With President Obama admitting that "systemic failure" allowed a Nigerian national on a terror watch list and allegedly attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight last week, the knives are out. Former Vice President Dick Cheney told Politico, "[W]e are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society.”
And then there are the editorial boards: The Daily News puts him on its cover to accompany an editorial, "President Obama's initial response Monday was too long in coming, too cool in delivery and too removed from the extreme gravity of the plot. Tuesday, he spoke more assertively, acknowledging what everyone else had long ago concluded: that unacceptable security failures had enabled 23-year-old Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to smuggle high explosives onto a Detroit-bound jet," but slams Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano's "ineptitude...What the public was left with was a never-to-be-repeated case study in crisis mismanagement. It's time to get a grip, Mr. President."
The Post's editorial board thinks that Rudy Giuliani could offer a lesson: "Giuliani and his colleagues, through resolution and determination, broke the reign of terror that New York City suffered in the '80s. Yes, the analogy is imperfect -- on several levels. But it remains that the Obama administration can learn a great deal from the way Giuliani confronted the challenge he was handed. America is at war. America must win."
And the NY Times's editorial board has a broader view of spreading the blame: "Everybody bears responsibility: the Bush administration for not connecting the dots before Sept. 11 and not doing enough in the seven years after to rationalize and improve homeland security; the Congress, under both parties, for blocking necessary changes and failing to demand others; the Obama administration, which has shown little interest until now in reforming what is clearly an inadequate security system."
We have a security system?
I have to agree, Obama came across as too casual about this.
He didn't even have a tie on.
lol
New Joke Post, I am disappointed that Obama tries to please all these neo-cons. Why doesn't he grow a pair and make those changes that he campaign on. Hello, where were all these editorials when Bush, who admitted that he doesn't like to read, ignore those warnings of Saudi pilots. It's not war. What do we want from Iraq and Afghanistan? Why are we there??? It's occupation based on our fears.
the new york times: saying nothing in as many words as necessary to seem intelligent.
Go F*CK yourself, Mr. Cheney. Why you're still walking around a free, very wealthy man is an affront to the realm of all things decent.
here here. every war monger/profiteer should be in PRISON not walking around without freely and without shame.
media/press get on this. how can you mention Cheney's name without mentioning he was instrumentally in killing 100K people under in an illegal unnecessary war. That hurt america more than obamas tone or clintons blow job. Media, start protecting our democracy. the hour is getting late.
If I wasn't a felon I'd take my shotgun and end "The Long War".
I'm happy not to hear Bush's stupid remarks of evil doers and all those fake terror alerts to panic the pubic and keep them in control through fear.
you know somewhere in Texas, he's probably coked out, shaking his fist at the TV, yammering "Uhmericah"
I tried to get him to stop using coke but he didn't like the Heroin needles.
Being management sucks when you have to take the blame for some stupid peons' dumb mistakes.
Did the plane blow up?
No, it didn't.
Let's move on please.
Also, what's dumb, is, why didn't this guy try "lighting his bomb" when they were at a higher altitude? My understanding is that the bomb wouldn't have been powerful enough to blow up the plane. If you depressurize the cabin at high altitude, then a world of shit can happen. But, during descent, well, that's just annoying.
But right, C'mon Obama! Why didn't you stop that crazy guy from shooting up Fort Hood, and why didn't you stop; oh wait. Obama's not Galactus from Marvel Comics and does not have Omnipotence.
Yawnnnn
Americans are the biggest bunch of p-ssies in the world. Seriously. One douchebag gets clever, and we ALL have to modify our travel schedules accordingly.
The lackadaisical attitude towards terrorism, or man-made disasters as this administration calls it, comes from the top.
I have a hunch that you will have to be writing many more defenses like this over the coming months. You'll soon be getting defense-fatigue.
What attitude should we have? I only have one life to live, and I'd rather not live in fear of things that are extremely unlikely to hurt me.
