Ouch!

[Weltall]

Erm... completely wrong. Terrorist bombing in Madrid. Recently. Al-Quaida ties. Also since 9-11 there has been a lot of other terrorism with ties to them overseas... the nightclub in Bali, some bombings in Morocco, etc... yes, nothing in the US, but that's because of the additional vigilance of 9-11, not anything to do with Iraq. I'd certainly say that destroying Iraq made us less secure, not more secure. After all it's made many Arabs hate us even MORE, and has antagonized a lot of people there... yes some have grown to like us more, but it only takes a few to have an effective terrorist network... I'd bet that this has more than anything strengthened international terrorist ties in Iraq. After all, Sadaam and Osama were at odds philosophically and with Sadaam gone it gives more room for groups like Al Quaida to come in...

Al Qaeda is specifically attacking interests that are not ours, because they know that these nations will never retaliate against them. They did the same to us when we wouldn't retaliate. But they know now that the US (unless Kerry is elected) will open the gates of hell for anyone who attacks us. They are cowards. 9/11 was a huge error on their part because they had no idea we'd go all out on them... why would they? We always let them get away with this sort of thing before. While they'd never admit it, they fear us now. They are not nearly so willing to stage a real attack against us unless it's a huge one, something truly crippling, because they know if they go bigger and don't wipe us out, we will wipe them out. If they nuked a city or something like that, I doubt any but the worst liberal apologists would object to America scouring every last greasy Al Qaeda fuck off the face of the earth. They know this, and that is why they do not attack us.

Also, other enemy nations see this exact same thing. They know that none of them has a snowball's chance of surviving an American invasion. Few of them are led by fools stupid enough to attack us.

No, we are without doubt safer and more secure now than we have been in over ten years. But if we allow them the time, they will do their damnedest to attain such hold that they can threaten us again. Since liberals have had a historically soft stance on terrorism, this is a major reason why Kerry cannot win this race.

Look, after 9-11 we obviously had to do something. That's why I'm not opposed to the war in Afghanistan. But Iraq had nothing to do with it! It was just using a great excuse to do something his family had wanted ever since Bush lost in '92...

Oh yeah and as this 9-11 commission is showing, Bush II was not exactly any better at antiterrorism than Clinton until 9-11. You can't blame Clinton much without also blaming pre-9-11-Bush at the same time. After 9-11 obviously ANY administration would do more... it's the extent and the means of the 'more' (and the cynical exploitation of that for their own gains!) that's the problem here.

You refer to the testimony by Dick Clarke? The testimony that has been largely discredited by his own past statements? He's bitter because he lost his job. His past statements are in complete contradiction to what he says now (just like Wes Clark, must be something about the name). Clarke is a liar, and his credibility was called into question numerous times during the hearings. After all, if Bush's supposed weakness on terrorism bothered him so much, why wait all this time to say something about it? Why, because he needed the controversy to wait until his book was published!

After all, Bush never had Bin Laden presented to him on a silver platter and REFUSED to take him. Bush didn't allow half a dozen Al Qaeda attacks against America, one in the World Trade Center, go completely unanswered and unpunished... well, okay, we did bomb an innocent aspirin factory in Sudan, and a few camels and uninhabited desert terrain in Afghanistan once... Bush wasn't the president who gutted military and intelligence funding. Plus, there were eight years of Clintonocracy before 9/11, as opposed to eight months of Bush.

Slick Willy definitely bears the burden of blame for this. By my reckoning of time, he's twelve times more blameworthy purely on the basis of how long he allowed it to go on, to say nothing of the direct steps he took to weaken our defenses. To suggest otherwise is fallacy and in direct defiance of mountains of evidence.