Cheney-Bush Republicans ARE BAD For America's Security. FAILURES upon INCOMPETENCE upon ARROGANCE upon FRAUD...
BRAVO! Almost single-handedly, Ned Lamont's uphill primary battle and win against "Zell Miller Democrat" Joe Lieberman has unleashed almost an uprising of pent-up Democratic outrage against the ABUSES and MISUSES of the Cheney-Bush administration of the "War on Terror" for that administration's own selfish, corrupt, Endanger-America political ends.
In this case, Larry Beinhart, author of "Wag the Dog" and "The Librarian," compiles a list of Bush-Cheney MASSIVE SECURITY FAILURES in America's "war on terror."
Needless to say, it was President Bush and Vice President Cheney who DID NOTHING, NOT_ONE_THING, to prevent the 9-11 hijackings or make the terrorist's job more difficult. The Bush-Cheney-Rove-Rusmfeld-Rice team DID NOT EVEN PUT OUT A GENERAL TRAVELLER's ADVISORY, something that airports do every day, e.g. "Be aware that travel to ____ (Haiti, Yemen, other destinations, etc.) may be dangerous and pose a threat of kidnapping for American travellers."
Even a routine "General Traveller's Advisory" in the summer of 2001 would have made ANY hijacking a hundred times more difficult... and THE MOMENT the first 9-11 airliner was hijacked, THE ENTIRE AVIATION INDUSTRY would have been alerted and would have responded FORCEFULLY to prevent the second, third, and fourth hijackings.
But instead the Bush-Cheney-Rice-Rove-Rumsfeld team LEFT AMERICAN AIRLINE TRAVELLERS AND CREWS exposed, complacent, ignorant of the threat.... served up like ham on a platter.
Just imagining the difficulties the 9-11 hijackers would have had, had the Bush-Cheney administration put out a "General Traveller's Advisory of a hijacking threat in America" in that summer of 2001, illustrates how the Bush-Cheney administration's FAILURE to put out a such an advisory in that summer of 2001 was a National Security BETRAYAL of major proportions, a betrayal exceeded only by the Bush-Cheney-Rove administration's ability to TRANSFORM THAT FAILURE, bordering on betrayal, INTO A MAJOR PROPAGANDA VICTORY "Bush and Cheney are STRONG on national security."
The failure to put out a "General Traveller's Advisory" in the summer of 2001, given that the national security "system was blinking red" that Al Qaida terrorists wanted to 'top' their SUCCESSFUL attack on the USS Cole in a Yemen harbor in October of 2000, is all the more criminally negligent given that Attorney General Ashcroft, the nation's top Law Enforcement official at the time, was personally "ordered" to stop flying on public airliners, because of an FBI "THREAT ASSESSMENT" on July 26 of that year!
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtml
As the Bush-Cheney administration drags us deeper into the Iraq war quagmire, creating a virulent miasma of hatred against the American people as videos, of victims are dragged out of the rubble left from American bombs, are broadcast across the Arab and Muslim world, President Bush practically BRAGGED about America's occupation of Iraq, condescendingly lecturing host President Vladimir Putin of Russia at the recent G8 summit in Mosco on the virtues of "a free press" and "democracy" as Bush perceived them to be on display in Iraq.
In George Bush's view, reinforced daily by the sycophants in the White House and US government, and by the deferential and boot-licking US press and media, the war in Iraq HAS BEEN A POSITIVE VENTURE, never mind that India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, and even Saudi Arabia are now engaged in a full-throttle nuclear arms race (India about to purchase $5 billion in GE nuclear technology from the US to further their nuclear weapons production at SEVENTEEN "secret" nuclear enrichment reactors, a deal personally approved by Pres. Bush); never mind that Iraq has become a civil war of sectarian (religious-based) death squads with a weekly body count in the hundreds; and never mind that America has spent over THREE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS, and the lives of at least 2,600 servicemen and women in Iraq, so Mr. Bush could snigger that "freedom and democracy are on the march!" in Iraq, even as that nation of 25 million people becomes a insurgent's dream-nightmare of hands-on terrorist training battles in a land that now despises its foreign occupiers.
