1 Boring Old Man

Rebranding The Enemy
Hullabaloo
by digby
January 2, 2010

The Plan emerges:

An already difficult situation for Democrats in Congress is worsening as the 2010 political season opens. To minimize expected losses in next fall’s election, President Barack Obama’s party is testing a line of attack that resurrects George W. Bush as a boogeyman and cast

It’s not a bad idea. But it would have been a little bit more believable if the Democrats hadn’t spent the last year scrupulously "looking forward not backward" and coddling Wall Street and the banksters. George W. Bush is a ghost now and his VP has reanimated himself as a national security monster whose every utterance seems to force the President into ever more hawkish postures. And unlike Bush, Obama failed to use the term "mah predecessor" every five minutes and the Democrats didn’t bother to evoke him as the cause of everything evil in the world, so Bush is now a receding nightmare you’re happy to forget. It always seemed like a bad idea to me not to keep him front and center.

As for the cozy with Wall Street thing, well, it’s worth a try. It might have been better to have worked that angle aggressively right out of the box, tie the recession into Republican deregulation, strongly endorse serious financial market reform and aggressively take on Wall Street’s insane incentives and pay structure, but I suppose it’s better late than never. At this point, unfortunately, I’m just not sure if anyone will believe it.

Still, I like it. And anyway, what else can they do?

---

Update:This should help, although the Republicans will undoubtedly find a way to blame it on the Democrats:

^{The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times, a sharp reversal from a long period of prosperity that is leading economists and policymakers to fundamentally rethink the underpinnings of the nation’s growth. It was, according to a wide range of data, a lost decade for American workers. The decade began in a moment of triumphalism — there was a current of thought among economists in 1999 that recessions were a thing of the past. By the end, there were two, bookends to a debt-driven expansion that was neither robust nor sustainable. There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well. Middle-income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 — and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009. The Aughts were the first decade of falling median incomes since figures were first compiled in the 1960s.}
^{And the net worth of American households — the value of their houses, retirement funds and other assets minus debts — has also declined when adjusted for inflation, compared with sharp gains in every previous decade since data were initially collected in the 1950s. "This was the first business cycle where a working-age household ended up worse at the end of it than the beginning, and this in spite of substantial growth in productivity, which should have been able to improve everyone’s well-being," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank.}

^{In October 1962, I was 21 years old and a junior in college. One afternoon, I was working ‘the desk’ of the Student Center and vaguely listening to the TV News in the nearby lounge. When I heard President Kennedy, I walked to the lounge and heard him announce the presence of Russian Missiles in Cuba. We were going to war soon, I thought. When I got off from work, I walked towards my girlfriend’s house rather than my apartment. I was going to join up the next day, I think, and I was off to tell her. Walking across the parking lot of the football stadium, I had something as close to a vision as I’ll ever have. I saw myself in fatigues, being shot in the head in a battle, and felt terror. It was just a flash, but I changed my path and went to my apartment, or the fraternity house. I didn’t join up the next day [and we didn’t go to war].}

^{I don’t think I ever mentioned meeting the Buddha on the road that evening to anyone. But I never had another romantic thought about the glory of war after that. I opposed the Viet Nam War that soon followed and was saved from the conflict  of my vision when I served my time in the military during the Viet Nam era. I was a physician assigned to an Air Force Base in England. I carry the ‘survivor’s guilt’ of much of my generation. I feel bad that I didn’t serve in Viet Nam and I would have felt bad had I served in Viet Nam. I remain mildly obsessed about a not very close friend who died in Viet Nam before it had escalated. I first heard of Viet Nam and of his death there in the same conversation, about a year after my vision.}

^{I gravitate to stories of experiences like my vision – the paradigm being Stephen Crane’s 1894 The Red Badge of Courage. The protagonist, Henry, is a young guy marching off to his first Battle as a Union soldier in the Civil War. He becomes obsessed that he will "run" in face of combat. He tries to talk to his comrades about it, but they laugh him off. He doesn’t run in the first skirmish, but in a subsequent enemy counterattack, he finds himself fleeing as fast as he can run. The rest of the book chronicles his redemption when a non-combat injury is mistaken for a combat wound, and he returns to the fight with his red badge of courage.}

^{I’ve talked to a lot of soldiers and civilians with PTSD in my career, and I’ve concluded that there is no such thing as courage. What looks like courage is training, or experience, or rage, or denial, or group solidarity – some way of dissociating from terror – and it’s something that has collateral expense [the terror comes later]. But that’s not my point. I want to talk about two things – the demonstrations in Iran and the underwear bomber.}

