Wow Kerry took the Florida primary!

[kandrathe]

Please tell me you're kidding. In addition to known complicity with plenty of terrorist groups in Afghanistan ("it was for the greater good of bringing down the USSR") including Osama bin Laden and his nascent Al Quaeda group, there are dozens of instances of known guerilla and terrorist groups recieving support and funding from the CIA in Latin America. The cold war was almost entirely fought through such proxy actors, and most of them were not the most pleasant individuals.

I would say there is a difference between using guerilla's and paramitilitaries in fighting a proxy war with USSR, than sanctioning groups to infiltrate into Moscow to assassinate members of the Politboro or blow up the Kremlin. The later is an act of war, and if we had done that, the USSR would have been justified in rooting out that evil. While in Afghanistan OBL was a junior commander within a guerilla paramilitary organization, bent on repelling Soviet soldiers from the nation. After the soviets pulled out, OBL went back to the Saudi's and offered to take his arab force into Yeman, but the Saudi's refused. He then became disenchanted with world as it is, and then began his new Jihad and emerged as a terrorist. He might have decided to re-enter Saudi society with some prestige after Afghanistan, but he chose a different path.

For instance, I don't consider RPG attacks on military compounds or the roadside bombings of US humvee's in Iraq terrorism. But, blowing up the UN headquarters is. Bringing the fight to the people who are trained to defend themselves is war, but intentionally killing civilians is terrorism.

If you think it's progress, feel free to keep providing links, but unless I find something actually new in them, I'm unlikely to change my mind.

I will, and that's all I can ask for. I too promise to keep an open mind.

As for the administration blowing their own horn. I think they try, but it is drowned by the press and their "topic du jour" approach to entertaining the public.