KILL THE TERRORISTS! (but not that one.)

(political stuff here, move along if my leftist-mode offends)

Ever since 9-11-01, a common claim from more extreme sectors of the Right has been that if only Bill Clinton had ever done more than just lame missile strikes against Osama Bin Laden, how different things would have been. Ergo, how wonderful that we now have a President who realizes how important it is to take the fight to the terrorists, and to kill them whenever the opportunity arises, bringing whatever force necessary to bear.

Except, well, not quite.

"With Tuesday’s attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq. But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger....Here we had targets, we had opportunities, we had a country willing to support casualties, or risk casualties after 9/11 and we still didn’t do it,' said Michael O’Hanlon, military analyst with the Brookings Institution. Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe. The Pentagon drew up a second strike plan, and the White House again killed it. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq."

Imagine that. Faced with an opportunity to attack a known terrorist group, and quite possibly kill its leader, the plan to do so was shelved because going after the guy with no known terrorist connections and no weapons of mass destruction was deemed more important.

And the guy allowed to go away is still blowing up innocents in Iraq.

Yup, this President is just doing a great job in the War on Terror.

(Link via Morat)