If I hear one more Bush Legacy con-artist — or worse, supposed Progressives who brainlessly buy into the masterstroke of propaganda — state that “Bush kept us safe” or “There have been no terror attacks on American soil since 9/11,” I think I may shoot someone, or poison them with anthrax — just to keep them safe.
To be clear, there were deadly terror attacks — and on American soil! — since 9/11.
5 people were killed and 17 other were injured in the 2001 anthrax attacks in what was the most deadly use of lethal bioterrorism on American soil in this nation’s history. Many of those multiple terror attacks included notes intended to signal that they were attacks by supporters of Islamic jihadists.
Additionally, in October 2002, for three weeks, D.C. and environs were ground to a panicked stand-still as sniper attacks by a terrorist from the Nation of Islam went on for three weeks, killing 10 people and injuring 3 at 15 different sites throughout the Beltway.
Both the Anthrax Attacks and the Beltway Sniper Attacks were terrorist attacks on Americans, on American soil, following 9/11.
As to Bush having kept us safe beyond the 15 killed and 20 injured in the dozens of terror attacks on American soil since 9/11 as mentioned above, to date 4,230 U.S. troops have been killed in Iraq. Additionally, 172 American civilian contractors were also killed in the unnecessary, optional war on a country which had nothing to do with 9/11. Moreover, tens of thousands of U.S. troops were permanently injured in the conflict.
The number of U.S. troops killed in Iraq, under Bush’s optional deployment, far exceeds, by more than one thousand, the number of American citizens killed on 9/11.
Counting only the dead (and only the American dead, in this case, since estimates of violent Iraqi civilian fatalities during the war are currently estimated to be anywhere from a conservative 150,000 to more than 1,000,000) that totals 4,245 Americans killed by terrorists, or in optional conflicts with terrorists, since 9/11.
“Bush kept us safe”?
Since 9/11, we could have had 14 different massive domestic terrorist bombings, in 14 different major U.S. cities, kill 300 Americans in each attack, and still had fewer Americans killed by terrorists since 9/11 than we have under the bold and courageous leadership of George W. Bush.
None of the above refers to the likely millions of individuals across the world now far more interested in bringing us harm than they were prior to 9/11, but other than that, yeah, “Bush kept us safe”.
Idiots.
Many have said, and I like stating the obvious: yes, to Brad’s “thesis”, but the obvious:”W” did not keep us, in NYC safe on Sept. 11,2001.
I’m still just really thankful that all those terrorists that were out to destroy America didn’t figure out how all of the illegal immigrants slipped across the Mexican border. For more on that, see If I were a Terrorist
Nonsense, bush kept us save from Greenpeace, Peta, and all of the other terrorists that have been threatening to destroy our way of life because they hate freedom.
If we were just as fair with Palestine as we are with ‘you know who’ we would be attack free IMO.
They parse their line with ‘foreign attacks on domestic soil’
So, the poisonings by the Chinese goods don’t count?
safe from terrorists?
if u r a dem,u r not even safe from ur own countries justice department
http://www.atlargely.com…uctions-documentary.html
83% of the prosecutions during bushco were on democrats
i had this video on my mind last night and today we get to see some of waht the justUS department was after
the new dem senator from ny is really a repub,her daddy was a republican power broker…..
gov rob b doesnt get to present witnesses or cross examine witness…these r 2 huge wtfs
“not including 911”
Beg to differ but , 911 “counts” — bigtime.
Just like the famous “surge”, the GOP tries to frame arguments in a minimalized time-slot and pick-&-choose what to take credit for. Fact is (as we all know), Bushco was at the helm from Jan. 2000 and “everything” that happened since , was on “his” watch — he bares responsibility for it all — pre-surge, 911 — everything.
I think that this is the number who died outright in Iraq, not those who died from their wounds after being taken to a US military hospital in Germany or Spain. I have read that the number almost doubles the 4,230 number. My apologies for not have the citation for this.
Also, look at the number of profoundly disabled veterans returned to the US with no adequate health care and mental health care.
Keep up the good reporting, Brad, Agent 99, John, and others.
You’re right, Dawg. They don’t count if they die on the MEDEVAC choppers, or later in the hospital, or later when they commit suicide, or later when the DU poisoning finally kills them. I’d say it’s way more than twice that number really lost in Iraq, and I don’t even trust that number for just the ones who died in combat or “friendly fire”.
1.3 million Iraqis are dead because of us, too, and millions more displaced and severely discomforted.
Because of lies cooked up by the * and Fudd administration, and our congress UNCONSTITUTIONALLY voted to let them, knowing, or should have been knowing, they were lies.
How many of them are going to jail?
And, Brad, about 9/11, ever notice how the burglar’s house is the one that doesn’t get robbed?
Brad, do you know what a ‘terrorist’ actually is? The US troops in Iraq were not killed by terrorists.
