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December 29, 2006
New Speak - Failure Means Success When It's Pakistan's Fault
Frances Fragos Townsend, Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, and CNN's Ed Henry had this exchange about Osama bin Laden last night on The Situation Room.
HENRY: You know, going back to September 2001, the president said, dead or alive, we're going to get him [Osama bin Laden]. Still don't have him. I know you are saying there's successes on the war on terror, and there have been. That's a failure.TOWNSEND: Well, I'm not sure -- it's a success that hasn't occurred yet. I don't know that I view that as a failure.
Look, we can't do it alone. We understand from the intelligence that he's most likely in the tribal areas. They are inaccessible. They're difficult to reach. It's difficult terrain. And, oh, by the way, it's part of the sovereign country of Pakistan. The Pakistani government has reached agreements with tribal leaders. We've got concerns about that. [emphasis added]
Well, maybe we can't do it alone now but if we had focused on the right target and not wasted the lives of nearly 3000 America Service men and women and untold Iraqis, it very well might have long since been done.
Saying "it's a success that hasn't occurred yet" and then blaming very recent actions by the Pakistanis is beyond disingenuous. Wasn't bin Laden in Afghanistan when we invaded it? And aren't those Pakistani agreements further evidence of the extent of the failure in Afghanistan?
This Administration cannot tell success from failure in even the most oblivious case. Not getting Osama bin Laden within a very short time after 9/11 was a failure. The mere possibility of getting him sometime in the future is hardly a success.
Posted by Duane Smith at December 29, 2006 1:46 PM | Read more on Current Events |
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