What are the odds of dying in a terrorist attack in the United States? Extremely low. In NYC? Still extraordinarily low. In face, you're still much more likely to win the Powerball then die in a terrorist attack. Terrorist attacks are sensationalized, such that, we overstate the odds of something happening to us. It makes for great ratings for news stories, but the risk of harm is completely out of proportion to the coverage it attracts.
You can't protect against everything, and if someone is willing to give their life, there is very little anyone can do to prevent it. That's the truth. The sooner you cowardly right wingers accept that, the sooner we can move on.
I'm not adopting a "lackadaisical view," though I'll concede my tone was, I'm adopting a "realistic view."
It's New Year's Eve in NYC!?!?! OH MY God --- hit the bomb shelters, it's code Orange!
And honestly, this guy is a joke, he lit his underwear on fire -- that's the crack staff of professional killers that Al-Qaeda employs.
Let's just look at the shoe/underwear bombers:
(a) Richard Reid. Looked like a terrorist. Tried blowing up his shoe. Now we all have to take our shoes off. thanks asshole.
(b) Adbulkfakjdfaw whatever his name is. Burnt his underwear and his junk. Soon, we're all gonna have full body scans because this guy stuffed the non-metal explosives in his underwear
(c) the next guy, will have his bomb stuffed up his ass - are we gonna all have full body cavity searches next.
(d) Don't you see how we empower the Terrorists by altering our lives around them. Much in the same way, Pedro Martinez said he's the powerful person in Yankees stadium, because everyone there was shouting his name, we elevate these douchebags, into a powerful status, by completely adjusting our lives because of them.
(e) the best defense is vigilance: which is what happened with the underwear bomb guy. He was tackled straight up, problem solved. No one can break into the cockpit now because the doors are reinforced with steel. So, in the future, it'll either be (A) guys with these weak bombs that maybe could pierce the fuselage, or a (B) a brawl in the Cabin. Either way, I'm not losing sleep.
(f) And if Al-Qaeda really wanted to kill a bunch of people, they could easily. Do you know how I know this? Because we Americans kill each other all the time. If going based on the comments on Gothamists, the death tally for the year should read:
The Terrorists: 0 New Yorkers Killed
***
When you change your life because of fear of the terrorists, then you're a coward and you're giving into the terrorists. That's a fact. When we change our lives, then the Terrorists have won. What, you think they want to take over the United States and install their system of government or something?
And:
William Josiger, Fear Factor: The Impact of Terrorism on Public Opinion in the United States and Great Britain, 2006
h/t GG
Most things stupid people love, like terrorism and religion, are all about fear. I really think some people enjoy being afraid.
"did the plane blow up? no it didn't" is definitely the dumbest thing i've read in a long time.
He has a point. If you pour gas on a mattress to get rid of bed bugs and you haven't caught on fire it certainly means that it's all right to keep doing it. Right?
I guarantee you Bush reads more books than you. Guaranteed. Him and Rove had a yearly contest and each typically read over 60 books a year. Dumbass.
The "Left Behind" series doesn't count.
Neither does "Team of Rivals," how D.K. Goodwin branded Lincoln and made millions.
Wow, that's like two whole sets of Nancy Drew mysteries.
Guiliani can teach Obama - he was the one who put the city's command and control/emergency response center in the WTC- a known target for terrorist attacks. He was the one who mislead the public that the air was safe. More than 2,000 New York City firefighters have been treated for serious respiratory problems. Seventy percent of nearly 10,000 recovery workers screened at Mount Sinai Medical Center have trouble breathing. City officials estimate that health care costs related to the air at ground zero have already run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, and no one knows whether other illnesses, like cancers, will emerge.
Not to mention that on 9-11, the New York fire department was using outdated VHF radios that were incompatible with the police department's UHF radios.
Ralph Nader would have never let this happen.
Katrina was a "never-to-be-repeated case study in crisis management." This was just a lunatic with explosive underpants.
Read Maureen Dowd. Like many others, that's a phrase that I never thought that I would write.
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/30/opinion/30dowd.html
If BHO loses one his water carriers in the press, he's in trouble.
