On a previous thread, my anti-blogger, Adam, and I have been going over Karl Rove’s remarks about how liberals “saw the savagery of the 9/11 attacks and wanted to prepare indictments and offer therapy and understanding for our attackers” and how liberals “believed it was time to… submit a petition.” Within the comments he noted my position that I fear Domestic Extremist Christian Fundamentalists more than I do Foreign Extremist Islamic Fundamentalists. To wit:
Do liberals get it? You’ve said on this very blog that you find Christian Conservatives a bigger threat than Al Queda, so you show you don’t get it. Christians lobby their legislators, the Islamic terrorist will kill by the hundreds of thousands. We use leaflets, they use bullets and bombs. Those who believe there’s a moral equivalency between Jerry Falwell and Osama Bin-laden don’t get it.
And all that led to me explaining why I fear Falwell more than bin Laden, which has to do with perceived risk (i.e., bin Laden may blow up a few thousand Americans per decade, but Falwell seeks to undermine the Constitution for all Americans forever.), but also I would never draw a moral equivalency between Falwell and bin Laden (strawman alert!)
But let’s forget about the rise of the American Taliban and their goals of rolling back civil rights, eliminating seventy years of Constitutional legal precedent, repealing women’s right to choose, bowdlerizing our culture, criminalizing sexual and “immoral” behavior, and destroying the separation of church and state for a moment. That’s an argument we could draw out forever without much resolution, and it is irrelevant to the matter at hand. Let’s just focus on this War on Terrah. What is it that I and other liberals don’t get?
1) Islamic religious extremists hate our foreign policy and will gladly sacrifice their lives in terrorist attacks against us.
2) Osama bin Laden was offended by the presence of our military bases on Saudi holy land.
3) Osama bin Laden, made rich, well-armed, and well-trained in insurgency tactics by support from the American CIA in a proxy war against the Soviets in Afghanistan, has now turned his wealth, connections, followers, armament, and training against us.
4) Osama bin Laden, using training grounds in Afghanistan and terrorists from Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Syria, and other places not called “Iraq”, geared up for a series of attacks on the United States, including:
a) The 1993 WTC bombing,
b) The attacks on our East African embassies,
c) The bombing of the USS Cole (and Bush made sure that agents working the case in Yemen were pulled out before they could discover anything),
d) The Millennium Bombing plot for LAX and other locations (that Clinton’s administration did a fine job of thwarting),
e) 9/11 (and I’m sure I’m leaving some out, because this all off the top of my head.)
5) Radical Islamic fundamentalism will continue to call for jihad against America and use terrorism as a weapon to achieve their aims.
Therefore, in response to this global terrorism that has killed about 0.0015% of our population in the span of fifteen years, we must be vigilant in the War on Terrah and support President George W. Bush without question. The proper actions for the leadership of the United States to take in order to succeed in the Global War on Terrah include:
1) Allowing Osama bin Laden to remain free to plan and coordinate his next attack for almost four years now.
2) Flying all of the members of the bin Laden extended family out of the US immediately following the 9/11 attacks.
3) Curtailing the civil liberties of all 300,000,000 Americans and increasing federal domestic spying powers under the USA PATRIOT Act.
4) Attacking Afghanistan (which even liberals supported, 0 dissent in Senate, 1 dissent in House), but then leaving the job half-finished and allowing warlords and the Taliban to reclaim power and return Afghanistan to its position of world’s top narco-state.
5) Attacking Iraq based on faulty intelligence that was known to be faulty at the time (Paul O’Neill, Richard Clarke, Joe Wilson, Scott Ritter), hyping that intelligence to provide support for the attack (“mushroom cloud”, “uranium from Niger”, “9/11!”), and failing to secure weapons depots or plan realistically for the post-war insurgency that many knew was inevitable (Gen. Shinseki, Gen. Clark, Powell Doctrine).
6) Failing to adequately protect the nation’s chemical plants, ports, and other sensitive installations from the next terrorist attack. Taking nail clippers from passengers and forcing them to remove their shoes while the cargo holds of airliners remain uninspected.
7) Torturing our detainees, attempting to supress evidence of that torture, and when finally confronted with widespread evidence of a systemic use of torture, court-martial a few E-4’s and E-5’s, while the author of the memo condoning the systemwide torture gets promoted to Attorney General.
8) Allying with the torturing dictator in Uzbekistan to gain a base of operations for Iraq. Outsourcing some of our prisoners to Uzbekistan, Syria, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, and other places where we know they will be tortured (in ways too gruesome for even AG Gonzalez to accept!)
9) Granting no-bid contracts to the administration’s friends, like Halliburton, instead of allowing Iraqi’s to have a hand in their own reconstruction, and then allowing fraud and abuse of those contracts to run rampant with no retribution.
10) After declaring “Mission Accomplished!” over two years ago, then encouraging our enemies to “Bring it on!”, and then handing over sovereignty to Iraq a year ago, then creating an Iraqi government five months ago, the insurgency in “its last throes” has brought it on in ever-increasing violence, death, and destruction, to the tune of 1,742 dead soldiers (a rate of about 2.1 per day). If anyone notices these facts, claim they are traitors seeking to undermine the administration and claim they want to give “understanding and therapy” to our enemies.
11) Outing an undercover CIA operative in retaliation for pointing out the flawed case for war (see #5 above) and making zero progress on the investigation and prosecution of the leak.
12) Making zero progress on the investigation and prosecution of another act of domestic terrorism, the mailing of anthrax powder to senate offices.
13) Stonewalling all attempts to investigate the failures of intelligence, planning, response, and leadership that allowed the 9/11 attacks to occur in the first place, relenting only when public pressure from 9/11 widows makes it political suicide to continue stonewalling, but then still refusing to testify under oath or any kind of recording.
14) Creating a terrorist haven in Iraq where none existed before and continuing policies and abuse of our detainees which will create even more Islamic fundamentalists who hate America and will turn to terrorism as their only possible response.
15) Rebuffing and insulting our traditional European allies which has led to the “go it alone” approach we are forced to take in this Global War on Terrah.
16) Accusing liberals and other dissenters to these policies of treason, thereby separating this country into “you’re either with us or against us” during a time of war when the country needs to be united for a common cause.
17) Sending soldiers to war without adequate force levels, body armor, ammunition, and armored transport.
18) Cutting soldiers’ combat pay and failing to adequately fund their Veteran’s Administration benefits.
19) Implementing a “back-door draft” by extending servicemembers’ tours, delaying their retirement, “stop-loss” orders, and over-utilizing the forces from the Guard and Reserve.
20) Deny that you have ever made a mistake. Ever.
Hmm, now that you mention it, you’re right. I don’t get it. I would have thought the Global War on Terror would have something to do with:
1) Killing or capturing terrorist masterminds like Osama bin Laden.
2) Seeking peace in the Middle East.
3) Determining the root causes of Islamic terrorism and fashioning policies to alleviate the causes.
4) Eliminating partisan rancor and bringing the country together in shared sacrifice to overcome wartime hardship.
5) Telling the truth.
