Our country is in great jeopardy.
This short video of a special report by Olbermann outlines exactly what the Bush Administration did or did not do in the eight months leading up to 9/11. It is incredibly damning to the Bush Admin.
It also puts the lie - the outright lie - to Rice's assertion that they did everything they could, and that they were not given a plan for dealing with Al Qaeda.
Our President and his administration has been grossly negligent in keeping our country safe, and his negligence and bad judgment have led to monstrous consequences for our country. And it's only getting worse, as he tries to dig his way out of his hole by digging deeper.
As Andrew Sullivan recently said: if the President thinks that Torture is a powerful and useful tool in the War on Terror and that Habeas Corpus is a quaint relic of history, then things are more dire than our worst imaginings. Our President is systematically undermining our country and Congress has abdicated its responsibility to check him.
Fellow Americans, I sincerely believe our country is in serious trouble. Trouble that transcends our political differences. And our President has shown that he is worse than simply "not up to the job" - he's actively destructive in his role.
It also puts the lie - the outright lie - to Rice's assertion that they did everything they could, and that they were not given a plan for dealing with Al Qaeda.
Our President and his administration has been grossly negligent in keeping our country safe, and his negligence and bad judgment have led to monstrous consequences for our country. And it's only getting worse, as he tries to dig his way out of his hole by digging deeper.
As Andrew Sullivan recently said: if the President thinks that Torture is a powerful and useful tool in the War on Terror and that Habeas Corpus is a quaint relic of history, then things are more dire than our worst imaginings. Our President is systematically undermining our country and Congress has abdicated its responsibility to check him.
Fellow Americans, I sincerely believe our country is in serious trouble. Trouble that transcends our political differences. And our President has shown that he is worse than simply "not up to the job" - he's actively destructive in his role.
posted by Geo at 11:56 PM
3 Comments:
Of course the Bush Administration didn't cause the events of 9/11. Nor do I know anyone putting forward an argument along those lines, except for conspiracy theorists.
I believe Osama bin Laden and his supporters caused 9/11. I deal with reality.
That said, it's really impossible to ignore the fact that numerous warnings were given to the Bush Administration, which they failed to act on. The video I linked it pretty damning in that regard.
The Daily Briefing entitled "Bin Laden Determined to Attack the United States", for example. Clarke's urging to beef up a strategic response to OBL, which Rich said would need to be postponed for months until further review is another example.
On the morning of 9/11, Rice had a presentation she was going to give on the "number one threat to US safety". It was calling for missile defense, not more robust counter-terrorism efforts. It seems at most every step, the Bush admin dropped the ball on this.
As for tracking down bin Laden, after the fact, they've not done all they could do, either. Not too long ago, Bush himself has said, regarding bin Laden, "I'm just not that concerned about him." The Bush Administration has dismantled the special taskforce focusing on finding bin Laden. And almost immediately after we went into Afghanistan, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld diverted attention from prosecuting the war there to instead engage in their elective war in Iraq that is now, according to the consensus of intelligence agencies, is making us less safe in the world by increasing the terrorist threat.
These are all facts. And they can't really be avoided when taking a sober, critical view of the path we took to get where we are today.
Bush's actions and judgment are not those of a competent national leader. His decisions have cost thousands of troops' lives. His war has wasted hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars and ruined our hard-earned reputation in the world. And his incompetence continues to cost us dearly.
As much as I may respect the man for his personal faith, and for the gravity of his office, he suffers from being simultaneously arrogant and incurious - a deadly combination in a leader. Combine that with his willingness to roll back Constitutionally enumerated rights, Geneva Conventions treaty provisions and equivocate on torture, for goodness' sake, and we have a real danger.
This sounds harsh. I guess it is. But I cannot bring myself to simply overlook Bush's incompetence or excuse it with subtle evasions simply because I desperately wish things were better.
One more for the books, taken from today's headlines:
Members of the Sept. 11 commission said today that they were alarmed that they were told nothing about a White House meeting in July 2001 at which George J. Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, is reported to have warned Condoleezza Rice, then the national security adviser, about an imminent Al Qaeda attack and failed to persuade her to take action.
Details of the previously undisclosed meeting on July 10, 2001, two months before the Sept. 11 terror attacks, were first reported last week in a new book by the journalist Bob Woodward.
Let's be clear about this. IN ADDITION TO everything we've heard about the Bush admin inaction and dropping the ball on the terrorist threat prior to 9/11, we now learn that there was another specific briefing in July 2001, two months before the attacks, at which Rice was explicitly warned of an imminent Al Qaeda attack, but did nothing about it.
As if that weren't bad enough, the Bush admin then covered up the fact that this briefing had taken place, and did not let the 9/11 Commission know about it.
Rational minds must, at some point, recognize - despite all the rhetoric - the simple fact of this administration's gross negligence and impotence in the face of a mortal threat to our nation.
We all knew that there were members of the CIA stating 'Hey - there's an attack coming'. They said it to the Clinton administration and it comes as no surprise to me that it was told to the Bush Administration.
Yet, strangely, it comes as quite a big surprise to Condoleezza Rice that she was specifically warned. She explicitly denied being warned about the imminent threat from al Qaeda. Of course, the White House records now demonstrate that she was not telling the truth. We used to call that lying, but I understand it's impolitic to use that word, nowadays.
Personally, I'm all for moving forward. Unfortunately, the Republicans are so busy trying to dismantle history and re-write it to suit them, it sadly calls honorable folks' attention back to the past, just to preserve the truth of what actually happened.
Perhaps if the Bush Administration and their Republican enablers weren't so busy desperately trying to revise history to cover up their own incompetence, we could all work together on crafting a better future.
That'd be my preference, anyway.
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