Comments on: Benjamin: Iraq Has Made Us Less Safe

By: Conservative Thinking

Conservative Thinking — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 11:16:54 +0000

Round the Reader: Wednesday, July 13, 2005 Another Wednesday another Round the Reader. We'll call this the "Return to Flight" edition, that might be shooting myself in the foot (especially after yesterday's shuttle mishap) but nevertheless get that bird up there. Scott Boone has the day off...

By: Sammy

Sammy — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 17:29:18 +0000

The war on terror is like the war on drugs. Off Center Blog

By: McGehee

McGehee — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 13:10:19 +0000

The longer the Arabian peninsula remains under the control of a cowardly and corrupt regime, paying off terrorists to do their evil business somewhere else, no matter where, the greater the risk of the next 9/11. That magazine you're quoting, Mark, doesn't have a whole lot of credibility with mainstream conservatives that I'm aware of.

By: Milblog

Milblog — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 12:10:59 +0000

There may be some truth to this. In the vein of "No matter what we could do, it'd be the wrong thing."Outside The Beltway : Benjamin: Iraq Has Made Us Less Safe Be that as it may, it is hard to deny that the Iraq War motivated...

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 06:32:07 +0000

"The longer our forces stay on the ground in the Arabian Peninsula, the greater the risk of the next 9/11, whether that is a suicide attack, a nuclear attack, or a biological attack."

From "The American Conservative"
http://www.amconmag.com/2005_07_18/article.html"

By: ozzippit

ozzippit — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 06:00:52 +0000

More from another former Clinton flack trying to erase history and provide Slick and St. Hill with legacies.

By: Arguing with signposts… » Iraq and Al Qaeda

Arguing with signposts… » Iraq and Al Qaeda — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 02:48:42 +0000

[...] James Joyner links to a CNN piece by Daniel Benjamin, a Clinton administration official, that contains this gem of left-think: Coalition forces in Iraq face daily attacks from jihadists not because Saddam Hussein had trained a cadre of terrorists — we know there was no pre-existing relationship between Baghdad and al-Qaeda — but because the U.S. invasion brought the targets into the proximity of the killers. (emphasis added) [...]

By: bryan

bryan — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 02:32:21 +0000

we know there was no pre-existing relationship between Baghdad and al-Qaeda

Also, this statement is false as well. While Iraq didn't have a hand in the 9/11 attack, even the 9/11 commission found that there were ties between Iraq and al qaeda.

By: bryan

bryan — Tue, 12 Jul 2005 02:31:17 +0000

I'm not sure how he can claim we are "less safe" since there hasn't been an attack on American soil since 9/11.

If there were explosions in major cities every few weeks, then I think his thesis would be much more defensible.

By: The Indepundit

The Indepundit — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 23:19:50 +0000

Damned if We Do... JAMES JOYNER: "We've learned from experience... that killing terrorists makes their sympathizers mad and thus creates more terrorists whereas allowing terrorist actions to go unpunished emboldens their sympathizers and thus creates more terrorists."...

By: herb

herb — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 22:28:18 +0000

CNN, The has been of news. What more could one expect from a mamby-pamby bunch of left wing liberals that turn tail and run while letting everyone else fight for their freedom and lives.

I am so sick of people like Benjamin and his kind that It makes me want to throw up all over him.

Anymore, I just get furious when I see people like this get mentioned in any forum. Perhaps Mr. Joyner would do best if he just never mentioned people like Danial Benjamin.

By: The Jawa Report

The Jawa Report — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 21:59:09 +0000

Backlash Against Muslims

Backlash? Terrible if true. I hate to use the word but when speaking of something as horrible as a mosque firebombing. It seems like so much moral equivocation. [Insert one act of injustice here] but [insert even greater act of...

By: Lurking Observer

Lurking Observer — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 21:57:38 +0000

So, Daniel Benjamin confirms that European Muslim radicals are leaving Europe in order to engage the US in Iraq.

Interesting....

So, here's the key question:

Are we to believe that, w/o Iraq (but with Afghanistan, since, as we are regularly reminded, the Left, liberals, Democrats, all supported going into Afghanistan), these European Islamic radicals would have stayed at home, doing nothing?

That, in the wake of ObL standing up to the American colossus, that these people would not have sought out ways of getting at the United States?

More to the point, if they did choose to act against the US, that they would have gone to Afghanistan, but not tried to strike either American assets in Europe or here at home?

What a fascinating worldview these people must have, wherein they are inspired by ObL's attacks against the US, yet would stand idly by while the US attacks ObL's base.

By: Darla Nuan

Darla Nuan — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 21:31:53 +0000

This is old news. The 9/11 Commission report clearly shows that Clinton basically let the terrorists operate in the US.

It is also important to remember that Clinton weakened the military so much that any problems that may exist in our current campaign to liberate Iraq can be attributed to him. Many of the battle plans for iraq--including the issues of troop strength and equipment (e.g. body armor, etc...)--were concocted by Clinton. Bush simply didn't have time to correct all of Clinton's crazy policies--if he had, Saadam would have clearly bombed us.

By: ATM

ATM — Mon, 11 Jul 2005 21:29:47 +0000

And it should be pointed out that the many aspects of the Clinton adminstrations' containment policy for Iraq was used to justify attacking the US.