Look at the facts. How has spending on the War on Terror placed in the
Bushies' funding priorities compared with tax cuts and invading Iraq,
which they wanted long before 9/11? Which goal is #1; which is #2, and
which is #3? And how successful have they been at protecting national
security? To be fair, we haven't had another Al Qaeda attack on US
soil in 5 years (Clinton didn't have one in 8), and our initial
intervention in Afghanistan was fairly successful. Yet if we had made
the War on Terror #1 instead of #3, it's hard to argue that Al Qaeda
would still be booming, nuclear powers multiplying, and our country so
poorly protected. If there were 100,000 US soldiers around Afghanistan
instead of 16,000, would the 9/11 planners still be rallying their
troops with impunity? If our military and diplomatic had focused on
terrorism and nuclear proliferation instead of a tempting low-priority
target like Saddam, would North Korea and now Iran be joining the
Nuclear Club?
Real Homeland Security also costs money, and it hasn't been their
priority. I was shocked when Kerry asked Bush in the first of their
debates why he hadn't protected our bridges, tunnels, nuclear reactors
and chemical plants -- and Bush responded weakly, "Do you know how much
that would cost?" This from a man who manages to scrounge up many
hundreds of billions each year to give his buddies tax cuts and fight
an unnecessary war.
Instead, they've been "starving the beast". This administration has
squeezed (non-pork) Government spending a lot -- since 9/11, they have
used the excuse of the War on Terror, but it was their slogan long
before. Yet many of their thrifty cuts (if it helps poor people, it's
non-essential) have harmed our security. Al Qaeda is a threat, but so
are Cat 5 hurricanes and pandemics. They thought cutting taxes on
billionaire heirs was more essential than levee repair in their
2001-2005 budgets. Now they propose cutting the CDC budget and hospital
reimbursements. Even a mild flu pandemic is likely to cause more
American deaths than Al Qaeda has a prayer of achieving.
Besides not making security a priority, they have also been incompetent
in achieving it. Bush refused to meet Kim early in his term to
negotiate an end to the N. Korean nuclear program, saying only, "I
don't like the man." Whether Iraq was revenge for Daddy, or the New
American Century, it was by any reasonable standards a huge blunder.
Putting a crony in charge of FEMA -- his largest responsibility before
that was as head of the Texas
horse racing commission -- probably cost dozens of lives, at least.
So can does the Administration do to keep their Democratic opponents
and the public from eventually noticing what a poor job they've done at
what they've made their biggest issue for 4.5 years? Flash! Boom! Mr.
Rove, no patriot himself, is past master at maneuvering his opponents
onto the wrong side of most American's patriotism and insecurities, and
this issue is another classic example. He *knows* we are paranoid. He
*knows* we care about rights and freedom. Like a skilled matador, he
*knows* how to tempt us into one exhausting charge after another -- and
after each one, his picadors take another stab at our credibility. As
soon as the polls showed that the majority wasn't upset by the spying,
Bush reversed course and began defending what he had previously denied
was happening. Predictably, defenders of freedom like Sen. Leahy
charged. Predictably, our newsgroups and blogs and water-cooler
conversation filled up with paranoid rantings that make the majority
distrust us. And predictably, once again the majority saw this bunch of
thieves and incompetents as "more trustworthy on national security".
The Democrats seem lost in the political wilderness right now. So
here's some wilderness survival advice from _The Edge_ (1997):
Charles Morse: You know, I once read an interesting book which said
that, uh, most people lost in the wilds, they, they die of shame.
Stephen: What?
Charles Morse: Yeah, see, they die of shame. "What did I do wrong? How
could I have gotten myself into this?" And so they sit there and
they... die. Because they didn't do the one thing that would save their
lives.
Robert Green: And what is that, Charles?
Charles Morse: Thinking.
Take care!
Howie Goodell
--
Howie Goodell http://goodL.org
Info Vis, Bioinformatics UMass Lowell Computer Science
--
THE MEEK SHALL INHERIT THE EARTH!
(If that's okay with the rest of you)
Received on Sat Mar 02 2024 - 00:57:26 CST