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03/07/2004: "Kerry on the War On Terror"

Armed Liberal fisked John Kerry's Los Angeles speech about the War On Terror at Winds of Change.
It is a great piece. A.L. does not rely on half truths to make his points. I would add a pair of criticisms of John Kerry and nit pick one bit of Mr. Liberal's rhetoric, though.

John Kerry said about our failure to catch Osama Bin Laden:

We had him in our grasp more than two years ago at Tora Bora but George Bush held U.S. forces back and instead, called on Afghan warlords with no loyalty to our cause to finish the job.

Later, Senator Kerry says "we need to build real and enduring alliances", "I will not push away those who can and should share the burden", "None of the progress we have made would have been possible without cooperation ... and much more would be possible if we had a President who didn't alienate long-time friends and fuel anti-American anger around the world", et cetera. Armed Liberal made the point we let our Afghan allies try to get Bin Laden in an effort to strengthen alliances.
I would stress that John Kerry is criticising President Bush for defering to allies in one breath and for not defering to allies in the next. That's all.

And one nit pick. Instead of saying "pissed off", I'd say "upset". The first is a scatalogical reference. The second is a common emotional state.

But hey, I'd be happy if I could produce a fisking half as well as he did.
Addendum----------------------------------------------
Here's Senator Kerry (emphasis mine):

But nothing else will matter unless we win the war of ideas. In failed states from South Asia to the Middle East to Central Africa, the combined weight of harsh political repression, economic stagnation, lack of education, and rapid population growth presents the potential for explosive violence and the enlistment of entire new legions of terrorists. In Saudi Arabia and Egypt, almost sixty percent of the population is under the age of 30, unemployed and unemployable, in a breeding ground for present and future hostility. And according to a Pew Center poll, fifty percent or more of Indonesians, Jordanians, Pakistanis, and Palestinians have confidence in bin Laden to "do the right thing regarding world affairs."

The answer to economic stagnation is economic growth. We encourage economic growth by encouraging economic trade, not by discouraging it.