{"id":4339,"date":"2010-09-14T09:07:25","date_gmt":"2010-09-14T13:07:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/?p=4339"},"modified":"2010-09-14T09:17:27","modified_gmt":"2010-09-14T13:17:27","slug":"whats-to-celebrate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/2010\/09\/14\/whats-to-celebrate\/","title":{"rendered":"what&#8217;s to celebrate?&#8230;"},"content":{"rendered":"<br \/>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.theleftcoaster.com\/archives\/015282.php\" target=\"_blank\">Bush administration bungling allowed Bin Laden to get away<\/a><\/strong>  <br \/>       <strong><font color=\"#660099\">the left coaster<\/font><\/strong><br \/>       by Turkana<br \/>       September 13, 2010<\/div>\n<p>      <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">&#8230; For Osama bin Laden  was identified as the one man most responsible for the 9\/11 attacks,  and Osama bin Laden got away. Two wars, hundreds of thousands dead,  trillions of dollars wasted, and the man deemed most responsible for the  9\/11 attacks was not brought to justice. Thus is Republican leadership  truly defined. The news was actually reported as early as April 2002, when the <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/ac2\/wp-dyn\/A62618-2002Apr16?language=printer\" target=\"_blank\">Washington Post<\/a><\/strong> had the following:<\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\"><sup>The Bush administration has concluded that Osama bin Laden  was present during the battle for Tora Bora late last year and that  failure to commit U.S. ground troops to hunt him was its gravest error  in the war against al Qaeda, according to civilian and military  officials with first-hand knowledge. Intelligence officials have assembled what they believe to be  decisive evidence, from contemporary and subsequent interrogations and  intercepted communications, that bin Laden began the battle of Tora Bora  inside the cave complex along Afghanistan&#8217;s mountainous eastern border.  Though there remains a remote chance that he died there, the  intelligence community is persuaded that bin Laden slipped away in the  first 10 days of December&#8230; A common view among those interviewed outside the  U.S. Central Command is that Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the war&#8217;s  operational commander, misjudged the interests of putative Afghan allies  and let pass the best chance to capture or kill al Qaeda&#8217;s leader.  Without professing second thoughts about Tora Bora, Franks has changed  his approach fundamentally in subsequent battles, using Americans on the  ground as first-line combat units.<\/sup><\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">The irony could not be more sad and twisted. Bin Laden got away  because of a failure to commit ground troops. A &quot;significant defeat for  the United States&quot; being a truly monumental understatement. And  afterwards, of course, the Bush-Cheney team committed ground troops <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.dailykos.com\/story\/2010\/9\/1\/897987\/-How-Bush-supported-the-troops\" target=\"_blank\">callously and almost indiscriminately<\/a><\/strong>,  as it largely successfully distracted the nation from its failures  before and immediately after 9\/11, venting an irrational national wrath  on the innocents of Iraq. And Franks, of course, was by Bush awarded the  Medal of Freedom&#8230;<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">Last Saturday, I was out and about early. As we drove by the Post Office, the driver said, &quot;That flag&#8217;s at half mast. Did someone die?&quot; A bit later it occurred to me, &quot;Oh yeah. It&#8217;s September 11th.&quot; Later in the day, I was thinking of blogging about 9\/11, but I couldn&#8217;t think of anything to say. It&#8217;s not a national holiday, and I doubt it will become one. We don&#8217;t celebrate Pearl Harbor Day on December 7th either.<\/div>\n<p>   <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">We celebrate victories, not devastating attacks by others. The <strong>Battle of Tora Bora<\/strong> was another Day of Infamy &#8211; this time, ours. This is from John Kerry&#8217;s <em><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/foreign.senate.gov\/imo\/media\/doc\/Tora_Bora_Report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\">Senate Report<\/a><\/strong><\/em> about what happened there:<\/div>\n<blockquote>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">We&rsquo;re Going to Lose Our Prey<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\">In his memoir, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">At the Center of the Storm<\/font><\/strong>,  former CIA Director Tenet said it was evident from the start that  aerial bombing would not be enough to get bin Laden at Tora Bora. Troops  needed to be in the caves themselves, he wrote, but the Afghan  militiamen were &lsquo;&lsquo;distinctly reluctant&rsquo;&rsquo; to put themselves in harm&rsquo;s way  and there were not enough Americans on the scene. He said that senior  CIA officials lobbied hard for inserting U.S. troops. <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Henry Crumpton<\/font><\/strong>,  the head of special operations for the CIA&rsquo;s counterterrorism operation  and chief of its Afghan strategy, made direct requests to Franks.  Crumpton had told him that the back door to Pakistan was open and urged  Franks to move more than 1,000 Marines who had set up a base near  Kandahar to Tora Bora to block escape routes.