http://www.tompaine.com/articles/2006/08/10/fuel_for_the_fearmongers_fire.php
Fuel For The Fear-Mongers’ Fire August 10 2006 — Isaiah J. Poole
Only the most paranoid might conclude that today’s arrests in Britain in connection with an alleged terror plot was timed to coincide with Republican mobilization for the fall elections. But you have to concede that the timing is at least convenient.
The news that British intelligence thwarted a plot that involved blowing up several trans-Atlantic flights between Britain and the United States came hours after the GOP launched a coordinated attack against progressives who successfully propelled Iraq war opponent Ned Lamont to victory over Sen. Joe Lieberman in the August 8 Connecticut Democratic primary.
The Thursday morning news conference by Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who announced that the domestic terrorist alert level was being elevated for both domestic and international flights, did not stray into overt politics. But it did not have to. The ground was already well-laid the afternoon before by the Bush administration’s top officials and by the Republican National Committee.
Vice President Dick Cheney, opining on Lamont’s defeat of Lieberman on Wednesday, renewed the administration’s odious “Democrats-are-with-the- terrorists†line. “The al-Qaida types,†he said, “clearly are betting on the proposition that ultimately they can break the will of the American people in terms of our ability to stay in the fight and complete the task.†Lieberman’s defeat, he went on to say. “would seem to say a lot about the state the party is in today if that’s becoming the dominant view of the Democratic Party, the basic, fundamental notion that somehow we can retreat behind our oceans and not be actively engaged in this conflict and be safe here at home, which clearly we know we won’t—we can’t be.â€
The Republican National Committee gleefully posted Cheney’s statement on its Web site , which also contains an audio montage of out-of-context statements by Democrats under the title, “Weak And Wrong: Meet the Defeat-ocrats.â€
Meanwhile, at President Bush’s Crawford, Texas, ranch, Press Secretary Tony Snow unleashed a barrage that not only hit the Democrats who were his rhetorical target but also took out President Bush’s father, George H. W. Bush, as collateral damage:
And the real question for the American people to ask themselves is, do you take the war on terror seriously, with all the developments going on around the world? And, if so, how do you fight it to win? There seem to be two approaches. And in the Connecticut race one of the approaches is ignore the difficulties and walk away.
Now, when the United States walked away, in the opinion of Osama bin Laden in 1991, bin Laden drew from that the conclusion that Americans were weak and wouldn’t stay the course, and that led to September 11th.
Now, every time an American goes through heightened security at an airport, he or she will hear in the background the drumbeat of Republicans saying, “We are fighting to keep you safe, while the Democrats want to give up the fight and let the terrorists run amok.”
This means that progressives should not be complacent in the wake of their message’s victory in Connecticut. The Republican method of giving voters a false choice—between security and surrender—worked in 2004. If progressives want to keep that message from working again, we have to be loud and clear: It is the Bush policy of cocky, sloppy interventionism that has made America less safe, and the alternative is not retreat but smart and competent use of diplomacy—and force when necessary— to starve the extremist fires around the world of the oxygen that Bush’s brand of neocon internationalism has pumped into the Middle East.
This latest disclosure of a terrorist plot should not intimidate us. It should remind us that five years after 9/11, Republican policy has made the world a more dangerous place.
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“Our German forbearers in the 1930s sat around, blamed their rulers, said ‘maybe everything’s going to be alright.’ That is something we cannot do. I do not want my grandchildren asking me years from now, ‘why didn’t you do something to stop all this?” –Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst of 27 years, referring to the actions and crimes of the Bush Administration
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