Bush’s ‘Weak’ War on Terror

Bush's Weak “War on Terror”

UPDATE: Zacarias Moussaoui's final rant: “God save Osama bin Laden — you will never get him.”

“The reality here is that we prosecuted the wrong guy.” – Kristin Breitweiser, 9/11 widow (source: “Hardball”)

Endangering our lives every day.

The Republicans want to distract you. They want to make this about the death
penalty. Others don't want to cover the trial at all. It's just too cumbersome.
Then you have people like Bull Moose who buy into the “Justice
Denied” crap. It's not the issue, but some Democrats have lost sight
of what is. Let me remind everyone then: it's about Bush's failed “war
on terror,” or as it should be known, the war against terrorism and radical Islam. Bull Moose
blabbers on, quoting Deborah
Burlingame, who said, “But I think it is very dangerous to show
compassion to the cruel because they will bring cruelty to the compassionate.”
And what would this be without some Republican railing about the
French? There is no doubt that our Oprah culture had something to do with
the jury's verdict, but it was about a lot more than that, if people care to
engage their brain. The simple fact is that Zacarias Moussaoui wasn't involved
in 9/11, except in his delusional dreams, so the jury didn't go the extra mile and give him death. No 20 virgins for Zack. It would also help if Bush was actually prosecuting the guilty terrorists, instead
of bringing some show trial to court that made a laughing stock out of us all. However, our president would rather torture people than bring them to justice.

George W. Bush couldn't find a terrorist if he were hiding in the White House
rose garden, but even when he finds them he can't do the right thing. Bin Laden is still on the loose. Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Ramzi
Binalshibh have disappeared in one of Bush's brilliant ideas to torture them
to death in hopes to get information. What that yields is two actual terrorists who were involved in 9/11 will never be brought before the American people for justice
because Bush's prosecution of the “war on terror” is so abjectly incompetent
as to make even guilty men impossible of being charged, tried and convicted,
even put to death, perhaps, for crimes they admit doing, because our president has tortured them beyond all use.

Bush is such a weak leader he can't even bring the guilty to justice. It's
pathetic. It is also endangering us all. If we… no, when we are hit again
there is only one place to put the blame: President George W. Bush. From there,
you can spread the blame to his entire administration and the Republicans in
control of Congress because they have let this president blow every campaign
he has waged. The only reason we won the war in Afghanistan is because Rumsfeld
was slow to the trigger, allowing the real competent people, the U.S. military
and Special Forces, to do their jobs without Rummy's bumbling. Same goes for
Iraq. The U.S. military was brilliant, but once the Bush administration took
charge, Iraq went to hell the next day. I know, “stuff happens.”

But nothing indicts President Bush and his administration more than their rank
incompetence in bringing terrorists actually involved in 9/11 to trial.

He said he chose Binalshibh to coordinate the operation of the 19 hijackers and to serve as their paymaster. Both men were captured in Pakistan — Binalshibh in September 2002 and Mohammed six months later — and are being held in secret prisons outside the United States. In a 56-page statement submitted as evidence at Moussaoui's trial, Mohammed stressed that Moussaoui was seen by leaders of the Sept. 11 plot as unreliable. Moussaoui was to train in the U.S. and be ready for a possible “second wave” of attacks, Mohammed said. Moussaoui “did not know [Mohamed] Atta,” the leader of the hijackers, “and there was never any contact between them,” Mohammed said. That did not prevent the administration from prosecuting Moussaoui, who had been arrested in Minnesota and jailed on a visa violation three weeks before Sept. 11, 2001. He pleaded guilty to being a part of the conspiracy, and the jury Wednesday sentenced him to life in prison without parole. Administration officials said recently that it was still possible that Mohammed and Binalshibh would be prosecuted. “With every case, the government has to make a calculation. There are pros and cons. It involves weighing how much information would be released in court,” said one official who insisted on anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss the process. If the Supreme Court upholds the U.S. military tribunals for terrorism suspects being held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, the administration could try high-ranking Al Qaeda leaders there. Current and former intelligence officials have said that the CIA has used aggressive interrogation techniques — including “waterboarding,” which makes a suspect feel as if he is drowning — on captured Al Qaeda leaders. As a result, many legal experts say it may be too late to try Mohammed and Binalshibh in a regular court of law. No Trials for Key Players

This from a crew that slammed Senator John Kerry for wanting to charge, try
and convict terrorists? Bush can't even do that and the Republican Congress
couldn't care less. What Bush and the Republicans want to do is torture and
try to coerce testimony from people, even though that testimony is usually rendered
worthless by the methods used to extract it. Just ask Colin Powell. He was made
a fool by using coerced testimony in his speech at the U.N., which was eventually
retracted because it was wrong. But that didn't keep Bush and his bunch from waging preemptive war on it.

There are many more articles out there today, but many focus on the verdict.

It's another Stephen Colbert moment. If Bush's incompetence and abject failure on the “war on terror” isn't brought into
the light did it really happen? Or better yet for Bush, change the subject.

It's all about the verdict, the death penalty, never mind that Bush and the
administration prosecuted the wrong man. No wonder the jury couldn't put him
to death. He wasn't involved in 9/11. Get it?

Peggy Noonan has a doozy of a column up today entitled, “They Should Have
Killed Him.” Here's an excerpt that illustrates the Republican lunacy on
the law and anything else remotely related to the war on terrorism and radical Islam.

I happen, as most adults do, to feel a general ambivalence toward the death penalty. But I know why it exists. It is the expression of a certitude, of a shared national conviction, about the value of a human life. It says the deliberate and planned taking of a human life is so serious, such a wound to justice, such a tearing at the human fabric, that there is only one price that is justly paid for it, and that is the forfeiting of the life of the perpetrator. It is society's way of saying that murder is serious, dreadfully serious, the most serious of all human transgressions. It is not a matter of vengeance. Murder can never be avenged, it can only be answered. If Moussaoui didn't deserve the death penalty, who does? Who ever did? And if he didn't receive it, do we still have it? They Should Have Killed Him The death penalty has a meaning, and it isn't vengeance.

Right, it's all about putting someone to death, even though the evidence didn't
tie him to 9/11, but instead revealed a delusional dreamer and terrorist, who
was a very bad guy and a member of al Qaeda, but was too bumbling to be trusted
with the actual deed.

Oh, and by the way, Peggy, what about the terrorists actually involved in 9/11? Nothing about them? I wonder why?

President Bush has failed in every aspect of the “war on terror.”
We are not any safer, due to Iraq. Bin Laden is on the loose. We have yet to
punish ANYONE actually involved in 9/11, instead spending a fortune on some show trial, while our country still remains unprotected
all these years after 9/11. Remember Bush's incompetence when we get
hit. Because it's coming and the blame belongs with him.