Does Politicizing Terror Embolden Our Enemies?
By anniepa
@anniepa (27955)
United States
January 4, 2010 6:29pm CST
Are former V.P. D1ck Cheney, Senator Jim Demint and Rep. Pete Hoekstra emboldening our enemies by turning the attempted Christmas terror attack and our national security in general into a political fight?
The D1ck told an outright lie when he claimed President Obama "doesn't know we're at war" and then he went against some very good advice - from the D1ck Cheney himself - about showing our enemies that we're fighting amongst ourselves.
Mr. Waterloo himself Jim Demint pretty much echoed the D1ck's words although he's the one who has blocked the confirmation of the nominee to head up the TSA. He took it to a whole new level of ridiculousness by saying one of the biggest threats to our security would be allowing the TSA employees to unionize and that THAT was President Obama's top priority!
Hoekstra - the guy who made classified information public after the Fort Hood shootings and who made the claim along with Rick Santorum that they'd found the WMDs in Iraq - uses the potential tragedy as a campaign fundraiser, sending out letters immediately after the attempted bombing!
Aren't we supposed to be in this together - Democrats, Republicans, Independents, non-political Americans? On September 11, 2001, it wasn't several thousand CONSERVATIVES who died (or LIBERALS) but AMERICANS along with some from other nations! Had that Detroit bound plane gone down on Christmas Day, there would have been many AMERICANS killed, both in the plane and on the ground.
Having discussions between members of the two parties is fine, but are these public denouncements REALLY necessary? We all know mistakes were made and "dots weren't connected" both in 2001 and two weeks ago. Information that should have been passed on from one agency to another wasn't. Does that mean for one second that any of the people involved with these agencies or anyone from the Presidents on down in either Administration didn't care or don't care about our security?
Any thoughts?
Annie
2 people like this
6 responses
@artistry (4152)
• United States
10 Jan 10
...Hi annie, The beat goes on. :o) what I would like to know is who charges a citizen of the United States with beibg a traitor, and can you be put in jail for being a traitor, I know you can be hung, but that's a bit too far. I will not name names but the news shows who I am referring to. He has criticized the President to the point of lying almost everytime he opens his mouth, roll tape and his lies are exposed. I understand a meeting may be called between the Secretary of Defense, the President, the Secretary of State and this indivdual, to try to get him to stop spewing lies. That won't stop the man, he is **** bent on delegitimizing the President whenever he can. This not only is ridiculous, but does open the US for terrorism and violence. But this is the game they are all playing, because they can then say we told you so, Obama does not know what he is doing. And if it happened to be directed at you know who, then all the better to them. This man with his lies, is a jealous maniac, he is bigoted, and he wants this President to fail so bad, he can taste it. I am praying for an end to it, how, I will leave that up to the Lord. "o) Take care.
1 person likes this
@JodiLynn (1417)
• United States
5 Jan 10
Why was GWB not scrutinized as much over his bomber ????
(Richard Reid AKA Tarik Raja, AKA The shoe bomber, self admitted Al Quaida member, serving his life sentence in Colorado, NOT Guit-mo)
from the Washington Post:
"It is possible to fault, as we have, some of the administration's public statements in the immediate aftermath of the attack. And as the President has acknowledged, the incident revealed failures in intelligence and in security screening that must be urgently identified and corrected. The country would benefit from a serious and bipartisan effort in Congress to ensure that the lessons of the Christmas attack are learned. A groundless campaign to portray Mr. Obama as soft on terror can only detract from that effort. "
*******
This administration has been working with the Yemeni govt. for a while trying to douse the fires being lit there by Al Quaida. One wonders why with so much oil under them, are they such a poor country? Would they (the citizens) be so easily bought off (or is that into?) if they had more?
1 person likes this
@bobmnu (8157)
• United States
5 Jan 10
I thought that Senator Kerry was a hero for talking against the Viet Nam War. Wasn't Walter Cronkite a national hero for reporting that we had lost the war after we had delivered the North Viet Nam Army the killing blow and his broadcast gave new life to the enemy. What about Rep Murtha who accused the US Marines of "Cold Blooded Murder". Senator Kerry accusing the US Troops of terrorizing women and children in the middle of the night. Don't forget Senator Reid saying the war is lost.
It seems that only the Conservative Republicans can embolden our enemies by criticizing the administration.
How does talking about getting tougher on our enemy embolden them? To me you embolden the enemy when you tell them that you are going to treat them like a US Citizen. You will give them a chance to use the court room as a platform to address the world.