^{This is just one of the videos from the demonstrations in Iran that shows the crowd refusing to be intimidated by being fired on and charging the soldiers. Bravery? Courage? I would say that the solidarity of the group and their strong belief in what they’re doing pulled them together as a group – and the group cohesion allowed them to overcome their individual fears, much like units in the Army. Notice, in the video that it takes a little time for the group cohesion to coalesce after being shot at before their collective charge.}

We send our young, well trained, volunteer soldiers into battle in groups. We hope they don’t get killed and do a lot to protect them. We speak of them as courageous, and honor the fallen – as we should. The other guys do the same thing with some notable exceptions. They often go into battle alone – the young suicide bombers. And they go with the knowledge of a sure death. No experienced soldier would do such a thing, so they rely on naive non-veterans. I expect they do everything they can to make sure that their suicide bomber-in-training doesn’t have a moment of truth like I did back in 1962 in that parking lot.

On 9/11, they sent groups onto the planes. That worked. They had surprise on their side, and the solidarity of the terrorist group working for them. Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab was all alone. He bungled assembling his bomb and seemed in a fog as he was restrained – showing nothing even though he was sustaining severe burns. I’m proposing that though he may have been a terrorist, he was also terrorized himself. There was no group support, no experience in the fog of war. I think his denial mechanisms must’ve broken down and he was paralyzed, dazed – he may have even had a vision of the reality of what he was doing.

Chris Bowers at Open Left is taking the holiday off and posting "oldies." This is one from a couple months ago that I hadn’t seen. It’s something we all know, but Darcy’s explanation makes it quite clear why – some fine thinking:

This picture from our Egypt trip of a faluka [the boat] on the Nile is typical of the Nile in upper Egypt [the south]. Planted, level fields stretch for a variable distance broken by parallel and perpendicular lines [which are irrigation ditches]. Beyond the fields is always desert, in this case, the beginnings of the low mountains that hold the Valley of the Kings and other antiquities. Egypt, at least inhabited Egypt, is at most a few miles wide from Aswan in the south up to Cairo, where the Nile fans out.

So, how does the water get from the Nile to the ditches?  It’s not very far [depending on the season]. There are three ancient methods, all of which remain in widespread use. The simplest is the shaduf, a counter-weighted lever bucket apparatus. Dip the bucket in, lift it out, spin it to the ditch, then dump it. Repeat for centuries. There are smaller versions that can be operated with one hand [by a mother holding a child]. Another method is the Archimedes Screw, which is operated by a hand crank. It’s more labor intensive, but moves more water. But if you’ve got a large field, you need a water buffalo to turn your Saqiya with its wooden gears and water wheel. Floating down the Nile, all of these primitive methods of moving water from the Nile into the Irrigation Ditches were in use. In fact, if there were other methods, like pumps, I didn’t see them anywhere. What our guide said was that there were some places where more modern pumps were in use because there was no other choice, but that the old methods were always used as the first line. It wasn’t because they didn’t have electric pumps or electricity. It was because they didn’t want to put people out of work. At first, I was suspicious of this answer, thinking it might be a way of denying the poverty in much of Egypt. But as we continued up the Nile, I became convinced. It was only one of several examples of this concept that seemed foreign to our American way of thinking.

We sailed about a third of the Nile on a Deisel powered Nile cruiser, one of many taking tourists from site to site. We only saw a few barges pushed by deisel powered tugs. But other than that, the boats on the river were either falukas like the one above, or small row boats [used by most of the fishermen]. The idea of avoiding automatic technology in order to allow people to have jobs, or to use wind and human powered boats so as to not rely of fossil fuels took some getting used to. As we cruised along the Nile, I  only saw two "powerboats" of the kind that roar around our lakes during the whole trip. There were falukas without sails that had outboard motors, but they looked to be in the fifteen to twenty horsepower range [and very old].

On land, there were plenty of two-wheeled donkey carts being used to transport goods around the towns, or just being ridden. The horse-drawn taxis were popular with tourists, but were also in wide use by the locals. There were lots of handcrafts – ornamental rugs, alabaster jugs, mosaics, etc. But there were also a lot of non-touristy things being made by hand – like adobe bricks, hand formed and hand fired. It never occurred to me that all the primitive seeming methods were being maintained to keep people employed, but that actually seemed to be the case – at least in Upper Egypt.

