President Bush talks about the war on terrorism nearly every time he talks these days, but rarely with the specificity and force he used in Thursday’s speech at the National Endowment for Democracy. It was important to learn that 10 al-Qaida plots have been thwarted since Sept. 11, 2001, including three inside the United States. To his credit, he also made it clear that this is a world war with a clear enemy that is Islamic in name only: “This form of radicalism exploits Islam to serve a violent political vision — the establishment, by terrorism and subversion and insurgency, of a totalitarian empire that denies all political and religious freedom.” Of course, identifying the foe is not the same as vanquishing him.
Posted by Rhonda Holman
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Can The United States Afford An Attack?In the light of the hurricane refugees and their suffering, can the United States really afford an all-out “terrorist” attack? The sobering answer is apparently no. If so, would the best strategy be to make peace with the Arabs or allow a determined people to retaliation, driven by an intense rage against America. Should we be so naive as to think they will not cripple this nation, perhaps forever. Must we think we need to save face.A couple of hurricanes have given us a view of the devastating effect on our economy and hardships our people must endure in a catastrophe. Have we leaned our lesson? Do we still have our sense of being invincible?Have the affects gone unnoticed by the same people whose countries we are ravaging or plan to ravage. And if not, then just how long can we expect them not to notice? How much safety do we have left? How much time do we have left?It is a safe bet that our foreign policy will drive us, not only into the destruction of our way of life, but do irreparable harm to our country and cause what may be the end of the world’s only superpower. It’s called self-destruction.And when, not if, that scenario play itself to its inevitable end, which country shall fill the void of our own undoing, who will take our forfeited spot. Which country will emerge as the next superpower and how will we be treated then? Will they treat us the same way as we’ve treated those whose lives and countries suffered under our heavy-hand? Will we go unpunished?The United States has received damage which can be measured in kilotons, not the megatons of our enemies who pretend not to own them. The same enemies we have so indiscriminately created. When they bring their megatons of destruction to us, the retaliatory attack of 9/11, our ignored wake-up-call, will only pale against the devastation driven by the anger we have so instilled in them. We have murdered their children, their brothers and sisters, their fathers, their mothers, their grandparents. We have destroyed their homes, farms and fields and peaceful villages. We have humiliated them and made them destitute…… They will remember.And above all that: Our Achilles Heel has been exposed for all the world to see by a whirlwind.The United States economy relies heavily on stability, as does each link of chain contribute to its overall strength.Break one link and the chain becomes useless.Our current foreign policy has brought us to the brink, to the tipping point of disaster, but do we have the eyes to see it. To see the reality of what lies just beyond our quest for world dominance. Our plan for their future is standing right in front, frothing with anger before us.America must stop in its tracks before it becomes too late, and set about the healing process that we dictate. We can do that in such a way as to make everyone safe. We have nothing to gain by continuing down our bankrupt path. But we do, however, have everything to lose. For our sake, those with grandiose ideas, ideas leading away from peace need to be forcibly silenced.Any other choice will tip the scales and lead us down the road to perdition. It’s inevitable.
Karl Rove wrote a fine speech for President Bush to mouth. Pretty words with a hopeful future and an outcome so nice for all Americans.
Which of you can truthfully say that you believe his predictions will come true?
Hemmingway said it best: “It’s pretty to think so.”
“It was important to learn that 10 al-Qaida plots have been thwarted since Sept. 11, 2001, including three inside the United States.”
Now Karl Rove is back to his old tricks. That statement is right up there with “yellow cake.”
Did “they” all confess?
Earth to Ed.
The yellow cake thing was true. Get over it.
How can this jerk not notice that bombs are going-off everyday, killing, killing, killing.
The rage was not been triggered?
Karl, you making a fool out of a fool. No need!
I wonder if the three thwarted Al Qaida plots were more substantial than the thwarted casing of financial buildings we learned about earlier (which actually happend pre-9/11/01). I posed a version of this question to J.D. Couch, Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor. (Who will be holding a question and answer session on the White House web site at 3pm – Central time).
