Terra Card To Win?

[Nbadan]

Couldn't see this coming...

See! He reads!

Bush, GOP hoping terror card can save them from election drubbing

WASHINGTON

- President Bush and the Republicans expect a stinging defeat in November, but they're betting the terror card saves them from an electoral debacle.

"The security issue trumps everything," a senior Bush official said last week. "That's why even though they're really mad at us, in the end they're going to give us another two years."

Nevertheless, many other senior Bush loyalists privately believe anti-Iraq and anti-Bush sentiment will cost the Republicans the House nine weeks from today, a doomsday scenario that would cripple Bush for his final two years in office.

"We'll lose the House," one of the party's most prominent officials flatly predicted, "and the president will be dead in the water for two years."

Mercury News

Strong on National Security? Think again...

In this report, Third Way analyzes the Bush Administration record and measures its success or failure. Vice President Cheney and Senior Advisor Karl Rove have repeatedly argued that "everything changed on 9-11" and that America must have a "post-9-11 worldview." We hold the Administration to its own words and measure success or failure in the post-9-11 world across seven key national security indicators: Iraq, terrorism (broadly), Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea, the condition of the American military, and China.

In this report, the evidence leads us to conclude that the Bush Administration has failed. The number of terrorist attacks and recruits are up worldwide; many of our enemies are stronger; their reach is greater; their weapons of mass destruction are more developed, plentiful and available. At the same time, American influence with our allies has weakened: our "friends" are not with us in Iraq. And a prolonged and troop-intensive war in Iraq has stretched our military and has left America less able to project power in troublesome hot spots than before 9-11.

The data leave little doubt that incompetence on the part of senior members of the Bush Administration has helped lead us to this dangerous situation. The data also suggest that the Bush Administration has failed in a more fundamental strategic sense. This Administration has underestimated our enemies, walked away from the negotiating table with would-be nuclear powers, selectively interpreted intelligence to suit prescribed solutions, fallen deeply in debt with one of our nation’s toughest compe ors, watched helplessly as allies ignored or shunned America’s leadership, burned out the military, and put the capture and execution of one of the greatest
mass murderers in American history on the back-burner. The numbers don’t lie—the Bush strategy is not working.

Third-way

[boutons_]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...090500312.html


Bush Warns Of Enduring Terror Threat

Words of Bin Laden, Allies Show Their Goals, He Says

By Michael A. Fletcher
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 6, 2006; A01

President Bush issued a stern warning yesterday about what he called the continuing terrorist threat confronting the nation, using the haunting words of Islamic extremists to support his assertion that they remain determined to attack the United States.

Abandoning his practice of only rarely mentioning al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, Bush repeatedly quoted him and purported terrorist letters, recordings and do ents to make his case that terrorists have broad totalitarian ambitions and believe the war in Iraq is a key theater in a wider struggle.

( sheriff dubya didn't get bin Laden "Dead or Alive", so he ignored bin Laden for a couple years. For campaign propagandas, dubya trots bin Laden agian, always failing to mention that dubya STILL hasn't gotten bin Laden. Now that Pakistan has essentially abandoned part of its own country to the tribal leaders, why isn't dubya invading those tribal areas that harbor terrorists? because dubya tied the US military down in his phony Iraq war )

"Iraq is not a distraction in their war against America" but the "central battlefield where this war will be decided," Bush said in an address before the Military Officers Association of America.

( absolute bull lie. And it's amazing dubya identifies Iraq as the central battlefield since Iraq will very probably end up radical/terrorist Shia theocracy allied with Iran, the 2 countries with a combine $8B/month in oil revenues. Of course, the dubya started in Iraq will outlive his presidency and perhaps even dubya himself. )

Citing the internal communications of terrorists was a dramatic new tactic to advance familiar arguments from Bush in defense of his strategy. The remarks came less than a week before the nation observes the fifth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and two months before midterm elections in which the administration's national strategy and competence promise to be pivotal questions. That debate was underscored by sharp criticism of Bush yesterday by Democratic congressional leaders.

The president's remarks came hours after the White House released its updated plan for combating terrorism. The do ent describes many successes in the war on terrorism, but warns that the nation faces an evolving threat from small terrorist networks and al-Qaeda, which is as much an ideology as a terrorist network. The do ent calls the administration's policy of spreading freedom and democracy the best means of countering that threat over the long haul.

etc, etc, etc.

===================

Bush ignored an intelligence paper headlined “Bin Laden Determined to Attack Inside the United States.’’ and other red flags from the intelligence community in Aug 2001 and all that summer. The WTC attack is 100% dubya's responsibility and fault.

[01Snake]

The WTC attack is 100% dubya's responsibility and fault.

God you're an IDIOT!

[boutons_]

Further proof that dubya/ head/rove/RNC don't give a about the war on terr unless they can figure out some way to exploit for Repug partisan purposes.

Below we have a whole new approach to terr trotted out as part of the Repug mid-term election campagin, NOT that the Repugs will actually do anything about real terr because they are trying to survive their up in Iraq.

================

Individuals, Small Groups Cited as Terrorist Threats

U.S. Strategy Calls Democracy a Weapon

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer

Wednesday, September 6, 2006; A04

A new counterterrorism strategy released yesterday by the White House describes al-Qaeda as a significantly degraded organization, but outlines potent threats from smaller networks and individuals motivated by al-Qaeda ideology, a lack of freedom and "twisted" propaganda about U.S. policy in the Middle East.

