Karl Rove, who himself is a threat to national security, revealed that the
GOP will make national security a central issue in 2006. Who better to reveal the Republicans' Orwellian plan that the man who probably leaked highly classified national security secrets to the press, endangering precious lives and secret institutions in the process. The Republicans will continue their dishonorable crusade of labeling us cowards. They'll keep foaming at the mouth and claiming our dissent gives aid and comfort to the enemy. And, like the good little lapdogs they are, media ditzes will pick up the talking points. Next thing you know, they'll claim we're working in concert with Osama on message discipline....Okay, all of that has already happened, but expect what is a low buzz of dirty discourse now to swell into a deafening roar come election time.
The right employs the language of treason against us in order to deflect from the truth: Bush has pathetically mismanaged the War on Terrorism, and as a result, has endangered our nation.
WINNING THE WAR--BY SPARKING AN INCREASE IN TERRORISM
The MIPT Terrorism Knowledge base, which receives funding and strategic guidance from the Department of Homeland Security, tracks all publicly reported international and domestic terrorism incidents around the world. (Hat tip to ericbrewer for bringing the site to our attention here). Bush and his cabal insist that the way the administration has prosecuted the War on Terrorism has made the world is a safer place. The whole point of "winning" the war is to decrease the number of terrorism worldwide. Yet look at this chart tracking the number of terrorism incidents, domestic and international, since 2003 (the year we invaded Iraq):
The number of terrorist attacks has steadily increased under Bush's leadership. As ericbrewer points out, based on the terrorist database, "the sum of "international" and "domestic" terrorist attacks in 2005 was 3991, up 51% from the previous year's figure of 2639. The number of deaths that resulted from those attacks was 6872, which is 36% higher than the 5066 that occurred in 2004."
Karl Rove said "Republicans have a post-9/11 worldview and many Democrats have a pre-9/11 worldview." I guess the GOP "post-9/11 worldview" is one where, to quote kos, "If violence is down, it's a good thing. If violence is up, it's a good thing. If violence is WAY up, it's a great thing."
HEADCOUNTS
So we know that terrorism has increased dramatically under the Bush presidency. But surely, we must be making some progress on the War on Terrorism? The PATRIOT ACT, taking off our shoes at the airport, the Department of Homeland Security--all of that has to have a major impact in reigning in the terrorists, right? Well, not quite. Let's take a look at the numbers.
Warning! Cold hard facts on the flip side! Wingnuts and shills, enter at our own risk...
In 2002, the Bush administration boasted that it prosecuted some 62 cases of international terrorism. The reality? 60 of the 62 "international terrorists" turned out to be
Middle Eastern students who had cheated on an English proficiency exam. The only other case considered "terrorism" in the traditional sense was that of Daniel Pearle's killer.
Last year, in the summer of 2005, the Bush administration claimed it had prosecuted "over 400" terrorists. But a Washinton Post investigation revealed that was an outright lie: only some 36 individuals were actually prosecuted under the terrorism law. The vast majority of convictions cited by the government as successes in the war on terrorism were actually "relatively minor crimes such as making false statements and violating immigration law -- and had nothing to do with terrorism, the analysis shows. For the entire list, the median sentence was just 11 months." (For a chart breaking down Bush's "400" convictions by crime, click here).
So we're obviously not making stellar headway on the judicial front in the War on Terror. How about the military front? McClellan claimed as recently as yesterday that we have captured or killed 3/4 of Al Qaeda's leadership.
First, the claim is implicitly ludicrous because it presumes we have a firm figure on the size of Al Qaeda, much less the number of leaders it has. But last year, American Prospect ran down the real numbers:
On October 10, 2001, the administration announced a most-wanted list of 22 suspected terrorists, headed by Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri and including Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and Mohammed Atef, along with 18 other individuals, most of them affiliated with al-Qaeda. On May 26, 2004, Attorney General John Ashcroft and FBI Director Robert Mueller asked the American public to help find seven suspected al-Qaeda members potentially in the United States. Two of these seven had appeared on the original list of 22. All told, therefore, official U.S. government Web sites since September 11 have listed 27 known terrorists.
So how many have been captured or killed? Three.
That's not 75%, that's a paltry 11%. Mind you, the list at the time didn't even include powerful terrorists Mullah Omar and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. But what do we expect from a Commander-in-Chief who repeatedly admitted he wasn't that concerned with the man who murdered thousands of innocents on American soil. To quote Senator Kerry:
[F]our years of failure - enough is enough - why hasn't Osama Bin Laden been captured or killed, and how will he be destroyed before he next appears on tape to spread his disgusting message?
ILLEGAL SPYING PROGRAM INEFFECTIVE
Despite Bush's horrific failures in commanding this war, there are unfortunately too many Americans who would sacrifice their liberties in the hopes that doing so would make them safer. Uninformed and scared by the fear-mongering rhetoric of the right, they cling to the erroneous presumption that (a) this President can be entrusted with an aggrandizement of Executive Power, and (b) broadened power--even if illegal--may be acceptable if it protects us from terrorism.
The problem, of course, is that Bush's illegal power grab does nothing of the sort.
This week, the NY Times revealed that Bush's illegal spying program is grossly ineffective. According to the FBI, the program revealed "no active Qaeda networks inside the United States planning attacks." The FBI has acted on orders to spy on thousands of ordinary Americans. But the program has been so ineffective at tracking down terrorists, agents "joke[d] that a new bunch of tips meant more 'calls to Pizza Hut.'" The administration clings primarily to the case of Ayman Faris (Brooklyn Bridge bomber) as the sole example of how the illegal spying program "saved lives." But the government has repeatedly stated that it already had the evidence to stop the plot without needing to resort to illegal spying.
RUNNING FROM THE RECORD
This Republican government has failed miserably in responding to the 9/11 attacks. Instead of bringing the perpetrators of the crime to justice, this GOP administration has instead embarked on a bloated, ill-focused, haphazard game of Risk which has no end, and no winner.
We are just as vulnerable to attack today as we were that ill-fated Tuesday morning four years ago. Indeed, one can argue we're more vulnerable to attack, since we now exist in a hyper-charged environment where every failed missle attack spawns thousands of jihadists, where every leashed prisoner turns more against us, and where everyone can spot our weaknesses but our leaders themselves.
A campaign issue in 2006? Bring. It. On.