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March 13, 2004
Terrorism CW
Slow down, everyone. Spain suffers from Islamic terrorism and in the eyes of Andew Sullivan and many others now they "get it" and can see the righteousness of Bush's war on terror. Two big problems with this emerging conservative blog CW: 1) what happened to fighting the war on terror on terrorists' home turf, a major selling point for the war in Iraq which obviously is not the case now and 2) couldn't the billions spent on fighting the war in Iraq have been spent on intelligence and counter-terrorism operations to eradicate exactly the al-Qaida associates who might be responsible for the train bombings in Madrid?
Posted by Chris at March 13, 2004 07:03 PM
Comments
Yes, those billions could have been spent on protecting Madrid. Would it have helped? And the positive things that have happened in Iraq would have not come to be.
As for your #1, I'm simply content that you're able to admit that "WMD" wasn't the only thing repeated, drone-like, out of loudspeakers prior to the Iraq War, and that there were, in fact, more complex reasons for the deposing Saddam. Good for you!
Posted by: zachary d smith at March 15, 2004 09:30 AM
As for #1, even those other reasons haven't panned out, with the exception of ridding the Iraqi people of a dictator, which a) isn't a matter of American national security and b) we don't seem to intent on doing for any other repressed peoples.
According to this article http://www.nytimes.com/2004/03/15/international/europe/15QAED.html?hp Spanish intelligence already knew about some of the figures involved which makes it look like if nothing else the Spanish citizenry were kicking out a government that failed to protect their country.
Posted by: Chris at March 15, 2004 09:35 AM
* even if that wasn't the primary intent of the electorate's.
Posted by: Chris at March 15, 2004 09:37 AM
#2 It doesn't matter how many billions you spend on fighting terrorists if left-wingers demand that they not be punished until they commit a crime. For all the left-wing complaints about the Patriot Act, European governments still have more police power than we do...and I suspect they will soon be getting more.
#1 Obviously, we have brought the war to the terrorists. But that doesn't mean that terror cells aren't operating in the West anymore. No one said that we would stop them overnight, but we have destroyed or distrupted a significant portion of the terrorists' operation. Not going fast enough for you, kid? Yeah, Gore would have had the problem licked by now.
Posted by: Testator at March 18, 2004 10:23 PM
The Bush administration went into Iraq in part to help create the first Arab democracy. The point is to drain the swamp, not just swat each new batch of mosquitos as it takes wing.
I thought liberals were all about "root causes". Maybe I misread them.
Posted by: Michael at March 20, 2004 12:51 AM
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