POST TRAUMATIC STRESS VOTING

Remember the REAL war on terrorism that the Bush administration and its allies decided not to fight, preferring cowboy-style military adventures. (emphasis author's)

The revelation yesterday of the elaborate plot to blow up airliners over the Atlantic Ocean with liquid explosives reminds us of the real threats we face--as opposed to the phantom threats that George W. Bush and Tony Blair have conjured to justify their disastrous war in Iraq…

…The bungled occupation of Iraq has drawn new recruits to the jihadist cause around the world, and now the disproportionate Israeli assault on Lebanon is doing the same thing. We are at war with an ideology, and pounding it frontally just disperses it. It's like trying to smash mercury with a hammer.
--"The War Bush Isn't Fighting," Eugene Robinson, Washington Post, August 11, 2006.


While the British terror suspects were hatching their plot, the Bush administration was quietly seeking permission to divert $6 million that was supposed to be spent this year developing new homeland explosives detection technology…

…The (Homeland Security) department failed to spend $200 million in research and development money from past years, forcing lawmakers to rescind the money this summer.

The administration was also slow to start testing a new liquid explosives detector that the Japanese government provided to the United States earlier this year.

…Tony Fainberg, who formerly oversaw Homeland Security's explosive and radiation detection research with the national labs, said he strongly urged deployment of the detectors overseas but was rebuffed.
--"Bush Staff Wanted Bomb-Detect Cash Moved," John Soloman, Associated Press Writer, Yahoonews.com, August 12, 2006.


A nearly obsessive focus on the previous attacks may have prevented the federal government from combating new threats effectively, terrorist experts and former agency officials say.

The arrests overseas this week of people accused of planning to use an explosive that would be undetectable at airports illustrates the SIGNIFICANT SECURITY GAP, (emphasis mine) they said.
--"Focused on 9/11, U.S. Is Seen to Lag on New Threats," Eric Lipton and Matthew L. Wald, New York Times, August 12, 2006.


I must say, I'm amazed. Not that there was another terrorist plot underway against the U.S. Not that the combination of superb police work and counter-terrorism intelligence--NOT MILITARY MIGHT--on the part of the Brits, I repeat, Great Britain--foiled that plot. Not even the massive governmental panic that resulted and forced old ladies to fork over their diabolical lipstick and toothpaste tubes in order to protect our fair citizens, and those from England who wanted to visit us, from evil.

I'm not even amazed that the same government that gave us Katrina misery and malfeasance, and almost four years of death, destruction, and despair in Iraq--not to mention plummeting troop morale and dropping enlistment figures--plus reconstruction corruption and war pirateering unheard of…well, anyway, I'm not amazed that this same Republican-misrun government would be caught with its pants down, exposed and unprepared for real threats…even though--again, not surprised!--THEIR OWN EXPERTS WARNED THEM AND THEY EVEN HAD THE MONEY IN THE BUDGET TO CONCENTRATE ON SAID THREATS.

No.

This is what amazes me.

That such incompetency SOMEHOW, SOME WAY…managed to get twisted around by the Republicans to be another Swift-boat attack on who? The Democrats!

Yep. Somehow this is all the Democrats' fault, and furthermore, if we hapless Democrats continue to vote for such terrorist-enablers as Ned Lamont, well, we're all dead. The terrorists win. There will be a mushroom cloud over Manhattan. And Bin Laden will be LAUGHING at us!

Therefore. We must, WE MUST trust the Republicans to KEEP US SAFE.

So, boys and girls. Let's review:

I'm not even going to do it myself. Actually, I already have, in an earlier blog called, "Are We Safer Yet?" (June 21, 2006.)

Instead, I'm going to quote at length from a superb article by Robert Kuttner in the Boston Globe. I wish I could reprint the whole damn thing here, but the high points are sure worth repeating:


…The general ideological and military menace of militant Islamism, are all jumbled into a single all-purpose word--Waronterror. And if you're AGAINST the Bush strategy, you are of course WITH the terrorists. (emphasis author's.)

"Bipartisan" Democrats such as Lieberman, who help President Bush, are good guys. Those who question Bush's strategy help our enemies and make America less safe. The November elections, and the future of our security, will depend on whether Americans see through this blarney. If the right succeeds in persuading voters that this is all one undifferentiated mess requiring Bush-style bravado, America is in even deeper trouble…

Did Al Qaeda have any connection to Saddam Hussein? (No.)

Was Bush's Iraq war a debilitating diversion of attention and resources from the more important ongoing battle against Al Qaeda? (Yes.)

Did Bush spend most of 2001 blowing off warnings about Al Qaeda, shutting out people like national security official Richard Clarke who actually knew something about terrorism, and ignoring escalating warnings of a plot in progress? (Yes.)

Has the Iraq war made America a more effective force for stability and against militant Islamism? (No.)

Did Bush's grand strategy advance the cause of Middle East democracy and civility? (No.)

Did Bush's larger design for the Middle East make Israel more secure? (No.)…

This argument isn't about who supports terrorists. It's about the right strategy for protecting America. And ever since this president took office, his policies have set back that cause…

After more than five years of Bush's blundering grandiosity, a majority of Americans are increasingly skeptical of his policies. America has never faced anything like the hydra-headed threat of Islamist terrorism. Bush's entire performance, from assumption to execution, has placed America at greater risk. To say that is not to abet terrorism, and Bush's critics should be saying it loud and clear.
--"A Convenient Threat," Robert Kuttner, August 12, 2006.


