Not to defend the Senator, but we declared war on Germany on Dec 10, 1941. By April 30, 1945 Hitler was dead and everyone knew it. Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. That's about 3.5 yrs by my count.
Bush declared war on AQ and "dead or alive" right after 9/11. We're now coming up on 4.5 yrs this March and Osama is still out there.
It seems like he's lasted longer than the Fuehrer did by at least a year.
Bush has done a lot of things right but he's failed in getting Osama and if he leaves office in 2009 and Osama is still making tapes that'll be an even bigger failure.
If Clinton had gone 4.5 yrs without getting Osama I know all the conservatives would be all over him. But one rarely sees conservatives criticize Bush for failing to get Osama.
Four and half years? Where have you been? Try eight years.
Clinton had multiple chances to nab bin Laden when it was still easy to do.
Today Osama lives in caves like a bat. Bush has driven him there. He has no ability to launch fresh attacks. During Clinton's misrule bin Laden launched attack against American interests with impunity.
I don't understand your strange focus on "3.5" vs "4" years or whatever--you've completely overlooked my point in your effort to criticize Bush for not getting Osama.
My point--which is clear for anyone except those who can only grasp the literal--is that it took 4 years to get Hitler--and no, not everyone knew it; for several years there were questions about the identity of the man the Russians claimed was Hitler.
If Osama is indeed dead--I don't believe he is--then Bush will have been a success without us knowing it. But that's completely beside the point.
My point, for those who need it explained, is that a war's success can't be determined by the survival or death of the enemy nation's leader; by that yardstick, we didn't defeat Japan until over 40 years later. (Get it--Germany...Japan...defeated...one leader dead, the other not...'kay?)
"That's about 3.5 years by my count." OK. So what?
So you seriously believe that if UBL were killed on 9-12 we wouldn't still be in a War on Terror? Then I've got a website for you--"Democratic Underground," where they believe we are in (as you seem to believe) a conventional war, where if we only knock of ONE GUY, it all goes away.
This isn't a war like that. Kerry seems to think it is. Defend his math all you want, because that's not the problem; UBL isn't the problem, either. But he, and you, both seems to think bringing him in would be the same as if we brought in Saddam, or Hitler, or any number of leaders of conventional conflicts.
Yes, but in fairness to our forces today (and it's not George Bush that is physically persuing Bin Laden but rather our troops), Hitler didn't hide out in the Alps or the Hunsrucks or elsewhere, either.
He stayed in Berlin until the end, in his bunker, under the Chancellory, where both the Americans and Russians knew him to be. We and the Bristish bombed the Chancellory often, and when they got close enough, the Russians shelled it continuously.
Bin Laden is a cowardly killer who cannot show his face in anything close to public or he WILL be food of the predator drones!