The elephant on the ramparts
Another major terrorist plot foiled. Ho-hum.
It's amazing how many people fail to ponder the fact that we have not had a successful terrorist plot on American soil since 9/11, and that now we're even helping protect the Brits. Certainly the Democrats and their allies in the MSM don't notice.
You'd think they might. It's sort of a major point, and rather hard to miss. If it's not exactly the elephant in the living room, it's certainly the one on the ramparts- the one whose watch, by any objective standard, has been a singularly effective one in protecting us from the terrorist threat ever since the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were hit, and war was declared against us. Whatever criticisms of the waging of the war on terror the Left might want to make have to start- if they are going to have any credibility at all- by explaining away the rather substantial point that the administration's policies, by any objective standard, have rather spectatularly succeeded.
Here Sherman Fredrick singles out especially silly remarks on the subject by Jimmy Carter and Harry Reid for well-deserved scorn.
HT: Real Clear Poltics
ADDENDUM: Scott H points out- correctly- that five people died in the (unrepeated) anthrax
mailings shortly after 9/11. So my thesis must therefore be modified by a few months.
The point, however, stands. What Bill Clinton screwed up- and his party would screw up again- George W. Bush fixed with regard to homeland security.
Comments
If Clinton was accused of wagging the dog for his ineffectual missile firing at Osama, it was because of his rather convenient timing. He was also criticized- and is- for being incredibly ineffectual in the attempt, as well as in his entire policy toward al Quaeda.
Clinton, not Bush, was the one who dropped the ball on 9/ll, despite the attempt of Clinton loyalists like Richard Clarke to argue otherwise. Clinton was the one who gutted our intelligence capabilities (along with our military capabilities, BTW) on route to his vaunted balancing of the budget. Undoing the damage has been the major cause for the present deficit. In fact, cleaning up Clinton's messes (including his irresolution in Iraq) has been the major item on the Bush agenda for six years! Trying to blame an administration which had come into office eight months earlier for the malfeasance of the previous eight years is just a tad disingenous. And while I agree that we should have hit Iraq with overwhelming force instead of trying to get by on the cheap, to a very significant degree the "mess in Iraq" is something other than the mess it's portraryed by the MSM as being.
Nor did I say anything about a connection between the foiling of the British plot and Iraq. It is possible to be so much in denial about anything George W. Bush has done being good that one begins to see arguments where they haven't been made.
BTW, you might want to review Clinton's rhetoric (and John Kerry's, and Madeline Albright's, etc.) concerning the threat to American security Saddam posed. Quite a contrast between that administration's rhetoric and its actions. It's just one more area in which the revisionist history the Democrats engage in on this subject is rather amusing.
And I'm afraid you haven't addressed the central point: How do you argue that Bush hasn't kept us safe when we haven't been hit again, while numerous plots by al Quaeda both at home and abroad have been foiled by the very intelligence network Clinton dismantled, and Bush rebuilt?
How do you classify the anthax attacks of 2001? I seem to recall panicky pundits, politicians and plain ol' people. Disruption and panic, inflicted anonymously. Still unsolved.
In case you missed the point, nobody got anthrax.
Nice try, though.
See CNN
or wiki
- Scott H (essayh@hotmail.com)
So I'll amend my statement: There has not been a successful terrorist attack on the United States since five people died in the anthrax mailings shortly after 9/11.
Don't look now, Scott, but the point stands.
The absence of another attack does not prove we've prevented it. And of course it does not indicate that we've not stopped any.
And they've certainly been busy on the international stage (London tube, Spanish trains, and those Malaysian tourist hotels).
So I disagree. I don't think GWB has 'fixed' homeland security. I just think we've not been hit again. Yet.
- Scott H
essayh@hotmail.com
It's not a matter for disagreement. There have been at least three major al Queda plots foiled under the current administration. You seem to be the only person unaware of them; the media certainly gave them adequate attention at the time. And the fact remains that to a quite considerable extent the deficit is due to spending on homeland security to at least partially offset the hit our intelligence and defense capabilties took in order to enable Clinton to balance his (contrary to the liberal mantra, revenues actually rose after the Bush tax cuts, just as they did under the Reagan and Kennedy tax cuts).
Scott, you're in denial. Which has been a pretty typical state for people of your persuasion for the past six years. Both administrations had attacks on the WTC near their beginning. Your guy did nothing- and in fact crippled our ability to fight back. The incumbent took the opposite approach.
Officially, I'm independent.
Mostly, I'm just disgusted.
I'll not defend WJC, tho the Bojinka plot was busted on his watch.
The idealist in me can see GWBs point, but the implementation leaves much to be desired. Either he doesn't want to pay the price or he doesn't understand the cost of the road.
Scott H