The United States of America is more secure.
President Barack Obama is alert. He is vigilant. He is ever watchful and it is apparent that our nation has an extensive network of eyes and ears around the world to catch possible terrorist threats before they happen. A knowledgeable leader who is in control and who knows how to manage national affairs can say the following:
I said very early on, as a Senator and continue to believe, as a presidential candidate and now as president, that we can absorb a terrorist attack. We will do everything we can to prevent it. but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever, that ever took place on our soil, we absorbed it, and we are stronger. This is a strong, powerful country that we live in, and our people are incredibly resilient.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/...
Bob Woodward's quote of Obama in his latest book has caused a firestorm of hysteria in Republican ranks.
Shameless Liz Cheney, she of more hair than wit, has leaped to the fore:
Americans expect our President to do everything possible to defend the nation from attack. We expect him to use every tool at his disposal to find, defeat, capture and kill terrorists. We expect him to deter attacks by making clear to our adversaries that an attack on the United States will carry devastating consequences. Instead, President Obama is reported to have said, ‘We can absorb a terrorist attack.’ This comment suggests an alarming fatalism on the part of President Obama and his administration. Once again the President seems either unwilling or unable to do what it takes to keep this nation safe. The President owes the American people an explanation.
http://www.keepamericasafe.com/...
The bumptious Ms Cheney, Chairman of "Keep America Safe," most likely a newly sprung up (like overnight in the wake of Woodward's book) "grassroots" org, espouses a mission statement meant to keep Americans cowering in fear:
The mission of Keep America Safe is to provide information for concerned Americans about critical national security issues. Keep America Safe seeks to influence public policy by encouraging dialogue between American citizens and their elected representatives in order to produce legislation and executive action that enhances the national security of the United States.
The United States remains a nation at war. We face a growing threat from rogue regimes that seek or have already obtained nuclear weapons. America’s interests are challenged by an authoritarian China, a resurgent Russia, and dictators in our own hemisphere who ally themselves with our adversaries. Amidst the great challenges to America’s security and prosperity, the current administration too often seems uncertain, wishful, irresolute, and unwilling to stand up for America, our allies and our interests.
http://www.keepamericasafe.com/...
"Unwilling to stand up for America"? Would that be something like outsourcing our manufacturing and jobs to India, Pakistan, "authoritarian China," et al? Raging outsourcing by primarily Republicans, although Republican lite Bill Clinton certainly did his bit, which now means if we want to build a missile or other complex weaponry, we must get the critical parts from our possible enemy, "authoritarian China." Really swift thinking, Lizzy dear.
And, Lizzy dear, we expected your papa and George W. Bush to "do everything possible to defend the nation from attack. ... to use every tool at his disposal to find, defeat, capture and kill terrorists. ... to deter attacks by making clear to our adversaries that an attack on the United States will carry devastating consequences," and instead we got September 11, 2001 because both your papa and GWB were asleep at the wheel.
As revealed by Center for American Progress on April 2, 2004:
After September 11, both President Bush and his top national security adviser denied having any prior knowledge that Al Qaeda was planning an attack involving airplanes. National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice said on 5/16/02, "I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." Similarly, President Bush denied having any idea about the threat, saying on 5/17/02, "Had I know that the enemy was going to use airplanes to kill on that fateful morning, I would have done everything in my power to protect the American people." These denials belie the record.
http://www.americanprogress.org/...
The Center goes on with an extensive list of the Bush/Cheney lapses and failures in our nation's security prior to September 11, 2001.
Richard Clarke's ignored concerns must also be mentioned, Lizzy dear:
At a July 5, 2001 White House gathering of the FAA, the Coast Guard, the FBI, Secret Service and INS, Clarke stated that "Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon." Donald Kerrick, a three-star general who was a deputy National Security Advisor in the late Clinton administration and stayed on into the Bush administration, wrote Hadley a classified two-page memo stating that the NSA needed to "pay attention to Al-Qaida and counterterrorism" and that the U.S. would be "struck again." As a result of writing that memo, he was not invited to any more meetings.
http://en.wikipedia.org/...
And, since I wasn't aware of General Kerrick before:
Clinton and Bush staff overlap for several months while new Bush appointees are appointed and confirmed. Clinton holdovers seem more concerned about al-Qaeda than the new Bush staffers. For instance, according to a colleague, Sandy Berger, Clinton’s National Security Adviser, had become "totally preoccupied" with fears of a domestic terror attack.... Brian Sheridan, Clinton’s outgoing Deputy Defense Secretary for Special Operations and Low-Intensity Conflict, is astonished when his offers during the transition to bring the new military leadership up to speed on terrorism are brushed aside. "I offered to brief anyone, any time on any topic. Never took it up." ...
Army Lieutenant General Donald Kerrick, Deputy National Security Adviser and manager of Clinton’s NSC (National Security Council) staff, still remains at the NSC nearly four months after Bush takes office. He later notes that while Clinton’s advisers met "nearly weekly" on terrorism by the end of his term, he does not detect the same kind of focus with the new Bush advisers: "That’s not being derogatory. It’s just a fact. I didn’t detect any activity but what [Clinton holdover Richard] Clarke and the CSG [Counterterrorism Security Group] were doing." ... Kerrick submits a memo to the new people at the NSC, warning, "We are going to be struck again." He says, "They never responded. It was not high on their priority list. I was never invited to one meeting. They never asked me to do anything. They were not focusing. They didn’t see terrorism as the big megaissue that the Clinton administration saw it as." Kerrick adds, "They were gambling nothing would happen." ... Bush’s first Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman, Henry Shelton, later says terrorism was relegated "to the back burner" until 9/11....
http://www.historycommons.org/...
And, Lizzy darling, your daddy dearest was named by Bush as chairman of a counterterrorism group ... that never met before September 11, 2001:
On May 8, 2001, President Bush announced that Vice President Cheney would "oversee the development of a coordinated national effort so that we may do the very best possible job of protecting our people from catastrophic harm." ... The task force was to focus specifically, in Vice President Cheney's words, on the threat of "domestic terrorism...a terrorist organization overseas or even another state using weapons of mass destruction against the U.S., a hand-carried nuclear weapon or biological or chemical agents." ... Moreover, President Bush announced that he would "periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts." ... The Washington Post reports that, in the four months between the President's announcement and the September 11 attacks, "neither Cheney's review nor Bush's took place.".. According to the 9-11 Commission, the Cheney Task Force "was just getting underway when the 9/11 attack occurred." ...
http://www.yourbbsucks.com/...
And geeze, I haven't even gotten to the ignorant blustering of the fuzzy-lipped John Bolton.
Well, tomorrow is another day...