It's been the distraction of the week from the papers to the evening news to Keith Olbermann's "Special Comment". Nobody told Fmr. Vice President Dick Cheney that his term expired at noon on January 20th. He's back...and he's armed with some of the most divisive, unpatriotic comments I've ever heard.
He told Politico that he believes some in the Obama administration believe that, "if we just go talk nice to these folks, everything's going to be okay". I ask the VP to find one person who believes that if we talk friendly to Al Qaeda everything will be okay. Especially considering Pres. Obama is deploying more troops to Afghanistan as we speak.
Cheney believes that this country has to give up some of its values at times of national security. That's simply not true, especially when doing so violates international law, federal law and the Constitution which requires the President to uphold all treaties. If we give up our rights and our values because the going got tough, what does that say about us as people?
Besides, neither Cheney nor Bush should be criticizing anyone on national security considering that they allowed 9/11 to happen. In 2001, President-elect Bush's transition team was told by the Clinton administration that (well he didn't have to be told if he just read the New York Times but anyway) Al Qaeda was linked to the USS Cole bombing. This came after Bin Laden said he was "satisfied" with the attack.
They were told that several other attacks were thwarted and that Al Qaeda was the biggest threat coming into the new millenium. And then of course, on August 6th, 2001, President Bush received (and perhaps read?) the infamous daily briefing that was entitled, "Bin Laden Determined to Strike Within US". The briefing warned of attacks on airports so if we had only heightened airport security, perhaps men with box cutters would have been thwarted. Or perhaps if President Bush did not spend a third of his Presidency away from the White House, we could have found out more before the attacks.
Condolezza Rice admitted a breakdown on 9/11 but also said the breakdown was tied to the Clinton administration. Except Bill Clinton found out more information about the USS Cole between October 2000 and the end of his Presidency than George Bush found out about 9/11 between September 11th, 2001 and this past January. If Clinton had been President for a third term, for all we know Bin Laden would have been captured and killed even if the 9/11 attacks never happened.
On September 12th, 2001 he stood atop the still burning rubble saying "the people who knocked down these buildings will hear from all of us soon!" But eight years later Bin Laden is still a free man and an unknown number of conspirators were released from Gitmo under Bush that Cheney admitted went right back to terrorism. He let the dead down, he let their families down and he let our country down by breaking that promise.
And speaking of that, Cheney asked who's fault it would be if someone released were to attack us again. Well, Mr. Private Citizen...if someone released under George Bush attacks us...that's George Bush's fault. If any of the people who the Justice Department under the incompetent Mukasey, Gonzalez or Ashcroft should have convicted and killed as opposed to release attack us, history will not blame Barack Obama no matter how condescendingly you, Mr. VP, ask it to. It'll blame you, Pres. Bush and your Atty. Generals.
The fact that President Bush's Justice system is an embarrassment to this country is of the least importance compared with the fact that it has so angered Al Qaeda's followers that an untold number of Al Qaeda members only became terrorists as a result of President Bush's system. If we had not alienated our allies and destroyed our principles, Al Qaeda would not have been able to rally so much support.
It has been said that even the insurgency in Iraq is partly the fault of torture in that it rallied an untold number of people into fighting against this nation killing a number of U.S. men and women that we will never know for sure.
And, Mr. VP, just because you have kept American soil safe since 9/11 does not mean you kept us safe. There are still over 4,000 men and women dead in Iraq and Afghanistan, English friends dead in London after the mass transit bombings and Americans abroad killed in terrorist attacks around the world. Are you really willing to tell the mother of a dead soldier that you kept us safe?
Mr. Cheney, if you do not believe in the basic values of all Americans, then maybe you should just leave. And if you're going to wish failure upon the President of the United States, then you should definiately leave. We're not talking of Rush wishing death to our economy...we're talking about a former Vice President wishing for something that would kill untold numbers of Americans on our soil. When did Al Gore, Dan Quayle, Walter Mondale or any other Vice President ever do something so destructive?
The Bush Legacy: President Bush kept us safe*
*Except 9/11 & Iraq & Afghanistan
Do not be suckered into Cheney's same old intellectual fear mongering. Read the fine print.
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