but we did get saddam! shouldn't the fact that obl is still delivering videotapes touting his success on 9/11 be deemed a foreign policy failure for bush?

Was the failure to kill Hitler in the first years of World War II a foreign policy failure for Roosevelt?

Was the failure to quickly defeat the South a domestic policy failure for Lincoln?

Was the passage of the $87 billion funding for the troops a foreign policy failure for John Kerry? Is John Kerry's inability to pass any significant legislation in his long career both a domestic and foreign policy failure?

hmmm. answering a question with a question.....

kerry's record as a senator is somewhat unremarkable, but i'm sure that you are aware that a single legislator does not make a law.

as for the $87 billion, i refer you to http://www.factcheck.org/article155.html
where you can get some facts about that allegation and perhaps learn something of the legislative process as well as campaign spin (which both the dems and republicans use to obfuscate and oversimplify).

so you are not bothered by the fact that the "mastermind" who ordered the attacks of 9/11 has not been brought to justice? the fact that he is still on the run does not implicate bush's foreign policy at all? it's not bush's responsiblity? it doesn't really matter?

I'll answer your question directly. No, it is not a failure. Now I will provide a coherent explanation (which you are unused to providing yourself). OBL is protected by warlords in Pakistan. In order to capture him, we would have to invade Pakistan as well. Considering that the Pakistani government is only reluctantly supporting the U.S. and that they have nuclear arms, I would advise against that action.

hey colin i think we somewhat agree! i've articulated a similar position myself. but apparently, the bush administration believes that dictator musharraf is an ally on the war on terror (despite the fact that a.q. khan was delivering wmd technology to nkorea and libya). i don't know that we have to invade pakistan to get obl, but that's a convenient excuse for why we don't have him.

This comment about the UBL tape is the most disturbing because of our support to Israel. Kerry will turn his back on Israel. I hope the Jewish community caught this.

"Admitting for the first time that he ordered the Sept. 11 attacks, bin Laden said he did so because of injustices against the Lebanese and Palestinians by Israel and the United States."

So basically, Bin Laden is calling for the American people to NOT back Israel which would be a Kerry Presidency. NO THANKS!!! Live or Die I prefer NOT to turn our backs on Israel...EVER!!!

Kerry is shown to be an appeaser so HE will turn his back on Israel then want to BOAST about how he squelched the TERROR threat.

I think you all need to a) visit my blog... and b) realize that terrorists = barbarians... and then you think a certain war hero is going to cut a deal or accept a veto???

OBL knows it doesn't matter who is in power, as do most people in the middle east. Kerry will pursue occupation, and have no worries, he will still continue to support Israel.

Just because he is the bad guy, doesn't mean whatever he says is going to be wrong. He's right - our security is in our own hands, as U.S. citizens - our at least I hope he's right...

I know that Stefan is favorable to the U.S. occupation, and our interventionist foreign policy. But I happen to agree with the traditional conservatives of Pat Buchanan's wing, that it is our interventionist foreign policy that originally brought the terrorists over in the first place. That's not just conjecture, they told us very clearly why they did it. They don't hate us for our freedoms. They hate us, because we're over there imposing ourselves on them. I'm sorry if you think we need to give Israel billions of dollars to build walls and run people over with tanks.

The numbers of innocent civillians that have died (I'm talking about at the hands of the US military and foreign policy, not so much the insurgency's victims) is helping the islamo-fundamentalist movement - the very source of the terrorist's recruiting.

Friedman's article today made me scratch my head - i suppose he is endorsing Kerry, but then I read it again, and thought no, because the only one with messy public diplomacy was W. THen i read it a third time, and his dig on a "safer" Israel versus one that fundamentalists visit made it obvious that he meant kerry. I am sorry thom, but i want an israel that is both safe and a hive for christian nutbags to visit. With kerry i dont get either as violence will likely get worse. With bush, at least i get a constituency supporting Israel. Thanks for making up my mind for me Thom.

Ok Bin Laden has surfaced and hes helping to show one thing and one thing only. That this president whom said wanted dead or alive and also said hes not concerned with him has failed everyone in newyork who died on sept 11 2001.

Not only that this president was warned many many times prior to 9/11 about such an attack being possible very soon. On 6 august 2001 he received a letter that was for the president only. In this letter its states that Bin Laden was DETERMINED to attack. It also states the use of HI-JACKINGS and the targets NEW YORK FINANCIAL BULDINGS.

What did he do? He went on vacation and He did not warn one airliner. He did not beef up security. He didnt even have metting with his top security advisors. He basically did not care. Go read the 9/11 report page 8. I wonder what those 28 pages hes decided to black out have to say??

