Do They Make the Grade In The War On Terror

[VoodooAce]

Overall, how do you grade the U.S. Government's response to 9/11? All expectations aside, have they been flawless? Have they bungled their way through? Has the situation improved or have things gotten worse?

Personally, (and let's not have any coronaries here, ok?), I give the Bush Whitehouse an easy passing grade. Nothing spectacular, but nothing horribly wrong, either. I would have rather seen less bombing before the ground troops went in, but it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Its not as though I'm really surprised, either. The way I see it, a President's job...actually the Whitehouse's job.....is to not get in the way, to say the right things at the right time, and basically to not f*ckk anything up with too much politics. Kind of like a quarterback that you don't ask to win the game. You just ask him to not loose it.

Like Trent Dilfer last year for the Ravens.

Other than sounding like he's in the middle of a Smackdown wrasslin' match a little too often, Duh-bya's said pretty much the things you want a Prez to say, and done the things you want him to do. I'm not trying to take anything away when I say that there aren't a lot of former Presidents that I don't think could have handled things thus far.

I take a few points off for the bombing, and add a few for being flawless in the 'not f*cking up' dept, remove a few for arguing semantics and the exact meaning of a humane doctrine like the Geneva Convention (very unamerican thing to do), and just a very few more for dinging the constitution here and there.....

I give them a C-.

 

[damunzy]

Voted, no real comments.
B- for Dubaya choking on a pretzel.

 

[PinkyGen]

B. Very good job in ridding Afhganistan of Taliban and Al Queda with few US casaulties, and relatively quickly. Lose points for not capturing Bin Laden, Omar, and other big guys though.

Or Maybe it's just grade inflation.

 

[Cunobelin Of Hippo]

Uh...A, B, C, D, _, F

Dammit! Where's my 'E'!

No major complaints - they're getting the job done.

 

[VoodooAce]

American schools are so bad, they forgot the 'E' when coming up with a grading system.

I guess I should have explained that I used the system used in American schools to grade students.

A 'C' is average and an 'F' is failing.

 

[Alcibiaties of Athenae]

From that time, there has been no further attacks, the Taliban is finished, El Quida is on the run, Bin Laden hasn't been seen in two months, I would say they are doing a good job.

 

[EmperorSnefix]

Supposedly a student could've possible changed an "F" into an "E" with one small pen mark and the parents wouldn't have caught it is the reason most American schools don't have it. Or maybe I'm just making things up. I mean we Americans aren't that dumb...:crazyeyes

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

A bit early for rating Bush and the current american gouverment on these matter's IMO.

First of all there is the fact that Osama Bin Laden is not found yet.Omar is not as important as OBL IMO ,as omar only represent's the rulership of a disbanded millitary group ,while OBL is more ore less growing to become the hero of a lot of muslim mind's.While OBL important's may have seem diminished by the -to a large extent- extermination of his organization ,he symbolize's the power of terrorism and capturing him would be a strong detterant against new terrorist act's orientated against the U.S. .

Second of all there is afhanistan itself.While the initial purpose of action in Afhanistan was to capture obl/Al-Qaida ,the fact that the Taliban continued to support Al-qauda gave the Coalition against terrorism the responsibilety to fill the power vacuüm they soon would create with a new political rulership that would prevent Afhanistan ever to be used again as a harbouring country for terrorist organization's.Only in it's opportunism in using the northern alliance as ground force against the taliban has the aliance against terrorism made a mistake ,as IMHO the northern alliance is not stable enough as political group to fill in the power vacuûm and to rule the country in unity and democracy.
While i have respect for a person as Hamid Karzai ,I fear that even a person as intelligent as him cannot prevent his country for yet another civil war.Because hamid karzai is probably one of the only real "politician's" in the current coalition ruling Afhanistan ,his merrit's go back to the rule of the King and to the time that Afhanistan was a rellatively democratic country.A big part of the ruling men in kaboel today are no real politician's though ,but a mass of warlord's each having seperate intterests in local matter's all over the country generaly devided by the numerous etnicity's in and sometime's supported by various neighbouring country's also having local interest's in some part's of the country.
kaboel was only just halway taken when opposite group's within the northern alliance were already fighting eachother for the prize ,not particulary a sign of good time's to come.Surely one cannot call this situation in afhanistan truly stable on this moment.
At best this country will not imediatly fall back tro a state of civil war if we upkeek a efficiant peace keeping force ,and it could take a very long time (in years) before this country would be stable enough to withdraw peace keeping force's out of it.
As thus i have my doubt's of the effectiveness in that part of the war.

