, how can so many Republican elected leaders have been so throughly ignorant of Al Qaeda as to say that attacking their training camps was the wrong thing to do?
I think that was just a bonus.
So, their main goal was to have us wipe out there C&C, destroy their bases and push them back to living in caves and hunting them down with drones, but it was just a bonus for them to get the Patriot Act enacted? I can see how they would benefit from all those things, yeah…
This.
There were so many things wrong with how the US reacted to 9/11.
The fact that:
- it was never investigated properly as a crime,
- The crime scene was cleaned and scrubbed starting before the dust had literally settled,
- The US attacked a country that had nothing to do with the attacks (but does have LOTS of oil! Probably just a coincidence.)
I think there should have been a complete and thorough investigation. Once complete, the guilty should have been punished appropriately…
This would have taken some time, but it would have cost so much less in lives and treasure. (And it would have had the added bonus of punishing those actually responsible.)
What do you think the PENTTBOM investigation was?
And who do you think was guilty? Not al-Qaeda? :rolleyes:
What would have worked? Assume I’m asking as a friend who would have supported glassing wherever this thing came from. What response would have put this thing to bed before it started?
My miscellaneous comments.
Or better yet, used the international support to advance world peace. I think there might have been a once-in-a-century opportunity to make grand bargains:
"Pakistan - your only priority now is to fight the Taliban and other terrorists. The good news is: Kashmir is yours.
"India - Evacuate Kashmir. This is how you can help. Get over it.
"Israel - start packing up the settlements. Now.
“Arab terrorists - Desist or your people will be napalmed”
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While Cheney, Rove and their stooge over-reacted to the tragedy, an under-reaction would have failed for several reasons. And the government of Afghanistan did not appear receptive to extradition requests; and indeed was run by criminals closely allied ideologically with al-Qaeda.
Would you have reacted to the attack on Pearl Harbor by politely asking Japan to extradite Admiral Yamamoto?
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Yes, it’s good to remember that by 2001, U.S. sanctions were doing more harm to the Iraqi people than Saddam was then doing. And Saddam, the House of Saud, the Taliban, and even indirectly al-Qaeda itself were all created or propped up by the U.S. to further its own interests. Some U.S. interventions, e.g. in Bosnia or Kosovo, were the actions of an altruistic world cop. But many Americans lose sight that coups in Latin America and the Islamic world, corrupt and evil governments in Iraq and Arabia, the bloody Iran-Iraq War, and worse, resulted directly from cynical U.S. policies.
Although his view is too one-dimensional, WillFarnaby has a good perspective here. (Too bad he’s drunk the Alabama YouTube Kool-Aid on economic matters.)
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Do you really believe Cheney and his puppet were opposed to the use of American military to further corporate interests and prop up Saudi and Israel? 