BUSH: One of the major theaters against al Qaeda turns out to have been Iraq. This is where al Qaeda said they were going to take their stand. This is where al Qaeda was hoping to take-
RADDATZ: But not until after the U.S. invaded.
BUSH: Yeah, that's right. So what? The point is that al Qaeda said they're going to take a stand. Well, first of all in the post-9/11 environment Saddam Hussein posed a threat. And then upon removal, al Qaeda decides to take a stand.
They said they were going to take a stand? What do you call what happened in the mountains of Tora Bora? You know, the stand where Bush let Osama bin Laden get away? What, destroying the entire leadership of the group responsible for 9/11 wasn't enough for him? He had to let them go so that they could go on to fight another day?
Do you think he doesn't know, or that he just doesn't know what to say?
The harsh reality is that this was not a noble undertaking done for good reasons. It was a criminal enterprise launched by madmen cheered on by a chorus of fools and cowards. And it's seen as such by virtually everyone all around the world -- including but by no means limited to the Arab world. But it's impolitic to point this out in the United States, and it's clear that even a president-elect who had the wisdom not to be suckered in by the War Fever of 2002 has no intention of really acting to marginalize the bad actors. Which, I think, makes sense for his political objectives. But if Americans want to play a constructive role in world affairs, it's vitally important for us to get in touch with the reality of what the past eight years of US foreign policy have been and how they're seen and understood by people who aren't stirred by the shibboleths of American patriotism.
PBS Frontline did an amazing, 2-hour look at the candidates a few weeks back. If you have any questions about who either of the two men running to be the next President of the United States are, you need to watch this. If you have any questions about how they've run their campaigns, you need to watch this. If you want a detailed, evenhanded look back at the past 18 months, you need to watch this.
Essential viewing in the final hours of the campaign.
For those of you who prefer to look forward, this week's Frontline episode on the foreign policy challenges awaiting the next president will probably be a better choice. Website and iTunes options only on this one.
Looks like this may be the best season of Frontline yet.
BAGHDAD, Oct. 19 -- Key members of the Iraqi parliament's largest political bloc have called for all American troops to leave this country in 2011 as a condition for allowing the U.S. military to stay here beyond year's end, officials said Sunday.
The change sought by the influential United Iraqi Alliance would harden the withdrawal date for U.S. troops. A draft bilateral agreement completed this week would require American forces to leave by December 2011 but would allow for an extension by mutual agreement.
The Shiite bloc, which includes Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki's Dawa party, also insists that Iraqi officials have a bigger role in determining whether U.S. soldiers accused of wrongdoing are subject to prosecution in Iraqi courts, said Sami al-Askeri, a political adviser to Maliki. That proposal has been resisted by the Pentagon.
If the Iraqi alliance's conditions are not met, "I cannot see that this agreement will see the light," said Askeri, who is also a lawmaker from Maliki's party.
t was not immediately clear whether the U.S. side would accept the changes to the draft agreement. The document would provide legal authority for American troops to remain in Iraq after a U.N. mandate expires Dec. 31. If there is no accord or other legal cover for U.S. forces, they must leave.
Think about that first sentence again. The Iraqis are giving us a choice: be out by the end of the year, or stay until 2011 but under specific conditions. The Bush doesn't like either option, so despite the fact that the sovereign government of Iraq (you know, the one elected with all of those purple fingers?) wants us to leave, they are searching for a third solution.
What precisely are Americans sacrificing so much for if they don't even want us in their country? Clearly the democracy and freedom things aren't it anymore, because we are fighting the parliament just to stay. Seriously, what's the point of all this?
The general says he can do something about the fight he sees the enemy planning for the winter, which he predicts will be the most violent yet. Given what he's expecting, how under-resourced is he?
"I've been very clear that I need more resources, more soldiers and more assets," Schlosser.
Those assets can't come soon enough for Capt. Kilbride and his men, as 60 Minutes found out on a mission in search of a reported roadside bomb.
