Remember bin Laden? The Bush White House doesn't talk about him much any more, but Wes Clark does.

"Clark, a former four-star Army general, says although the Bush administration did the right thing by going after al-Qaida after the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, it failed to finish the job it started," the AP reports.

"'They still haven't found Osama bin Laden. And every day, Americans live at risk because of this failure,'" Clark said Wednesday.

Clark's 3-point for nailing Bin Laden includes 1) "Pressuring Saudi Arabia to contribute to a joint U.S.-Saudi commando force to scour the Afghan-Pakistani border where bin Laden is thought to be hiding," the AP summarizes. 2) Devoting many of the linguists and intelligence and special ops specialists who have been pulled from hunting Al Qaeda to Iraq, back to hunting Bin Laden. 3) And restoring the battered relationship betwee the US and allies.

This plan's chief strength is that it would take the war on terror back to the terrorists. But its merits are all the more remarkable for coming not from the Administraiton that has largely abandoned the war against those who really attacked the US on September 11, 2001 for a totally different war in Iraq, but from a candidate who can see the difference.

Follow Up: Why is the New Republic so incredibly harsh on Clark? Why do so many of the intelligentsia seem to be holding Clark to a higher standard than the other candidates (not even to mention the administration)? [And who does TNR like anyhow, Lieberman? I like Lieberman too, but he's not going to win the nomination.] I don't understand this desire to handicap Clark and knock his national security credentials for the vaguest of hardly articulated reasons that Clark is a - what - proud and extremely self-disciplined person who holds himself most of all to incredible standards? Why does Clark seem to attract so much jealousy?

(And could the New Yorker really not think of a better title for this article???]

Posted by Laura at November 12, 2003 02:21 PM