Did Bush keep us safe after 9/11?

By Jacob Freeze, Section Diaries
Posted on Tue Apr 21, 2009 at 10:07:06 AM EST
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What happens to the Democrats if there's another major terrorist attack within the United States, during the administration of Barack Obama?

Cheney has already made Obama the fall guy for another 9/11, and Republicans will probably continue to reinforce the meme that Democrats have weakened national security by ending "enhanced interrogations," withdrawing "prematurely" from Iraq, and so on.

Tons of cocaine pour across our borders non-stop, and there's absolutely no way to prevent biological, chemical, or even nuclear weapons from following the same channels.

Democrats could make the argument that "enhanced interrogations" wouldn't interrupt the supply of cocaine, or prevent weapons of mass destruction from crossing the Mexican or Canadian borders, and every relatively intelligent person in the United States already knows this...

All 30% of us.

Meanwhile, the same 70% percent who thought Saddam had sponsored 9/11, just because Bush kept saying "Saddam....9/11....Saddam....9/11..." in disconnected sentences...

That 70% would never vote for another Democrat.

So how can Democrats avoid getting swept into the dust-bin of history by another major terrorist attack within the United States?

There's obviously a downside to making it crystal clear that our borders are too porous to defend, because the bad guys are also listening, and even if the relatively intelligent 30% of them already comprehend the porosity of our borders in detail, Republicans could still claim that anyone who discussed border-security had given terrorists a blue-print for terror.

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Did Bush keep us safe after 9/11? | 10 comments (10 topical)

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Is it really only 30% (5.00 / 1) (#1)
by jbindc on Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 03:30:40 PM EST

I thought that was the number of people who still believed Saddam had something to do with 9/11? In other words, I think your numbers are backwards (although I could be wrong).

And Cheney's not the only one - remember Biden saying the world would test Obama? Was that a promise or a threat?

The conservative argument that there were no attacks on US soil after 9/11 are factually true. However, they would not make the same argument of Bill Clinton after 1993.

Honestly, I don't feel "safer" because Obama's in the WH. I don't think I'll ever feel "safer". I think there are very bad people in the world who want to do us harm and they are not sitting back thinking, "Wow - we hated Bush, but now that he's gone, we don't feel the need to hurt Americans anymore." That's just naive.

It's also naive to believe that if we play nice with folks like Al-Qaeda, then all will be wonderful and the world will be at peace. These guys need to be squashed like a bug, except they are so spread out, and have so many spokes to their organization, it will be impossible.

I'm in the minority around here, but I don't think you can take the idea of sending a couple of B-52s over and leveling their camps off of the table. Diplomacy only works when both sides are willing to engage in it, and if one side isn't willing to do that, then that side must be dealt with in a way they understand.

I by no means (5.00 / 1) (#3)
by JamesTX on Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 11:32:32 PM EST

want to downplay the importance of 9/11 or insult the victims of that attack, but I think the fundamental point being missed with all this reasoning is the actual risk and cost involved. Fundamentalist god people are a danger wherever or whoever they are, because they operate on the belief that they have some kind of special relationship with an unobservable omnipotent being, and that relationship gives them the right to harm others who they think are enemies of the omnipotent being. It has all the characteristics of a psychosis. The problem is, we have the same types of people here as the fundamentalist Muslims in the middle east. Our country has just taken a wild ride on a political bender supported and materialized by that portion of our population who believe they, too, have a personal relationship with an omnipotent being who wants some large proportion of the rest of us impoverished, incapacitated, or killed for failure to comply with the fundamentalists' conception of religious laws. The largest and deadliest terrorist attack prior to 9/11 was, in fact, carried out by Americans who fit the same description and think in the same way. The terrorist threat is something we are going to have to come to terms with and learn to live with, just as other countries have (like U.K.). We will never be completely "safe", but we aren't going to be safer by destroying civil liberties and trying create a fail-safe security system at any cost. The facts are clear. Our probability of being a victim of a terrorist attack is much less than our probability of being killed in an auto accident, dying from a medical mistake, or falling victim to any other of wide variety of hazards that we never consider worthy of rewriting our Constitution to avoid or giving up our liberties to remain safe from. The fundamentalist religion insanity is something we need to be researching and learning more about, but is not the "emergency" that we are pretending it is. It is hazard, but it is low on the list of things that actually kill Americans on a daily basis. This fear is not rational.

: "This fear is not rational." (none / 0) (#6)
by Jacob Freeze on Thu Apr 23, 2009 at 06:04:42 PM EST

I agree with most of your comment, except your estimation of the risk of future terrorist attacks within the United States, and I disagree in two different ways.
I think there's a high probability of another major terrorist attack within the United States, and I think the likely damage is almost incalculable.
A large "dirty bomb" can be constructed from radioactive junk which is relatively easy to obtain, compared to fissionable material. With favorable wind conditions and placement, such a thing could render Manhattan Island uninhabitable for 50 years. Disorganization of the American economy would be almost complete.
What happens next?
Who rules a chaotic and enraged nation, with twice as many weapons as the rest of the world combined?

Although I can't agree with you... (5.00 / 0) (#9)
by Jacob Freeze on Fri Apr 24, 2009 at 12:27:06 PM EST

Although I can't agree with you in this instance, jb, thanks just the same for taking the time and trouble to comment intelligently on my diaries, way down here in the readers' humble little corner of TalkLeft.

: If we agreed on everything (5.00 / 1) (#10)
by jbindc on Sat Apr 25, 2009 at 05:40:45 AM EST

There would be no point in having a discussion, no? It would be an echo chamber like some blogs / threads and that would be boring. :)

72% (none / 0) (#2)
by Jacob Freeze on Wed Apr 22, 2009 at 10:22:55 PM EST

Thanks for your thoughtful comment.

