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March 31, 2004
YOU SURE ABOUT THAT, MR. BUSH?
So Richard Clarke's a disgruntled former employee who's making stuff up... and the Bush administration's been focused like a laser beam on al Qaeda as the #1 threat to the United States. In fact, terrorism was always Bush's top foreign policy priority... did I get that right?
So how come Condi Rice was going to give a speech on September 11, 2001 that downplayed terrorism as a threat and said that the true focus of US defense policy needed to be missile defense?
The Washington Post has obtained excerpts of that speech -- and the White House, while refusing to provide the full text, admits that the excerpts are accurate. Wanna hear what Condelezza Rice was going to say about defense priorities?
The Post says: The address was designed to promote missile defense as the cornerstone of a new national security strategy, and contained no mention of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden or Islamic extremist groups, according to former U.S. officials who have seen the text.
"We need to worry about the suitcase bomb, the car bomb and the vial of sarin released in the subway," according to excerpts of the speech provided to The Washington Post. "[But] why put deadbolt locks on your doors and stock up on cans of mace and then decide to leave your windows open?"
You know, I don't mind, necessarily, that my government didn't exactly realize that insidious and immediate nature of the threat that al Qaeda represented. Obviously I wish we'd have been able to anticipate and prevent the 9/11 attacks (between living in NY now and having spent 1994-1997 living in DC, both of my "homes" were hit that day... we didn't know where my brother was in DC and it took us until close to 2:00 pm that day to confirm that he hadn't been harmed; my best friend was in the Pentagon when it was hit -- he survived -- and I knew more people than I could count who lost somebody in the towers... so even if you disagree with my point, don't even try to turn this into some sort of I-don't-take-this-seriously-enough thing... 9/11 was personal for me, and I take it damned seriously). But I don't know if anyone could really have totally comprehended what those bastards had in mind, or gotten inside the plot enough to stop it. My anger doesn't come from the fact that we didn't prevent it.
But god dammit, Bush, stop lying!!! Quit telling me that al Qaeda was your #1 priority when you entered office. It wasn't! (If it was, then boy did you drop the friggin' ball, huh?) Quit trying to friggin' pussyfoot around and deflect blame for 9/11. Quit lying to me and saying that you were focused on stopping terrorism as the lynchpin of your foreign policy. You weren't. You were focused on missile defense systems and Iraq.
If Bush had just come out and said, "I let you down, we didn't see this coming because no one could really have anticipated evil on this level, and I was focused elsewhere. I'm sorry," I have to tell you, even I -- one of the most partisan Bush haters you will ever meet -- would have been inclined to cut him a bit of slack. Not only would I have respected the honesty, I would have also respected and appreciated a leader taking responsibility for a mistake. I would have been pissed off about Iraq still, but I would have been less angry about the Bush Administration not preventing the attacks.
But even if you dismiss the parade of people in the know who have said that this administration didn't focus on al Qaeda, the Post's review of Bush Administration foreign policy speeches from 2001 (before 9/11) shows that this White House was focused on missile defense and "rogue nations." They're lying now, trying to avoid blame that may not even have been there to lay... their crime is less the failure to avoid the attacks, and far more in their continuing to lie about it. They ought to be ashamed of themselves. I'm ashamed of them.
