STEPHANOPOULOS: You are the only Republican, the only major candidate who opposed President Bush’s decision to invade Afghanistan after 9/11. . . . How would you have gotten the moderate Arab governments to turn over Osama bin Laden in two weeks? He’d already been expelled by Saudi Arabia. He was already an enemy of those moderate governments.

CARSON: Well, I think they would have been extremely concerned if we had declared — and we were serious about it — that we were going to become petroleum independent, because it would have had a major impact on their finances.

And I think that probably would have trumped any loyalty that they had to — to people like Osama bin Laden.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But they didn’t have any loyalty to Osama bin Laden. The Saudis kicked him out. He was their enemy.

CARSON: Well, you may not think that they had any loyalty to him, but I believe otherwise.

STEPHANOPOULOS: So you believe that had President Bush simply declared energy independence, they would have turned over Osama bin Laden.

How would they have gotten him out of the tribal areas of Afghanistan and Pakistan?

CARSON: I think they would have known where he was. You know, there were indications, for instance, during the Clinton administration that — that they knew exactly where he was but didn’t necessarily pull the trigger.

If — if we could tell where he was, I’m certain that they knew where he was. . . .

STEPHANOPOULOS: But, sir, when we look back at 9/11, 3,000 people dead on that day. We knew Afghanistan was harboring Osama bin Laden. Ninety percent of the American public supported taking military action, every member of Congress but one.

If that is not a case where you would order retaliation, what is?

CARSON: Well, I just said, I do believe that we should have taken aggressive action. I just don’t think necessarily putting tens of thousands of our troops was the correct way to do it.

But, you know, we’re talking about things that are in the past. We will never know the answer to that.

And we really need to be concentrating on what are we going to do now to deal with the global jihad threat.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And you’ve said that you would maintain the military presence in Afghanistan, as President Obama announced this week?

CARSON: Yes, I would. I think we saw what happened in Iraq when we precipitously withdrew. I don’t think that we want to make that mistake again. And I’m very happy to see that we have a learning curve there.

STEPHANOPOULOS: And just before I move on, though, I just want to be clear here. So you’re standing by the statement that, had President Bush simply declared energy independence back after 9/11, that would have caused the moderate Arab governments to turn over Osama bin Laden?

CARSON: I think they — I think they would have been extremely concerned about what the ramifications of that would have been. And I believe they would have been considerably more cooperative.

Gimpy wrote:

pacino wrote:

Gimpy wrote:

pacino wrote:But I look at things differently at this point. I've evolved! I'm voting Clinton. I think it's great that Sanders is in the race making sure she's on her toes and not cowtowing to the mushy middle but I wish he'd spend more time on foreign policy. This is her big problem, IMO, and where I disagree with her. But, it hardly came up in the debate.

I'd rather vote for someone I think can get things done for an executive position because I saw early on how obstructive the opposition is going to be.

I think Sanders would be fine at getting things done

I know some Republicans don't like McCain because he was captured and they prefer guys who weren't captured, but I really liked this quote by him about Bernie

"Negotiating with Bernie was not a usual experience, because he is very passionate and he and I are both very strong-willed people and we spend a lot of time banging our fists on the table and having the occasional four-letter word," McCain said. "But at the end of the day, Bernie was result-oriented."

Hillary is likely to get things done though. Things like giving Wall Street whatever they want. There's a near zero percent chance I would vote for her in the general election.

Yes, I know you said you'd then vote for a Republican who would then put in 90% of what you're against instead of 10%.

I don't really care what political party a person's in. The biggest thing I hate about this country is that corporations tend to legislate and politicians end up looking out for their interests instead of people's interests. The republicans are probably guiltier of that, but both sides do it. Hillary's pretty much the epitome of it though. She doesn't believe in anything. She won't fight for any ideals. She'll do what's best for her political career. Fuck that.

But both Clarke and Tenet grew deeply frustrated by the way top Bush officials responded. Clarke recounts that when he briefed Rice about Al Qaeda, “her facial expression gave me the impression that she had never heard the term before.” On January 25, Clarke sent Rice a memo declaring that, “we urgently need…a Principals [Cabinet] level review on the al Qida [sic] network.” Instead, Clarke got a sub-cabinet, Deputies level, meeting in April, two months after the one on Iraq.