The National Strategy for Combating Terrorism reflects the intelligence community's latest analysis of the evolving nature of the threats from widely dispersed Islamic extremists who are often isolated and linked by little more than the Internet. It describes President Bush's "freedom agenda" of promoting democracy as the leading long-term weapon against them.

( and we all see how much freedom and democrary there is in Iraq and Afghanistan, to say nothing of freeom and democracy spontaneously breaking out all over the Muslim countries as they strive to join dubya's freedom agenda )

Attacking terrorist organizations, controlling weapons of mass destruction and protecting the homeland remain U.S. priorities, the do ent says. But the strategy places new emphasis on the need for training experts in languages and Islamic culture, for enhanced partnerships abroad and with the American Muslim community, and for better information-sharing among domestic counterterrorism agencies.

( but the Repugs won't actually fund and do ANY of the above. It's just campaign bull . )

What today's extremists have in common, it says, is "that they exploit Islam and use terrorism for ideological ends." But "although al-Qaeda functions as the movement's vanguard . . . the movement is not controlled by any single individual, group or state."

( but, al Quaida is just like the nation-state of the Nazis, right, I got it this time. thanks for the clarification )

The do ent's release came as Bush delivered one of a series of preelection speeches on national security and terrorism. But his address, in contrast to the strategy do ent, focused heavily on al-Qaeda and the public threats made by its two top leaders, Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri, both of whom have evaded capture.

"It's not an either-or phenomenon," said terrorism expert and Georgetown University professor Bruce Hoffman. "There are two processes moving on parallel tracks. You can see the attraction of saying . . . we have weakened al-Qaeda. But that also flies in the face of increasing evidence over the last couple of years that al-Qaeda is still directing and plotting attacks on a grand scale and seems undeterred."

In a Justice Department briefing, Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said the changing nature of the enemy reflects victories against al-Qaeda and is "a sign of our success, not our failure."

( black is white, up is down, Poco Puto Gonzalez re-consecrates his life to truth, justice, and The American Way )

Critics of administration policy said the new strategy is an admission that previous policies have failed. It "seems to adopt many of the critiques Democrats made of the old one," Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.) said in a statement. "I hope today's change in rhetoric represents a real change in course."

Several aspects of the new strategy differ sharply from an earlier version, published in February 2003, just before the U.S. invasion of Iraq. That do ent depicted a structured pyramid with al-Qaeda at the top, directing widespread terrorist cells and worldwide operations with help from sympathetic state sponsors. Its military emphasis called for U.S.-led "direct and continuous action" and warned that "we will not hesitate to act alone . . . including acting preemptively against terrorists."

It also declared that "finding a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a critical component to winning the war of ideas," and said that "no other issue has so colored the perception of the United States in the Muslim world."

( the Repugs have IDEAS ? )

The new strategy emphasizes that al-Qaeda has been severely disrupted, with many of its leaders killed or captured, and its operations made "harder, costlier and riskier." It describes the influence of U.S. policy in the Middle East as minimal, portraying the Iraq war and the renewed Arab-Israeli strife as sources of deceptive propaganda for terrorist ideologues. Terrorism, it says, "is not simply a result of hostility to U.S. policy in Iraq . . . Israeli-Palestinian issues . . . [or] our efforts to prevent terror attacks."

"The terrorism we confront today" springs from several sources, including an "ideology that justifies murder" and that blames "perceived injustices from the recent or sometimes distant past," the strategy says. That ideology, it says, preys upon populations that "see no legitimate way to promote change in their own country" and whose "information about the world is contaminated by falsehoods and corrupted by conspiracy theories."

( No where do they mention than US military invading and occupying and "defiling sacred" Muslim countries to protect US oil sources and US oilco interests. )

"Democracy," the strategy declares, "is the an hesis of terrorist tyranny, which is why the terrorists denounce it and are willing to kill the innocent to stop it."

( Democracy and Terrism for Dummies )

The do ent refers indirectly to "homegrown terrorists," such as the two dozen British citizens arrested in this summer's alleged plot to blow up commercial aircraft. Even in democracies, it says, "some ethnic or religious groups are unable or unwilling to grasp the benefits of freedom otherwise available in the society. . . . Even in these cases, the long-term solution remains deepening the reach of democracy so that all citizens enjoy its benefits."

( somehow, the 2.5 million people in US jails and the large %age of blacks and US poor have also been "unable or unwilling to grasp the benefits of freedom". Where are the Repug campaign bull speeches about fixing our own wagon before fixing other people's wagons? )

"We will continue to guard against the emergence of homegrown terrorists within our own Homeland as well," the strategy says. "Through outreach programs and public diplomacy we will reveal the terrorists' violent extremist ideology for what it is -- a form of totalitarianism following in the path of fascism and Nazism."

( There they go again! )

The new strategy mirrors a blueprint written at the National Counterterrorism Center and presented to Bush in June. That classified, 160-page plan proposed a more equitable balance between the military effort emphasized in the 2003 strategy and what it termed the "war of ideas."

Staff writers Michael A. Fletcher and Dan Eggen contributed to this report.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

[RandomGuy]

I am with Dan on this one.

The current emphasis on the "war" on terror is nothing but pure



I think Iraq and the near future should be enough to convince those who were willing to buy into the "GOP is better at security" myth enough truth to actually see how much the current administration and the rubber stamp congress has made us LESS safe.

The only people less competant to run a national government than Democrats are...

Republicans.

[Extra Stout]

There is such a thing as going to the well once too often.

[Zunni]

There is such a thing as going to the well once too often.

Damn, ES, you beat me to the punch.