Posted on 08/12/2006 6:42:29 AM PDT by bitt
WASHINGTON -- The terrorist attack foiled by British authorities prompted a battle of words yesterday between a pair of presidential contenders from Massachusetts, with Governor Mitt Romney lashing out at Senator John F. Kerry for suggesting that the war in Iraq has harmed the nation's security.
Kerry, the Democrats' 2004 presidential nominee, seized on news of the disrupted plot as a ``stark reminder" that Osama bin Laden remains at large and said it shows that Al Qaeda has ``grown in strength" since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
``Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda have succeeded in isolating the United States," Kerry, a Democrat, said during a conference call organized on behalf of Patrick Murphy, a Democratic candidate in a Pennsylvania House race. ``Afghanistan and Pakistan are where the fight against Al Qaeda is, not in Iraq."
Asked about Kerry's comments during an appearance on the MSNBC cable network, Romney blasted Kerry. The governor said the senator failed to recognize that the United States is locked in a long-term war against terrorists and that Iraq is a central front.
``I think it shows a complete lack of understanding of the kind of enemy that we're facing," said Romney, a Republican. ``This is not a small group of wackos in the hills that all we have to do is go find one person and it suddenly goes away."
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
Perhaps you should stop soft-peddling and tell us how you really feel.... ---->[/weak humor = off]
Have a great day
Kerry got PWNED by the governor.
Talking about "geographical wedges" in an asymmetrical war waged by terrorists is akin to talking about the next "big push" on the Western front in World War I.
Rather than worrying about an enervated Saddam on our flanks, we might consider that we have few allies today, that our policy in Iraq is regarded by virtually the whole world abroad at home by at least half the country as a disaster, that we may have taken a Sunni buffer to a Shi'ite hegemony and converted it into a mid East power that runs from the mountains on the border with Pakistan to the shores of the Mediterranean.
Iraq may not have been a, "brilliant victory" if one truly understands the nature of the asymmetrical world war in which we are now enmeshed. In fact, Iraq may have been just exactly the sort of trap which the Shi'ites were hoping to spring. American soldiers die to effect a democracy that can never be but we indeed have positioned the Shi'ites in a place from which they can launch asymmetrical warfare at will. And by "a place" I do not mean a geographical venue, for that is irrelevant in an asymmetrical world war. I was deceived about this before we invaded Iraq and even posted that we will have acquired a geographical base akin to an aircraft carrier from which to exert power and influence in furtherance of the "Bush doctrine." How wrong I was. Geography has nothing to do with it. It is all psychology, momentum, intelligence, and allies. We cannot sweep an area clean of terrorists. The Israelis are learning this hard lesson right now in Lebanon.
In the war against terrorism, nothing could be more intellectually "limited" -to use your word- than fighting World War I.
"``Mitt Romney's command of national security is about as real as the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," Wade said."
So Kerry is stil contending there were no WMD? hehe...
Romney is doing more to combat the Democrat's anti-Republican propaganda than the so-called social conservative Republicans in Congress. But I guess since he doesn't bring up abortion being evil every 10 seconds, he is disliked by some Freepers.
``Mitt Romney's command of national security is about as real as the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq," Wade said.
How stupid are they that continue to use that old line!!!
We KNOW how real those weapons are/were.
DOPE!!!
Yes, I am curious why folks on hear don't like Romney. I rather like him!
Well nice you have feelings, too bad for you you are all ready prove wrong. Iraq has all ready been effected a Democracy so give your primary assumption is false, the rest of your proposition is prove equally false.
I guess I am a lot more concerned with wining the real war then the PR war. If you are hoping that some how the Leftist Junk Media will suddenly come to love the Conservatives make peace right NOW with being unhappy the rest of your life. Iraq has neither been a military nor a PR disaster. It is time the Neo isolationists get a grip on reality. This hide out in Fortress Amerkia and wish the baddies away died on 09-11-01 as a viable policy. History has passed you by. As 09-11-01 showed us, try to hide from evil and it merely follows you home. Iraq is about killing the Jihadies THERE so we do not have to kill them here. Your name sake would of understood the military logic of it. Such a pity his descendent's refuse to learn from his example.
Never stand and take a charge...charge them too."
--- General Nathan Bedford Forrest, CSA
The guy is very sharp and thinks well on his feet.
It was never destined to be a public relations success. Not with the liberal MSM using every manipulative and deceptive workd and image in its armament to wage all-out war against a Republican administration. Not with the Democrats determined to play Quisling to the scourge of Islamofascism and gain a perch of temporary and hopeless power.