When Reid the shoe bomber tried his thing bush was on vacation and didn't speak about it for 6 days.
Cheney is a desperate, increasingly irrelevant, man who is responsible for much of what went wrong in the last decade. "Went wrong" is certainly an understatement. But I imagine we all know what is wrong. When he and the others who guided America to this point in our history speak they do so for no reason other than obscuring and revising the record.
He is truly a vile influence on our nation and he proves it more and more with every word and the total lack of responsibility he has taken for the troubles we face.
Ah, Go Fuck Yourself. I am the only reason America has any power, small as it is. In 2012 when I am on the Grand Ole Party ticket, Ms. Palin and I will set America Right.
Fear mongering brings out the best in Americans... that and Daytime television.
LOL @ Dick Cheney, the super duper anti terror expert who sends terrorists to art school.
Shut up or I will send you to Gitmo!
Why is it a huge deal that every few years some yahoo pulls something like this (and pretty much never succeeds, notwithstanding you-know-what)? We accept daily losses to car accidents, crime, and preventable disease that add up to a hell of a lot more, and we don't demand that our president micromanage every aspect of all of those.
Cheney forgot to mention WHERE the plane came from...
Europe. So there smarty pants. Question for you? Do you know where the 'special' prison is in Egypt I'll ask the boys from the CIA to send you to?
Yep, it's "Pile on President Obama" week. Such low hanging fruit for the NY Daily News and the Rag known as the NY Post.
Really, NY Post? Rudy Giuliani could offer a lesson? On what, how not to run a campaign?
Can someone send Dick Cheney a Draft notice? It'll send him running back to an undisclosed location.
I'll give you undisclosed location asshole! Just because my daughter likes it, it doesn't make me a pussy.
It's kind of sad how desperate and stupid the Republicans are. Why are they so focused on this non-incident? Guess what, he didn't blow up the plane. Guess what, the procedures in place should have caught him if they had been used properly. Plane-focused plots don't work so well without cooperative passengers, and passengers on every flight in the world won't cooperate anymore.
Non-incident? Please tell us this was a joke. A non-incident would have been a guy attacking the cockpit door with a ball point pen. This guy had explosives. Sooner or later these guys are going to figure out how to detonate them on the first try. If the bomb goes off it doesn't matter how uncooperative the passengers are.
Are YOU joking? Yes, eventually somebody is going to succeed in blowing up a plane. This guy, however, was a fuckin' joke. So a plane blows up. In the overall scheme of things, it doesn't matter. The plane is still way, way more likely to crash of its own accord, or from pilot suckage i.e. the Buffalo flight. An "incident" is when the pilot doesn't know how to fly the plane, and the copilot is sick with no sleep in two days, and they smash their plane into the fucking ground because they didn't know which way to pull the controls when the plane is plummeting toward the ground. That's what we should be worried about and trying to fix. Trying to change our whole security system because of one retarded failure is moronic. Being terrified because of one retarded failure is a terrible, terrible way to live your life.
I didn't say anything about a potential overhaul of the security system or about being "terrified". I only took issue with you calling it a "non-incident". Since this person, however "retarded" you think he is, was obviously working with others it stands to reason they will try again since they know they can get the explosives past security. If they can manage a detonation system that takes most of the responsibility away from the bomber then it doesn't matter how smart or dumb the bomber is. You won't need college educated 9/11 style guys. You just need the sort like the thousands of people they have managed to convince to strap on a vest and walk into a cafe or marketplace. You seem to think that if someone manages to do this once they won't do it again and again. Will it happen as often as suicide attacks in Baghdad? No. But it's naive to think it won't happen with more frequency just because it hasn't in the past. And surely there can be some middle ground between total overhaul of the system and throwing up your hands and saying there's no problem at all. Even without the media scrutiny and political finger pointing I think the current administration would be investigating and make some adjustments.
what exactly is retarded failure? poor choice of words. the last time I checked retarded didn't mean stupid. when you're checking out your dictionary, check out ignorant.
