Captain's Quarters On "Franks Fires back"

Tommy Franks Fires Back
19 October 2004
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/

I wondered how long it would take Tommy Franks to respond to repeated accusations from John Kerry that American military commanders allowed Osama bin Laden to escape from their grasp at Tora Bora by "outsourcing" the war on terror, an egregiously false accusation which the SSCI report shows to be a lie. Today, Franks fires back at Kerry from the pages of the New York Times in a scathing essay that underscores Kerry's cluelessness on military matters:

"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."

Quite frankly (no pun intended), I've never understood the "outsourcing" criticism except in the context of cuteness on Kerry's behalf, a glib and superficial way to dig both at Bush's war and domestic policies. On one hand, Kerry chides Bush for not having a big enough coalition and for having too many Americans as a percentage of fighting troops in the war. On the other hand, in an area where American troops clearly would have been at a disadvantage against an entrenched foe in an unknown and difficult terrain with excellent defensive features, he scolds Bush for not going it alone. John Kerry as commander-in-chief would only send American troops into action under conditions where they would almost certainly fail, if this is any indication.

Franks succinctly points out that Bush has approached this war strategically as well as tactically, and upbraids Kerry for not knowing the difference:

"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."

Again, this is a key difference between the two men, and the fact that terrorist cells exist in 60 nations has demonstrated this difference before. In an impromptu press conference a couple of weeks ago, John Kerry referred to this as a reason why we shouldn't have gone to war in Iraq. "Will we attack all 60 countries?" Kerry asked derisively. Kerry's sarcastic and flippant comment shows that Kerry would have allowed the US to be paralyzed at the scope of the strategic war on Islamist terror, and would have followed the Clinton strategy of making tough speeches followed by little if any action.

It's that strategy of waiting for attacks to occur and then siccing the FBI on them to try to find the one cell responsible before taking any action that emboldened the terrorists to continually escalate their attacks on the US, culminating in 9/11. That difference is the key between Bush and Kerry, which Franks uses as his summary:

"Today we are asking our servicemen and women to do more, in more places, than we have in decades. They deserve honest, consistent, no-spin leadership that respects them, their families and their sacrifices. The war against terrorism is the right war at the right time for the right reasons. And Iraq is one of the places that war must be fought and won. George W. Bush has his eye on that ball and Senator John Kerry does not."

Franks has it right; John Kerry either is incapable of recognizing the strategic implications of the war or refuses to acknowledge them. Either way, we cannot afford a Kerry presidency while we remain under attack by terrorists supported by states waging a proxy war against the West. The first qualification for the Presidency in this era should be the recognition of that fact. Kerry fails.

Posted by Captain Ed at 05:03 AM Comments (9) TrackBack (5)