Forrester sniffed:
Really? May want to mention that to Don Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, George W. Bush, et al because they’ve been telling us something quite different for, oh, about 5 years…
Don’t get out to read much news?
Brad, you can’t have it both ways…….
They’re sort of admitting they did the anthrax thingy…by not counting it, when you think about it!
Brad, do you know what a ‘terrorist’ actually is? The US troops in Iraq were not killed by terrorists.
Let me give a stab at this one: Anyone Bush wants to bomb??? Therefore, Iraqi’s are terrorists. Therefore, 4,000+ American troops were killed by what Bush terms “terrorists”.
If the people who are killing our troops in Iraq aren’t terrorists, what are they? “Freedom Fighters”???
Wait! I got it! They’re “guys shooting at us”!!!
Dennis Miller is a real nutcake. Have you seen him making the rounds, thanking Bush for keeping us safe from “the terrorists” since – you got it! – 9/11? I always thought he wasn’t funny, even on SNL, even before I realized he was nuts.
SondraK said:
Huh? Have what both ways? Not even sure what you mean there, Sondra. Sorry.
I think she meant that you can’t be safe unless you’re willing to get a few thousand troops killed.
Of course, there might be some logic in that, if only our troops had been fighting actual threats to our safety. Instead, they just went over and created immediate threats to their own safety and long term threats to the United States.
————–
Either that or she meant you can’t find anthrax delicious and be safe. 😛
Quite a collection of Nuts gathered here. Hafta come back sometime and see how you all are holding up. Be safe carry a Gun.
Well, for years we heard that there was no terrorist threat and all those incidents weren’t terrorist attacks and that conservatives were just fueling fear (ad nauseate) …..and then there’s that pesky part that the Iraqis ( lose term, many weren’t even Iraqis ) blowing up our troops and thousands of Iraqis weren’t terrorists…they were just freedom fighters.
Did you know that Obama just a couple of days ago bombed a bunch of innocent Pakistanis? Pakistan had nothing to do with 9/11…….
I think she meant that you can’t be safe unless you’re willing to get a few thousand troops killed
While that can be true, that’s not what I meant in this context. With a name like “agent 99 ” you must be some important person that knows super seekret stuff that some of us don’t.
UPDATE:
Obama just bombed 17 innocent Afghanis.
Women and children.
Karzai is pretty upset that we’re fueling terrorism.
@ Sondra # 20
The attacks into Pakistan have been ongoing for more than 6 months. I find it odd that objections appear only after Obama becomes President. We saw what Bush did about the Gaza situation, he handled it exactly as he handled Katrina. He went on vacation.
The targets of the Pakistan attacks were high ranking Al Qaida personnel. I think I remember Bush telling us he was going to bring Osama bin Laden and his Orchestra to justice since they perpetrated the 9/11 attack. Instead of finishing that job will fulfilled the PNAC dream of invading Iraq under false pretenses. I am not happy about the collateral damage in Pakistan either. I don’t expect Obama to continue this current course of action. We shall see.
Brad –
I only disagree with you on one point: The people doing this are not idiots. They are highly paid propagandists.
Advertising rule number 1:
Never let facts get in the way of your propaganda efforts. When facts conflict with your premise, ignore the facts.
Truth in Advertising rules only apply to advertising. All other propaganda efforts are totally unregulated.
In this instance the meme being propagated is that Bush kept us safe (in order to whitewash the Bush Legacy). Since all the facts you point to are in conflict with this meme, the facts are ignored.
From the contrarian posts, I’d say the propaganda effort has succeeded amongst the usual caste of noncritical thinkers.
Beware of neocons jugging shiny objects.
“It’s always Bush’s fault” is hardly noncritical thinking.
Silly #22…. it’s SondraK. All one word.
Not everything requires a critical thinking propeller beanie cap……
Obama is CiC. He could stop any and all operations of our military anywhere in the world immediately, if he so chose.
He also made a very conscious decision to keep Gates.
He won, remember?
Lets all face some facts here.
First fact that is irrefutable.
9/11 was committed in one way or another by a faction of the US government, namely those in or close ties to such groups as the PNAC, Carlyle Group, Bilderberg Group, Israeli Mossad etc.
Fact number 2
Unless you are literally brain dead, especially as someone that has the tools & inside information that Congress does then there is no possible way that any Congressman from either side didn’t know what really happened on 9/11.
Other than Cynthia McKinney & Dennis Kucinich what other members of Congress stood for the TRUTH?
I know many were scared to because of the trail of dead bodies left by both members of the Bush crime family but you would think if they all stood together they would have the huevos to tell the truth about such an act of treason.
Fact number 3
The democrats have backed Bush at every opportunity to continue the “occupation” & have encouraged war profiteering just as much as any Rethuglican.
Fact number 4
The Democrats could have stopped all this at least 2 years ago and they chose to do NOTHING what so ever.
That makes them just as guilty.