I hope Obama stays his course, even when we blow up, I want the world to be reminded that we were once led by Bush. Nothing matters more than having 2x had GWB as President.
Or...
Who the hell cares what Bush and Co. did, they're gone. It's been an entire year, time for the President to preside and for everyone to stop yammering on about Bush the has-been. The Commander in Chief should command, all the soft-shoeing was fine and good but a year... let's go already. Of all the things I thought Barack could accomplish boring me to death wasn't one of them.
Yes, TARP, healthcare reform, climate treaties, arms control and that other stuff is soooooo policy-wonkish and boring. We need another rousing with-us-or-against-us, Axis Of Evil speech to make things more interesting around here.
Please. If this is the best the Terrorists can do, a guy wearing womens undies who lit his balls on fire, the country is moving in the right direction. Going from hijacked planes to a 22 year old kid setting his nuts alight then getting pwned by passengers is PROGRESS.
The hawks and their logic of crazy disproportionate force is just laughable if you are aware of international politics. Having the strongest bomb, the smartest robot, or the most excessive expenditure on military and security intelligence, WON"T DO A THING to obliterate isolated terrorism!. It it all has to with this little concept called LEGITIMACY, the power of a country has to be granted through consensus, not imposed by force, and guess what?! that is exactly what the US does overseas with it's military efforts. Preemptive violence does not give this country such legitimacy only makes enemies and radicalizes the crazy people around the world... So the danger will linger while the hawks promulgate the undiscriminated use of EMPTY military power that ignores MULTILATERALISM at the international level. The hawks and the republican base are way to belligerent to understand the power of consensus, and internationally this is just a MUST!
Seems like you forgot about 9/11.
One incident does not override dynamics in international politics, did you forget about the TWO WARS the hawks got us into tho "resolve" terrorism!? Where are we at?
Nothing to do with "forgetting" 9-11, more like being rational when there is more than 30 parties involved in the international arena, thinking there is one, like the hawks do does not solve A THING.
Did you forget about Ruanda, Burundi, Kosovo, Hioshima, Colombia, Palestine and all other conflicts where THOUSANDS die on a yearly basis!? Get your head out of your American ass and look around... you are fooling your self if you think force is the solution to terrorism.
Specially the type of force based in lies and corporate corruption, very Cheney!
They hate us for our freedom.
they?
who's they?
"HALLIBURTON LOOTER
After dropping more than 28,000 bombs on Iraq, the United States has now begun the business of rebuilding the country.... The companies that land the biggest contracts to do the work will cash in big-time.
—CBS-News "60 Minutes," April 27, 2003
"Cheney is vulnerable ... for the same reason his henchman, Perle, is vulnerable—for doing things that are against the law. He could be out of there on impeachment," commented Lyndon LaRouche, during an April 4 interview with Ambrose Lane, of Pacifica Radio's Washington, D.C. affiliate, WPFW. "These guys could be broken with the support of the Congress. The generals could be free to say what the truth is about Rumsfeld, and he would be out of there. So, if our institutions were functioning, if the Democratic Party were functioning as a legitimate opposition, we wouldn't have this problem much longer. But if the Democratic Party capitulates, the way the so-called democratic parties of Germany capitulated to the Hitler appointment by Chancellor Hindenburg, then we could be soon in deep trouble. It could be the end of our civilization," stressed the Democratic Presidential pre-candidate.
There is a small, but growing, group of Congressmen, who have also been fighting Vice President Dick Cheney and the Iraq profiteers. One of them is Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Committee on Government Reform, who has been seeking investigation by various Federal agencies to follow the trail of corruption, nepotism, and cronyism involved in the Second Gulf War. Representative Waxman has particularly drawn attention to Vice President Cheney, who in his capacity as the former Chairman and CEO of Halliburton Corp., has reaped the benefits of war profiteering from Bosnia, to Afghanistan, to Iraq. Similarly, Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.) has demanded from Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that Richard Perle, who resigned as Chairman of the secretive Defense Policy Board amid charges of conflict of interest, be removed from the DPB completely. Conyers is also demanding that the Pentagon release to the House Judiciary Committee, on which Conyers is the ranking Democrat, the financial disclosure records of all 30 or so members of the DPB, so that potential conflicts of these members—who war-gamed and promoted war with Iraq since no later than Sept. 18, 2001—could be determined.