I am thinking that we may not hear more details about our successes. And if I am correct about that, we will be told there are good reasons that we don’t/can’t know the details. It is troubling that there is so much secrecy with this administration and there are so few areas where they might wish to avoid accountability. :-)
For certain: Karl Rove and his Neocons are desperate. Their ship is sinking. And that, boys and girls, is just what this “speech” is really all about.
They lied and lied and lied and got away with it, now they want that privilege again. Are the American People willing to give it up?…..We’ll see.
And this afternoon, Rove is back testifying before Fitzgerald’s committee. But this time, for the first time, the Prosecutor’s office has warned Rove that they cannot guarantee that he won’t be indicted. Kind of puts Bush’s ’speech’ in the proper perspective, don’t you think?
Here’s something else that puts Bush in the right perspective: Macbeth’s speech in Dunsinane, particularly the last couple of lines.
“Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor playerThat struts and frets his hour upon the stageAnd then is heard no more: it is a taleTold by an idiot, full of sound and fury,Signifying nothing.”
From the President’s speech:”Zarqawi has vowed, ‘We will either achieve victory over the human race or we will pass to the eternal life.’We are fortunate that the President understands this ultimate goal of radical Islamists. His speech is another blockbuster.
Those who demean and belittle his leadership against Islamo-fascism only show their utter ignorance and sinister agenda.
I much prefer the President’s leadership in the War On Terror to the rantings and lies of his avowed enemies.
Zarqawi is dead.
He was killed in the intial invasion. This one-legged terrorist is everywhere and responsible for everything in Iraq according to Bushistas.
By scape-goating everything to “Zarqawi,” BushCo. doesn’t have to face the unpleasant truth that they are fighting a popular insurgency against an imperial power, ours.
Ed needs his own blog.Somebody please get this done.
Until we focus on why the terrorists feel the way they do about us, we’ll always be threatened by a potential attack. Believing we can wage a successful war against them in Iraq and defeat or kill them all is so naive and shortsighted, only the mentally challenged still believe that spin. Until we change our foreign policy, we will always be seen as the bad guys by the rest of the world.
Ed needs his own newspaper. I think I would name it “The Sun”
My opening editorial:
Good Morning……
In my most recent job, I worked now and then with people from the JTTF (Joint Terrorism Task Force) and, while my role was limited, I can say without question that we will certainly never hear details about successes in stopping terrorists.
One reason is the methods used (such as informants) would be compromised. The people working at JTTF are serious, dedicated profesisonals who do not have time to worry about what a non-terrorist is reading from the library. The JTTF is working overtime to prevent another massive attack that kills innocent people.
Do we ‘need to know’ about blocked attacks and thereby teach the terrorists how to avoid our security? This is one case where trust is an absolute. Whether you like Bush or not, he has nothing to do with the day to day grind of the nameless people who are literally putting their lives on the line to protect us.
A little trust is needed here.
You’ve run out of trust, pal.
Bush needs another “terrorist” attack to go with his speech.
I’ve never been real big on coincidences.
Too convenient for Karl and his thugs. Not that they won’t do it, they will, they’ll do anything it takes to keep their “terrorism” game alive.
Sharon used to blow-up buses when things got slow.
Just as an update, in his press briefing today, Scott McClellen announced that 2 of the 3 disrupted attacks were: Jose Padilla & Iman Faris. I wonder if the 3rd was the group of fellows in rural New York. Maybe not earth-shaking news.
The “terrorists” are coming,The “terrorists” are coming,The “terrorists” are coming,The “terrorists” are coming,The “terrorists” are coming,The “terrorists” are coming,
{ 6 more “terrorist” alerts }
You welcome.
There are terrorists in this blog.Terrorist rule number 10, “infiltrate American Blogs with as much pro terrorist garbage as possible”. Rule 11. “Use the name Ed.”They have all of Aljazeera to provide false information.
The biggest threat to America comes from the ADL and the SPLC, they are the two biggest terrorist outfits threatening our Nation.
