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Sunday, Nov 8, 2009
That is, politicized by the Democrats by asking why we aren't devoting our foreign policy resources to stopping al-Qaeda instead of pouring billions of dollars into Iraq.
The card can be played two ways. The correct play of this one is that the War in Iraq has not prevented al-Qaeda terror attempts.
Our greatest weakness as a country may be our inability to seperate the political from the critical. There should be no question that either party would do its best to protect us from terrorism. One would hope this would be an obvious truth but for some reason in the United States we argue that the other party is cowardly or incompetent or even in league with terrorists. This divide weakens us. Similarly there should be no question that industries that produce waste products that can poison our children need to be regulated very carefully...but instead this clear reality is obfuscated by bickering about ideology....this is all very sad because future generations will pay the price for our weakness as a nation.
Another good post from Greenwald. I've enjoyed his contributions to War Room more than much of what I've read here for a while. His writing is reflective, contemplative and usually well supported. He also seems to buy into some of the traditional pre-supposed notions that so many others do. It's good to see some insightful reporting in Salon again. Any chance of him getting a column? Better yet, any chance of Salon doing more actual reporting and less bloviation?
It is impossible to equate Bush's "strength" and "policies" with what happened in England. They caught their terrorists before anybody died.
These types of operations do need to be politicized. The Canadian nitrates seizure, the Holland Tunnel plot, now this. Democrats -- or anyone else who really wants to fight terrorism -- need to point out that it's the world's security services rather than its armed forces that are the best weapon in the "War on Terror."
Funny enough, anytime the pres' ratings collapse or take a dive another plot is uncovered. It is certain that this investigation in Britain went on for some time prior to the announced arrests so why were there no warnings, even hidden ones at the airport checkins? And listening to the Bushmans speech with all its hemmings a harrings, as well as the hmms, does not convince me that his way is the right way. There were terrorists about before 9/11 even back to and before Caesars time, but by invading Irak and bringing "democracy and freedom" to the people of this country he created more terrorists than any person before him. And he talks about Islamofashism, conveniently forgetting his own brand of this evil ideology, and trying to circumvent the Warcrimes act of l996!
Anyone know what civil rights the British have lost in the name of national security? What laws the cops broke to squirrel out the plots? How much is Tony Blair emulating the Bushies' imperial arrogance? Do they have a Patriot Act for coverups or a FISA court to flout? Just curious.
I thought the reason for being in Iraq is that we were fighting terrrorists there so that we wouldn't have to fight them here at home. Well one of the reasons, anyway. So if the strategy of fighting-them-there so that we-don't-have-to-fight-them-here is valid, wouldn't that mean that terrorists wouldn't be on the verge of entering the U.S. to implement some terrible plot? If we still have to defend the borders and watch for bad guys about to do bad things, wouldn't it make more sense to put those hundreds of billions of dollars (that we're spending on the Iraq war) to work keeping things secure over here -- since, as it turns out, we have to do that anyway?
I, too, would be curious what civil liberties changes the Brits have undertaken.
I suspect, at least, that they were changed under the rule of law, rather than by an illegal Executive power grab.
I'm not sure how or why but I am positive it's his fault.
I'm not very partial to conspiricy theories but there are a few things about today's headlines that make me suspicious:
1. The announcement and arrests occurred the day after our primary elections, even though the plotters have evidently been followed for months;
2. The timing of the arrests was known in advance to Bush and Company for several days and Bush appeared on camera, on schedule, with a carefully crafted speech that told us to be afraid, very afraid, and attempted to link his surveillance activities and our counterterrorism efforts to the discovery of this plot;
3. So far as has been reported, the British police, not our counterterrorism officials were responsible for breaking up this attempt;
4. According to some news reports this type of threat has been well known to our homeland security officials since the 1990's when a similar plot was accidentally discovered in the Philippines, yet we have not deployed the technology to detect the chemicals which terrorists would use, due to budget constraints.
I'm not saying that there is no terrorist threat, only that the Bush Administration had no role in protecting us in this case, and in fact has neglected to install the necessary equipment in airports to detect these kinds of explosives. Instead, what I see is an opportunistic attempt to manufacture fear without actually doing anything to protect us, and using the situation to justify their irrational militarism and attack on our civil liberties.
According to a close Lieberman adviser, the President's political guru, Karl Rove, has reached out to the Lieberman camp with a message straight from the Oval Office: "The boss wants to help. Whatever we can do, we will do." - from ABC News
So, now we have a "foiled" "terror" "plot" and a "red" alert. How much more of the GOP's help for Joe can America afford?
I propose that supporters of the Iraq War have the burden of proving how, exactly, a) that conflict is related to the "war on terror," and B) how it advances said war. I don't mean by spouting meaningless platitudes about how "staying on the offensive" since 9/11 has made us safer and how Saddam was supposedly, at some point in the future, going to supply WMD's to terrorists. I mean by offering specific ideas that refute the following:
That the massive amounts of manpower, blood and treasure that have been, and continue to be, pissed away into desert sand wouldn't have been better spent finding Osama bin Laden, thoroughly eliminating the now-resurgent Taliban and re-building Afghanistan; how emboldening Iran and increasing its power by eliminating its greatest enemy and political counterweight makes the U.S. safer; how destabilizing a country by turning it into a chaotic shitstorm of sectarian violence doesn't create an environment that is hospitable for terrorist training and recruitment; how killing thousands of Iraqi civilians, directly or indirectly, is supposed to earn us goodwill in the Arab and Muslim world that can be used to gain allies in the war on terror; how the U.S.'s half-assed, corrupt, incomplete and incompetent reconstruction of Iraq is supposed to convince the Iraqi people that we actually give a shit about them and their country in the long-term.
Much of the initial coverage about Fort Hood turned out to be wrong. Is there anything wrong with that?
The accountability imposed by another country for the CIA's kidnapping and torture reveals much about our own.
Fox News' morning show plays to type, talking about whether Muslims in the Army should face "special debriefings"
219 Democrats and one Republican join in favor of the legislation, which passed by a narrow margin
The survivor and author is upset about comparisons some on the right are making to genocide
Salon headlines in your mailbox