The Rumsfeld/Cheney gang's conflicts of interest have become so public, that even Republicans are investigating. The probes became bipartisan the week of May 12, when House International Affairs Committee Chairman Henry Hyde (R-Ill.), informed Rumsfeld at hearings, that he had assigned the General Accounting Office (GAO), Congress' investigative body, to begin a full investigation of the "occupation government" of Iraq. He confronted Rumsfeld with the fact that the occupation government under Rummy's command, had obstructed Congressional investigators from entering the country!
However, what Representative Waxman and the other members of Congress have not raised, is that Cheney is perhaps the leading advocate of a unilateral imperialist "World War IV" policy in the Bush Administration. Through his affiliation with neo-conservative citadels, such as the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA) and William Kristol's Project for a New American Century (PNAC), he is linked to the campaign to extend the Iraq war to Iran, Syria, and Egypt, and to crush the vision of a Palestinian state.
Crimes of Policy and of Greed
As EIR has exposed, Cheney was already firmly in the "perpetual war" faction, through his relationship with his current chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and Libby's Yale University mentor, Paul Wolfowitz, now Deputy Secretary of Defense. For more than 18 years, Libby served as the attorney for America's leading fugitive—the Russian and Jewish Mafia-linked Marc Rich, except for several jobs he took in-between his service to Rich, working for Wolfowitz and/or Cheney. In 1990-91, Libby and Wolfowitz (himself a protégé of the fascist Leo Strauss and former Trotskyite Albert Wohlstetter), worked together to codify the call for "perpetual war" in the 1992 Defense Guidance Policy.
After he left the position of Secretary of Defense in the Bush "41" Administration, Cheney again hooked up with the Libby/Wolfowitz circle, joining the International Advisory Board of JINSA. JINSA was founded by three of Israeli intelligence's leading agents in America: Dr. Stephen Bryen, who was investigated for passing classified information to the Israelis from the Senate in 1978; Richard Perle; and Michael Ledeen. All three JINSA big-wigs were named as members of the circle known as the "X Committee" behind the espionage of the convicted spy for Israel, Jonathan Jay Pollard.
JINSA—which has long served as a route for Israeli intelligence to penetrate the U.S. military and recruit agents of influence for its interests—has played a significant role in pushing through the pre-emptive war policy. For example, the Iraq occupation government's first appointed "Viceroy," Jay Garner, is a JINSA collaborator. James Woolsey, the former Director of Central Intelligence and currently an Iraq war fanatic on the Defense Policy Board, who has been the attorney for the discredited Iraqi National Congress of Ahmed Chalabi, is on JINSA's board. And on May 18, JINSA's Ledeen played a major role at a neo-con/Christian fundamentalist rally to oppose the Road Map for Mideast peace, and to call for extending the Iraq war to Syria, Iran, and Saudi Arabia, after which the idea of a Palestinian state could be dropped for good.
These are the very schemes that Cheney has been whispering in the ear of President George W. Bush from whatever hole Cheney hides in. The groundwork, as EIR has reported, was laid by Cheney and his chicken-hawk brood in 1991-92, but the plans were shelved as too insane by President Bush "41" and his advisors at the time, including Gen. Colin Powell and Gen. Brent Scowcroft. Cheney used the Sept. 11, 2001 irregular warfare attacks to dust off his rejected plans for imperial war and a domestic police state, much the way that the Nazis used the 1933 Reichstag Fire—a phony terrorist incident staged by Nazi agent-provocateurs—to consolidate their police state.
But Cheney's impeachable offenses are not merely policy-oriented. Through his $33 million "golden parachute" retirement plan from Halliburton—payable yearly in up to $1 million installments—the profits that Cheney's company nets from feeding at the "government trough" are also lining his pockets."
