Top 9 Reasons Why Republicans are Bad for National Security
Posted in H.L. News, Main Blog (All Posts) on August 19th, 2006 7:12 am by HL
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.
August 19th, 2006 at 9:30 am
[…] Original post by HL and software by Elliott Back […]
August 20th, 2006 at 7:36 am
You can;t just make these accusations without looking back into history. That ignorant of you to do. The facts are that this global terrorsit network did not spawn over night. Much of it developed during the Clinton years. In fact, Clinton had the opportunity to prosecute Bin Laden in the 90’s and he didn’t. I’m an independent, but I think the Republicans have a better grip on national security. That is a main reason why they have the majority on Congress right now.
There hasn’t been a terrorist attack in 5 years. I credit the Bush Administration for that. It is the Democratic Party which ignored these terrorist regmies….was hussein not killing thousands of his own people and building a weapons program in the 90’s? was North Korea and Iran not pursing nuclear weapons in this time period? was Al Qaeada not planning attacks and carrying them out?
Be fair and look back. We were faced with these problems due to the apathy of Bill Clinton. You can’t say the Republicans have a failed National Secuirty policy when there hasn;t been a terrorist attack in five year- bottom line.
August 20th, 2006 at 11:45 am
Richard,
Good post but unfortunately incorrect. I just went over this exact same thing in another post.
Clinton could not prosecute Bin Laden back in ’96 as republicans claim because at that point he had not done anything against the U.S. However when Bush and Condi got the warning on August 6, 2001 that Osama wanted to fly planes into buildings they did nothing. John Ashcroft stopped flying commercial, but he was the only one to get that warning. By then it had pretty much been determined that Bin Laden was behind the Cole bombing so the threat should have been taken much mor seriously.
You say “There hasn’t been a terrorist attack in 5 years. I credit the Bush Administration for that.” Well aside from the first WTC bombing in which only 6 people died, AND CLINTON CAUGHT TRIED AND IMPRISONED ALL INVOLVED, There has never been a terrorist attack on U.S. soil (Pearl Harbor was an act of war by a sovereign nation) So you should be giving Bush the blame for the only attack instead of praising him for not F**king up again.
You say you are in independent, so stop reading Hannity, and Drudge, and learn the truth.
August 20th, 2006 at 11:54 am
Was there a terrorist attack during the five years before Bush? Seems to me that the current administration has not made America safer – quite the contrary and your argument is specious at best.
Terrorists don’t have to directly attack America anymore. Their objectives have been realized. American forces are stretched thin, Americans are dying in conflicts that have no relation to the 9/11 atacks, America has lost it’s moral authority on the world stage,and is viewed as a dangerous, perhaps rogue nation, and the Administration is busy dismantling the Freedoms that terrorists hate.
Who has the upper hand here?
August 20th, 2006 at 2:22 pm
Well how about this then.
1. Clinton spent his second term doing nothing while Al qaida was a growing threat. In fact, all he and Berger did was define a problem. Orther than collect data for three years what did they do? What did they do to protect america orther than collect data for a future memo? They hid behind defining the problem. The best the Clinton administration could do is a three year observation. A measly observation. They spent time waiting, and hopeing, and preying, and wishing, and waiting, and wondering and hopeing………………
They got lucky……..They were able to pass the hot potato and get out of town with a ‘Al Qaida has been a growing threat’ memo. That was disasterous for national security.
2. The only message being sent is if you have al qaida training in your country your going to get wacked. Democrats would not have went into Iraq or Afghanistan. Alqaida would be getting free bes’ That would have been bad for national security.
3. If the democrats had their way we would have no mighty army to have that power and presteige. This would be bad for national security.
4. Clinton was in power when Al qaida manifested. Allowing Al qaida to go unchecked gave hope to orther terrorist groups such as hezzbollah and Islamic Jihad who had been around for 20 years. This was bad for national security.
5. Democrats fluff off nations that threaten Israel’s existence. They want to have diplomacy with people who want to blow themselves up. Democrats can not rationalize. This damages our national security.
