Posted on 08/10/2006 3:27:55 PM PDT by SmithL
After two wars, thousands of deaths and many billions of dollars, the United States is still vulnerable to terrorists. That painful reality has ignited a political frenzy over who's to blame and who's best qualified to protect Americans.
The one thing that Republicans and Democrats agree on is this: Five years after the Sept. 11 disaster, terrorists want to strike again and the country is not safe. To hear both sides talk, the wonder is that America hasn't been hit yet.
"We've taken a lot of measures to protect the American people," President Bush said Thursday. "But obviously we're still not completely safe."
There are plenty of reasons for that. U.S. borders don't stop people who shouldn't get in. Buses and subways are vulnerable to bombings. Few cargo containers are inspected. Detection is inadequate for nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Intelligence and law enforcement agencies are still troubled by rivalries and poor communication.
Republican Thomas Kean, who was chairman of the 9/11 commission, said the United States is gradually moving in the right direction to fix the problems but he still worries.
"At top levels, it wasn't taken seriously enough. It wasn't on top of the priority list. ... And that's what I see happening again," Kean said. "It shouldn't be a political issue. It should be something that everybody supports."
But with Americans souring on the war in Iraq, the fight on terrorism is a divisive issue for the November elections that will determine which party controls Congress. Unhappiness over the war was a major factor in the primary defeat of Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn.
Many Democrats accuse Bush and the GOP-led Congress of mishandling Iraq and the broader war on terrorism.
(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...
They are one and the same.
The real choice is the following:
Vote Democrat and try to negotiate with terrorist
Vote Republican and keep trying to kill them
Is this a news story?
Looks like a campaign ad to me.
How many children have to die before Bush provides us with invulnerable buses?!!
Given that it is from AP, the only difference is whether they got paid to publish it or they published it pro malo.
Up armored buses? Like the humvees? Or maybe we should make a whole new class of buses and subway trains with individual blast proof compartments for each passenger?/sar. (I hope you were kidding but in case your weren't a little sarcasm!)
In Bush's view, Iraq and the war on terror are one and the same.
Sure...radical islam exists in Iran, Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistan but, NOT Iraq!! This is logical, I guess, since its right in the middle of all these places and Daddam's kids were just waiting for the old man to die so they could spread peace throughout the region.
Why half the world feels so guilty taking out Saddam is beyond human comprehension. Look, it hasn't been perfect. Some day its been awful shitty over there but, it just had to be done. Period!!! And you know what, we might have to go into Iran or Syria, too. It all sucks and is painful. It's called war!!!
Reminds me of a Don Martin cartoon from my youth.
A recently arrested peasant is dangling by his wrists from shackles on the wall of a dungeon. He angrily complains to the Roman gaurd that he was promised a private cell.
The next frame shows brick-layers walling him up where he hangs.(and yes....I was kidding)
I would change that to:
Vote Democrat and become one with the terrorists
Vote Republican and prevent terrorism
after personally dealing with Democrats face-to-face at protest marches and demonstrations.
I was about 99 percent sure but, with some of the trolls we get on FR you never know what they are going to say1:)
Are my fellow Americans really so stupid that they think ANY President or government can make them COMPLETELY safe? There is nothing to stop some Muslim from picking up a gun and killing a dozen people on any street corner. We will never be COMPLETELY safe unless we live in concrete bunkers for the rest of our lives. What we can do is lessen the danger by making them kill themselves away from us.
This says that well organized, well financed terror networks still exist. The AP spin meister is amazing, in trying to contort this all the way over to Bush's fault.
What's clear to me is that organized terror would have been well on their way to choking off our civilization if we had not acted to drain their swamp of funding.
However, the world needs to redouble its efforts to destroy these new facists. The UK is now obvious as the weak point in Western nations intelligence net.
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