I guess is all about your ethical standing...
And there is more if you read the news...
And I'm not talking about faux news.
Tit for Tat; that's my motto!
Yeah, be more like Giuliani! Of course, I guess he's a crap guidepost, considering it was his city that a bunch of dudes hijacked a plane & SUCCESSFULLY rammed it into skyscrapers causing massive loss of life. I mean, sure, the underpants bomber was stopped, & wasn't a successful plot in while several planes were hijacked & used as missiles on several different targets. Still! Lets pretend like they are the same thing, after all!
Oh, PS, Dick Cheney, shut the hell up. You know you were on television when you bungled your time in office, right? You know that your war profiteering was out in the open, right? Jeez people, get a grip & put this guy in prison.
The plane was highjacked in Boston, not in NYC.
No prison can hold me asshole! I am SuperMan and the pardon I got George to give me is a get out of jail free card. Funny what he will sign when you are holding his favorite coke pipe out the window of Air Force One.
Obama did come off as kind of detached, at exactly the wrong moment to seem detached. But we are never going to have terrific or perfect security because ultimately, it depends on the poorly-paid, bored, not very bright people in the airports manning the wands and x-ray specs who can keep us safe or not. How can that system possibly work perfectly every time? It can't.
The lot of you just don't get it; they fucking hate us and want us dead. They don't want us to be nice to them, and they don't want to like our president; they could give a flying fuck. If we're not 'with them' then we're in their way.
So go ahead, drink up the kool-aid, chug it in fact, enjoy it amongst your false sense of social justice and restored civil liberties. What a bunch of self-righteous fools. Boo-hoo the bad republicans did this, and did that; the democrats are butt fucking you too! The only difference between the parties is that the dems lie to their base! President Obama learned real fast that executive privilege is his for the using, just like every single one before him.
Won't someone please think of the sandwiches???11?1?
Who's they? And who's us?
Don't you have to know someone before you can hate them?
Oh, I get it, you're projecting.
You're such a tough guy. Living in fear. Do you have a motorcycle? So when IT happens, you can ride out of town quickly, while all the roads are blocked with cars of people evacuating?
No, but seriously, Who's They?
The Bad Man put the Plane in the Building. Why do they hate us? Liberals are weak, Conservatives are Strong. War is Peace.
yawn.
if you don't know who "they" refers to how do you have the mental capacity to brush your teeth?
Fighting hate with hate just makes it stronger. Some will hate us no matter what we do, but they're a weak minority and our goal should be to alienate them from potential supporters as much as possible. So yeah, we're going to need the metal detectors, but we're also going to need to connect with moderate muslims and not drive them toward the enemy. Heck, if we could have taken out Richard Reid, the psycho in Ft Hood and this guy who burnt his balls and just gotten them all laid then none of this would have happened.
stop trying to confuse people with reason, logic and history. Shhh... isn't Obama the coolest?!?
Did you just refer to "they fucking hate us and want us dead" as reason, logic and history?
yes sweetie, that's how terrorism works. I didn't say terrorists made sense, but our approach to them such as hell should. Sorry to blow your mind.
Your world view might be logical-- cruel and terrible, but logical-- if the US had the ability to ID and put "the terrorists" out of business through solely military means. But we don't. Don't try to tell me we do, if we did, it would've been done already. So, something more nuanced is required. It's not as gratifying as an explosion or a Chuck Norris fight scene, but it's necessary.
Even if we could ID them all, the idea of constant, decades-long Sparta-like war and hatred to take them down sounds closer to what Al-Qaeda would like as opposed to what the average American would like, which is then sort of a victory for them.
Re: Dick Cheney, how much does constant blistering criticism about a President and government as weak from a recent VP and SecDef weaken a country? Probably a decent amount. Dick is hurting his own cause.
Finally, lol @ "shhhh"... in the US right now, it doesn't help a political bloc if they know the answers to every national problem and guard them like middle school clique-style secrets. Start by solving a few and you can consider the rest of us evangelized.