The whole purpose of Bush’s speech was to cast fear. It worked with Joe. Andy thinks the speech was a blockbuster? Doesn’t take much to impress some people. There’s a credibility issue here. The pres has lost it. Get ready for 3 years of lame duck.
Osama Ben Laden is hanging out in Ed’s basement. They’re watching “Schindler’s List” because it’s a real good comedy.
“So, Mr. Terrorist, sir; why do you feel the way you do about us.”
“Filthy infidels, you let your women walk half naked in the streets.”
“We just passed a law to make that illegal, Mr. Terrorist, sir. Does that appease you?”
“Vile filth! You must always behead the offender and the camel she rode in on.”
“We just passed a law to permit summary executions of immodestly dressed women and their camels, Mr. Terrorist, sir. Does that appease you?”
“Unworthy slime! The sputum from your Hollywood movies bedevils the minds of our youth. Death to your film makers.”
“We have just rounded up all of the Hollywood crowd and fed them to trash shredders, Mr. Terrorist, sir. Does that appease you?”
“Impudent fools! You should have first sent us our pick of the women. Are you so ignorant as to not know how beautiful women beg to submit to the will of militant Islam?”
“We could send you Damoon. Would that appease you, Mr. Terrorist, sir?”
“We will slay your children where they sleep for such an insult.”
“How about we remove every westerner from every muslim country. Would that appease you, Mr. Terrorist, sir?”
“Only if you also remove the vile stench of their history among us. We still long to right the wrongs of your crusades.”
“If we rewrite history, would that appease you, Mr. Terrorist, sir?”
“Nauseating weaklings! You still inject your jew monkeys into our world. Death to you all!”
“What if we promise to round up every jew in the world and send them to you for slaves. Would that appease you, Mr. Terrorist, sir?”
“Mindless wretches! They work too hard and put our men to shame. Kill them all.”
“If we anihilate every one of them, would that appease you, Mr. Terrorist, sir?”
“Stupid pigs – bad guys of the world! You must do likewise with your infidel Christians. All must submit to the Grand Caliphate of Osama!!”
“If you keep sounding as irrationally self-absorbed as CF and Galahad and the rest of the looney left, we might just nuke you into oblivion Mr. Terrorist, sir.”
Well let’s size up this speech.
Well there’s the base. Heckler posts a one line refutation to a post of Ed’s, and lies in doing that. That al ya got heckler? Joe? well Joe is joe. He hears bush make a half ass speech for the first time and he takes heart.
As I’ve posted elsewhere the speech was soaring, even Churchillian rhetoric. But it was just more of the same stay the course.
Now the one part of the speech that the right is seizing on. Bush takes Bin laden to task for sending others to die for his ideals while he avoids the fray. He talks about a child of priviledge.
Ummmmm Couldn’t he just as easily have been describing HIMSELF……ya know…..child of priviledge, sending others to die for his vision.
The part about attacks prevented is compelling. But if you can’t define those attacks because of “national security” well you can also make up the fact that they were prevented.
My take? There is a threat. We did alot to make that threat (good post Damoon) and this war only makes that worse. But beyond that their are ideoligies that are dangerous to us. But consider:
If bees were stinging you in your yard would you send someone to whack on the hive? Or would you do the best you could to keep the bees away.
It costs a whole lot less in money and lives to get ourselves out of places where we are not welcome rather than go there and stir up a fight. 10 marines in Iraq are targets on enemy turf. Those same 10 marines on the border or at an airport or a seaport are considerabbly safer themselves and are a far greater deterrent to domestic attack.
It was refreshing to hear Bush mention Bin Laden again. Long time sice he has done that.
WOW!
Andy was posting at the same time as I was. RIght after I posted, I saw his rant appear.
Andy? No one is suggesting placating terrorists. (And get off Damoon, she is usually on your side but at least she has some sense) I certainly would not want to placate someone like Tim McVeigh or any terrorist.