The same vile forces worked night and day to undermine Reagan in his efforts to topple the Soviet Empire, too. Critics like you were ten dozen for a dime, eager to see him fail by declaring the game over or moving the goal posts daily if necessary.
But Reagan won by sticking to it and doing the right thing despite the cacaphony of the magpie critics accusing him of undermining world security and declaring the war won by the communists.
Bush is following Reagan's lead and ignoring crooked and cooked world opinion. God bless him for doing that.
It was never destined to be a public relations success. Not with the liberal MSM using every manipulative and deceptive word and image in its armament to wage all-out war against a Republican administration. Not with the Democrats determined to play Quisling to the scourge of Islamofascism and gain a perch of temporary and hopeless power.
The same vile forces worked night and day to undermine Reagan in his efforts to topple the Soviet Empire, too. Critics like you were ten dozen for a dime, eager to see him fail by declaring the game over or moving the goal posts daily if necessary.
But Reagan won by sticking to it and doing the right thing despite the cacaphony of the magpie critics accusing him of undermining world security and declaring the war won by the communists.
Bush is following Reagan's lead and ignoring crooked and cooked world opinion. God bless him for doing that.
Amen to that Johnnie. Another great post my friend.
Kerry is a fool. The highpoint of Al Qaeda "membership" was probably some time around 1991. By then approximately 20,000 Afghan-Arabs had been trained in Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan. Many of those trained were killed in the wars in Afghanistan. Some were killed in Bosnia and Herzegovina. A very large number were killed in Algeria, and others lost their lives in Chechnya, Tajikistan and Kashmir. The number of highly trained and indoctrinated Al Qaeda likely do not exceed a thousand, and their numbers continue to diminish.
The problem with Kerry and other Democrats is that they know nothing of the Islamist movement or the Salafist tendency that drives the jihadists. Egyptian and Palestine Islamic Jihad although not Al Qaeda may as well be, because their aims are the same. The various Jamaa Islamiya, ditto. The task ahead is not simply to kill Al Qaeda, but to kill the Islamist terrorists -- regardless of where they are or the organization they call home.
I quite agree with you, Iraq has not been a "military" disaster-unless you define a pyricch victory to be a military disaster because it does not effectively wage war. In many ways in Iraq has been a military triumph: the whole country overrun and subdued with a few hundred casualties. But it does not matter whether this is an objective victory in it matters only whether it is a "public-relations" victory-and it has clearly not been.
Iraq is about killing the Jihadies THERE so we do not have to kill them here.
This can only be described as the strategy of shoveling flies. With less than 3000 dead, after a miraculous military campaign, we have lost half the country. How how many more flies can you shovel and still hope to hold even a quarter of the country? These flies are spawned by a population of 1.2 billion Muslims and hundreds of millions of the Arabs, there are simply too many flies for us to shovel without breaking utterly our Western democracy.
Do not draw the wrong conclusions, I do not advocate withdrawal, surrender or isolationism. Such a course would be disastrous. But equally, I cannot countenance a policy of shoveling flies because a continuation of that policy would bring an even worse calamity. It grieves me terribly that the Bush doctrine of preemption is moribund and cannot be revived absent a new strike on the homeland-God grant that it be without weapons of mass destruction. What we are doing is not working. We are about to lose the oncoming by-election and we are about to lose whole chunks of public support. We must change what we are doing.
You're quite right, Nathan Bedford Forrest certainly knew how to wage asymmetrical warfare. He certainly would not play the enemy's game. In the event, he managed to help undo the entire "occupation"-as he would've called it-and which we would today call "Reconstruction" by 1876. This is certainly not the proudest chapter in his history, but it does demonstrate the fecklessness of an occupation force, even in a noble and good cause, upon a recalcitrant population. The clan was clearly a terrorist organization, which achieved its goal, the withdrawal of Yankee forces of occupation and the restoration to the south of home rule.
Forrest always let the Yankees draw the wrong conclusions about him.
Don't forget to thank Hilary Clinton for her support in the war on terror!
It appears Kerry has given up the botox and hair dye.
Doesn't he know about the WMD's, are they ALL still pretending they never existed??
excellent pic. he is picking pockets of the un-dead...
'David Wade dope said that if Sinclair Broadcasting aired the Stolen Honor film, they'd fix him good.
you are right, sir/madam.
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