Now Playing: "Man on the Moon" by R.E.M.
Citizen Smash at the IndePundit has an opinion about Kerry's chickenshit observation last night that President Bush let Osama get away when we had him "cornered" in Tora Bora because we "outsourced" the job to the locals.
The only military alternative to this plan would have been a massive invasion of Afghanistan with several heavy divisions. Of course, these divisions would have had to get to Afghanistan by coming ashore in Pakistan and driving through the ungoverned (and largely hostile) Tribal Areas, where the Pakistani army wouldn't even go. In any event, it would have taken several more months for these forces to arrive in theater - plenty of time for the terrorists to dig in and prepare for the fight.Besides which, we still don't know that we didn't kill Osama back in Tora Bora. I am in a small minority of people who thinks we did. There have been prime opportunities for him to make an unmistakable reappearance ---and he has not. Not on any anniversary of the atrocities of 11 September 2001, not after Zapatero's victory in Spain, not once in the year and a half we've been in Iraq, not ever.
Does anyone see any problems with this plan? It seems to me that the Russians tried this approach a while back, and the British before them. Both got their asses handed to them. Nevertheless, I'm sure that the Pentagon presented this option to Bush, with all of the caveats above. In my judgement, Bush was right to reject this plan, and go instead with the "outsourcing" approach.
If Osama bin Laden is alive, he will make his reappearance at some point this month. If not, he is dead. Period. Because, no matter how offended the fucking Democrats are at the suggestion that the al-Qaedists want their man to win, they do. And if poking his head up now is a poke in the eye of the foremost representative of the Great Satan, then that's what will happen.