Aughts were a lost decade for U.S. economy, workers
Washington Post
By Neil Irwin
January 2, 2010

For most of the past 70 years, the U.S. economy has grown at a steady clip, generating perpetually higher incomes and wealth for American households. But since 2000, the story is starkly different. The past decade was the worst for the U.S. economy in modern times, a sharp reversal from a long period of prosperity that is leading economists and policymakers to fundamentally rethink the underpinnings of the nation’s growth.

It was, according to a wide range of data, a lost decade for American workers. The decade began in a moment of triumphalism – there was a current of thought among economists in 1999 that recessions were a thing of the past. By the end, there were two, bookends to a debt-driven expansion that was neither robust nor sustainable. There has been zero net job creation since December 1999. No previous decade going back to the 1940s had job growth of less than 20 percent. Economic output rose at its slowest rate of any decade since the 1930s as well.

Middle-income households made less in 2008, when adjusted for inflation, than they did in 1999 — and the number is sure to have declined further during a difficult 2009. The Aughts were the first decade of falling median incomes since figures were first compiled in the 1960s. And the net worth of American households – the value of their houses, retirement funds and other assets minus debts – has also declined when adjusted for inflation, compared with sharp gains in every previous decade since data were initially collected in the 1950s.

"This was the first business cycle where a working-age household ended up worse at the end of it than the beginning, and this in spite of substantial growth in productivity, which should have been able to improve everyone’s well-being," said Lawrence Mishel, president of the Economic Policy Institute, a liberal think tank…

Rather than trot out my endless series of graphs, I’ll just say it in words. Our frontline issues are job creation, population control, and reduced energy consumption. If we have to socialize temporarily in the service of any one of them, so be it. The free market economy model thas been out of hand and the excesses of the so-called financial industry have painted us into a corner for the moment. Abortion and birth control have moved from the realm of "reproductive freedom" into the area of "economic and environmental necessity." Reducing energy consumption is no longer a tree-hugger, granola set issue, it too has become "economic and environmental necessity." And job creation trumps any political principles or theory. Without jobs – we return to the early 1930’s world of hardship and depression.

Muhammad’s promise to Christians
Washington Post
By Muqtedar Khan
^{Director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware}
01/02/2010

Muslims and Christians together constitute over 50 percent of the world. If they lived in peace, we would be half way to world peace. One small step we can take towards fostering Muslim-Christian harmony is to tell and retell positive stories and abstain from mutual demonization. In this article I propose to remind both Muslims and Christians about a promise that Prophet Muhammed (pbuh) made to Christians. The knowledge of this promise can have enormous impact on Muslim conduct towards Christians. Muslims generally respect the precedent of their Prophet and try to practice it in their lives.

In 628 AD, a delegation from St. Catherine’s Monastery came to Prophet Muhammed and requested his protection. He responded by granting them a charter of rights, which I reproduce below in its entirety. St. Catherine’s Monastery is located at the foot of Mt. Sinai and is the world’s oldest monastery. It possess a huge collection of Christian manuscripts, second only to the Vatican, and is a world heritage site. It also boasts the oldest collection of Christian icons. It is a treasure house of Christian history that has remained safe for 1,400 years under Muslim protection.

The Promise to St. Catherine:

"This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them. Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims’ houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God’s covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate. No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world)."

The first and the final sentence of the charter are critical. They make the promise eternal and universal. Muhammed asserts that Muslims are with Christians near and far, straight away rejecting any future attempts to limit the promise to St. Catherine alone. By ordering Muslims to obey it until the Day of Judgment the charter again undermines any future attempts to revoke the privileges. These rights are inalienable. Muhammed declared Christians, all of them, as his allies and he equated ill treatment of Christians with violating God’s covenant.

A remarkable aspect of the charter is that it imposes no conditions on Christians for enjoying its privileges. It is enough that they are Christians. They are not required to alter their beliefs, they do not have to make any payments and they do not have any obligations. This is a charter of rights without any duties! The document is not a modern human rights treaty, but even though it was penned in 628 A.D. it clearly protects the right to property, freedom of religion, freedom of work, and security of the person. I know most readers, must be thinking, So what? Well the answer is simple. Those who seek to foster discord among Muslims and Christians focus on issues that divide and emphasize areas of conflict. But when resources such as Muhammad’s promise to Christians is invoked and highlighted it builds bridges. It inspires Muslims to rise above communal intolerance and engenders good will in Christians who might be nursing fear of Islam or Muslims.

