Latest talking points: Bush legacy is no further attacks on US soil

The Bush team is staking their legacy on this factoid. The latest I heard of this is Juan Williams on NPR this AM. He's clearly been spending way too much time on Faux.

There are two huge problems with this claim that I haven't heard ANYBODY challenge. We need to push back on this.

#1, it is the pattern of al Qaeda to have many years between attacks. That's why they call them "sleeper cells" after all. That is how they operate. There was almost a decade between the WTC bombing and 9-11. On that basis, we wouldn't expect another attack in that series for a couple more years.

#2, and this is far more important. Our economic meltdown IS the al Qaeda attack. Osama said straight up that his goal was to cause the US to crumble upon itself. That is exactly what is happening. OBL is no fool. Why would he want to do anything to change the situation when it is playing out EXACTLY as he wanted, and EXACTLY as he predicted?

This is the attack on American soil, and it is far more devastating than 9-11.

"Our economic meltdown IS the al Qaeda attack. Osama said straight up that his goal was to cause the US to crumble upon itself."

How is that people don't get this when it is so obvious?

and nobody is challenging that.

That's why I suggest it is something we can accomplish by pushing back on this story. Whenever we hear anybody repeat that line about "there haven't been any attacks on US soil", challenge it.

our financial entities to engage in the insane acts that have helped to bring on this economic meltdown. I don't follow your line of argument.

Yes, we are spending trillions in the middle east but that is not the source of our financial woes. It's our bought and sold Congress and Preznit.

These are not terrorists activities? Really?

All the plane jackers did was fly into two buildings. It was the reaction of our own government that did the rest.

these freaks live in, and the MSM just brainlessly parrots their crape.

I have had this conversation 1000 times with wing nuts.

Wingnut - some variation of "Bush has kept us safe since 9-11 ...
Me - There were no attacks by extremist muslims on our soil after the first WTC bombing ...
Wingnut - BUT there was the Cole bombing ...
Me - there is Iraq, where our troops and interests are attacked a couple times a day ...
Wingnut - But we are taking the battle to them ...
Me - No attacks on our soil and no disasterous occupation of a middle eastern country that will cost us two trillion dollars and the lives of 4000 of our soldiers vs no attacks on our soil and a disasterous occupation of a middle eastern country which will cost us two trillion dollars and the lives of 4000 of our soldiers.
Wingnut - head expoding ...

Blowing up clinics, etc

Showed how equipped W was in the event of another disaster.

continues to illustrate such.

I am looking to get a few good punches in personally.

:evilgrin:

:rofl:

Bush is not responsible for that awareness at all.

But what has happened in response to 9-11 has been far more deadly and 10,000 times more costly.

Osama bin Laden said he would bring down America using our greed against us. What terrorist attack could possibly more devastating to the future of America than the economic collapse we have witnessed the past 120 days?

that they never mention the anthrax attacks.

...the better challenges should be the Anthrax attacks and continued Abortion clinic attacks (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abortion-related_violence). All of these happened under Bush's post 9-11 reign and for whatever reason are completely ignored.

Another person posted something about the USS Cole attack but that actually happened in October 2000 under President Clinton's watch.

we're #1

1. Many Americans in Iraq have been killed in terrorist attacks launched by Al Qaeda in Iraq. Why does it matter that the attacks weren't on U.S. soil?

2. Bush resisted the 9/11 Commission which ultimately made recommendations that led to some of the security measures that may have been responsible for fewer attacks. If that's the case, we had no further attacks in spite of Bush.

3. Even Joe the plumber would have been smart enought to beef up anti-terrorist efforts following 9/11.

They love the smell of napalm in the morning - albeit an economic conflagration: a bonfire of the vanities.

His own words.


"All that we have mentioned has made it easy for us to provoke and bait this administration. All that we have to do is to send two Mujahedin to the farthest point East to raise a piece of cloth on which is written al Qaeda in order to make the generals race there to cause America to suffer human economic and political losses without their achieving for it anything of note other than some benefits for their private companies. So we are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy.....meaning that every dollar of al-Qa'ida defeated a million dollars by the permission of Allah besides the loss of a huge number of jobs. As for the size of the economic deficit, it has reached record, astronomical numbers estimated to total more than a trillion dollars. And even more dangerous and bitter for America is that the Mujahedin recently forced Bush to resort to emergency funds to continue the fight in Afghanistan and Iraq which is evidence of the success of the bleed-until-bankruptcy plan with Allah's permission. It is true that this shows that al Qaeda has gained.....And it shows that the real loser is ... you. It's the American people and their economy" http://abcnews.go.com/International/story?id=215913&page=1

This connection is real. These al Qaeda types are patient SOBs. They figure they have all the time in the world until Allah calls. They are willing to carry out schemes that span decades.

