Answering the Republican Lies (9/17/06)
by Dean Hartwell
It's a good thing that 9/11 only comes around once a year. Otherwise, we would have to listen to Republicans spit out their "we're keeping you safe" script more often.
For instance, GOP leaders (and some Democrats) have been telling us that "everything has changed since 9/11." What has really changed? The threat of attack has always existed. People hated Osama bin Laden before that day. Our nation's leaders talk about the need to be tough on terrorists, a page right out of Ronald Reagan's playbook (and, considering he sold arms to terrorists, it isn't even a good one).
We now have more security checks at airports, more NSA spying on us without warrants and more flags. We still go to crowded places, we still travel and we still go to work. We just do it with more government control and surveillance (and I thought the GOP wanted the government "off our backs").
President Bush says we are safer now in these past five years. Do you feel safer? If we are, then why the terror alerts and warnings to "stay vigilant?" We have more enemies around the world because of our invasion of Iraq. We may very well have created more terrorists, the very people Bush tells us to be afraid of.
Thanks to a recent miniseries on ABC, Republicans have parroted a line that "Bill Clinton didn't care about Osama bin Laden." This phrase has been convenient for them because it fits in with their worldview that Bush has been tough on bin Laden.
What are the facts? First, President Clinton bombed Afghanistan and the Sudan to try to strike bin Laden in the late 1990s. But when he did, Republicans cried out that he "wagged the dog." This line refers to a movie in which the fictional president shifts focus from a crime he committed by hiring movie producers to create a fake news footage of a war with Albania.
In reality, there is no proof President Clinton tried to shift focus away from his affair with Monica Lewinsky or impending impeachment. Instead, the same Republicans who complained that Clinton "wagged the dog" now say he "didn't do enough" about bin Laden. This change of position sickens me because it appears to be accompanied by fake amnesia.
Lastly, Republicans want to press on in Iraq, telling us "we must fight the terrorists there so we don't fight them here." But terrorists aren't stupid. They can fight in more than one place if they want to.
The problem is that our invasion of Iraq and toppling of Saddam Hussein opened the door for al-Qaeda to enter Iraq. Had we not gone to Iraq, neither would the terrorists, whom Hussein kept out of his nation. Bush actually aided the spread of terrorism.
Republicans have misled us in these past five years. Their idea of unity is "agree with us or you are with the terrorists." We must continue to expose Bush and his cohorts for the frauds they are.