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
10 Jan 10
Ask the D1ck Cheney about what emboldens our enemies! Not all that long ago he was the one saying criticizing his Administration was doing just that by showing our division within our own government. When John Kerry spoke out against the Vietnam War he wasn't in government nor was Walter Cronkite. Murtha was speaking of a specific incident, not of our Marines in general. None of these are the same, in my view, as the former V.P and others implying the current President doesn't care about keeping us safe, telling LIES about the words he's used and hasn't used or candidates and the RNCC and RNSC sending out campaign mailings within days after the attempted attack in order to capitalize on what could have been a horrible and tragic disaster.
Disagreeing on whether or not terrorists or terror suspects should be tried in the U.S. is one thing and we can have that debate in a civil and respectful fashion without the kind of rhetoric that's been used lately.
Annie
@whiteheather39 (24403)
• United States
5 Jan 10
IMO the one person who is emboldening our enemies is President(??) Obama. He has made it so obvious with his multiple foreign trips kowtowing to our enemies and apologising for the USA. Not to mention his soft (civilian) treatment of terrorists.
@trruk1 (1028)
• United States
5 Jan 10
The guy who tried to bring down actually was on some sort of "watch" list because of statements his father gave to the U.S. Embassy. That list supposedly contains about 500,000 names. That is half a million people whose names are on a list. Cheney probably thinks we should arrest them all, not just watch them. Torture them because we can and because we like to torture prisoners. That will supposedly make us safe. Well, we would be safe from them but who will make us safe from Cheney. We have succeeded in blowing up a lot of stuff and killing a lot of people, many of them civilians who were never a danger to us. As far as a day in court meaning we are "soft" on terrorists, the guy who planned the first bombing of the World Trade Center is in prison for life. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, is in prison for life. How is that "soft"?
We have far too many people in this country who seem to believe that the best answer to any attack or threat of attack is to kill a lot of people, hoping somewhere among the bodies we will find some of our enemies. In doing that, we create more new enemies than the ones we eliminate.
1 person likes this
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
6 Jan 10
"Cheney probably thinks we should arrest them all, not just watch them."
Wow, you must be some amazing psychic. Do you work for Madame Cleo? Maybe Cheney just thinks we shouldn't let them enter the US without being "WATCHED". What's the point of a watch list if you don't even watch these people when they board a plane to our country? Are you aware that he's not allowed to fly into the UK because he was on their watch list?
@flowerchilde (12529)
• United States
8 Jan 10
How 'bout if they show up on multiple lists such as terrorist contacts and when they're coming from popular terrorist nations, along with the "500,000" one and not let them fly on planes with us?
@Taskr36 (13963)
• United States
5 Jan 10
Making such a claim is typically a pathetic attempt to silence opposition to the president. Questioning our leaders is bad so we'd better shut out mouths and just agree with everything our president says and does. Is that what you want Annie?
Our enemies don't need help being emboldened. Nobody was politicizing terror before 9-11 were they? Was anyone politicizing terror before the USS Cole attack? How about before the WTC was bombed back in the 90's? Guess what, GITMO wasn't a recruting tool before those attacks so trust me, they don't need it for recruiting now.
I'm not saying it's appropriate to use this attack for political gain by either side, but we really need to look at what went wrong and cut the PC crap, and the "Questioning the president encourages terrorists" "Keeping terrorists in GITMO encourages terrorists" garbage.
Of course our Secretary of Homeland Security is stupid enough to think the system worked in allowing this terrorist on that plane where he nearly killed hundreds of people. She should have been fired immediately for such a stupid claim.
@anniepa (27955)
• United States
10 Jan 10
Taskr, once again you've twisted my words completely. I've never said "questioning our leaders is bad" but I was sure TOLD that enough in the past. Absolutely NOT, we shouldn't "shut our mouths and just agree with everything our president says and does," but again, I was told that in the past. Aren't there any alternatives other than agreeing with everything our leaders say or do and trashing our leaders publicly and saying they don't care about our security?
I have a feeling you, along with all of the other conservatives who have been taking this opportunity to attack Secretary Napolitano, knew from the beginning what she was getting at when she said "the system worked". She certainly didn't choose her words very well and she should have been more clear but I knew she was referring to what happened AFTER the attempted detonation. She mentioned how word had been passed along to other countries as well as to all of the airlines and airports within minutes.
Annie
@lampar (7584)
• United States
18 Jan 10
Hi, Anniepa, Probably Al-Qaida is very happy and Osama is smiling now seeing at all these politicking among the past and present leaders of United States of America making its terrorism attacks based on how many liberals or conservatives are killed in numerous of successful attacks inside and outside of USA so far. I am sure the terrorist network hated America so much they will not care much whether those they murder are American, Chinese, Japanese, British, conservative or liberal, so long as they are successful in their plots. The sooner these elected leaders; no matter past or present can stop politicize the terrorism as like making statements that sound super silly, then the chance of preventing another 9/11 type of attack can only be achieved
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