From CNN...

In a February (2003) CNN-Time poll, 76 percent of those surveyed felt Saddam provides assistance to al Qaeda. Another poll released in February asked, "Was Saddam Hussein personally involved in the September 11 attacks?" Although it is a claim the Bush administration has never made and for which there is no evidence, 72 percent said it was either very or somewhat likely.
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman said he thinks the TV networks' news coverage has helped sell the Saddam-al Qaeda connection. "Suddenly, it was Osama, Osama, Osama ... Saddam, Saddam, Saddam ... and the networks -- the broadcast media -- simply picked that up [and] transferred our feelings of alarm and anger from one villain to another."

I don't know whether we're safer or less safe with Obama, or how much good it would do to bomb another camp in Afghanistan.

My only firm conviction about the "war on terror" is that we will be safer if we ever stop humiliating and killing muslims.

Most Americans have absolutely no conception how much fundamentalist muslims were insulted by the presence of female American soldiers in Saudi Arabia, from 1992 until sometime after 9/11 2001.

Leaving aside the general situation of women in Islam, and without intending to reduce all muslims to a fundamentalist stereotype, it's still worth repeating...

Most Americans have absolutely no conception how much fundamentalist muslims were insulted by the presence of female American soldiers in Saudi Arabia.

Ok (5.00 / 1) (#4)
by jbindc on Thu Apr 23, 2009 at 03:43:49 PM EST

I was thinking of the number of people who still believe Saddam was tied to 9/11. Thanks for setting me straight.

I guess my response is, "So?" The US military went into Saudi Arabia on August 7, 1990, at the request of the royal family (if I remember correctly) as a defensive move to keep Iraq from invading there and taking over the Hama Oil Fields, which if Iraq had overtaken, would have given them the lion's share of the world's oil reserves. While a general principle is that we should respect the customs of the country, the fact is, we have females in our military. What if the Saudis were offended by the presence of black American soldiers? Should we have acquiesced and left them out of there?

And I still disagree that we will ever be "safer" - regardless of what we do or don't do. These people are a very small minority and honestly, I don't think it has anything to do with being "Muslim" - it has to do with money and power. I think these extremists, as all extremists do, are using their bastardized version of their religion as an excuse to do widespread harm.


"So?" (none / 0) (#5)
by Jacob Freeze on Thu Apr 23, 2009 at 05:46:33 PM EST

"So?" As in "So what?"

9/11 is what.

I don't want any women to go to my grave at all during my funeral or on any occasion thereafter.

Mohammed Atta had advanced degrees in engineering, architecture, and urban planning. The only job he could get was loading boxes.

I don't want a pregnant woman or a person who is not clean to come and say good-bye to me because I don't approve it.

So what?

I wanted the people who I left behind to hear God and not to be deceived by what life has to offer.

What does life have to offer?

The people who are preparing my body should close my eyes and pray that I will go to heaven and to get me new clothes, not the ones I died in.

Maybe the end of the line for Mohammed Atta could have been unskilled labor in the EU or Egypt, but jihad offered him a little travel and adventure, and the dignity of martyrdom, and so what?

You should throw the dust on my body three times while saying from the dust, we created you from dust and to dust you will return. From the dust a new person will be created.

And every time we make another martyr, another martyr is created, and so what?

Amal was attractive and self-confident. She observed the Muslim niceties, taking taxis to and from the office so as not to come into close physical contact with men on the buses. But, said Hauth, she was 'emancipated' and 'challenging'. It seemed, too, that she was as interested in Atta as he was in her. Atta was Egyptian and Hauth last week recalled how Amal had teased his friend with one of those half-admiring, half-provoking asides that women reserve for men they find attractive. 'All Egyptians are Pharaohs,' she is said to have joked.">Amal was attractive and self-confident. She observed the Muslim niceties, taking taxis to and from the office so as not to come into close physical contact with men on the buses. But, said Hauth, she was 'emancipated' and 'challenging'.

It seemed, too, that she was as interested in Atta as he was in her. Atta was Egyptian and Hauth last week recalled how Amal had teased his friend with one of those half-admiring, half-provoking asides that women reserve for men they find attractive. 'All Egyptians are Pharaohs,' she is said to have joked.

'All Egyptians are Pharaohs." It's just a little joke about big-spending Egyptians in Europe.

But Mohammed Atta wasn't a Pharaoh. He was a dirt-poor laborer in a warehouse, and his chance of marrying anyone like Amal was zero.

9/11 is what.


So (5.00 / 1) (#7)
by jbindc on Fri Apr 24, 2009 at 09:18:39 AM EST

we should not allow female soldiers to do their duty because people like Atta are crazy zealots and doesn't approve of women based out of his own insecurities?

Scr*w people like Atta. We can't let the very small minority of people like him dictate to us - "Boo hoo! I hate women, so women shouldn't be allowed on sacred Saudi soil (even though the Saudi royal family asked them to be there)!"

I think Atta's personal fear was that he would be captured and some strong woman would have power over him.

We didn't make a martyr - Atta made a choice to fly a plane into a building. Are we supposed to cower to these terrorists and say "Please don't hurt us"?

Frankly, while we should learn a lesson from 9/11 about not falling asleep at the wheel, Atta should join the ranks of Tim McVeigh and Dylan Kleibold & Eric Harris, and we should ignore their memory and let them fade into history.

We should get the last laugh.


: "We should get the last laugh. " (none / 0) (#8)
by Jacob Freeze on Fri Apr 24, 2009 at 11:46:05 AM EST

This is the "last laugh."