The man responsible for 9/11 is still free. Terrorism is up around the world since our illegal invasion/occupation of Iraq.

To me, that shoots his legacy right there. No need to mention the shit hole our country is in because of him because that would just be piling on.

K - A - T - R - I - N - A

the Anthrax attacks were in the immediate aftermath of 911, and the beltway sniper was also a long time ago. Katrina was incompetence, not terrorism.

That's why I think it is really important that these Bush claims be countered with arguments that aren't so easily dismissed.

What we are going through is EXACTLY when bin Laden said he wanted to accomplish. Whenever Bush claims there haven't been any more attacks "on American soil", we need to challenge that. He should explain to us why this economic meltdown is not, in fact, the final stages of bin Laden's attack.

In other words, not every attack has a big 'sploshun.

For possibly the second or third time ever since I've been reading/posting at DU, here's an excellent reply of constructive criticism.

I can't grant you that the Anthrax Attacks or Beltway Sniper were insignificant or too long ago.

But even those who are skeptical of 9/11 & the Beltway Sniper, such as myself, and who (such as myself) expect a Pentagon-staged False Flag under the upcoming Democratic administration merely to canonize Bush & impugn Democrats, should heed your advice about discerning a multi-dimensional definition of terrorism.

I also believe the hand of U.S. plutocrat pirates has more to do with the current economic meltdown than Bin Laden -- whatever one believes about 9/11, Bush's $800B post-9/11, pre-Iraq War tax cut for the wealthiest (cutting revenues) while simultaneously amping expenditures was a Neocon-written recipe for this meltdown. The engineer intended to wreck the train for Norquist's backdoor "drown it in the bathtub"...

or at least have highly compatible goals. OBL wants to see the destruction of Western society, and he believes that can be achieved by creating the circumstances where the worst elements of our Western society are allowed to suck the life out of our system.

Symbiosis.

Symbiosis meets means/motive/opportunity.

is that the "American" plutocrats, to a very large degree, no longer have any strong allegiance to America. In past times, wealth was tied to hard capital, which was usually linked with real estate. In today's world, people like the Bush Family / Carlysle Group have no real connection with America. Oh, the Bushes have a nice estate in Kennebunkport, but Carlysle operates on a worldwide basis. Likewise with Cheney and Halliburton, which actually moved its HQ to Dubai.

At least when the Carnegies of the world were taking their share off the top, they were building American institutions with some trickle-down benefits to Americans.

Oligarchs want much same. They would welcome a return to the days of "landed" owners controlling the government and the economy. The rabble are only meant to serve the ruling classes.

Democracy gives power to that rabble. A strong middle class gives power to the democratic aspirations of the rabble.

Which was to get the US to send a large military force into the middle east. It's hard to plan, train and send terrorist into the USA. However it's very easy to get people to sign up to fight the US when it's on their soil. The 4000+ American soldiers dead on wars of choice simply can not be forgotten. Bush didn't keep America safe he put Americans right in the heart of the beast and ignored their pain.

that after the 1st world trade center attack, back in 1993, there were no further attacks on U.S. soil in the Clinton administration?!?

WTF makes them think it has anything to do with *?!?

bin Laden attacks on his timetable, not Bush's.

And, yeah, why should al Qaeda bother? Bush has done such a good job of accomplishing bin Laden's goals all on his own.

1920

Sept. 16, New York City: TNT bomb planted in unattended horse-drawn wagon exploded on Wall Street opposite House of Morgan, killing 35 people and injuring hundreds more. Bolshevist or anarchist terrorists believed responsible, but crime never solved.

(I believe this was always thought to be from "homegrown" terrorists.)

1975

Jan. 24, New York City: bomb set off in historic Fraunces Tavern killed 4 and injured more than 50 people. Puerto Rican nationalist group (FALN) claimed responsibility, and police tied 13 other bombings to the group.

Bush would be lauded for being the one who sounded the alarm to sleeping Americans about the dangers of global terrorism.