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">But  the CentCom commander rejected the idea, saying it would take weeks to  get a large enough U.S. contingent on the scene and bin Laden might  disappear in the meantime. <strong><font color=\"#200020\">At the end of November, Crumpton went to the  White House to brief President Bush and Vice President Cheney and  repeated the message that he had delivered to Franks. Crumpton warned  the President that the Afghan campaign&rsquo;s primary goal of capturing bin  Laden was in jeopardy because of the military&rsquo;s reliance on Afghan  militias at Tora Bora.<\/font><\/strong> Crumpton showed the President where Tora Bora was  located in the White Mountains and described the caves and tunnels that  riddled the region. Crumpton questioned whether the Pakistani forces  would be able to seal off the escape routes and pointed out that the  promised Pakistani troops had not arrived yet. In addition, the CIA  officer told the President that the Afghan forces at Tora Bora were  &lsquo;&lsquo;tired and cold&rsquo;&rsquo; and &lsquo;&lsquo;they&rsquo;re just not invested in getting bin  Laden.&rsquo;&rsquo;<\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\">According to author Ron Suskind in <strong><font color=\"#200020\">The One Percent Solution<\/font><\/strong>,  Crumpton sensed that his earlier warnings to Franks and others at the  Pentagon had not been relayed the President. <strong><font color=\"#200020\">So Crumpton went further,  telling Bush that &lsquo;&lsquo;we&rsquo;re going to lose our prey if we&rsquo;re not careful.&rsquo;&rsquo;  He recommended that the Marines or other U.S. troops be rushed to Tora  Bora.<\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<ul>\n<div align=\"justify\">\n<div align=\"justify\">\n<div align=\"justify\">&lsquo;&lsquo;How bad off are these Afghani forces, really?&rsquo;&rsquo; asked Bush. &lsquo;&lsquo;Are they up to the job?  <\/div>\n<div align=\"justify\"> &lsquo;&lsquo;Definitely not, Mr. President,&rsquo;&rsquo; Crumpton replied. &lsquo;&lsquo;Definitely not.&rsquo;&rsquo;<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">Flight from Tora Bora<br \/>           <\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<p align=\"justify\"><img decoding=\"async\" width=\"200\" hspace=\"4\" border=\"1\" align=\"right\" src=\"http:\/\/t3.gstatic.com\/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQrG9uz3EtsrQX28gUawdSFHJBF4s_odziZFAVZ0Y5f5cUqw2k&#038;t=1&#038;usg=__dw5xvWb8pjd-bmS8BJ6IDn3W--s=\" \/>On December 14, the day bin Laden finished his will, <strong><font color=\"#200020\">Dalton Fury<\/font><\/strong>  finally convinced Ali and his men to stay overnight in one of the  canyons that they had captured during daylight. Over the next three  days, the Afghan militia and their American advisers moved steadily  through the canyons, calling in airstrikes and taking out lingering  pockets of fighters.<\/p>\n<p align=\"justify\">The resistance seemed to have vanished, prompting  Ali to declare victory on December 17. Most of the Tora Bora complex was  abandoned and many of the caves and tunnels were buried in debris. Only  about 20 stragglers were taken prisoner. The consensus was that Al  Qaeda fighters who had survived the fierce bombing had escaped into  Pakistan or melted into the local population. Bin Laden was nowhere to  be found. Two days later, Fury and his Delta Force colleagues left Tora  Bora, hoping that someone would eventually find bin Laden buried in one  of the caves. <\/p>\n<div align=\"justify\"><strong><font color=\"#200020\">There  was no body because bin Laden did not die at Tora Bora. Later U.S.  intelligence reports and accounts by journalists and others said that he  and a contingent of bodyguards departed Tora Bora on December 16. With  help from Afghans and Pakistanis who had been paid in advance, the group  made its way on foot and horseback across the mountain passes and into  Pakistan without encountering any resistance&#8230; <\/font><\/strong><\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n<div align=\"justify\">Bush and Cheney ignored the warning that Bin Laden was coming before 9\/11. Bush and Cheney ignored the warning that Bin Laden could [and did] escape from Tora Bora. In both cases, our &quot;people&quot; knew what was happening and served it up to them on a silver platter. Likewise, in both cases, they ignored what they were told. Why did they do that? Were they just not up to the task, or were they so anti-CIA, or were they preoccupied with what they wanted to do in Iraq, or were they just plain incompetent? Who the hell knows? But it was shameful &#8211; something called a <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.google.com\/search?hl=en&#038;client=firefox-a&#038;hs=FLB&#038;rls=org.mozilla:en-US:official&#038;&#038;sa=X&#038;ei=gnSPTImfD8X_lgessMTQDw&#038;ved=0CCEQvwUoAQ&#038;q=dereliction+of+duty&#038;spell=1\" target=\"_blank\">dereliction of duty<\/a><\/strong> in military terms.&nbsp; So what&#8217;s to celebrate?  <\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Bush administration bungling allowed Bin Laden to get away the left coaster by Turkana September 13, 2010 &#8230; For Osama bin Laden was identified as the one man most responsible for the 9\/11 attacks, and Osama bin Laden got away. Two wars, hundreds of thousands dead, trillions of dollars wasted, and the man deemed most [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4339","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4339","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4339"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4339\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4339"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4339"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1boringoldman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4339"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}