Bush’s Three-Quarters Performance On Terror

A few questions about Bush’s frequent claim that “more than three-quarters of Al Qaeda’s key members and associates have been detained or killed” :

  • How does he know that? Does he have a membership list? How often is it updated?
  • If Al Qaeda’s ranks are growing due to the anti-American sentiment throughout the Arab world (and elsewhere), how does that “three-quarters” measure up to the current roster?
  • When we get the other quarter, does that mean we’re done?

    Bush is dumb, not because he can’t pronounce “nuclear”, but because he thinks we can fight an ideology with a checklist. Considering it only took 19 people to pull off 9/11, forgive me if rattling off a meaningless body count doesn’t make me feel safer.

    While I have a little confidence that Bush can protect us from the terrorists we know about, I’m more concerned about the ones we don’t know about (ditto for Iraqi insurgents). Bush’s willingness to pat himself on the back over that unlucky “three-quarters” makes me think he doesn’t share my worry. Remember, this is a guy who thinks the “threats of the 21st century” are ICBM’s and not nuclear weapons snuck into the country in an unchecked shipping container. I know it’s a cliche, but it’s worth repeating that terrorists are smart enough to hit us with a weapon that “doesn’t have a return address”.

    To take it back to the horserace for a moment, I think Kerry really needs to make this the centerpiece of his campaign. It’s all well and good to be “tough” on terror, but without having an intelligent strategy to back it up, you might as well be fishing with dynamite. John Kerry needs to outline a specific plan for a “smarter and tougher” war on terror and he needs to talk about it so damn much that even the most apathetic voter can recite it from memory.

    Remember the words of Bill Clinton : “Strength and wisdom are not conflicting values?they go hand in hand.”


    • posted by greg on September 3, 2004 @ 11:15 pm

    3 comments

    1. Maybe I’m wrong on this, but exactly how many members of al-qaeda’s top leadership were on a plane over new york on september 11th? if they train new guys to take over the job, what fucking difference does it make? like disney would fall over dead if someone plugged michael eisner?

      Comment by The Critic — September 4, 2004 @ 6:41 am

    2. What interested me most about this claim was its presentation. During the acceptance speech, Bush read the line about capturing al-Qaeda HVT’s and
      paused while conventioneers cheered. On the live Fox broadcast they cut back to Bush after a few crowd shots, and before delivering the next line, he recognized winked to someone in the audience. Perhaps I’m reading into things, but that combined with all the “Bin Laden is captured” rumours, I can’t help but speculate that Osama is currently being interrogated and an announcement of his capture will be made in the next 2 weeks (if not leaked sooner).

      Anyways, all of the video on the internet do not show GWB winking, because they cut away to crowd shots. Even the Fox video has been re-edited differently than what I saw. If anyone has tape of the live broadcast from Fox or any network that had a close up of the president during this segment, please contact me. (It’s about 36 minutes into the speech.)

      Comment by oyster — September 6, 2004 @ 3:06 pm

    3. Sorry for the miserable grammar above. I posted instead of previewed.

      Comment by oyster — September 6, 2004 @ 3:07 pm

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