It's the way these guys work -- no matter what Bush does, it's the right thing to do. Send 30,000 more soldiers to Iraq (against the advice of the generals you claim to listen to), call it a "surge" (even though it continues after a year, making it an "escalation"), and then (1) if the violence increases, say you were right because it shows how desperate the enemy is to resist the surge, or (2) if violence decreases, claim the surge works. When Obama refuses to take the bait and parrot the meme "the surge worked" you have Joe Lieberman try to get an act passed which would declare the success of the surge. Ignore any other explanations for the reduction of violence, as well as the increase in U.S. deaths, and keep repeating the mantra, "the surge worked."

Bush never makes mistakes. Ever. Just ask him.

Sheesh.

Bin Laden could focus his efforts elsewhere while he let Bush destroy America. Bush was much much better at it than Bin Laden.

due to Bush's nonchalance about Al-Queda/terrorism?

:wtf:

Also, what's the (needless) body count in Iraq these days? 4000+?

Go Bush!!!! Whoooo!!!!!

WTF ever...............:eyes:

I'm glad the RWers pointed out all this great peace we have, 'cause silly me, I thought we were still fighting two wars against terrorism every day, 7 years later. :sarcasm:

When did the troops come back, I must've missed that on the news?

See, in my screwed-up way of measuring things, a war trumps an incident here. (And we have not one, but two.) So does a major gutting of our rights because of it - was all of that rolled back? So does the deficit from it during an economic collapse - did the Iraqis pay us back for it, as they were supposed to? I must've missed all of that great news.

I'm glad things are so nice and cheery, and back to normal in RWland. "Good job, Brownie".

Actually, this is just a preview they're giving us, of how the RW think tankers intend to rewrite history in 10 years or so, to rehabilitate Bush just as they did Nixon and Reagan. I'm so glad those big-mouthed pinhead RW pseudo-intellectual think tankers have such useful work to do in society, in exchange for their massively undeserved overblown salaries and status. Just think how sad it would be, if not for rewriting history and lobbying for corporatist legal trash to kill our economy, and spewing disinformation into the public media, all those little darlins (as Lou Dobbs would say) would be unemployed. Whatever else could we find for such complete losers to do, to get by in this world?

They are the reason why I know that this truly is the land of opportunity, that here, any fucktard can "make it"... because THEY DO. :sarcasm:

The useful thing for us to do, would be to get organized and start exposing their foundations and their backers and so-called thinkers, rather than shooting down each talking point they come up with. My favorite "charity" of that nature is the one Wendy Gramm heads up at George Mason University (Mercatus). So then whenever those glitterati are sourced for a talking point such as this, demolish the source. THEN, we'll get somewhere - when their meal tickets are discredited and gone. It's a tall order, I know, but that's how it has to be - take down their "intellectuals" first, and to those new ones coming up through the ranks, do the same. Those are the legs the other "commentators" stand on.

the things you mention, we haven't been attacked. Obama couldn't bring himself to
state the obvious either. Don't get me wrong - Bush has almost destroyed our country
to the point we can not even remember all the bad things he has done. But, to
deny we haven't been attacked seems, IMHO, denying fact.

No, of course, there has not been another attack of the sort and of the magnitude of 911. But the attack on our economy is 1000 times greater than the impact of 911.

I don't think it is necessary to show a smoking gun in Osama's hand. Simply look at the transcript in post #22. What we are seeing today is exactly what Osama predicted. This IS his attack.

is vacating the seat
Count on it

...After the WTC bombing, no attacks on our soil.

Except nature:

Hurricanes criss-crossing Florida are handled with ease. Not like New Orleans and Galveston.

Except right-wingers:

McVeigh and Rudolph. And a right-winger shouldn't blame Clinton for another right-winger.

1. They attack every EIGHT years.
2. They are seeing our economic destruction.

3. They get us to send them our young soldiers so they don't have to bother coming over here in order to kill. AND THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE GOOD. We send them. From here. Our soil. To die.

No further attacks were necessary.

enough of us "over there" so they did not need to make the commute.

What a damn joke! THAT is his legacy, huh?

How many bombs since 9/11 have been found here in the country before they were used?
How many other hijackings in the works were foiled by his policy?
How many cargo containers with biological weapons coming in have actually been found, and the ensuing attacks foiled by homeland security since 9/11??

For this ridiculous argument to have ANY viability at all, it has to at least provide SOME damn evidence that there WAS a planned attack that the retards policies actually foiled.

Al Qaeda decides when and where they will attack--not George Bush or Dick Cheney. The 9/11 hijackers were relatively fearless and another cell would not likely fear some clueless authorities trying to prevent an attack. After all, they are already resigned to dying for their cause.

...for WEEKS after 911

The Iraq were is Bush's second 9/11, only it was based on conscious decision-making