They didn't find it that day. But the morning after the 60 Minutes team left, a U.S. Humvee hit a roadside bomb in the same area. Photographs from the scene show the vehicle was obliterated, killing everyone inside - an Afghan interpreter and four of Kilbride's soldiers. For the captain, who was putting out the flames moments after the blast, it was the bloodiest day so far.
"Nothing's easy," he says. "It's gonna be a long fight. I'm not telling you that it's gonna happen tomorrow. I'm not gonna tell you it's gonna happen next year. But, you know, it might be 12, 15 years from now and we're still in Afghanistan."
With our help, Afghanis spent a decade fighting and eventually ousting the Soviet Union. Then when both the USSR and the US left Afghanistan to collapse, the country descended into a decade of brutal civil war, a conflict that only stopped when the Taliban imposed order. And after that, a decade or more of yet another war, this time led by the US. And in the end? The Taliban and al Qaeda are as strong as ever, and Pakistan is dangerously close to collapse. What a wonderful set of foreign policies we have.
I've written plenty about this in the past, but given its importance again tonight I want to circle back one more time to make this point:
When the history of this entire campaign is written - and here I mean both the primary and the general election - I think historians will come to see Obama's commitment to hunt bin Laden across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border as one of the major turning points of the election. Perhaps more importantly, I think they will look back and wonder how it was that both Clinton and McCain allowed that to be so.
Everyone knows that the US would order a strike on bin Laden anywhere and anytime. It's not a secret. Even bin Laden knows it. That's one of the main reasons he's been so damn hard to find.
And yet... at separate times and in separate places, both Clinton and McCain each questioned why Obama would dare say something so "naive," "dangerous," and "absurd."
Both Clinton and McCain supported the invasion of Afghanistan to depose the Taliban and destroy al Qaeda.
Both Clinton and McCain supported a preemptive war against Iraq to prevent the possibility that bin Laden might one day get his hands on WMD.
McCain has sung songs about "boming Iran."
But cross the border into Pakistan? Heavens no! Anything but that! What would the world community think?
You can't spend years cheerleading a war of choice and then act outraged when someone suggests that a small special forces team cross an undefended border to take out the guy who took down the Twin Towers. It just makes no sense.
A coded French diplomatic cable leaked to a French newspaper quotes the British ambassador in Afghanistan as predicting that the NATO-led military campaign against the Taliban will fail. That was not all. The best solution for the country, the ambassador said, would be installing an "acceptable dictator," according to the newspaper.
"The current situation is bad, the security situation is getting worse, so is corruption, and the government has lost all trust," the British envoy, Sherard Cowper-Coles, was quoted as saying by the author of the cable, François Fitou, the French deputy ambassador to Kabul.
The two-page cable -- which was sent to the Élysée Palace and the French Foreign Ministry on Sept. 2, and was leaked to the investigative and satirical weekly Le Canard Enchaîné, which printed excerpts in its Wednesday issue -- said that the NATO-led military presence was making it harder to stabilize the country.
"The presence of the coalition, in particular its military presence, is part of the problem, not part of its solution," Sir Sherard was quoted as saying. "Foreign forces are the lifeline of a regime that would rapidly collapse without them. As such, they slow down and complicate a possible emergence from the crisis."
Within 5 to 10 years, the only "realistic" way to unite Afghanistan would be for it to be "governed by an acceptable dictator," the cable said, adding, "We should think of preparing our public opinion" for such an outcome.
The bizarre thing about that last paragraph is that anyone with even a rudimentary understanding of Afghan history would have predicted that from the start. Afghanistan has been ungovernable for as long as there have been governments. Between its natural geography (the Hindu Kush runs straight through its center), its political geography (its the hub connecting four different historical centers of power), and its political culture, it is almost possible to control. Unless, of course, brutality is your thing, in which case if you work hard enough, you just might be able to bring the region under your control.
But western-styled democracy? I'm sorry, but that was never going to happen.
