Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.
-- George Santayana
MediaMatters reported that on May 3, 2010 Charles Krauthammer appeared on the Faux News Channel to discuss the Times Square car bomb attack. During that appearance (echoing VP Dick Cheney's oft-repeated falsehood) Krauthammer claimed that after the 9/11 attack that the Bush/Cheney administration prevented any additional terrorsts within the USA, and that this (some how) proves that torturing suspects at Gitmo works.
Specifically Krauthammer (falsely) claimed:
But, I would bet that Guantanamo has just gotten an extra year or two of life as a result of this ...
The Bush administration had seven years after 9-11, no successful attacks in the United States ...
The Bush administration['s] ... tough interrogation, nonetheless kept us safe...
full transcript: http://www.foxnews.com/...
Liar Liar Pants on fire!!!
Details after the jump.
MediaMatters reported 4 incidients that disprove Krauthammer's totally bogus claims.
The last time I heard Cheney make a similar argument I started to compile a list of attacks that disprove his lies. Go ahead and guess how many incidents I've discovered so far that Krauthammer [and Cheney] don't want you to remember (and which prove they're all flat out lying about the Bush/Cheney track record)
Was it 4, 10, 20? Nope it was at least 28 29.
Terrorist attacks during the Bush/Cheney administration:
- Feb-Dec 2001, 550 hoax anthrax and death threat letters mailed to abortion clinics by fugitive anti-abortion extremist Clayton Lee Wagner
- March 2001 30 SUVs in Oregon torched by ELF
- May 2001 a lab at U of Wash firebombed by ELF attacker(s) who wrongly assumed the lab was doing Genetic Engineering of trees
- June 2001 bombing of abortion clinic in Tacoma WA
- Autumn 2001, anthrax tainted letters/threats in FL, NY, DC kill 5 people and infect 17 others
- Sep 11, 2001, al-Qaeda terrorists hijack 4 airliners and crash them into the World Trade Center Twin Towers, the Pentagon, and an empty field near Shanksville, PA.
- Nov 2001 failed firebombing by ELF member on campus of MIchigan Technological University
- Dec 2001 Richard Reid, the Shoe-bomber attempted to destroy AA63
- May 2002 Midwest Pipe ("smiley-face") Bomber rigs 18 mailboxes with pipe-bombs that injure 6 people
- Oct 2002 10 people killed and 3 injured by the Beltway snipers
- April 12, 2003 shooting at the El Al ticket counter at LAX by Hesham Mohamed Hadayet, an Egyptian national
- Aug 2003 San Diego apartment complex burned down by ELF
- Aug 2003 125 SUVs and Hummers torched by ELF
- Sep 2003 6 houses and 1 condominium in Torrey Pines burned by ELF
- Oct 2003 ricin tainted package mailed to Dept. of Transportation by "Fallen Angel" terrorist discovered in Greenville, SC mail-sorting center
- Nov 2003 ricin tainted package mailed to White House by "Fallen Angel" terrorist
- Apr 2004 neo-nazi firebombed a synagogue in Oklahoma City, OK
- Feb 2004 ricin discovered in mail sorting macinery in Sen. Frist's mailroom, causes shutdown and decontamination of the Dirksen, Hart and Russell Senate Office Buildings
- May 2005 2 IEDs exploded outside the British Consulate's building in New York, NY
- July 4, 2005, arson attack at Palm Beach, FL abortion clinic
- Dec 2005, firebombing of abortion clinic in Shreveport, LA
- Jul 26, 2008 Shooting at the Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle by Naveed Haq, 1 woman killed and five others wounded
- March 2006, at the Univ. of N. Carolina, Mohammed REza Taheri-azar attempted to murder multiple people using his SUV, injures 9 people
- Dec 2006 firebombing of health clinic in Rochester Hills, Mich. which attacker wrongly assumed was a abortion clinic
- Apr 2007 attempted bombing of women's health clinic in Austin, TX
- May 2007 arson at Planned Parenthood clinic in Virginia Beach, VA
- Oct 2007 unknown assailant threw 2 IEDs into the compound of the Mexican Consulate in New York, NY
- Dec 2007 arson at abortion provider in Albuquerque, NM
- Mar 2008 ELF burns 4 mansions in Echo Lake, WA
- UPDATE: July 27, 2008, Jim D. Adkisson seeking to kill Liberals and Democrats used a shotgun to kill 2 and wound 7 at the Unitarian Universalist church in Knoxville, TN.
BTW, in the interest of completely accuracy I need to point out that Krauthammer is also wrong about the number of terrorist incidents during the Obama administration. It's at least 3 5 6, not 2.
Terrorist attacks during the Obama/Biden administration
- UPDATE: May 31, 2009, Dr George Tiller assasinated by the anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder.
- Jun 10, 2009 Holocaust Memorial Museum in Wash. DC attacked by James Von Brunn
- Nov 9, 2009 Ft. Hood shooting, US Army Maj. Nadil Malik Hassan, MD shot and killed 13 and wounded 30 others.
- UPDATE: Dec 25, 2009, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempted to blow up Northwest Airlines flight 253 with a bomb concealed in his underwear.
- UPDATE: Feb 18, 2010, small private plane used in a suicide-murder attack against IRS offices in Austin TX, kills 1 and injures 13 IRS employees
- UPDATE: Mar 2010, Larry Eugene North, an anti-government nutjob, plants 36 pipebombs (but doesn't ignite any) in mailboxes in and around Tyler, TX
- May 1, 2010, Times Square, car bomb ignited but fails to explode