When I look at Islamic sources, I find in them unprecedented examples of religious tolerance and inclusiveness. They make me want to become a better person. I think the capacity to seek good and do good inheres in all of us. When we subdue this predisposition towards the good, we deny our fundamental humanity. In this holiday season, I hope all of us can find time to look for something positive and worthy of appreciation in the values, cultures and histories of other peoples.

Dr. Muqtedar Khan is Director of Islamic Studies at the University of Delaware and a fellow of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding.

On our trip through Egypt and Jordan, we were almost daily told something or another about Islam – usually with the assumption that all of us [130 people] were Christians – a universal assumption made when we’ve traveled. And what we were told about Muslims mirrored what’s written here in the Washington Post. If Terrorism was mentioned, they were called "extremists." In a public school in Egypt, we saw a book about how terrorism wasn’t part of Islam – the guide said, "You have to teach them early."

In both countries, we were told the percentage Christian [Egypt 20%, Jordan 5%] and shown churches [usually empty]. When we asked about the women’s headcovering, Mary [yeah, that Mary] was always mentioned. "Have you ever seen a picture of Mary without a scarf?" "There’s a chapter about Mary in the Quran." Stories from the Hadith [teachings and actions of Mohamed] were told [decrying unkindness and killing]. "You’ve got to understand those parts about ‘infidels’ in context." And we believed that they mostly believed what they were saying. I still believe them.

I believe them like I believe my Christian friends when they tell me that the lunatic homophobic, creationist, abortion hating, Bush electing Fundamentalist Christians aren’t really Christians. They mean what they say, but they don’t really do anything. If religious people will not or cannot police their own religions, I want no part of religion. If the Muslims will not deal with murders among their ranks, Dr. Khan’s excellent words are lost on us. If the Christian Churches will not decry the Christian Right, who can listen to them? If the Jews cannot treat the Palestinians with kindness and compassion, who cares about the Torah? And if we, as Americans, cannot face up to [and admit] the awful mess we made by invading Iraq in search of oil, what good are the lofty words of our primary documents, our founder’s words, or our other good intentions? No religion or set of Principles can stand without accountability.

I accept that right-thinking Muslims cannot stop al Qaeda, that right-thinking Christians cannot quell the excesses of the Religious Right, that right-thinking Jews cannot quell the excesses of the Zionists, but they can do better than ignoring or disavowing. They can say, "I am ashamed of what was done in the name of Allah, Mohamed, Jesus, God, Yaweh. And they can talk to their "brothers" in faith endlessly about what’s hapenning. The courageous Nigerian who turned in his own radicalized son is my kind of Muslim and an example for us all…

Limbaugh Released, Says Tests Found No Heart Disease
Bloomberg
By Courtney Schlisserman
January 1, 2010

Rush Limbaugh, the conservative U.S. talk radio host, was released from a Honolulu hospital and will resume his program next week, Premier Radio Networks Inc. said today in an e-mailed statement. Limbaugh plans to return after some rest and will make appearances with fill-in hosts early in the week, today’s statement said. Premier Radio Networks is a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications.

Doctors at Queen’s Medical Center found no evidence of heart disease in tests taken after he was admitted to the hospital Dec. 30 because of chest pains, Limbaugh said earlier today at a press conference broadcast on Fox News and CNN. “The angiogram showed literally no heart disease or arterial disease whatsoever,” said Limbaugh, 58. His show is heard on about 600 radio stations.

Liberals wish death on Rush Limbaugh
Examiner.com
by Lisa Carter
January 1, 2010

One only has to read comments about Rush Limbaugh by liberals at the New York Daily News to see how vile the left is. All over the Internet, many liberals have wished for Rush to have a heart attack, die, or just both. It’s quite pathetic. Rush Limbaugh, an American hero, is hated because he tells the truth about Affirmative Action, Obama, global warming and many other things. Instead of arguing Rush Limbaugh’s points with merit, liberals try to rip him to shreds.

In any case, you would never catch this column or many other conservatives wishing death on a liberal. Conservatives usually practice what they preach. The liberal motto is "Do as I say, not as I do."