And third there is the question: "what is the exact meaning of the word terrorism?" .As it is really hard to define the word terrorism in,it is also hard to point out who our real enemy's are.Only when we will have a clear understanding of the amount of terrorist organization's or even other not directly related group's are realy considerd "terrorists" in the context of the terrorist we fight against in the global "war against terrorism" by the coalition against terrorism ,then we will have an exact view of the amount of obstacle's we must surpass to achieve a state of victory.In that sense it's really hard to measure the importance of the war in afhanistan within the whole war against terrorism.

another thing: strong word's the past week when dubya all of the sudden influenced the press with rumors of possible action's against country's like Iraq,Iran and N. korea.
Ah ,i saw it comming i guess.The "war against terrorism" is just a fancy modern word to give that almost old term ;"a rouge country" a new context.
Almost i would have thought that much was changed since sept. 11.

i give Dubya a temporary C ,to be reviewed later (let's say within 10 years)

 

[Simon Darkshade]

I would give it between an A- and an A. The war has been prosecuted in a much easier fashion than a lot of so called pundits predicted, the strategy has worked and is not limited to military operations.
Neither did they do as a lot of the aforementioned pundits predicted and run in and bomb the crap out of everything. Afghanistan was certainly not another Vietnam, to the disappointment of many.
A great deal of the war on terror is away from the public eye, and we shall probably never know about it, but the effects of this side of the campaign have been quite positive.
There have been a seemingly large amount of casualties from accidents and friendly fire, a matter that is no doubt being looked into by the appropriate authorities.

Overall though, it has been a success, but it is still quite early on.

 

[amadeus]

I said a 'B.'

I'm concerned about North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and, I would like to see an end to it as soon as strategically possible.

 

[TheDuckOfFlanders]

I'm concerned about North Korea's nuclear weapons program, and, I would like to see an end to it as soon as strategically possible.

Youre probably not the only one being pretty concerned about North-Korea's evolution on nuclear weapon technoligy.Afcourse ,some people are more pessimistic about that situation and some are from the oppinion that while N.korea may have nuclear possibilety's ,they never want represent a real threat to the American people relying on the thought that no man ,fraction, organization or gouverment would ever use a nuclear device when not under the direct threat of an invasion.
Well i count myself to the pessimistic people on that particular situation ,not that i advice everybody to folow my oppinion as it was guaranteed to be right ,i was pretty pessimistic to about the war in afhanistan myself ,and it seems to have gone better than i expected to.

I was confused when Bush announced N.Korea to be a potential next target in the war against terrorism.I understand that N.Korea is a potential threat to the USA ,but you cannot really call it a terrorist's country.It's a rouge country ,for several years already ,and a potential threat to america.
Action in N.Korea? i would be very much against it.Not that i symphatize with the tyranic rule of kim il jung ,but i just think the world has missed the deadline in dealing with these rouge country's.
I still hear the local political "elite" (libiral-conservative establishment ) of my own country in the year of 1998 talking openly on the threat that were the rouge country's ,stating that the only way to deal with these country's was a swift intervention ,preventing those rouge country's to ever complete their nuclear project's.It was pretty much clear at tthat time that the deadline for such a hyphothetical operation would be halfway 2000 -beginning of 2001.Basicly ,most of the country's that were considerd to be rouge country's in 1998 have completed most of their nuclear program's ,and as thus it's pretty obvious why we cant have any millitary intervention anymore in those country's ,as an invasion by american force's aimed most probably at the very ruling class of that particular country would possibly lead to nuclear retaliation of that country.

North korea may be one of the most poor country's in the world ,really a black spot on the world map.But the fact that they have nuke's make them pretty powerfull.In any way it's something to take into consideration before actually sending an army in there.
This pretty much goes for the other rouge to.Basicly ,in, the cold war America could just attack about any country in the world except russia ,withought having to real fear retaliation on their own soil.Today the world is filled with mini nuclear powers.

 

[MrPresident]

Just to annoy you I will point out that the White House is not one word, Whitehouse. Ah the joys of correcting people's grammar and spelling.

 

[Zwelgje]

Can I give my true opinion here?

If so, I would like to say that USA have done a lousy job in this war, now I will explain why.

Before 9/11 everyone knew where OBL was and that the threat was coming from him, somewhere in the Afghan mountains. The Al-Quaida network was for the biggest part there as well and the rest was scattered around the globe.
Then this war started in an effort to prevent future terrorism and what happened. A dictator-government was turned over and the terrorists fled away. I'm happy the Afghan government is gone because they were crazy and treated their people bad. However before this war there should have been put more thoughts on how to run Afghanistan when the Taliban were gone. The way I see it Afghanistan will fall into civil war again within a year or so.
The other issue concerns the terrorists, they are on the run, but is this good? I don't think so, nobody knows where they are and nobody knows what they are capable of doing and what kind of actions they are planning.
As this is a war on terrorism, the war so far has been won by the terrorists: they are alive and nowhere to be found and that's exactly where they wanna be....

 

[ApocalypseKurtz]

I think the "war on terror" is all b.s. anyway, so I can't honestly give them a grade.

 

[The Emperor]

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