Herewith are Larry Beinhart's NINE NATIONAL SECURITY FAILINGS of the Bush-Cheney administration, an administration of gross, in-your-face incompetence, arrogance, corruption, lies, censorship, spying, and deceit - all of which ENDANGER America daily. As, for example, the fact that US embassies across the world are staffed with officials WHO DO NOT KNOW HOW TO SPEAK the local languages, a handicap that would make it almost impossible to understand what terror groups are operating in any such given country. President Bush and Vice President Cheney CONTINUE to STICK THEIR HEAD IN THE SAND about promoting hatred of America, and UNDERCUTTING America's security, but solely because they own the press-media and intimidate the Democrats, they have been able to get away with it.
Those days are changing.
Larry Beinhart: Republicans are Bad on National Security
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Sun, 08/13/2006 - 5:03am. Guest Contribution
Buzzflash.com guest contribution
by Larry Beinhart, author of Wag the Dog and Fog Facts
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/354
Say it loud, say it often, "Republicans are bad on national security." Every Democrat running for national office – and local offices too, why not? – should say, "I'm running because Republicans are bad on national security."
Then they should go on to say, here's why I’m saying it:
1. 9/11 happened on their watch. Of course, we can’t say, absolutely, that it would not have happened if they had not been asleep at the wheel. But we can say that they did not do all they could have done to prevent it. We can say that Bush literally pushed away the warnings.
2. George Bush and the Republicans failed to get Osama bin Laden. We got both Hitler and Hirohito in less time than we’ve been chasing bin Laden. Every day that bin Laden’s out there, he’s proof that you can attack the United States and get away with it. That’s a bad message to send, and believe me, people in the terrorist world have heard it loud and clear. That’s very bad for national security.
3. George Bush and the Republicans gave Osama bin Laden what he wanted. Bin Laden wanted the US to get into a quagmire. He wanted our troops tied down in an Islamic country so that an insurgency could do to them what the Afghanis did to the Russians and to the British before them.
A modern, hi-tech army is very good at invasions. It’s also good for fighting back against other armies. But a modern hi-tech army is not good at occupying a country against the will of the population. Even if the army is as violent and ruthless as the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan were.
4. George Bush and the Republicans squandered America’s power and prestige. Before 9/11 most people in the world probably thought that America’s intelligence services were able and astute, agencies to be feared. The Bush administration has made them appear bumbling and inept. They did this, first, by ignoring their warnings and then, second, by making them the fall guys for 9/11.
After 9/11 most of the world feared America's wrath and America's might. By failing to get bin Laden and his gang, then by attacking the wrong country, unleashing chaos, and getting our armed forces into a situation that they can’t win, the administration showed the world they have less to fear than they imagined.
5. The Bush administration empowered Hezbollah. The 'insurgency' in Iraq was Hezbollah's textbook and their inspiration. If Iraqis could do that to Americans, surely they could do the same to the Israelis. And they have. It's not yet on the record, but it's clear from everyone's conduct, that the administration encouraged the Israelis to 'unleash' their forces against Hezbollah. They probably thought Israel's modern hi-tech armies would quickly smash their enemy.
6. The Bush administration radicalized Hamas. Hamas was elected. Sworn to the destruction of Israel or not, they should have been encouraged to become responsible players with carrots as well as sticks. Instead the administration put them up against the wall, hoping to starve the Palestinian people into voting for a different group. Would that work if someone tried to do it to us?
7. Bush and the Republicans tied down our forces in Iraq while Iran and North Korea invested in nuclear technology. That made North Korea feel secure enough to test ICBMs. If they had been successful, they would have had a delivery system for their nuclear weapons. That would be incredibly bad for national security. Iran, with American forces tied down in Iraq, feels secure enough to defy the UN as well as the US. Very bad for national security.
8. By the way, every major European nation has had successful arrests and real trials of real, dangerous terrorists. People on the level of this group that the British just took down. The most ferocious terrorist arrested in the United States since 9/11 has been the shoe bomber. Ten, twenty, forty, a hundred billion dollars, a trillion dollars, and the best we have to show for it is the shoe bomber?! Republicans are bad on national security.
9. We have trashed the bill of rights. We have trashed the Geneva conventions. We have a president and a vice president willing to go the mat to fight for the right to torture people.
We have spent a fortune on illegal wiretaps.
We have spent a fortune on collecting everyone’s telephone data.
And what have we achieved by all of this?
A quagmire in Iraq. Dishonor. Debts. An empowered al Qaeda. A new war in Lebanon. The inability to stand up to Iran and North Korea. Osama bin Laden at large, an inspiration to extremists everywhere.
