Tora Bore

Oct 24, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

"Can you imagine trusting them [Afghan warlords] when you have your 10th Mountain Division, the United States Marine Corps, when you had all the power and ability of the best-trained military in the world?" Kerry told a rally at the University of Nevada-Reno. "I would have used our military and we would have gone after and captured or killed Osama bin Laden. That's tough." ... "You want to talk about the war on terror, Mr. President? Let's talk about it," Kerry yelled while his supporters cheered him on. "Let's talk about what happened when you let Osama bin Laden escape in Afghanistan.

"Let's talk about what happened when we had the world's number one terrorist, number one criminal, cornered in the mountains of Tora Bora. What did the president do? Do you know what he did? He outsourced the job of capturing him, just like he outsourced a lot of American jobs. He gave it to Afghan warlords who only one week earlier were fighting against us."

As commander of the allied forces in the Middle East, I was responsible for the operation at Tora Bora, and I can tell you that the senator's understanding of events doesn't square with reality. First, take Mr. Kerry's contention that we "had an opportunity to capture or kill Osama bin Laden" and that "we had him surrounded." We don't know to this day whether Mr. bin Laden was at Tora Bora in December 2001. Some intelligence sources said he was; others indicated he was in Pakistan at the time; still others suggested he was in Kashmir. Tora Bora was teeming with Taliban and Qaeda operatives, many of whom were killed or captured, but Mr. bin Laden was never within our grasp.

Second, we did not "outsource" military action. We did rely heavily on Afghans because they knew Tora Bora, a mountainous, geographically difficult region on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan. It is where Afghan mujahedeen holed up for years, keeping alive their resistance to the Soviet Union. Killing and capturing Taliban and Qaeda fighters was best done by the Afghan fighters who already knew the caves and tunnels.

Third, the Afghans weren't left to do the job alone. Special forces from the United States and several other countries were there, providing tactical leadership and calling in air strikes. Pakistani troops also provided significant help - as many as 100,000 sealed the border and rounded up hundreds of Qaeda and Taliban fighters.

Contrary to Senator Kerry, President Bush never "took his eye off the ball" when it came to Osama bin Laden. The war on terrorism has a global focus. It cannot be divided into separate and unrelated wars, one in Afghanistan and another in Iraq. Both are part of the same effort to capture and kill terrorists before they are able to strike America again, potentially with weapons of mass destruction. Terrorist cells are operating in some 60 countries, and the United States, in coordination with dozens of allies, is waging this war on many fronts.

As we planned for potential military action in Iraq and conducted counterterrorist operations in several other countries in the region, Afghanistan remained a center of focus. Neither attention nor manpower was diverted from Afghanistan to Iraq. When we started Operation Iraqi Freedom we had about 9,500 troops in Afghanistan, and by the time we finished major combat operations in Iraq last May we had more than 10,000 troops in Afghanistan.

Getting the Tora Bora story right is important because Mr. Kerry's accusation goes to the heart of his broader charge against Mr. Bush -- that he bungled the war in Afghanistan. It's hard to be convincing on this point, when, less than three years later, 10 million Afghans have just gone to the polls in the first free election in their 5,000-year-old history. It's even harder to see how sending in thousands of U.S. troops to secure Tora Bora would have helped win that war faster -- even if it had resulted in bin Laden's death or capture. Mr. Kerry's criticism of the Tora Bora campaign also belies his promise to rely more on allies if he were commander-in-chief.

There once was a guy named Fidel…

Oct 23, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

...As always, I am confused by the complexity of liberal thinking. They rant about freedom of expression, but isn't throwing pies at people who disagree with you sort of at odds with the concept of free speech? I don't get it. There must be nuance involved. The same kind of nuance that makes Castro a hero for torturing people for writing poems he doesn't like.

I think I'll write one now.

There once was a guy named Fidel.
One day at a lectern, he fell.
Then he lay on the floor
like a two-dollar whore,
and everyone thought it was swell.

In the workers' paradise that is Cuba, that would buy me a stay in a dungeon.

Electioneering

Oct 23, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

Still reeling from the 2000 election debacle in Florida, Democrats have deployed an army of lawyers in the battleground state that gave George W. Bush the presidency after five weeks of recounts and legal wrangling. Less than two weeks from the November 2 presidential election, the legal team of Democratic contender John Kerry, as well as activist groups, have already filed a number of voting-related lawsuits in the state.

Many Democrats claim the Republicans stole the 2000 election after the Supreme Court halted 36 days of recounts and legal battles in Florida, leaving Bush with a 537-vote lead in the state that delivered him the presidency.

While both sides expect some trouble this time around, analysts generally doubt it will descend to the level of the last election, when lawyers, party leaders and state officials battled over hanging chads, butterfly ballots and other electoral oddities that turned Florida into an international laughing stock.

The Legality and Morality of Selling Organs for Transplant

Oct 22, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

“Vaccine Totalitarians”: The CDC’s Phony Crisis Over the Flu Vaccine

Oct 22, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses

..."Epidemics of influenza typically occur during the winter months and are responsible for an average of approximately 20,000 deaths," the CDC stated in 2002. That number mutated to "36,000 flu-related deaths" in November, 2003, and by December a gathering of public health officials warned that the toll could reach 70,000 this year. In concert with the ramp-up in death statistics, the government-steered vaccination industry has run an elaborate bureaucracy designed to hype vaccine use, as seen in a slide show presentation last April by Glen Nowak, the CDC's spokesman for the National Immunization Program, to the American Medical Association. Here is the "Recipe that fosters influenza vaccine interest and demand," in the truncated language that appears on his slides: "Medical experts and public health authorities [should] publicly (e.g... via media) state concern and alarm (and predict dire outcomes) – and urge influenza vaccination."...

In truth, no one knows, because the studies haven't been done, even in the case of highly sensitive childhood vaccinations. During the last flu season, for example, the CDC received reports of 152 flu deaths among children. Is this high or is this low? "The answer to this question is not known," the CDC stated. "Because the number of influenza deaths in children has not been tracked before, it's not possible to compare the number of deaths in children this year with previous years." As for evidence of the efficacy of flu vaccinations in the general population, again, the CDC is operating in the dark...the CDC's Nancy Cox, chief of its influenza branch, admitted, "There is no systematic follow-up to see, to document whether the general population who receives a flu vaccine is infected by a flu virus..." To add to the futility of even trying, Dr. Cox explained that most cases of flu-like illnesses – about 80% – in fact are caused by "many other pathogens." The bottom line on the medical benefit of flu shots for healthy people? No one knows. The benefit is entirely a matter of faith among the true believers in the vaccination bureaucracy. The bottom line on the medical harm caused by flu vaccines? Again, no one knows. Various studies do raise concerns, however. One year ago, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences found weak evidence that the flu vaccine triggers neurological disorders....New flu vaccines, such as those made from live viruses, pose new types of risks since the vaccines themselves could become unintended disseminators of the flu....The biggest risk of all from flu vaccines, however, may come from weakening the human body's natural defences...["Vaccine fevers", Lawrence Solomon, National Post, October 22, 2004]

Court: Paul Hamm Can Keep Gold Medal

Oct 21, 2004 | Dollars & Crosses