We Were Just Out of Schlitz

Maureen Dowd manages to get to the heart of the matter of Bush Treason in her column today, which draws on the Peter Bergen article in this month's New Republic. I haven't read the Bergen article, but if I feel like my blood pressure is dropping, maybe I will.

Dowd cuts to the chase via her conversation with Secretary of Defense Bob Gates, while flying over the mountains of Afghanistan where Bin Laden was cornered. She notes that right in the middle of the show down at Tora Bora, Donald Rumsfeld asks Gen. Tommy Franks to "freshen up" an Iraq invasion plan.

Odd, that? Or is it? Are we supposed to believe that these neo-con geniuses of the Bush administration had the world's number one terrorist--who they often blamed Clinton for not killing or capturing as a defense for their own lack of diligence before 9-11--cornered in some mountains and they bungled it?

Please.

They were busy getting ready for Iraq, and now Gates wants to buy the idea that that is why we couldn't send a few hundred Army Rangers into kill Bin Laden?

Gates tells Dowd: "“Afghanistan was a vastly underresourced operation because, as some of the generals say in the Pentagon, we were just out of Schlitz. We didn’t have any more troops to send.”

What a crock. This wasn't screwed up. This is the kind of thing that we are good at, as we proved later in Iraq when we caught Saddam, and when we killed his sons. Once all the intelligence and surveillance work has worked, we send in the crack squads, and we finish the job.

The Tora Bora episode failed to get Bin Laden because George W. Bush and his minions decided to let him go. It's the only explanation that makes sense. To suggest that the greatest military force in the world, led by the Army Rangers--perhaps the best fighting force in history--shouldn't be sent into some mountains to get the guy that just orchestrated the most devastating attack on America in our short history is just crap.

To suggest that we didn't have the resources in Afghanistan is crap. We had thousands of troops there, including the Rangers. We had bombed the caves Bin Laden was in with bunker busters for days. The cratered landscape was ripe for a crack force which was ready to go, and the President of the United States decided not to.

George W. Bush provided aid and comfort to Usama Bin Laden. He had him cornered and he decided--perhaps because it's always good to have a bogey man around--to let him go.

And that is the definition of treason.

in reference to:

"“Afghanistan was a vastly underresourced operation because, as some of the generals say in the Pentagon, we were just out of Schlitz,” Gates said. “We didn’t have any more troops to send.”"
- Op-Ed Columnist - Blunder on the Mountain - NYTimes.com (view on Google Sidewiki)