Not sure how many of you non-North Dakotans out there noticed that our state’s two Senators proposed legislation doubling the bounty on Osama bin Laden’s head and requiring the White House to brief Congress regularly on efforts to find him and/or combat al Qaeda

Now Dorgan and Conrad’s chief state political mouthpiece, Jamie Selzer, is slobbering all over this meaningless initiative and only manages to display his and his party’s complete naivety when it comes to the war on terror

As you’ll read in the press release below, Senators Dorgan and Conrad introduced legislation yesterday to double the reward for information leading to the capture of Osama bin Laden. Included in the legislation is a requirement that the White House provide a classified report to Congress once every 90 days detailing information on the hunt for bin Laden. I couldn’t be more proud of our Senators for this legislation, and think they should be strongly applauded for it

As I travel the state, it isn’t a surprise that a topic I hear about often is the war in Iraq and terrorism in this country. It’s important that we as Democrats continue to remember that Iraq had nothing to do with the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and that Osama bin Laden did. The move to increase the reward for his capture is an important one, and maybe only eclipsed by the requirement that the Bush administration provide an update on the activities of the government related to his capture. The President has allowed the war in Iraq to spiral out of control, and as a result, our military hasn’t been able to focus all of their efforts on stopping those who attacked us in 2001.

Listen, we all want to capture and/or kill as many terrorists as possible up to and including Osama bin Laden.  But the insistence of of the left that Iraq isn’t part of the global war on terror just doesn’t match up with facts

Ayman al Zawahiri, the most wanted terrorist in the world besides bin Laden, has told the Islamic extremist legions that they need only wait us out in Iraq in order to be victorious.  And he urges his fellow terrorists to hurry to Iraq to fight the infidels

Osama bin Laden himself charged the leadership of al Qaeda in Iraq with recruiting terrorists to attack the west, and indeed the perpetrators of the recent car bombing attempts in Great Britain were recruited by al Qaeda in Iraq

Selzer, Conrad, Dorgan and the rest of the Democrats (with the exception of Joe Lieberman) talk about giving up in Iraq so that we have more resources to find and fight al Qaeda.  The problem is that we’re already engaged with al Qaeda in Iraq

I agree that Saddam Hussein’s regime had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks (the Bush administration has never claimed any such thing).  But I’d point out that Saddam was heavily involved with international terrorism before we invaded his country.  And even regardless of Iraq’s involvement with terrorism before we invaded, the fact is that we’re fighting the terrorists there now

We can’t leave Iraq to go focus on al Qaeda because by being in Iraq we’re already fighting al Qaeda.  And forcing them to use up manpower and resources they could be using to attack the west

So either the Democrats are woefully out of touch with the realities of the global war on terror, or they’re flat-out misleading the American people for purely political purposes

Update: I see this legislation passed the Senate with flying colors.  Which was a given.  Who, at this stage of the game, is going to vote against doubling the bounty for bin Laden?

Really, there’s no harm in doing that.  My point is that we’re already fighting al Qaeda in Iraq, leaving Iraq means disengaging from al Qaeda and leaving them with more resources to attack the west with and Osama bin Laden isn’t the only terrorist in the world

None of which the Democrats get.  Or they get it, but they’re more interested in politics than fighting terrorism

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