Now we have Bin laden cornered!! And whats he do?? Oh lets just divert our military might to IRAQ before finishing the job. He let the man who killed 3,000+ AMERICANS go!!

And now today we have 100,000??? mostly women and children dead in IRAQ. Which ones were the terrorist?? How many of them worked with Bin Laden to attack us on 9/11??

Like Ive said before this presidents corruption and misleading of the american people will be investigated and all will be known in due time.

Now look at the country and the policies hes stuck to the american people. Time and time again its been give handouts to corporations and charge it to the american people.

He has let our nation down in everyway. millions are jobless, millions without health care, millions are left to wonder does our government really care??

If you value LIBERTY,INTEGRITY, and the TRUTH stop the madness on NOV 2.

Vote for John F. Kerry and take this country back from those who have not shown our people the respect and truthfulness they deserve.

Truthfulness? Like John Kerry has been "truthful" the last 30 some odd years about being in Cambodia. Shit! When has he shown up to even be a Senator, much less trusting him to show up as CIC.

JDEEDLER,

Though I'm not the biggest Bush fan, it is not fair to blame him for not being prepared when there was an entire infrastructure that wasn't prepared (including previous administrations). Private letters warning of attack were not uncommon prior to the 9/11 attack. Obviously, most amounted to nothing. I know it sounds like I'm talking out my ass, and sorry for not providing facts to back this up, but I am very certain that's why letters are investigated but aren't taken so seriously as to justify scaring an entire nation of an attack somewhere, sometime, with no other specifics. I just don't think it matters WHO was in the White House. NO ONE was going to be prepared.....

It also sounds like you are just repeating Kerry's debate sound bites.

Kevin P., Yeah, Kerry was a shirker. There is no defense for that. Don't think he's offered up a defense other than deflection. The Cambodia and those Swift Boat Veterans for the Truth annoy me for two reasons: 1. I don't think they actually are truthful and 2. Neither Bush nor Kerry's Vietnam service (or lack of) seems very pertinent to their character now or in the future. My two cents.

Oh, and JDEEDLER, where does that 100,000 number come from? Let me use a Rush Limbaugh word here: Folks, let's be careful about the statistics we hear in terms of death tolls in Iraq. The official number given by some sources is about 16,000. Other groups estimate the number much higher, around 30,000. Then, from what date are you including? We can try to minimize or maximize the number based on what caused the deaths and how they are reported. Either way, you are already talking about THOUSANDS, and if you consider friends and family, those deaths are affecting MILLIONS of Iraqis. Now, Iraqis are growing more and more militant in their anti-US fervor. Creating terrorists and causing suffering (more than under post-91 Sadaam, I'll argue that point with anyone) does not progress the pursuit of our safety at home.

I'll give Bush the benefit of the doubt about to what degree he failed to do all he could to prevent 9/11, but he gets absolutely no support from me for going from "Osama dead or alive" to "I don't think much about him" and invading Iraq.

I really can't imagine what difference it makes whether Kerry was in Cambodia or not; nor can I trust any source of information on the matter. It certainly doesn't compare to the reams of misinformation W has put out about how he got into the guard, shirked his duties for at least a year, never saw combat, and still pulled an honorary discharge. (As you've probably heard, the only difference between Iraq and Vietnam is that George W. Bush had a plan for getting out of Vietnam.) Even so, that's all so long ago I'd be willing to forget about it and focuse more on the present and the recent past.

When you look at the sheer quantity of bad decisions Bush has made, his complete inability to admit (or learn from) mistakes, and the vicious and vigorous lengths he and his administration have gone to in order to prevent the public from getting accurate information about what Bush's executive branch has been doing and why, I cannot see any way to consider him a competent commander in chief. He has much more in common with General Custer.

By the way, the 100,000 number comes from the artcile in the Lancet (one of the most prestigious medical journals in the world) http://www.thelancet.com/journal/vol364/iss9445/full/llan.364.9445.early_online_publication.31137.1

Simon, the Lancet numbers are nothing but bullshit. It was a survey with a MOE of around 98%.

Was the failure to kill Hitler in the first years of World War II a foreign policy failure for Roosevelt?

Bin Laden isn't Hitler... he's Yamamoto. And only a complete idiot thinks that capturing or killing him means that the ability of al-Qaeda to carry out terror attacks is eliminated. The objectives of the GWOT should be based on tactical and strategic priorities... not on name-recognition of a particular terrorist.

If, at this stage in 1944, The Japanese and German Governments had both been overthrown with less than 1200 American deaths and the remnants of the German and Japanese armies were reduced to hiding in caves and sending threatening telegrams... we would have gauged it a great success indeed.