• Rush Limbaugh, an American hero | This one is subjective. It’s not apparent to me what he has done that is heroic. He evaded military service because of a pilonidal cyst – large pimple on the butt. He didn’t make it a whole term in college. His main employment has been on talk radio.
• Rush Limbaugh … is hated because he tells the truth about Affirmative Action | As I understand it, Limbaugh is opposed to affirmative action on the grounds that minority recipients are lazy deadbeats.
• Rush Limbaugh … is hated because he tells the truth about … Obama | Limbaugh thinks Obama is a Muslim, Socialist, Fascist, Communist who is representing only people of his race.
• Rush Limbaugh … is hated because he tells the truth about … global warming | Global warming isn’t happening according to Limbaugh.
• Instead of arguing Rush Limbaugh’s points with merit, liberals try to rip him to shreds | The reason that people like me don’t like Limbaugh is purported to be our envy of him, or fear of how right he is about things. I guess I’m off base. I think I don’t like him because he makes up lies and distorts facts on a daily basis.

Mousavi seeks end to Iran crackdown
Al Jazeera English
January 1, 2010
15:02 Mecca time

12:02 GMT

Mir Hossein Mousavi, the Iranian opposition leader, has called for an immediate end to the government crackdown on opposition activists, saying he was ready to die in defence of people’s rights. In a statement on his Kaleme website on Friday, Mousavi also said that the Islamic Republic was in "serious crisis" following the disputed presidential election in June. "I am not afraid to die for people’s demands … Iran is in serious crisis … Harsh remarks … will create internal uprising … the election law should be changed … political prisoners should be freed," his statement added.

He accused the government of making more mistakes by resorting to "violence and killings" to quell the protests over the poll outcome, that saw Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent president, re-elected for another term. "Arresting or killing Mousavi, [another opposition leader Mehdi] Karoubi … will not calm the situation," Mousavi, who lost the election, said in the statement.

Mousavi also demanded that the government "take responsibility for the problems it has created in the country… and recognise people’s right to lawful assembly". "I say openly that until there is an acknowledgement of the existence of a serious crisis in the country, there will be no possibility of resolving the problems and issues."

Mixed message

Baqer Moin, a specialist on Iran based in London, told Al Jazeera that Mousavi was being both defiant and conciliatory in his statement. "He’s saying: ‘if you want war then I am man of war, if you want peace then I am man of peace … I’m ready to negotiate’.," Moin said. "Having said that he comes with five suggestions saying that if you really want peace in the country you can’t go overnight towards the maximum demand of everybody – we have to move gradually towards a destination." "So in a sense he is coming with some realistic proposals within the constitution to deal with the current crisis," he said.

Also on Friday, Ayatollah Ahmad Jannati, the speaker of Iran’s Guardian Council, accused anti-government protesters of "corrupting God’s earth". The charge is punishable by death under Islamic law…

Dick Cheney’s Expertise At Undermining National Security
The Left Coaster
by Turkana
Thursday :: Dec 31, 2009

So, Dick Cheney is back in the corporate media, telling everyone that President Obama is ignoring national security and endangering America. And the corporate media let him get away with it, as if he’s some paragon of expertise on the issue. He is, in fact, the exact opposite. It was his administration’s incompetence that allowed the worst ever attack on American soil, and it was his administration that followed that attack by undermining our national security, even more.

Because neither the corporate media nor most Democratic "leaders" seem to know how to respond to this astonishing hypocrisy, it’s worthwhile, once again, taking a look at some fundamental facts. Much of this is a compendium of re-posts. Much of it, no doubt, will need to be re-posted many more times. The corporate media should know these facts, and it may take endless repetition of them for the corporate media even to become conscious of them. Every Democrat or progressive who gets face time on television should know these facts. The DNC should make these facts basic talking points, for all party officials, elected or otherwise.

Bush Administration incompetence and negligence made possible the September 11 attacks.

Before the 9/11 attacks, both the Minneapolis and Phoenix FBI offices uncovered evidence that could have revealed the entire plot. The agents in these field offices did their jobs, without torturing people, wiretapping random innocents, or racial profiling. The agents in these field offices did what professional law enforcement officials are supposed to do, and had they been able to interest their nominal superiors, 9/11 might never have happened. But they couldn’t interest their nominal superiors. Plain old incompetence led to these agents’ important revelations being ignored. But that was the pattern with the Bush Administration.

