They Kept Us Safe -- or Did They?
President Bush and Dick Cheney, far busier with the Bush-Cheney Legacy Tour than with their final days exercising executive (or whatever branch Cheney's in) power--we can hope, are offering one overarching defense of the administration's performance: there was no further attack on "the homeland"--i.e., the US of A--since 9/11.
Setting aside the matter of the post-9/11 white powder episodes, this argument has a certain appeal that has attracted conservative pundits and bloggers. Sure, there have been terrorist attacks since 9/11 on London, Madrid, and Australians in Bali, as well as all sorts of folks in Mumbai, but--homeland safe.
So, if Bush & Cheney et al are entitled to brag about keeping America safe for seven years, logic dictates that Bill Clinton and co. can similarly boast about no attacks on the homeland after the first World Trade Center assault in 1993. Sure, there were attacks on the USS Cole and the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania--but nothing on the "homeland."
So, a question for conservatives: did the Clinton administration, like the Bush administration, do a fine job of protecting the country once it had undergone one al-Qaeda attack? Or did both administrations fail to prevent the initial attack in the first place?
Or does al-Qaeda just have a longer time-frame for its attention span than American administrations?
(EDITED TO CORRECT SPELLING AND INCLUDE TANZANIAN EMBASSY ATTACK)
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Maybe safe from others... but they (Bush & Cheney) have terrorized us for the past 8 years. Al Queda is NOTHING compared to those two and their cronies.
Yup, I've asked this question in a slightly different manner in the last couple of weeks; I don't believe any of the NeoCon trolls ever bothered to answer.
Of course, my point is to do with the measures taken by BushCo: illegal wiretapping, the Patriot Act, renditions, unfounded detentions and torture.
Clinton didn't need any of that crap to equal BushCo's record on preventing terrorist attacks by Islamic extremists on US soil.
A so in the end we see--if we look objectively beyond rightwing propaganda--that the extreme measures taken by BushCo had as much to do with national security as the invasion of Iraq had to do with thwarting Sadam's WMDs.
Both were false premises used to acheive corporatist, military strategic and political goals.
Actually, Clinton EXCEEDED bush's record on preventing attacks by Islamic Terrorists on US soil, even if you add in the embassy bombings in 98, since FAR fewer people were killed by Islamic Terrorists during Clinton's tenure than during bush's. And when you look at the time, you will find that Clinton had one month less than a full term without attacks on the US homeland. bush will go for 7 years and 4 months!
Every time i hear or see the word "Homeland" i actually hear in my mind "Fatherland " and i get a mental image of Bush in a postage stamp mustache and Cheney in a robin egg blue military uniform. When i think of how far down the German path of the 40;s they took us i get so angry over the calls to not look back. They deserve the same fate
The US Dept of State publishes an annual report on global terrorism. The latest (2007) can be found at http://www.state.gov/s/ct/rls/crt/2007/2007/[/url] There are plenty of analyses out there proving that global terrorism has increased dramatically since the invasion and continued occupation of Iraq. Do I feel safer in "the homeland?" Nein...
Yeah. I feel so safe I have an emergency bin in the garage with tools, food, etc and a tent I can throw in the car in case of a quick evactuation. Last night I had a nightmare my city was bombed and I couldn't get to my house to get my dog before I fled the city.
Thanks, Bushie. Helluva job.
Powder attacks and the DC sniper. Also "homeland - safe"? Not really. Bush's little war was called the GLOBAL war on terror. In such a case the globe becomes our homeland so Madrid, Bali, London and Mumbai = not safe. Iraq and its hundreds of thousands of dead and millions more injured and displaced are certainly not safe from Bush.
Are you kidding. Clinton was the most responsible person in the world for Al-Queda's strength and emergence and the problems we are having today. he did not react to the attacks on American property and he let them build up.
Sorry,pal, but blaming Clinton for allowing al-Qaida to build up is almost as pathetic as blaming the housing meltdown on Jimmy Carter. No doubt you folks will soon be blaming stuff on Grover Cleveland and 'ol Andy Jackson
And he'lll most likely blame Obama if there is an attack within months of his taking office.
Your comment is misinformation that sinks to the level of stupidity.
Yeah, that's why they attacked us within a MONTH of his taking office and then spent 8 years without the US going out of our way to help them to plan the next big attack!
The fact of the matter is that if there's ANYONE who is more to blame for al-Queda it would be Charlie Wilson who funneled money and weapons to them in the MILLIONS because he wanted the groups that became al-Queda and the Taliban to defeat the Soviets!!