So when I see Obama continuing an unjust occupation based entirely on lies it does not surprise me.
The democrats may not be quite as insane as the Rethugs but they are just as corrupt & guilty.
Their actions speak louder than words.
Hear, hear, Nunyabiz!
“Terrorists” did not kill the almost 3500 user troops who have died in Iraq.
They were killed by freedom-fighters.
At least, that’s what they’d be called if they were not killing Murkins somewhere WE illegally invaded, and if we were funding ’em…
SondraK replied to my question in response to her peculiar original comment:
Did you hear that from me?
Well, of course, they (rightwingers, they’re not “conservatives”) were fueling fear. Actually, wetting their own pants in their own cowardly fear, and hoping we’d wet ours at the same time.
IED’s by insurgents in an occupied country, are certainly terror attacks. But they are terror attacks that would not have occurred but for our creating those terrorists by us being there.
So, um, you can’t have it both ways, SondraK.
I don’t know that I ever referred to them that way, but by the Bush Administration’s own bullshit, they were “terrorists” and foreign ones at that. Are you having trouble keeping your propaganda straight??
Yes, as he said he would (though he was criticized for it by both the Rightwing and Democratic opportunists at the time) he has so far continued Bush’s policies in Pakistan. As Bush did, Obama — at least on his watch — has now bombed part of Pakistan as the Bush policy in those tribal areas was still in play at the time. It may still stay in play, I don’t know. But the theory is that the tribal areas of Pakistan along the border of Afghanistan is where Al Qaeda is generally based now.
So again, your point is what exactly???
I’m no lawyer, but considering the Bush administration use of torture, and the whole situation in Iraq, I would argue that the ‘kept us safe claim’ is based on facts not in evidence. I just don’t see the cause (Bush administration actions) and effect (kept U.S. safe) relationship. Unless of course you accept that the Bush Administration actions kept the U.S. safe from
flash floods, meteor strikes, king kong,forest fires, sun spots, The Joker, volcanic eruptions, alien invasions, tsunami, Lex Luthor, earthquakes andhuricanes.How close do we have to get Hitler’s quota of 6 million genocided before we can prosecute the Bush crime regime? We’re at 1 million genocided Iraqi’s now, so 16%ish of Hitler’s quota. Can we prosecute at 20%, or do we have to wait till 50% (3 million dead)??
Illegal immigrants have killed more Americans than 911 by way of automobile accidents (DUI’s and non drinking), and murders. Bush really cares about the safety of American citizens.
The Bush cabal ran a classic “protection racket”, Mafioso style. It doesn’t take very much investigation to realize the 911 Towers had to have been brought down by explosives. Of course Bush didn’t want to testify without Cheney or “on the record”, he would not have even empaneled an 911 Commission if wives of the victims hadn’t made him look foolish.
The Bush cabal created fear and then promised to protect us from further harm, which was essentially a threat because they are capable of creating any amount of harm any time any where. Of course, in order to protect us they then had to have a little war to help their oiligarch friends and the good old boys that Eisenhower warned us about, the military industrial complex.
Protect us!!?! Hell, they have created more grief in this country and around the world then we can ever afford to forget. If we don’t learn from this lesson of history we will be destined to repeat it.
General Smedly Butler wrote a book called “War is a Racket” Fascinating soldier, worth googling.
A very important article, Brad. I wish it could reach a wider audience!
Marta
The death count is actually over 4300 soldiers, that have been killed on Iraqi soil, this does not include the ones who were air lifted to hospitals in Germany and elsewhere who died the next day, week or month later. The news stations no longer report the fatalities because it was shedding such a bad light on Mr. Bush’s private little, profit making war. What kind of president declares war on a country, sends troops there and the starts closing the Veterans administration hospitals here in the United States. I’ll tell you what kind of president one who doesn’t want the troops to come back home, alive anyway. If Mr. Bush wanted to get the ones responsible for the 9/11 attack he wouldn’t have waited so long to retaliate against these terrorists. This war was started to put money into the oil industries pockets, plain and simple, and it worked. Now it is time for a democratic president to clean up the mess. That is how it is now and that is how it has always been. Make no mistakes the republicans party has always favored the rich and they always will. What we need now are some really good VA hospitals and some money for stem cell research to try and fix some of the injuries these soldiers who survived this war, have received. How bout a little compassion, instead of greed, huh?
Do the Brad Blog’s administrators realize that 9/11 was an inside job? If not, why not? Anyone taking an afternoon to actually look into the details of the official myth could figure that out, and Mr. Friedman is no dummy.
And if so, why not include that in this thread’s post rather than quibbling about the anthrax attack (another inside job) and the Beltway sniper, both of which are many magnitudes smaller and less significant than the 9/11 false flag attack? I think exposing that it was an inside job in the first place is a vastly stronger argument against the “Bush kept us safe since 9/11” bullshit.