1. Time Magazine: At the very beginning of the Bush Administration, during the transition, President Clinton’s National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger, warned Bush National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice:

   I believe that the Bush Administration will spend more time on terrorism generally, and on al-Qaeda specifically, than any other subject.
2. Salon: The Bush Administration ignored the two and a half year Hart-Rudman U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century’s warnings about terrorism, choosing, instead, to conduct their own study.
3. Washington Post: But neither Bush nor Cheney made good on an announced plan to make such a study.
4. Newsweek: A month into the Bush presidency…

   But when it comes to fighting terrorism, administration officials say the United States has no new initiatives to offer. Top antiterrorism officials in the U.S. government tell NEWSWEEK that Bush and his lieutenants have yet to put forth a counterterrorism plan. So far at least, the Bush team has kept on Clinton’s counterterrorism czar, Richard Clarke.
5. CNN: Clarke’s own words…

   I believe the Bush administration in the first eight months considered terrorism an important issue, but not an urgent issue.
6. The Guardian:

   The former chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, General Hugh Shelton, said the Bush administration pushed terrorism "farther to the back burner". And in a sympathetic portrait of the young administration, Bush at War, the president himself told the author, Bob Woodward, that he "didn’t feel that sense of urgency" about going after Osama bin Laden.
7. Associated Press: Although Predator drones spotted bin Laden at least three times in 2000, Bush did not fly them over Afghanistan for the first eight months of his presidency.
8. CNN: Obsessed with missile defense, the Bush Administration thought it was wrong even to focus on Osama bin Laden.
9. Time Magazine: In July, 2001, CIA Director George Tenet warned Rice "that ‘the system was blinking red,’ meaning that there could be ‘multiple, simultaneous’ al-Qaeda attacks on U.S. interests in the coming weeks or months.
10. MSNBC: Clarke again…

    …I believe it was, George Tenet called me and said, "I don’t think we’re getting the message through. These people aren’t acting the way the Clinton people did under similar circumstances." And I suggested to Tenet that he come down and personally brief Condi Rice, that he bring his terrorism team with him. And we sat in the national security adviser’s office. And I’ve used the phrase in the book to describe George Tenet’s warnings as "He had his hair on fire." He was about as excited as I’d ever seen him. And he said, "Something is going to happen."

    Now, when he said that in December 1999 to the national security adviser, at the time Sandy Berger, Sandy Berger then held daily meetings throughout December 1999 in the White House Situation Room, with the FBI director, the attorney general, the head of the CIA, the head of the Defense Department, and they shook out of their bureaucracies every last piece of information to prevent the attacks. And we did prevent the attacks in December 1999. Dr. Rice chose not to do that.

11. Newsweek: Just days before the attacks, Don Rumsfeld was vetoing a request to divert $800 million from missile defense into counterterrorism.
12. New York Times:

    When Senator Carl Levin, a Michigan Democrat who was then chairman of the Armed Services Committee, sought to transfer money to counterterrorism from the missile defense program, Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld sent a letter on Sept. 6, 2001, saying he would urge Mr. Bush to veto the measure. Mr. Levin nonetheless pushed the measure through the next day on a party-line vote.
13. New York Times: Not to be outdone, just a day before the attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft turned down "F.B.I. requests for $58 million for 149 new counterterrorism field agents, 200 intelligence analysts and 54 additional translators."; instead, he "proposed cuts in 14 programs. One proposed $65 million cut was for a program that gives state and local counterterrorism grants for equipment, including radios and decontamination suits and training to localities for counterterrorism preparedness."
14. CNN: Just a month before the 9/11 attacks, while on a month long vacation, Bush was personally handed a presidential daily briefing entitled…

    Bin Laden determined to strike in US.
15. Salon: Bush responded by telling the agent briefing him…

    All right. You’ve covered your ass, now. And he went fishing.

Bush Administration incompetence and negligence allowed the perpetrators of the September 11 attacks to get away with it.

1. Washington Post:
   Bush Administration incompetence allowed bin Laden to get away, when he could have been caught or killed, at the battle of Tora Bora.
2. BBC: The Taliban grew stronger.
3. New York Times: They grew stronger in nuclear armed Pakistan, threatening to overrun the government.
4. Spiegel Online: Al Qaeda also regrouped, and grew stronger in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.
5. Washington Post: A 2007 assessment by the National Counterterrorism Center, was even titled "’Al-Qaida Better Positioned to Strike the West."
6. Washington Post: The failure was so complete that both Afghanistan and Pakistan were having to negotiate reconciliation with the Taliban.
7. New York Times: A British commander in southern Afghanistan even asked U.S forces to leave the area, because the high level of civilian casualties was, understandably, alienating the locals.

Attacking Iraq exacerbated threats to our national security.

