Bush still can’t keep his bin Laden story straight

September 21, 2006

The [tag]president[/tag] sat down with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer yesterday and addressed the subject of sending troops to bring Osama bin Laden to justice. Unfortunately, the response was a little flawed.

BLITZER: If you had good, actionable intelligence in Pakistan where [Osama [tag]bin Laden[/tag], Ayman al- Zawahiri, Mullah Muhammad Omar] were, would you give the order to kill them or capture them?

BUSH: Absolutely.

BLITZER: And go into Pakistan?

BUSH: Absolutely.

BLITZER: Even though the Pakistanis say that’s their sovereign territory.

BUSH: Absolutely. We would take the action necessary to bring them to justice.

That’s a strong, clear answer. If we learn where these dangerous terrorists are, Bush is committed to going and getting them. Good.

There are just a few problems — including pesky details such as Pakistan disagreeing and the president having said the polar opposite five days ago.

First, [tag]Bush[/tag] may be “absolutely” willing to send troops into [tag]Pakistan[/tag] to bring terrorists to justice, but the government there has a different take.

Pakistan has said it won’t allow U.S. troops to operate within its territory…. Pakistan’s president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, told reporters Wednesday at the United Nations that his government would oppose any U.S. action in its territory.

“We wouldn’t like to allow that at all. We will do it ourselves,” he said.

A January airstrike on suspected al Qaeda figures on the Pakistan border provoked protests by tens of thousands of Pakistanis and complaints by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, who said U.S. officials launched the attack without consulting his government.

Just as importantly, less than a week ago, the president hosted a White House press conference in which a reporter noted that Bush has compared bin Laden to Hitler and asked why the president hasn’t sent special forces troops into Pakistan in order to capture or kill him. Bush responded:

“Pakistan is a sovereign nation. In order for us to send thousands of troops into a sovereign nation, we’ve got to be invited by the government of Pakistan.”

It’s funny how quickly the president can change his mind in an election year, isn’t it? On Sept. 15, Pakistan is a sovereign nation and Bush wouldn’t dream of sending troops in after terrorists uninvited. On Sept. 20, Pakistan’s sovereignty is completely irrelevant and we’ll “absolutely” send troops wherever Bush decides is necessary.

The president’s strength is the consistency with which he approaches the war on terror? I don’t think so.

You might even say he was for going after bin Laden in Pakistan before he was against it.

Repeat after me: Bush doesn’t want to capture Bin Laden.

If he really wanted to, he would have done it a long time ago. BinLaden is the boogey man, and getting rid of the boogey man means people sleep better at night.

  • Even I can see how he willgles out of this contradiction. Wolf gave him specific actionable intelligence. We could go get him with a couple of SEAL teams. The original question was broad and unspecific requiring a mini-invasion of NE Pakistan. There is a difference.

    By GOP criteria this makes Bush a flip flopper, weak on defense, and possibly prone to snap and slit your throat while you sleep. In my book “El Diablo” has no clue what to do and does not even realize his position is inconsistant.

    Bush, can’t live with him, can’t beat the crap out of him in a secret prision.

  • I totally agree with Don B and have heard others (and agree with them as well) who say that Bin Laden needs Bush just as much as Bush needs Bin Laden.

  • Now, now. It’s not nice to ridicule those whose brains have been reduced, through alcohol and cocaine, to stems only. Besides, it’s not as though he has to be consistent — the TeeVee brain only retains a pop-up image for 30 seconds, unless there’s an operational rewind-rerun device hooked up.

  • We’re operating in Iran and we can’t operate in Pakistan? Bush is free to say the opposite of what he just said because he never tells us the truth anyway. All lies all the time is very liberating.

  • Weren’t we going to attack any nation that harbors terrorists? Wouldn’t this make Pakistan another part of the “Axis of Evil”?

    Maybe it’s because they’re playing both sides of the fence in the region — we act as if we’re working with Pakistan, yet give India (not best friends with the Pakistanis) nuclear technology. We say we need Pakistan’s help (which, BTW, we do), but don’t actually encourage them to actually do so.

    It’s a difficult balancing act, to be sure. Too bad the guy doing it has no equilibrium.

    Of course, this ignores the fact that, without bin Laden, Bush’s leadership via fear goes out the window.

  • What Dale said.

    Someone please ask Emperor Bush if he’s already started the war with Iran (sending in troops is an act of war). Millions of kids who wonder about a possible draft want to know.

    Bush is willing to say anything if he thinks it will help him politically. This FLIP-FLOP makes that very clear.

    So when he says there won’t be a draft…

  • Ahhhh…wait for it. In a month or so, it will transpire that bin Laden is staying in Ahmadenijad’s spare room, while shopping for airliners, and Ahmadenijad is taking pilot training when he can get free time from governing and his Thursday evening newkyular weapons class.

  • Almost half of the population STILL believes that there is a connection between Iraq/AQ and 9/11. If Osama were to be killed or captured, the connection would be broken and, for them, the war would be over. Bush would have a lot of ‘splainin to do.

  • So now Herr Bush starts babbling about military expeditions—into Pakistan? I’m wondering how he’s going to explain to the American People why all those brave troops got fried to a crisp—since Pakistan, as a sovereign nation, is legitimately entitled to defend itself with any and all means at its disposal—and those “means” just happen to include a nuclear arsenal.