I don't tell you what to do, you don't tell me what to do. OK, now shut the fuck up.
Maybe this is why they hate us: http://www.thenational.ae/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091221/GLOBALBRIEFING/912219995/0/FRONTPAGE
I don't know, we killed 40 civilians. But, that's not terrorism.
When 40 and 3000 become equitable I'll get misty.
Hundreds of thousands of innocent civilians have been killed or died directly by the results of our actions you fucking piece of shit.
And that's just in Iraq.
"you fucking piece of shit."
Wow, there's that liberal, lefty behavior that's just so superior to anyone who disagrees with your way of thinking. It never fails to impress me how fast you all fall the fuck apart at the seams when confronted with someone who doesn't want to hug every piece of shit terrorist in the world.
Happy 2010 Sunshine. I wish for you all the goodwill you wish for me.
If only Dick Cheney was President. We would already be at war with Kenya over this.
I've got your number.
I've got your Plavix.
NattyB, your clarity is appreciated.
It's obvious that Obama's good intentions need more muscle behind them. But we can't give up on him so easily - he was left with a shitshow and is trying to push his change through the bureaucracy. Time to put aside the gentleness and lay the smack down!
It took Bush over 72 hours to make an appearance at the site of ground zero. I think he was in jeans and a windbreaker and who can forget the bull horn?
I'm not saying Obama is off the hook, he should have responded faster, but the GOP has no right.
Cheney should be in jail, such an evil asshole!
I should be in Jail maybe, I was evil but Bush was the asshole.
If there's a god, please prove yourself by giving Cheney the embolism he deserves. Thank you in advance...
Nothing can kill me! I am already dead fool! You never figured out 'undisclosed location' was a hospital in Brazil run by former Nazis?
You think my ticker is the one I was born with? Ha! I'm growing babies as we speak. A steady supply of body parts for my future.
Obama realizes that making the rest of the world not want to blow up our shits in the first place is far more effective than shooting gold bullets at shadows.
I'm still waiting for all the libtard crybabies to actually explain what they think Cheney should be in prison for?
The only thing I would prosecute him for is bowing to liberal pressure and agreeing to send any of the Gitmo guests anywhere but to a dirt nap.
"Cheney Takes Out Contracts
The record shows that Halliburton is "Cheney's Baby." In 1991, after the first Gulf War, the then-Secretary of Defense gave Halliburton the first contracts to rebuild some of the destroyed facilities in Kuwait and Iraq, at a handsome profit. It was a vital infusion of funds for Halliburton, which had been close to bankruptcy just a few years earlier. The relationship went much further. Cheney, in 1991-92, also subcontracted Halliburton to do the original Pentagon-funded secret study of how to replace the U.S. military's war-winning logistics-in-depth with the bloated, mercenary model of "privatization"—a policy that subsequently became the Pentagon's general method of operation and a lucrative source of money for Halliburton. It is no wonder that in 1995, Cheney, having left the DOD in 1993, was hired as Chief Executive Officer of Halliburton for the next five years, until he agreed to be George W. Bush's Vice Presidential candidate on the 2000 GOP ticket.
As described in the October 2002 edition of Texas Monthly, when Cheney was Secretary of Defense, overseeing reduction of the U.S. military forces by one-half million men and women, he contracted Halliburton to see if essential logistics functions could be privatized. Halliburton, for a fee of $8.9 million, happily responded "yes," in two reports delivered in 1992. This was part of the process leading to Libby's 1992 Defense Policy Guidance.
At that time, under Cheney, Paul Wolfowitz ran a "Little State Department" that worked on a scheme to orient warfare toward fighting against developing nations that might have the wherewithal to develop technologically. This plan was explained by Adm. Carlisle Trost—a current JINSA Advisory Board member—during House hearings in 1991, as intending to prepare the United States for "medium-intensity conflict" against raw materials-rich nations that might have developed weapons of mass destruction—e.g., Argentina, Brazil, Iraq, Iran, South Africa, and North Korea. It could be known as the "bomb them to smithereens, then rebuild" plan for perpetual contracts.