1. New York Times: Turning attention and resources to Iraq undermined the Afghan war.
2. New York Times: It also began spawning a new generation of terrorists.
3. McClatchy Newspapers: Terrorism increased, all around the world.
4. Wall Street Journal: The administration stopped the military from attacking Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, before the start of the Iraq War.
5. Council on Foreign Relations: A year later, he founded "Al Qaeda in Iraq" and pledged allegiance to bin Laden.
6. Los Angeles Times: U.S.-run "detention camps" in Iraq became breeding grounds for new terrorists.
7. Washington Post: The Pentagon lost track of 190,000 assault weapons given to Iraqi security forces.

National security was further undermined for petty political reasons.

1. Washington Post: When a new Bin Laden tape was obtained by an undercover intelligence operation, in November 2007, the Bush Administration was told to keep it a secret until Al Qaeda had released it. But the Bush Administration leaked it to the press, thus alerting Al Qaeda to the fact that they had a security breach, and destroying years of security work.
2. MSNBC: An entire intelligence network tracking Iran’s nuclear ambitions was destroyed when members of the Bush Administration outed a classified agent, to exact political revenge on her husband.
3. Newsweek:

   The most successful international team ever assembled to probe suspected WMD activities is shutting down this week, thanks to U.S. and British insistence. The team (the U.N. commission initially acronymed UNSCOM and then UNMOVIC) spent 16 years uncovering and destroying Saddam Hussein’s chemical, biological and missile weapons programs. The U.S. invasion of Iraq proved that the U.N.’s intel-overruled by the Bush administration-had indeed been correct: Saddam no longer had WMD. But late last month, the U.S. and British governments pushed through the U.N. Security Council a vote to halt funding for UNMOVIC.
4. New York Times: "Missile Defense" provoked Russia into ceasing to comply with a treaty on conventional arms.
5. International Herald Tribune: Missile Defense also provoked Russia to re-target its missiles at Europe.

Overall, our national security was undermined from without.

1. Foreign Policy In Focus: Bush Administration policies undermined America’s image and standing around the globe.
2. Washington Post: Bush’s overhaul of security at federal buildings may have made federal employees less secure.
3. In February 2007, Foreign Policy and the Center for American Progress conducted a survey on national security issues. They called it The Terrorism Index:

   Surveying more than 100 of America’s top foreign-policy experts-Republicans and Democrats alike-the FOREIGN POLICY/Center for American Progress Terrorism Index is the only comprehensive, nonpartisan effort to mine the highest echelons of the nation’s foreign-policy establishment for its assessment of how the United States is fighting the war on terror.

How bad was the Bush Administration?

Nearly every foreign policy of the U.S. government-from domestic surveillance activities and the detention of terrorist suspects at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, to U.S. energy policies and efforts in the Middle East peace process-was sharply criticized by the experts. More than 6 in 10 experts, for instance, believe U.S. energy policies are negatively affecting the country’s national security. The experts were similarly critical of the CIA’s rendition of terrorist suspects to countries known to torture prisoners and the Pentagon’s policy of trying detainees before military tribunals.

No effort of the U.S. government was more harshly criticized, however, than the war in Iraq. In fact, that conflict appears to be the root cause of the experts’ pessimism about the state of national security. Nearly all-92 percent-of the index’s experts said the war in Iraq negatively affects U.S. national security, an increase of 5 percentage points from a year ago. Negative perceptions of the war in Iraq are shared across the political spectrum, with 84 percent of those who describe themselves as conservative taking a dim view of the war’s impact. More than half of the experts now oppose the White House’s decision to "surge" additional troops into Baghdad, a remarkable 22 percentage-point increase from just six months ago. Almost 7 in 10 now support a drawdown and redeployment of U.S. forces out of Iraq.

And:

More than half say the surge is having a negative impact on U.S. national security, up 22 percentage points from just six months ago. This sentiment was shared across party lines, with 64 percent of conservative experts saying the surge is having either a negative impact or no impact at all.
They rated the handling of the war as a 2.9 on a scale of 10. Only 12 percent believed a withdrawal from Iraq would lead directly to a new terrorist attack in the U.S.

National security was undermined through the systematic abuse of military personnel.

Overused and over-extended.

