failure to protect us
Thomas Keane and Lee Hamilton, former chairs of the 9/11 Commission, ask the question "are we safer today?" Let's see what Donald Rumsfeld asked his advisers back in 2003: "Are we capturing, killing or deterring and dissuading more terrorists every day than the madrassas and the radical clerics are recruiting, training and deploying against us?"
Keane and Hamilton conclude that "The answer is no." Unfortunately, they are right.
Not only are we creating more anti-American feeling by our absurd, founded-on-lies, and ill-conceived war in Iraq, we haven't even captured Osama Bin-Laden nor destroyed Al Qaeda. Remember, de facto President Bush said in 2001 that we would get Bin Laden, "dead or alive." Well, that is yet another mission that has NOT been accomplished. Al Qaeda is still alive and is even regenerating some of its capacity that was degraded by our invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. And remember, not only did Bush-Cheney's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 create a whole new category of anti-American insurgents and terrorists, it diverted American military resources from Afghanistan at a critical time when Bin Laden could have been captured.
As Bush himself has said, the top priority of a president is to protect the people of the United States. Bush has failed. He failed in 2001 in large part by ignoring all of the professional government terrorism experts who were frantically trying to get him and his senior political national security advisers to pay attention to the warning signs that preceded 9/11 - remember, famously the Clinton Administration went on full alert in the last months of 1999 and successfully prevented a big millennium terrorist plot that planned to attack in Los Angeles. And Bush is failing now.
Keane and Hamilton conclude that "The answer is no." Unfortunately, they are right.
Not only are we creating more anti-American feeling by our absurd, founded-on-lies, and ill-conceived war in Iraq, we haven't even captured Osama Bin-Laden nor destroyed Al Qaeda. Remember, de facto President Bush said in 2001 that we would get Bin Laden, "dead or alive." Well, that is yet another mission that has NOT been accomplished. Al Qaeda is still alive and is even regenerating some of its capacity that was degraded by our invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. And remember, not only did Bush-Cheney's decision to invade Iraq in 2003 create a whole new category of anti-American insurgents and terrorists, it diverted American military resources from Afghanistan at a critical time when Bin Laden could have been captured.
As Bush himself has said, the top priority of a president is to protect the people of the United States. Bush has failed. He failed in 2001 in large part by ignoring all of the professional government terrorism experts who were frantically trying to get him and his senior political national security advisers to pay attention to the warning signs that preceded 9/11 - remember, famously the Clinton Administration went on full alert in the last months of 1999 and successfully prevented a big millennium terrorist plot that planned to attack in Los Angeles. And Bush is failing now.
posted by Don Q Blogger at 8:56 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home