Now Andy? If my behavior and way of life makes someone so angry and intolerant of me that they want to indoctrinate my children and imprison or persecute me; well I need look no further than the religious right! And they are all around me! They aint 7,000 miles away. Now while they seem determined to bring their “war”to me, I still thankfully can simply avoid them, or work to reach some level of tolerance and undersatnding with them.
Andy? If someone 7,000 miles away with limited means of reaching me hates me, my ideals and wants to kill me what should I do? Should I send my son over there to shove ideals that I do not necesarily espouse down the his throat and invite himto kill my son? (current policy)
Or……
Might I better do all I could first to keep the guy who hates me over there…….over there. (see last post as to how this is preferred to the bush IN YOUR FACE war doctrine) and not send my son over there to get killed? Further, once the threat is neutralized by distance, might I not do well to find out why someone wants to kill me in the first place?
Now you can answer this intelligently Andy. Or you can go pick up a gun and go fight. That seems to be what you want or need to do.
Yes, Damoon is cool, but still seems to believe we can make radical Islamists like us. Those people are still fighting the crusades and we didn’t even exist then; but they hate us for it, anyway.
There is nothing rational about radical jihadism. Why did Pol Pot hate his enemies? Why did Stalin hate the peasants? Why did Hitler hate the jews? Why does Ed hate the jews? These are questions with no useful answer. There is nothing rational about their indiscriminate hatred in the name of cleansing the world of “those people.”
But you say:”…once the threat is neutralized by distance, might I not do well to find out why someone wants to kill me in the first place?”
To answer this, I simply point out that a lot of peoples in a lot of different places seem to make the Islamo-fascists want to kill them — in Somalia, the Philippines, Pakistan, Chechnya, Kashmir, Algeria, Mombasa, Casablanca, Riyadh, Jakarta, Istanbul, Madrid, Beslan, Taba, Netanya, London, Sharm el-Sheikh, and Bali.
Seems like those radical Islam types are a tad bit too easy to tick off. Isn’t it odd how many different cultures and peoples they want to kill? Isn’t it interesting that most of the people they kill aren’t Americans?
Global domination is their goal. If we pull back and wait, they will arrive at our borders unopposed. Plan on it.
It is unacceptable to sit back and do nothing about other nations that support terrorists, give them resources, and enable them to hatch and carry out their plots.
We can’t go isolationist in a world soon to be proliferating both nuclear weapons and the means to successfully deliver them, regardless of how well we guard our borders, airports, and seaports.
Bush outlined the ingredients for success in his speech. One of them is for Islam to clean its house of radical teachers and clerics, who foment the irrational hatred and line their pockets with protection money from their governments.
Andy
Before you make a lying statement:” Why does Ed hate the Jews” you really need to know what you’re talking about.
Read this about what good Jews, who follow the teaching of the Torah, think about a warmongering lying piece of shit like you.
http://www.serendipity.li/zionism.htm
Bush, judging by his actions and that very revealing speech, conclude one thing: How do we remove him from office before he takes this country down the drain.
All that’s left is the congress, and we need to vote-out all the Bush/AIPAC/Israeli/supporters.
Bush is not in his right mind. And that’s what the Neocons want.
America is in big trouble and sane democrats and sane republicans will have to work together to save this country. We must set-aside our differences for the sake of America and until we get our country back.
Once we lose these thugs, then we can go back to duking-it-out, but meanwhile we must work together.
Until this threat is gone.
Dubbya didn’t come out and say it, but we are fighting for oil,big business, and gasoline for my car. How many killed so far in this war against terrorism?
Ed,
Indeed. Who knew me and you were so buddy-buddy? Only Andy, I guess. That’s the index of how far out in space he is.
Andy,
Well, the little yip-yip dog wants to run away from a fight he tried to pick with me, does he? Allow me to quote, once again, your veiled threat against me:
“If you keep sounding as irrationally self-absorbed as CF and Galahad and the rest of the looney left, we might just nuke you into oblivion Mr. Terrorist, sir.”
