“Everyone has been calling for more special ops troops and spies since 1993, except for pre-9-11 Bush.”

Well…..You might be interested to know that most of the regular armed forces don’t want more special ops, but less. They regard them as budget-sapping ‘cowboys’ to some extent - cowyboys who can’t sustain an operation or fight a real war. Cowboys who go it alone and don’t work so well with the big team. For a long time special ops money was skimmed off the top of the other service’s budgets.

Dugger

Yeah, riiiight! (see comment Apr 24 2006 6:26 PM)

Evidence, please

This link works better…

http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/MiddleEast/TerrorInUSA/Polls.asp

Hey FrankD, what has taken them so long? Everyone cares except Bush supporters that the man behind the 9-11 attacks is still a free man. 4+ years is a little too long. Oh my god! Osama bin Laden is DB Cooper! No wonder we can’t catch him.

If we capture him, check and see who wants him to have a fair trial, with all the bells and whistles…

And, after we capture him, check and see who says, “What took you so long?” or, (in effect) “Big deal! What have you done lately?”

And, that’s why there’s no string of Spec Ops walking shoulder - to - shoulder through the Tora Bora mts, looking for him.

Because nobody, including you, Oliver, really cares if he’s caught, killed or whatever…

the democrats have agreed to something that the republicans started planning …….3 years ago!

Now who says the left is slow…huh?

surgical strikes - if thats my universe

Dugger

You know what a surgical strike by the military into a sovereign nation is - an act of war. The CIA does not asssassinate in and kill in Saudi and Paki. They spy - usually using foreign nationals. And not enough of that because of hand-tying Church era reforms.

There is no easy answer to any of this. Special Ops is not magic. They’re just good soldiers. Very, very good soldiers - but soldiers. All of the free talk in the world, all of the technology, all of the capable military will go for nought if we can’t match the enemies patience.

frame,

you forgot your ‘not’

Dugger

Where necessary, surgical strikes, instead of full scale invasions, into countries that harbor and support terrorists. I think we’ve been develeoping the capability that Oliver talks about for the last 10+ years. I think it has a lower priority than Iraq in the pentagon and a lower priority than Iraq and Missile Defense in the Bush Administration’s national defense policy (missile defense doesn’t necessarily compete with these two however).

I am not sure how I feel about Oliver’s premise that the military should venture into territory the CIA and others handle now. I just can’t foresee the repurcussions. Warring factions as the CIA and State department try to protect their territories against military encroachment, things of that nature.

“You know, there d be a lot less hate in the political discourse if you people would actually listen to what ‘

I’m all for lowering the hate level, and I’ll promise to listen to what you say if you go back and read and comprehend what OW says. Fair enough? He wants us to send US military troops in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia. Did you miss that? Thats not what the summary of the plan said at all. The plan as described mentions Afghanistan and Iraq. World of difference, nicht wahr?

Are we ‘tools’ for reading what OW wrote? Should we automatically know that he doesn’t mean everything he says? If so, maybe he could put a little smily face before and after each paragraph that is Bravo Sierra. Its hard to sort out otherwise.

Dugger, I introduce into evidence:

From Mad About You; THE CASE FOR BUSH HATRED by Jonathan Chait, The New Republic

“I hate President George W. Bush. There, I said it.”

Could someone please tell me what’s to like?

SOCOM, the military, says they’ve got a plan to do things right. i.e., in a way we haven’t been doing things.
Oliver says he agrees.

Ergo, we’ve been doing that all along and dugger and the rest of the liberals have been wanting to avoid any fighting whatsoever?

You know, there’d be a lot less hate in the political discourse if you people would actually listen to what we say rather than just making lines up and holding up a big comic book talking bubble that you wrote and pretending like its what we’re actually saying.

And what really chaps my ass is that when pat robertson or ann coulter spouts off with a “kill all the ragheads!” comment, they’re not representative of the party. When some left wing nut job (and I don’t even know any major names…all the people I know are just hippie college kids) spouts off with “All war for any reason is evil!”, suddenly its indicative of everyone left of right-center.

You guys are really a bunch of tools, you know that?

My point was that some of the people who felt like you changed their minds in December 2001, but there were, and are, still many who agree with you to this day  and my extremely strong hunch is that these people are predominantly liberal and / or democrat.

I agree - although I think that the majority of those who changed their minds from supporting to the invasion to opposing it after December is pretty opportunistic, there are still a few genuine that changed their views for legimate reasons.

For the record, I’d label myself as a fairly strong liberal and I generally opposed the war because I tend to support the Consistent Life Ethic philosophy when it comes to matters of abortion (though I also have libertarian leanings when it comes to this subject as well), death penalty, euthanasia, and war.

I think that you had a very well worded point though. I don’t post or read many of the comments here often, so I’m not sure about other threads, but it’s a welcome change of pace to have a discussion rather then just reading threads that begin with “Bush sucks” or “liberals are traitors”!

The cognitive dissonance that it takes to be a con must be incredible.

One of the big problems is the right wings scorn that keeps them from looking at anti-terrorism as a law enforcement issue instead of as a war issue. I know throwing big bombs in a far away country is easy to point at politically, but it is not so effective at breaking up terrorist cells that have an underground global reach.

I don’t want to debate your idea, but I will say that you’re not the only one who felt that way after 9/11.

My point was that some of the people who felt like you changed their minds in December 2001, but there were, and are, still many who agree with you to this day — and my extremely strong hunch is that these people are predominantly liberal and / or democrat.

Dugger, Dr. Dean, Help Me Here - You Would Give Those Terrorists a Trial Right?

Thousands of people have “covert” status at CIA, but that doesn’t automatically give them the special status of NOC…in fact, a NOC agent wouldn’t be caught dead there….