If John Kerry had been president after 9/11, the U.S. would’ve already had Osama bin Laden behind bars or in a body bag. Just ask him.
Kerry accused President Bush of allowing bin Laden to escape by relying on Afghan warlords to try to hunt the al-Qaida chief down in the caves of Tora Bora in December 2001.
“Can you imagine trusting them 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.”
Yes, that is truly a tough stance. It is so easy to picture the glory-clad senator, standing on that tall hill and framed by a magnificent sunrise in America, strongly guiding our fine country with his perfect hindsight.
Of course, there’s no reason to believe there’s any truth to his assurance of a success that could’ve been. In fact, there’s every reason to scoff.
Bush spokesman Steve Schmidt said the Democrat’s claim was “another exaggeration of John Kerry, saying anything no matter how untrue it is.”
“During the time of when the United States was engaged in offensive operations in Tora Bora, John Kerry praised that strategy and tactics,” Schmidt said.
Also, the Kerry’s accusation of Bush’s failure stands contrary to not only his own words at the time, but also to the current stance of the U.S. commander during the action in question.
“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,” retired general Tommy Franks wrote in The New York Times.
Kerry has repeatedly accused US President George W. Bush of surrendering the job of hunting for bin Laden to allied Afghan tribal leaders, who were unable to find the Al-Qaeda leader in the caves of the mountainous Tora Bora region in late 2001.
Franks said he did not know to this day whether bin Laden was in Tora Bora in December 2001 to begin with.
“Some intelligence sources said he was,” he wrote. “Others indicated he was in Pakistan at the time. Still others suggested he was in Kashmir.”
According to Franks, the US military relied heavily on Afghan forces in that battle because they knew Tora Bora after fighting there for years against the Soviet occupation.
“Third, the Afghans weren’t left to do the job alone,” the retired general continued. “Special forces from the United States and several other countries were there, providing tactical leadership and calling in air strikes.”
Franks, a declared Bush supporter, said the president had “his eye on that ball” in conducting the “war on terror” while Senator Kerry did not.
This is not leadership on Kerry’s part. Rather, this is some couch potato watching his team on Sunday giving up a shutout on the last play of the game, only managing a 42-7 victory. Said potato cheers at the time, then bitches the next day that, had he only been coach, that last touchdown would’ve certainly been prevented by a sack. This would be GOP candidate Thomas Dewey in 1944 promising that, were he president instead of FDR, the Americans would’ve handled Kasserine Pass differently and better, brashly claiming on the campaign trail that he would have secured victory in the action and the disastrous battle was Roosevelt’s fault. Dewey didn’t do that, because it would have been a disgusting tactic in a wartime election. Then again, Kerry has never been one to be overly concerned with using disgusting tactics in his choice of words while American troops were still in the field.