When that April meeting finally occurred, according to Clarke’s book, Against All Enemies, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz objected that “I just don’t understand why we are beginning by talking about this one man, bin Laden.” Clarke responded that, “We are talking about a network of terrorist organizations called al-Qaeda, that happens to be led by bin Laden, and we are talking about that network because it and it alone poses an immediate and serious threat to the United States.” To which Wolfowitz replied, “Well, there are others that do as well, at least as much. Iraqi terrorism for example.”

By early summer, Clarke was so despondent that he asked to be reassigned. “This administration,” he later testified, “didn’t either believe me that there was an urgent problem or was unprepared to act as though there were an urgent problem. And I thought, if the administration doesn’t believe its national coordinator for counterterrorism when he says there’s an urgent problem and if it’s unprepared to act as though there’s an urgent problem, then probably I should get another job.”

But the same Defense Department officials who discounted Clarke’s warnings pushed back against the CIA’s. According to Eichenwald’s sources, “the neoconservative leaders who had recently assumed power at the Pentagon were warning the White House that the C.I.A. had been fooled; according to this theory, Bin Laden was merely pretending to be planning an attack to distract the administration from Saddam Hussein, whom the neoconservatives saw as a greater threat.”

The CIA fought back. “The U.S. is not the target of a disinformation campaign by Usama Bin Laden,” declared the Daily Brief on June 29, noting that the Al Qaeda leader had recently told a Middle Eastern journalist to expect an attack. The following day, the CIA included in its Daily Brief an article entitled “Bin Laden Threats Are Real.” On July 1, the Brief predicted that an attack “will occur soon.”

Then, on July 10, Tenet and CIA counterterrorism head Cofer Black held an emergency meeting with Rice to push for action against Bin Laden. But according to Woodward’s State of Denial, “both felt they were not getting through to Rice.” She “seemed focused on other administration priorities, especially the ballistic defense missile system that Bush had campaigned on” and “Tenet left the meeting feeling frustrated.”

Planned Parenthood affiliates statewide were told in a letter that their enrollment in the joint state-federal Medicaid program was in the process of being terminated because they were potentially "liable, directly or by affiliation, for a series of serious Medicaid program violations." The five-page letter was sent by the Texas Health and Human Services Commission's Office of Inspector General.

The move comes after undercover videos released by the anti-abortion group Center for Medical Progress, which alleges the videos show that Planned Parenthood illegally sold fetal tissue for profit. Planned Parenthood denies the allegation and said the videos were misleading.

A federal judge ordered Louisiana on Monday to continue providing Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood clinics for 14 more days. Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal, while running for president, ordered his state to block funding in the wake of the same videos, but Planned Parenthood sued and challenged the state ending of funding for non-abortion services, such as cancer screenings and gynecology exams.

Texas completely ends taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood. Harvesting baby parts will not be tolerated. #tcot http://t.co/CqKVyhUWNM

— Greg Abbott (@GregAbbott_TX

Kim claims that she has lived in proud sin for many years, divorcing and remarrying, not one time or two times — in fact, you need a score card to keep track.

If Kim Davis received mercy from God and grace, as she claims, she would, with all due haste put her sin away. She would mourn for her sins, and in a show of great mercy, she would be busy apologising to the ####s for enabling them, and she would, with all diligence, give those perverts a marriage license. Kim Davis has decided that her adultery is less sin, than the sin of the sodomites.

pacino wrote:A Liberal drubbing up in Canada

Doll Is Mine wrote:Westboro crew were outside Kim davis' office today:

Kim claims that she has lived in proud sin for many years, divorcing and remarrying, not one time or two times — in fact, you need a score card to keep track.

If Kim Davis received mercy from God and grace, as she claims, she would, with all due haste put her sin away. She would mourn for her sins, and in a show of great mercy, she would be busy apologising to the ####s for enabling them, and she would, with all diligence, give those perverts a marriage license. Kim Davis has decided that her adultery is less sin, than the sin of the sodomites.

This is just brilliant.

Doll Is Mine wrote:This is the new Canadian PM.