    It’s also important to note that Herr Bush’s record on “good, actionable intelligence” is fairly much a non-existent kind of thing. They let the Taliban and Al Quaeda slip through more than one noose in Afghanistan. They completely blew the WMD thing in Iraq. They still can’t find bin Laden—and the US intelligence system is supposedly better than Pakistani counterpart on a quantum level.

    This has become nothing more than the “Big Brother/Emmanuel Goldstein” rubric from “1984….”

  • If Wolf were anything more than a pretty face-well ok he’s not even that-he would have been prepared to follow-up his question by confronting Bush with the answer he gave at the presser.

    There are a lot of very smart people in this country. Why are so few of them in the press corp?

  • Pakistan, as a sovereign nation, is legitimately entitled to defend itself with any and all means at its disposal—and those “means” just happen to include a nuclear arsenal.

    And what response exactly is the US entitled to if an enemy nukes our troops ON ITS OWN SOIL??

  • Let me guess… Wolf didn’t hold W’s feet to the fire by questioning the preznit about his contradictory statement at the press conference…

  • I was going to add “…and we have always been at war with Eurasia”, but I see that Steve and Unholy Moses have already beat me to the 1984 references.

    Pay no attention to what I said 3 days ago…

  • short fuse–
    Actually, Steve brought it up in post #11, so give him the credit. 🙂

    UPDATE: Interesting story just broke — I guess the US threatened to bomb Pakistan back to the stone age if they didn’t help after 9/11. Link here.

    Wow … that just … um … damn.

  • Indeed Chavez kicks ass, but I’m confused: what does that have to do with this?

    I wholeheartedly agree with comments #1 and #3, they do need each other, thought for different reasons.

    Bush is the man that brings recruits to bin Laden, and bin Laden knows it. For years bin Laden has been talking smack about America but not until Bush got elected was any of it very true. Now we actually have someone in the Oval Office who thinks he’s a Christian holy warrior, and who attacks muslim countries unprovoked (although I’ll defend him on Afghanistan) and then leaves them ashambles for the locals to pick up after us (which I won’t defend him on.)

    And, it’s just just too obvious why Bush needs bin Laden – bin Laden is Bush’s Goldstein. Bush needs bin Laden to exist to justify his perpetual state of war, and his wartime abuse of power.

    #18 – this has always been known. Pakistan was responsible for the Taliban, we needed Pakistan’s cooperation to attack Afghanistan (which is land-locked), and our threatening Pakistan to work with us “or else” was all over the news back in the fall of 2001.

  • “‘Pakistan, as a sovereign nation, is legitimately entitled to defend itself with any and all means at its disposal—and those “means” just happen to include a nuclear arsenal.’

    And what response exactly is the US entitled to if an enemy nukes our troops ON ITS OWN SOIL?” – dander

    I think that’s the same question that puzzles the Indian Army. They are pretty confident they can beat the Pakistanis, but what happens when you are half-way across Pakistan and a bomb blows away your spearhead?

  • Chavez is an ass. If he’d said it in a hallway or outside, fine. (I would have replaced “devil” with “Village Idiot.”) Even fratboy Bush has never spoken that way in front of the representatives of the United Nations. It was as crude as Khrushchev pounding his shoe.

  • Here is what I think:

    I think war is a racket. I think Mr. Cheney and his MIC cabal is the actual racketeer, oil and all. I think Number 43 (aka “Chimpy” to some but what of that) a-squattin’ naked on the carpet over there a-playin’ “WARHEAD” with a model ICBM with Real Multiple DU-Cased ReEntry Vehicles in the far corner of the Oval Office while Mr. Cheney answers the desk phone now and then is just the front man and prolly the fall guy too for this truthless krue of criminal clowns and their heavyset bigbux industrial sidekix.

    I think Mr. Hugo Chavez is an asset to those of us who would have genuine peace. I think Harold Pinter spoke the truth of my dishonored and abjectly truthless gone-bad country. I think the asses’ head belongs squarely on Number Forty-Three, with a relatively semi-feminine similar one on Miz Condi’s hot li’l S/M-friendly bod.

    Lord, what phulez these mortalz bee!

    I think Mr. Cheney gets that Lon Cheney/Nosferatu Facelift of his from Hell Itself. He lives there already. it shows every day. For his kind, nop part of life deserves to be kept alive, let alone sweet.

    I think all the Number Forty-Three Administration operatives AND those lying transnational warglutton industrial pigs (also the strictly-domestic corpy ones too!) who put them all up to it all to begin with all need a run of legal processing thru the Hague’s beckoning portals and dignified offices.

    I think there is wisdom in the Lawful Approach to All Things, especially (only!) carried to the maximum with /robust/ /vigor/ by /GOOD/ /PEOPLE./

    I think people who come out to break and pervert any and all such generally life-sustaining and genuinely good laws of humanity and commerce as the Number Forty-Three gang have jigged up to do are criminals. At 8.4 billion years’ half-life, the DU with which Pakistan stands to be dusted for showing her backbone to the Monster might as well be /forever./ Ever see a baby with their brains erupting from their eye-sockets at birth?

    Well, Missus Lincoln, that’s what DU does. The Pakistanis, I think they still use honest cast iron and normal TNT or somesuch in their own aerial weaponry and tank rounds. As for India… Well, just Go Figger.

    Next wartime once this one has whimpered to a blazing abject halt: Rocks against spears again. Arrows against swords again. There oughta’ be a law.

    Remember. Fifty years hence no part of that presented herein shall have changed, shifted nor kerfluffled, let alone gotten spun into something it is not – at least by anyone honest. It really is all about what ones’ definition of “is” is, now ain’t it, hm?

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