6. Had Clinton not let North Korea have nuclear reactors in the 90s, they would not be getting ready to test a nuke now. Plus democrats are against missile defense(not star wars) but missile interceptor deployments. Missiles that shoot down ICBMs in the midcourse. This was a double screw up by democrats. Yep. Gave them the stuff in the 90s to make their bombs. And dont want to be able to shoot down those bombs post the screw up.
Democrats are just disasterous for America’s national security.
August 21st, 2006 at 2:17 pm
HL,
That is not true. The first WTC bomber in 95 had links to Osama. They could have questioned Osama in 96 the admin did not do so.
August 21st, 2006 at 6:47 pm
Isn’t it so nice to have Republican’ts tell us all how Democrats would have behaved? That Democrats would disband the military? Amazing how people who are opposed to Democratic thinking in any way, shape or form can tell everyone how Democrats think.
Too bad the Republican’ts who are running everything these days can’t do anything constructive at all. They’ve made America less secure, they’ve multiplied the terrorist threat, both at home and around the rest of the world, by a factor of ten, and they’ve made Americans hated around the globe. While ruining the economy and oppressing their own citizens. For starters.
Too bad the Republican’ts threw away all of the intelligence work the Democrats had been doing on al Quaeda, because they were spoiled brats who refused to deal with the previuos administration.
Too bad these Republican’t assholes forgot all about the American terrorist that the Clinton administration imprisoned and executed for his crimes. Funny how they don’t seem to notice that he was a Republican’t asshole just like they are. Funny how they forget that a Republican’t president, Ronald Ray-Gun, supplied Saddam Hussein with the poison gas he used to massacre the Kurds. Funny how they forgot that Ray-Gun was also the one who got bin Laden started in Afghanistan in the eighties, and they try to lie and blame Clinton for the mess that Ray-Gun and PapDoc Bush made when they were president.
We don’t have to guess what the Republican’ts would have done to terrorists – we can see with our own eyes how they’ve increased the terror threat worldwide over the last five years. We can see how they are so desperate to throw young Americans into the fray that they let rapists (of their fellow soldiers as well as the citizens of the country they’re occupying) and torturers serve in the military (but none of them damn queers! – they’re not moral enough to join the military). We can see how they have imprisoned innocents, with no charges, no court review, no trial, and no hope of release (even though they’re innocant) for over five years now. And how they threaten anyone who dares to point out their criminal activities.
Excellent post, HL. If anything you were too nice to these perverted animals who have terrorized their own population, while stuffing our tax dollars into their bulging wallets. I’d say that the knee jerk followers who still blindly support their Fuhrer should be ashamed of themselves – but then I’d have to think that they were capable of feeling shame or having a conscience. So I’ll just leave a little bit of the truth here to contrast with their lying horseshit…
August 21st, 2006 at 11:57 pm
Wow…. I don’t know where to begin. I just have some questions to start. What did Clinton do to protect America from terrorists? You say that Bush has multiplied the terrorist threat by 10… My question is: What terrorist threat do we have now, while Bush is in office, that wasn’t identified by Clinton’s “Growing Threat” memo when Clinton was in office? Do you think that Bush created more terrorists or do you think that he has made Americans more aware of the ones that already existed before he was president? I hope we can all agree that president Bush is doing what his very smart advisors are telling him is the best thing to do to combat the growing terrorist threats identified by the Clinton “Growing threat” document right? These are many of the advisors who told Clinton the same things needed to be done but he didn’t want to do it because it was going to be political suicide. Can everybody admit that we don’t have a clue what is really going on compared to the presidents? Don’t you think that they might have a little more information than we do? Clinton said that Sadam had WMD’s too, right? It was his intelligence department that determined that and that was the information that Bush relied on to go to war. So don’t say that Bush lied to everybody about WMD’s when Clinton is the one who was impeached for his lies. The one thing that Bush did wrong was trust a democrats intelligence. Do you think that if Clinton would not have cut the intelligence budget so much to help pay down the deficit that Bush may have had