The sweetheart deals came in the knick of time for Halliburton, which had fallen on hard times in 1988, and was saved in part by $3.8 billion in Federal contracts and taxpayer-insured loans, according to an Aug. 2, 2001 report by the Center for Public Integrity.
The CPI report raised other extremely sensitive issues, such as Cheney's ties with the Russian Mafia through Halliburton's major project with the allegedly Russian Mafia-linked Tyumen Oil Co. EIR sources reported that Tyumen's owners had dealings with Marc Rich.
It is notable that in an April 30, 2003 letter to Rumsfeld, Representative Waxman raised exactly these kinds of charges of "trading with the enemy." Citing Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and other government records that show Halliburton and KBR had contracts with Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Libya—all the nations that JINSA unjustly accuses of supporting terrorism—Waxman told Rumsfeld to account for "Halliburton's ties to countries that sponsor terrorism." Waxman even mentioned Libby's ties to fugitive financier Marc Rich, and Libby's defense of Rich's deals with Iran. Waxman wrote that while Libby's "former client's" dealings with Iran may not be illegal, "you could consider him a traitor for trading with Iran during that period." Halliburton's activities "appear to raise similar concerns," Waxman added, but the Administration "rewarded it with lucrative contracts."
And, not to be ignored is the fact that Cheney's daughter, Elizabeth Cheney, is Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs, where she is also responsible for doling out contracts. When she was appointed in March 2002, a Washington Post article noted that even more nepotism was implied, since Liz Cheney's husband, Philip Perry, left the Justice Department to become Chief Counsel for the Office of Management and Budget. Usually well-informed sources state that Liz Cheney has a significant role in contracts related to Middle East wars. And, it is believed that she will have a hand in the the Free Trade Zone for the Middle East that President Bush proposed in his address at the University of South Carolina on May 9.
There is also the question of whether Halliburton is the Administration's "Enron." Halliburton nearly went bankrupt in 1988. On June 9 of that year, the New York Times reported from two former employees of Dresser Industries, which had just merged with Halliburton, that Halliburton used "aggressive accounting practices" to report $100 million in earnings. Halliburton's auditor at the time was Arthur Andersen, the accounting firm that evaporated after the Enron scandal, for similar practices.
The SEC refuses to "confirm or deny" that this was the subject of a criminal investigation. But, Cheney is also under the gun for refusing to provide Congress with the documents they want from 2001, when Cheney ran the Energy Task Force, and met with Enron Chairman Kenneth Lay. Cheney has refused to release any reports on how such meetings may have affected policy, or even to say who was on the task force. The case is now before the courts."
How easy is all this ignored by the honorable politicians, that coundt on the infinite ignorance of the populace.
Are you gonna have any ideas of your own or were you going to plagiarize it all?
At least put credit where credit is due:
By Scott Thompson and Michele Steinberg
and let's not even talk about the Geneva convention!
hmmm... here's a clip from 8-years ago, it took Bush 6-days to respond tot the Richard Reid attempt.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2010643179_airlineprez31.html
Bush didn't respond to the shoe bomber for SIX days, and only as an answer to a question when asked about it. But for you GOP apologists, Bushie can do no wrong and Obama no right.
But at this point in his administration, Bush had 3,000 dead, two skyscrapers destroyed, antrhrax attacks (remember those), and a failed airline bombing.
Obama a failed bombing.
I think I'll take the latter.
Why is Obama still in Hawaii? Shouldn't he be back in DC shaking up the blockheads who bungled his case?
Perhaps an elementary school in Hawaii needs Obama to read a children's book to the students.
he's waiting for Oprah to tell him what to do.
Cheney, is that your name? It took you 8 years to wipe out the country's economy and demolish all American's dream. All of a sudden you become an expert at everything. You should have beeen in jail for some time. Let the man fix all the mess, the chaos, the confusion you help created.