Republican are unimaginably bad on national security. Say it loud. Say it often, it’s the truth, Republicans are bad on national security.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Larry Beinhart is the author of Wag the Dog, The Librarian, available at nationbooks.org, and Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin available at BuzzFlash.com Progressive Marketplace.
In this case, Larry Beinhart, author of "Wag the Dog" and "The Librarian," compiles a list of Bush-Cheney MASSIVE SECURITY FAILURES in America's "war on terror."
Needless to say, it was President Bush and Vice President Cheney who DID NOTHING, NOT_ONE_THING, to prevent the 9-11 hijackings or make the terrorist's job more difficult. The Bush-Cheney-Rove-Rusmfeld-Rice team DID NOT EVEN PUT OUT A GENERAL TRAVELLER's ADVISORY, something that airports do every day, e.g. "Be aware that travel to ____ (Haiti, Yemen, other destinations, etc.) may be dangerous and pose a threat of kidnapping for American travellers."
Even a routine "General Traveller's Advisory" in the summer of 2001 would have made ANY hijacking a hundred times more difficult... and THE MOMENT the first 9-11 airliner was hijacked, THE ENTIRE AVIATION INDUSTRY would have been alerted and would have responded FORCEFULLY to prevent the second, third, and fourth hijackings.
But instead the Bush-Cheney-Rice-Rove-Rumsfeld team LEFT AMERICAN AIRLINE TRAVELLERS AND CREWS exposed, complacent, ignorant of the threat.... served up like ham on a platter.
Just imagining the difficulties the 9-11 hijackers would have had, had the Bush-Cheney administration put out a "General Traveller's Advisory of a hijacking threat in America" in that summer of 2001, illustrates how the Bush-Cheney administration's FAILURE to put out a such an advisory in that summer of 2001 was a National Security BETRAYAL of major proportions, a betrayal exceeded only by the Bush-Cheney-Rove administration's ability to TRANSFORM THAT FAILURE, bordering on betrayal, INTO A MAJOR PROPAGANDA VICTORY "Bush and Cheney are STRONG on national security."
The failure to put out a "General Traveller's Advisory" in the summer of 2001, given that the national security "system was blinking red" that Al Qaida terrorists wanted to 'top' their SUCCESSFUL attack on the USS Cole in a Yemen harbor in October of 2000, is all the more criminally negligent given that Attorney General Ashcroft, the nation's top Law Enforcement official at the time, was personally "ordered" to stop flying on public airliners, because of an FBI "THREAT ASSESSMENT" on July 26 of that year!
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtml
As the Bush-Cheney administration drags us deeper into the Iraq war quagmire, creating a virulent miasma of hatred against the American people as videos, of victims are dragged out of the rubble left from American bombs, are broadcast across the Arab and Muslim world, President Bush practically BRAGGED about America's occupation of Iraq, condescendingly lecturing host President Vladimir Putin of Russia at the recent G8 summit in Mosco on the virtues of "a free press" and "democracy" as Bush perceived them to be on display in Iraq.
In George Bush's view, reinforced daily by the sycophants in the White House and US government, and by the deferential and boot-licking US press and media, the war in Iraq HAS BEEN A POSITIVE VENTURE, never mind that India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, and even Saudi Arabia are now engaged in a full-throttle nuclear arms race (India about to purchase $5 billion in GE nuclear technology from the US to further their nuclear weapons production at SEVENTEEN "secret" nuclear enrichment reactors, a deal personally approved by Pres. Bush); never mind that Iraq has become a civil war of sectarian (religious-based) death squads with a weekly body count in the hundreds; and never mind that America has spent over THREE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS, and the lives of at least 2,600 servicemen and women in Iraq, so Mr. Bush could snigger that "freedom and democracy are on the march!" in Iraq, even as that nation of 25 million people becomes a insurgent's dream-nightmare of hands-on terrorist training battles in a land that now despises its foreign occupiers.
Herewith are Larry Beinhart's NINE NATIONAL SECURITY FAILINGS of the Bush-Cheney administration, an administration of gross, in-your-face incompetence, arrogance, corruption, lies, censorship, spying, and deceit - all of which ENDANGER America daily. As, for example, the fact that US embassies across the world are staffed with officials WHO DO NOT KNOW HOW TO SPEAK the local languages, a handicap that would make it almost impossible to understand what terror groups are operating in any such given country. President Bush and Vice President Cheney CONTINUE to STICK THEIR HEAD IN THE SAND about promoting hatred of America, and UNDERCUTTING America's security, but solely because they own the press-media and intimidate the Democrats, they have been able to get away with it.