a better chance of getting the information from the CIA to prevent 9/11? Bush was still busy rebuilding the destruction left behind by Clinton in the intelligence department. I used to be like most of you democrats out there… I though that Clinton was doing a good job because things seemed good. The deficit was down and people seemed happy. I thought that he was doing well on the economy until I realized at was expense it came. His little economic plan to spend less caused 9/11 which caused the already slowing economy, that started slowing almost a year before Bush was in office, to almost fall apart. Good thing Bush was in office to limit the potential economic downfall that could have been created by the terrorist attack on 9/11. It is agreed that the terrorist objective was to hit the American economy… well… we are doing pretty well all things considered. The best chance of preventing that attack would have been to destroy the threat when they were weak and unorganized. They grew and organized when Clinton was in office… not Bush. The last point that I would like to make, since this is all pointless anyways because most of you (dems and reps.) are all closed minded anyways, is that AT LEAST BUSH ISN’T GETTING HIS DICK SUCKED IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!!! You talk about shameful. And then to song and dance around it when you knew you were wrong. You can say that all politicians song and dance, including Bush I know, but that is because they think that they are right and they don’t think everybody will agree is all. Clinton knew he was wrong and still tried to song and dance. At least other politicians are just song and dancing and not strait up lying like Clinton. Let’s not ever use the basis of honesty and honor when trying to say that Clinton was some how a better president or person than Bush when Clinton was the only president in a long time to be IMPEACHED FOR PURGERY!! I have never been so ashamed to be an American than when Clinton was being impeached for lying about getting his dick sucked in the White House. The closest Bush has come to embarrassing me is when he tries to give a speech… lol.
August 22nd, 2006 at 2:47 am
I enjoyed the writing. If it happens on your watch, you are the always the one to blame. The first WTC bombing on Clinton’s watch is his responsibility, same as Bush II, and all of the Presidents for that matter.
The difference is Bush and Company brought god from the republican party and the religious right. The religious right sold their god for power and money just like their counter parts the “publicans” of the eastern world.
Bush and company believed that their god: greed, power, lies, corruption, deceit, traiters to the real God and country. could spin away all the negative facts being presented.
Bush and Company believed that their god will be on their side and truly believed that nothing could stand in the way of profiteering for the sake of national and energy security.
A Classic case is Katrina. Any so-called religious – god fearing natiion who would allow their fellow humans to wait 5 days for help and let them starve, drown, die all over the city, in streets, homes and at the Convention Center cannot possibly have god on their side.
Bush and Company’s integrity, intellegence, truthfulness, ability and capability to lead the nation is truly a national security disgrace to all Americans who feel we deserve better.
My feelings are let the religious right and all republicans pay for the war in Iraq in its totallity. This includes all the lives lost both militarily and civilians. This includes the financial and miliary manpower needed. All should come from the republican-religious wrong war-monger partiers.
Let the same group with their friends of the Oil business pay for any and all over-charges in gas prices from the year after Bush and Company claimed the throne that does not exist.
What happened to the U.S. Constitution, the Bill of Rights, State and Federal laws. What is happening with U.S. foriegn policy for decaded going bonkers.
Democrates are not saints, and they don’t claim to be saints. But as the good book says that liers and thieve will be thrust to hell and that my friends is where most of Bush and Company will be.
August 22nd, 2006 at 10:54 am
Wow…. I don’t know where to begin.
You could begin by giving us your name, as opposed to cowering behind anonymity. But I’m sure the horseshit hypocrisy and misdirection will start to come out soon…
say that Bush has multiplied the terrorist threat by 10… My question is: What terrorist threat do we have now, while Bush is in office, that wasn’t identified by Clinton’s “Growing Threat†memo when Clinton was in office? Do you think that Bush created more terrorists or do you think that he has made Americans more aware of the ones that already existed before he was president?