1. Christian Science Monitor: As of the beginning of 2006, Stop-Loss policy had prevented at least 50,000 troops from leaving the military when their service was scheduled to end.
2. USA Today: Multiple deployments were adding to the troops’ stress.
3. CNN: In April 2007, tours of duty were extended from 12 to 15 months.
4. New York Times: Republicans killed Democratic Senator Jim Webb’s attempt to give troops more down time between deployments.
5. MSNBC: Deployed single parents were having to fight to retain custody of their children.
6. International Herald Tribune: The bipartisan National Governors Association warned Bush that use of National Guard troops for his Iraq escalation was overburdening already overburdened units, and undermined the Guard’s ability "to respond to hurricanes, floods, tornadoes, forest fires and other emergencies."
7. CBS News: To accommodate Bush’s Iraq escalation schedule, two Army combat brigades had to skip their planned desert training.
8. Agence France-Presse: Nearly two-thirds of polled veterans from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars considered the military over-extended.

Inadequately protected and inadequately cared for.

1. New York Times: A 2006 study showed that eighty percent of marines killed from upper body wounds would have survived, if they’d had adequate body armor.
2. Newsweek: Troops were forced to improvise their own vehicle armor, because the military wasn’t providing the real thing.
3. Washington Post: Even as the escalation began, thousands of Army Humvees still lacked FRAG Kit 5 armor protection.
4. TXCN News: Soldiers were provided such inadequate supplies of water, on the battlefield, that it was literally making them ill.
5. Salon: The Veterans Administration knew as early as 2004 that there were serious problems with the conditions at Walter Reed Army Medical Center- and did nothing.
6. Salon: The Department of Defense also knew about the problems long before public exposure, and the resulting outcry forced them actually to do something about it.
7. NPR: Veterans were receiving fewer medical disability benefits now than before the war
8. MSNBC: Up to twenty percent of Iraq Vets may have been suffering Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder.
9. Washington Post: A Pentagon task force concluded that the available medical care for those troops suffering psychological problems was "woefully inadequate."
10. Salon: Wounded soldiers classified as medically unfit for battle were being reclassified as fit, so they could be sent back into battle.
11. Salon: These reclassifications were done to provide enough manpower for Bush’s escalation.
12. Salon: Even soldiers with acute Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder were being sent back to Iraq.

Understandably, morale deteriorated

1. Spiegel Online: Troops stationed in Germany were increasingly going AWOL rather than be cannon fodder for Bush’s insanity.
2. New York Times: The army had to revise upwards its understated desertion rate.
3. Boston Globe: West Point graduates were leaving the military at the highest rate in three decades, as repeated tours of Iraq drove out some of the army’s best young officers.
4. Associated Press: The Army had its highest desertion rate since 1980.

Psychological trauma and suicide.

1. CBS News: By July 2007, some "38 percent of soldiers and 31 percent of Marines report psychological conditions such as brain injury and PTSD after returning from deployment. Among members of the National Guard, the figure is much higher — 49 percent — with numbers expected to grow because of repeated and extended deployments."
2. Journal of the American Medical Association, reported that:

   The prevalence of reporting a mental health problem was 19.1% among service members returning from Iraq compared with 11.3% after returning from Afghanistan and 8.5% after returning from other locations (P<.001). Mental health problems reported on the postdeployment assessment were significantly associated with combat experiences, mental health care referral and utilization, and attrition from military service. Thirty-five percent of Iraq war veterans accessed mental health services in the year after returning home; 12% per year were diagnosed with a mental health problem. More than 50% of those referred for a mental health reason were documented to receive follow-up care although less than 10% of all service members who received mental health treatment were referred through the screening program.
3. Stacy Bannerman, Foreign Policy In Focus:

   Soldiers who have served — or are serving — in Iraq are killing themselves at higher percentages than in any other war where such figures have been tracked.
4. Associated Press: The army experienced the highest suicide rate in 26 years.
5. New York Times: By January 2008, traumatized Iraq veterans were leaving "a trail of death and heartbreak in U.S."
6. Washington Post: Suicides among active-duty soldiers had reached their highest level since the Army began keeping such records.
7. Washington Post: In April 2008, 300,000 veterans of the Bush wars were reported to be suffering from PTSD or major depression.
8. The Oregonian: In July 2009, a report showed a dramatic jump in the rate of mental illness, among veterans of the Bush wars.
9. Boston Globe: By July 2009, homelessness was rising among female veterans of the Bush wars. Many are single parents.
10. Science Daily: By November 2009, the rate of PTSD among Iraq troops was reported to be as high as 35%.
11. San Francisco Chronicle: Homelessness, overall, was rising among veterans of the Bush wars.
12. Associated Press: That month, after years of Bush Administration neglect, Obama VA Secretary Eric Shinseki vowed to end veterans’ homelessness.