Those days are changing.
Larry Beinhart: Republicans are Bad on National Security
Submitted by BuzzFlash on Sun, 08/13/2006 - 5:03am. Guest Contribution
Buzzflash.com guest contribution
by Larry Beinhart, author of Wag the Dog and Fog Facts
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/contributors/354
Say it loud, say it often, "Republicans are bad on national security." Every Democrat running for national office – and local offices too, why not? – should say, "I'm running because Republicans are bad on national security."
Then they should go on to say, here's why I’m saying it:
1. 9/11 happened on their watch. Of course, we can’t say, absolutely, that it would not have happened if they had not been asleep at the wheel. But we can say that they did not do all they could have done to prevent it. We can say that Bush literally pushed away the warnings.
2. George Bush and the Republicans failed to get Osama bin Laden. We got both Hitler and Hirohito in less time than we’ve been chasing bin Laden. Every day that bin Laden’s out there, he’s proof that you can attack the United States and get away with it. That’s a bad message to send, and believe me, people in the terrorist world have heard it loud and clear. That’s very bad for national security.
3. George Bush and the Republicans gave Osama bin Laden what he wanted. Bin Laden wanted the US to get into a quagmire. He wanted our troops tied down in an Islamic country so that an insurgency could do to them what the Afghanis did to the Russians and to the British before them.
A modern, hi-tech army is very good at invasions. It’s also good for fighting back against other armies. But a modern hi-tech army is not good at occupying a country against the will of the population. Even if the army is as violent and ruthless as the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan were.
4. George Bush and the Republicans squandered America’s power and prestige. Before 9/11 most people in the world probably thought that America’s intelligence services were able and astute, agencies to be feared. The Bush administration has made them appear bumbling and inept. They did this, first, by ignoring their warnings and then, second, by making them the fall guys for 9/11.
After 9/11 most of the world feared America's wrath and America's might. By failing to get bin Laden and his gang, then by attacking the wrong country, unleashing chaos, and getting our armed forces into a situation that they can’t win, the administration showed the world they have less to fear than they imagined.
5. The Bush administration empowered Hezbollah. The 'insurgency' in Iraq was Hezbollah's textbook and their inspiration. If Iraqis could do that to Americans, surely they could do the same to the Israelis. And they have. It's not yet on the record, but it's clear from everyone's conduct, that the administration encouraged the Israelis to 'unleash' their forces against Hezbollah. They probably thought Israel's modern hi-tech armies would quickly smash their enemy.
6. The Bush administration radicalized Hamas. Hamas was elected. Sworn to the destruction of Israel or not, they should have been encouraged to become responsible players with carrots as well as sticks. Instead the administration put them up against the wall, hoping to starve the Palestinian people into voting for a different group. Would that work if someone tried to do it to us?
7. Bush and the Republicans tied down our forces in Iraq while Iran and North Korea invested in nuclear technology. That made North Korea feel secure enough to test ICBMs. If they had been successful, they would have had a delivery system for their nuclear weapons. That would be incredibly bad for national security. Iran, with American forces tied down in Iraq, feels secure enough to defy the UN as well as the US. Very bad for national security.
8. By the way, every major European nation has had successful arrests and real trials of real, dangerous terrorists. People on the level of this group that the British just took down. The most ferocious terrorist arrested in the United States since 9/11 has been the shoe bomber. Ten, twenty, forty, a hundred billion dollars, a trillion dollars, and the best we have to show for it is the shoe bomber?! Republicans are bad on national security.
9. We have trashed the bill of rights. We have trashed the Geneva conventions. We have a president and a vice president willing to go the mat to fight for the right to torture people.
We have spent a fortune on illegal wiretaps.
We have spent a fortune on collecting everyone’s telephone data.
And what have we achieved by all of this?
A quagmire in Iraq. Dishonor. Debts. An empowered al Qaeda. A new war in Lebanon. The inability to stand up to Iran and North Korea. Osama bin Laden at large, an inspiration to extremists everywhere.
Republican are unimaginably bad on national security. Say it loud. Say it often, it’s the truth, Republicans are bad on national security.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST CONTRIBUTION
Larry Beinhart is the author of Wag the Dog, The Librarian, available at nationbooks.org, and Fog Facts: Searching for Truth in the Land of Spin available at BuzzFlash.com Progressive Marketplace.
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