The implication is that I deserve to be nuked. Otherwise, why try to scare ‘Islamofascists’ away from being like me? Although it’s obviously second-nature to you, Andy, don’t play dumb.
You want to nuke me, Andy? If you do, be man enough to admit it. If you don’t, be man enough to admit that you don’t understand the assumptions that are implicit in your ’spoof’. It’s obvious you aren’t man enough to do either.
Second point: your robotic use of the propaganda term, ‘Islamofascist.’ It, literally, is a term devoid of meaning. Until you’ve defined ‘fascism’–and if you had read the blog over the last week, you would have seen considerable effort on the part of the left AND the right here to do just that–you can’t throw the term around as if were definitive or an argument-stopper. Fascism is a political and economic structure that has very specific characteristics. Its use has to be justified, and then you have to show how Islamic extremism qualifies as ‘fascism’.
Until you do that,it’s merely the sort of anti-Islamic slander I’d expect from a racist like you. Your ‘considered points’ are what passes for ‘reasoning’ in the Wingnut brain polluted by genuinely fascist propaganda and obedient hatred.
“Global domination is their goal. If we pull back and wait, they will arrive at our borders unopposed. Plan on it.”
Hey . . . I heard that before . . . where was it? . . . now I remember, it was in the 60’s and it was the COMMUNISTS! Yeah, communists and those maps that showed a red Russia that slowly bled into Eastern Europe and south into China and Vietnam.
Funny how there’s always some big global enemy that’s going to take over the world unless we go and fight somewhere.
Thank goodness we’ve got the largest military in the world–no, make that the largest military of the next TEN militaries COMBINED–to protect us against this growing threat.
Otherwise, Halliburton couldn’t make all that money . . .
CF has lost it. At a minimum, he has some reading comprehension issues.
What did I write about CF and Ed here?
I had some fun in an obvious spoof to show the silliness of attempts to negotiate with jihadist radicals, but CF bizarrely concludes that I plan to nuke him.
I should have said ” irrationally self-absorbed and paranoid.”
I make use of the term “Islaamo-fascists”, to mean radical jihadists, and CF goes off in a rant, calls me a racist, blah, blah, blah — standard Political Cowardice stuff.
Geez.
Thats alright Andy. The Aljezera crowd just gathers garbage and spewes it at anybody with a brain. It does not matter what the subject is or what you are saying.
Andy,
Not man enough to face up to the implication of your words? No surprise. And now you’re calling ME a Political Coward? Who’s running away from his own words here, little boy?
Joe C, what have YOU and your pea brain brought to the conversation?
CF, Theye’re just little jewish kids, having fun.
Andy, You totally don’t get the point I was making. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute. How would you feel if a foreign nation invaded our country, toppling our government, and tried to force us into a way of life we don’t understand and know nothing about? What if the real reason they did it was to establish military bases so it would be easier to monitor what goes on between Canada, Mexico, and the US and to protect the flow of whatever resource we have that keeps their economy going?What if your house got bombed (unintended) and your child was killed, all for the sake of their self interests? You don’t think you’d be a tad resentful?All the Muslims have ever asked of us is to leave them alone, they don’t want us on their land or interfering with their governments. They resent our support of Isreal, whose military has been reaping havoic on them for decades.World domination is not their goal, but it is the goal of this administration for you believe that they will not stop until we’re all dead. Instead of absorbing all the spin and rethoric, get you head out of your butt and think for yourself.
Well said Damoon.
Andy? Your use of “islamofascist” betrays you as a spewer of right wing talk radio talking points. In this case your source is Michael the savage Weiner.
Andy? They hate us. Point taken. But I ask again:
If someone 7,000 miles away hates and wants to kill me, should I go there so they can kill me? Or might I do better to keep these folks away from me?
Oh and your tired assertion that “if we don’t fight them there we will fight them here” Sigh……. Last I checked the borders were wide open. The troops are defending borders on the other side of the planet you see.
The “terrorists” are coming, quick, give me some money, more money, more money…..