So, they haven't made us safer. They've just been very very good at promoting mythology.

Well, lies.

And in fact, at first, when I questioned the amazing timing of the wide media release of this terrifying terror plot and subsequent logjam of airports, I thought I was just being paranoid.

That is, until I started reading similar accusations in legitimate news outlets. I would have expected it from Buzzflash. But MSNBC? The Associated Press? The Washington Post?

C'mon.

One reporter flat-out asked Tony Snow, White House press secretary, about when the White House had known, when Dick Cheney had known, and how the decision was made to release that information RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF (a) CONTINUING BAD NEWS FROM IRAQ AND THE MIDDLE EAST AND (b) NATIONAL QUESTIONING OF REPUBLICAN POLICIES IN THOSE WARS AFTER THE BUSH-FLUNKY DEFEAT IN CONNECTICUT BY AN ANTI-WAR CANDIDATE.

And here is a direct quote, from MSNBC, of Tony Snow's reply:

Spokesman Tony Snow was asked directly whether the Administration knew of this terrorist plot beforehand (he said yes) and whether they knew the news about it would break today--just after they had whacked Democrats on Lamont's victory. Snow's answer raised our eyebrows. "Let me put it this way, I don't want to encourage that line of thought. I don't think it's fully accurate, but I also don't want--I know it's frustrating, but we really don't want to get too much into who knew what, where, when."
--"GOP Still Trying to Make Hay from Lamont Win," Mark Murray, MSNBC.com, August 10, 2006.



Boys and girls, are you paying attention?

This was not a denial.

So the White House--and particularly Dick Cheney--pretty much orchestrated this whole thing so they could pull up flagging poll numbers on their number-one campaign issue--the so-called "war on terror."

Much the same way that, during the presidential race of 2004, they often called a hysterical panicky orange-alert whenever John Kerry was looking particularly good.

I'm not saying that the Brits did not stop evil men from trying to kill innocent civilians in a massive headline-grabbing way. This is what terrorists plot and this is what terrorists do, and the only real way to fight them is through extremely good intelligence and extremely good law enforcement. You cannot fight an unconventional war with conventional means. Ask my son and his buddies--Marines who spent the better part of the past two years trying to do just that in Fallujah, Ramadi, and other Iraqi hellzones.

You cannot smash mercury with a hammer. It just disperses in millions of little mercury-balls that poison and kill anyone who handles them.

Anyway, what I'm saying is that either the White House pushed Tony Blair to rush the arrests in order to get the most political gain just before some grim-looking mid-term elections, or at the very least, knew full well the arrests were pending just as they stepped up their Swift-boat attacks on the Democrats, so that they could get the most mileage out of it.

And don't think it will stop with fear-mongering to get votes. The White House has already admitted that they intend to use this terror-scare to shove their agenda through Congress:

White House officials said Friday that the fallout from the discovery of the British bombing plot could help the administration advance its agenda in Congress. The officials cited in particular battles over supervising the program of eavesdropping without warrants and how to try detainees held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

Taking the White House's lead, Republicans throughout the country used the arrests of terror suspects in Britain to go on the offensive against Democrats for the second day in a row.

--"Bush Aides Foresee Gains on Eavesdropping and Guantanamo," Jim Rutenberg, August 12, 2006.

You can expect to hear one administration spokesperson after another hype up the White House agenda, no matter what their position in the government. Expect them to slip into their comments the same talking-points, and at the same time, to HINT, for instance, that the terrorists were caught because of warrantless surveillance. The terrorists were caught in Great Britain and we don't know how that was done, but the Republicans have never cared very much for the truth. They will say whatever they have to in order to advance their agenda.

Watch for mainstream media to allow them ample room to make these bogus claims and make no effort to refute what they are saying, or to check out the "facts" presented in the broadcast. Print journalists will come closer, but most are deadline-driven and don't want to take the time.

It's up to the voters to ferret out the real truth themselves. Don't just swallow whole what you are fed.

Boys and girls, I have said it before and I cannot say it too many times.

Know when you are being manipulated.

Know that those in power in this administration will do anything to stay in power, will say anything to stay in power, will try anything to stay in power.

They will take a real threat, and rather than efficiently dealing with that threat through well-funded research and development and careful heading of experts in the field who know, will stumble around and heedlessly let the threat get out of control, because they are busy, as one counter-terrorism expert said tonight on NBC Nightly News: "They are working to prevent the last attack."

--Rather than deal with it intelligently, they will bumble and stumble around until it grows into a SERIOUS threat, and then they will say things like, "No one could have foreseen this," and then they will USE IT AS A WEAPON TO ATTACK ANYONE WHO DARES TELL THE TRUTH ABOUT THEIR OWN INCOMPETENCE.

Don't fall for it. Not again. For five years, the American people have voted from a deep dark well of post traumatic stress disorder.

PTSD voting put these miserable failures in control of our destiny.

Now, we're getting some serious group therapy; we're getting better. Oliver Stone is even making a movie about our shared trauma and we're watching it.

We're starting to think straight now.

Vote intelligently. Don't be fooled. Let them be fooled.

I'll close with a great quote--only slightly tongue-in-cheek, from an editorial in the Philadelphia Daily News, called, "Bush and Cheney's Reign of Error":


These people have no shame. Their contempt for democracy is so great they will stop at nothing to undermine it. Their adherence to fundamentalist beliefs that blinds them to reality is frightening. They must be stopped.

And that's just the Republicans.
--"Bush and Cheney's Reign of Error," editorial, Philadelphia Daily News, August 11, 2006.