See Harry Shearer's Profile
Just factually, Clinton ordered air attacks on suspected al-Qaeda locations in Sudan. The Republicans denounced those as "wag-the-dog" distractions from the important business of the day, the Lewinsky investigation.
Not to mention the fact that I was stationed in the Gulf in mid '99. We were ordered out to somewhere in the Indian Ocean with our Tomahawks targeted on bin Laden's camps, and all that we were waiting on was the final order to shoot. It never came. The reason? Because the Republican leaders in Congress came to the White House and told Clinton that he could NOT shoot at bin Laden because the Saudis had just landed a plane at the camp!
"Terrorism is a phony issue." - Orrin Hatch, 1996
Yeah, Bush & co have kept us so safe the last few yrs, that:
my husband and I are uneasy about visiting foreign countries for fear of being targeted for violence because we're Americans.
we're reluctant to make any sort of major financial change, including retirement, because of the wrecked economy
we think twice before speaking frankly about politics and policy, especially on the phone or email, for fear of being spied upon by our own government.
we now must keep a huge supply of survival gear in anticipation of the next natural disaster which will render us marooned, abandoned, and totally on our own for days or weeks.
It's just great being so safe.
I'm trying to think of one person I know who actually feels safer since W took office.
You found one!
They said person!
First, as has already been pointed out, it's the USS Cole, not the USS Kohl.
Second, there WAS an attack on the homeland during Clinton's term between the 93 attack and 9/11. It just wasn't by Islamic terrorists. I'm speaking, of course, of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Third, by the logic that bush et al are using, Bill kept us FAR safer than he did, because not only was there a longer time frame between attacks (2/93, less than a month after he took office, until 1/01 when he left, vs 9/01 to 1/09) but because even adding in the OKC bombing there were fewer people killed in terrorist attacks under Clinton's term! In addition to that we must add in all the Americans who have been killed in Iraq by the "insurgents" who have also been called terrorists!
Harry, our borders are so porous we have somewhere between ten million and twenty-two million undocumented persons in the United States. Nothing has been done to stop that situation. Since not every terrorist attack needs to be designed by Irwin Allen, I think there is a more important question that should be asked regarding how the Bush Administration kept us safe.
And can't we please flush the "Homeland" nonsense with this train wreck of an Administration? "Homeland" has nothing to do with ...
My country,' tis of thee,
sweet land of liberty, of thee I sing;
land where my fathers died,
land of the pilgrims' pride,
from every mountainside let freedom ring!
The general indifference of the neocons to the long-continuing
and extensive porous nature of our borders is strong evidence
that they never took the claimed terrorism seriously,
except to the extent that they financially benefited from it,
Harry, a couple of corrections:
USS Cole(not http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/wiki/USS_Cole_attack
U.S. embassies in Kenya & Tanzania were bombed nearly simultaneously http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1998_United_States_embassy_bombings
But to answer the question about the American attention span of al-Qaeda. Many al-Qaeda were trained by our own CIA when they joined the Kosovo Liberation Army to fight for the Muslims that had suffered the genocide during the Bosnian conflict and Serbian ethnic cleansing.
As far as these last eight years, I haven't ever felt safe having Dick n' Bush at the helm. They kept the American populace in perpetual fear.
You do indeed raise interesting points, but the bottom line is (as far as Joe and Sarah Sixpack are concerned) Bush & Company can justifiably claim "victory".
I think Neil Young said it best when he sang: "What if Al Queda blew up the levees, would New Orleans have been safer that day?"
Or as many Americans like me have to say, "My 401K lost almost a third of it's value in the last 6 months, My job is about to be eliminated at the plant, I can't afford the payments for COBRA insurance, no one is hiring and certainly none with the wages & benefits I currently earn, I don't feel safe at all."
Katrina?
Financial crises?
Coal slug disaster in Tennessee (bigger than the Exon Valdes tragedy)
Habeas corpus who?
Yea, I feel safer.
They are on the "These are not the droids you are looking for" tour.
Thanks for all you do Mr. Shearer. Love Le Show and The Simpsons along with your other countless projects and commentary.
Gee, max. I could have just read your comment & typed, "ditto". Exactly. Especially love your "These are not the droids you are looking for" . Must be accompanied by a slow hand-wave, of course.
yea the one finger hand wave that Bush is used to, unless in Africa (remember when he came back from Africa and said that it was nice getting waves where he could see all 5 fingers at the same time ) ROFL
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