I wouldn’t know anything about the “growing threat” memo, since I haven’t read it. Perhaps you should bear in mind that the outgoing Clinton admin tried to inform the new regime about the dangers posed by bin Laden, and the new guys didn’t want to listen…
I think Putsch has created over ten times as many terrorists, numbers-wise, since he started his campaign of unilateral invasion and occupation of foreign countries. I also think that he has deliberately exaggerated and mislead everyone about the terrorist threat, so that America is at least twice as scared as it should be about the situation.
I hope we can all agree that president Bush is doing what his very smart advisors are telling him is the best thing to do to combat the growing terrorist threats identified by the Clinton “Growing threat†document right? These are many of the advisors who told Clinton the same things needed to be done but he didn’t want to do it because it was going to be political suicide.
I am afraid that we cannot agree on any of this. Particularly when you frame the questions with loaded phrases like “his very smart advisors”, and you persist in putting forth the propaganda point that Clinton didn’t care about national security for political reasons. Especially since it appears to me, as it does to many others, that the current cabal bases all of its’ decisions on partisan politics.
Can everybody admit that we don’t have a clue what is really going on compared to the presidents? Don’t you think that they might have a little more information than we do?
Funny – you seem to know all about how and why Clinton did everything that he did, and you base your lies about him on this (by your own admission) incomplete information. Almost equally funny is the point that you chastise others for doing this about pRezNit Pull My Finger while you savage Clinton.
Clinton said that Sadam had WMD’s too, right?
But, Clinton did something about it – he engaged in precision military strikes to destroy those WMDs, and then sent investigators in to confirm that he got rid of them. So they were gone by the time that the Drunken Cokeheaded Deserter usurped power in 2000.
I wonder why the current junta used outdated information, without verifying it, to invade a country with a lot of oil?
So don’t say that Bush lied to everybody about WMD’s when Clinton is the one who was impeached for his lies.
Bush lied to everybody about WMD’s. I will continue to say it over and over again until somebody can prove that he didn’t. Especially when a whole lot of people who know an awful lot about the situation (both Democrats ad Republican’ts) say the same thing.
Clinton was impeached due to a partisan Republican’t witch hunt that wasted millions of taxpayer dollars, and tied up Congress for years. He was subjected to the kind of scrutiny that Republican’ts won’t let anybody do to the Boy Blunder. And now that Republican’ts control the impeachment process, funny thing, you can’t even start proceedings against a chief executive who is actively engaging in high crimes and misdemeanors! Perhaps you’re unaware that there have repeated calls for an impeachment investigation that the Republican’ts won’t even consider…
Do you think that if Clinton would not have cut the intelligence budget so much to help pay down the deficit that Bush may have had a better chance of getting the information from the CIA to prevent 9/11?
That must be why we have had such a robust increase in government outlays for intelligence, and why we can’t even afford to pay to service our national debt now that the Cheerleader in Thief has doubled it. Oh, wait…
I can’t even be bothered to amuse myself by replying to most of the rest of your Republican’t horseshit, except for this:
AT LEAST BUSH ISN’T GETTING HIS DICK SUCKED IN THE WHITE HOUSE!!!!
I wonder if you could prove that? Especially considering that these clowns let a gay hooker spend over 200 nights in the White House with their dear Chimperor.
Smarter ditto monkeys, please…
August 23rd, 2006 at 7:11 pm
It is strange how some Clintonian Clintonites say they have never herd of the ‘growing threat’ memo when they say that the Clinton crew tried to warn Bush. Clinton did warn Bush……in a memo. The memo did not say that Al qaida had been a threat for a couple of days. Clinton warned Bush about a GROWING threat to America. This threat had been growing for three or four years. Mr. Clinton sure collected that data. Yep, he collected data and collected data and collected data and collected data. Month after month. Year after year. Mr. Data collector and cheif. Preping for that national security protecting memo! The waiter and cheif. The presidential salary collector for nothing and cheif. The American people got screwed, blued and tatooed by Slick the *ick………