Friedman parrots the Village view: Bush kept us safe
By David Neiwert Sunday Jan 11, 2009 4:00pm
Thomas Friedman, the consummate Villager, demonstrated this morning on ABC This Week, as part of the roundtable following George Stephanopoulos' interview with Barack Obama, just how readily Republican talking points become Conventional Wisdom in their hands:
Friedman: There are many terrible handoffs the Bush administration, many many, uh, are leaving for President Obama. But there is one overriding large one -- there has been no terrorist act in this country since 9/11. And I think that is a very sobering, weighty handoff for this administration.
Stephanopoulos: The number one priority is to keep the country safe.
Friedman: And I think that's where the debate's gonna have to be. Where I think the administration, the last one, really faulted itself was not consulting Congress. But the fact is, you know, the American people don't want to lose that. And I think that how Obama handles that -- I think that's going to be one of the toughest, toughest challenges going forward.
OK, let's have that debate. But it can't just be on Village terms. Because there are three components of this "weighty handoff" that go unmentioned by Friedman:
1. Bush also laid the groundwork for future terrorist attacks. The 2006 National Intelligence Estimate, after all, warned that the invasion of Iraq and subsequent Bush policies -- including the use of torture -- have in fact made the likelihood of future terrorist attacks exponentially greater.
2. Bush didn't keep us safe before 9/11. The historical record is clear that prior to that event, Bush dismissed counterterror concerns as a "Clinton thing," and he was clearly asleep at the wheel on the day it occurred. Any president who allowed the worst terrorist attack on American soil on his watch has no business subsequently claiming that he kept the country safe. (Also worth noting: The lack of any international terrorist attack in the intervening years is not evidence that Bush's post-9/11 strategy actually prevented anything.)
3. There in fact have been other terrorist attacks since 9/11. The most noteworthy of these was the October-November 2001 anthrax attacks, which killed five people, and has still gone unsolved. There have also been planned attacks nipped in the bud: a planned cyanide bombing, a man who intended to blow up LA banks, a former Army Ranger who planned to bomb abortion clinics, and the Alabama militiamen who intended to go on an anti-Latino killing rampage. There have been a number of lower-level acts of terrorism that reached fruition as well, ranging from rampaging gunmen in Knoxville, Tenn., and Moscow, Idaho, to a conservative wingnut who was sending out hoax anthrax letters.
All of these cases underscore the fact that domestic terrorism is almost completely off the Bush administration's radar -- except, of course, for those "eco-terrorists." What the "war on terror" we've gotten from Bush has amounted has been little more than a political marketing campaign.
Until we mount a serious campaign against terrorism that recognizes it for the global beast that it is -- one perfectly capable of emanating from our own soil -- we won't be doing anything to effectively halt the forces that actually breed terrorism.
And what George W. Bush's post-9/11 "war on terror" has done has actually harm our ability to do that for many years to come. He may not have suffered any further attacks, but that does not mean he kept us safe, now or in the future.
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the economic terrorism hit harder, but most of those terrorists are at the same cocktail parties.
bush did not keep America safer.....
he scarred the shit out of America and
the rest of the World.....with his
batshit brains.
WTF? He let 9/11 happen on his watch. Plenty of warnings, the pdb, foreign intelligence, etc.
But noooooooooo. PNAC just HAD to have a new Pearl Harbor to scare the public into going to war for oil.
Check this out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kRnwRxXJw6M
Cynthia McKinney (Green Party Pressidential Candidate) also wants to know:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YYBao8z9uRE
We don't know what really happenned on 9-11 and this CROOK is telling: The NEOCONS kept us safe?
Get out of here Mr. Friedman!
to all the objections you raised, it is unbeliavable that the media doesn't realize that you cannot claim that the government has kept the US safe unless they elaborate on the specific attacks foiled. Of course that would be unwise, but then you cannot brag about your achievements either.
There exists zero evidence to counter my claim, if I simply announce that there haven't been any attacks, because the terrorists are biding their time.
..has never been less safe and secure - physically, financially, legally, spiritually, etc, etc.
Tom must be telling the truth; he never seems to wear a tie. And that is a sign of truth! That an looking like you neglected to shave; which makes it a double truth. What a sec Carol King has started to sing "So Far Away". What was I saying? Oh yes, who is Thomas Friedman?
Friedman helped push us into war with Iraq. Idiot.
Bush didn't catch any of the 9/11 planners. Bush didn't catch any of the Anthrax letter signers. Bush hasn't kept us safe. He's the one who left our eastern seaboard defenseless on that fateful morning. Unprecedented amount of war games scheduled. Ignored warnings.
If people are really that blind to see, they're beyond help. You ever heard of the term "useful idiot". You ever looked into the tactic of war known as false flag terrorism and its historical examples.
You now how much of the world hates us now. How much we will now be forced to rely on the military industrial complex companies to keep us safe due to this hatred. Bush and friends got just what they wanted. A world in chaos.
Please. Start speaking the truth in plain and in no uncertain terms. The war games on 9/11 should never have been planned or allowed to go on after the numerous warnings we received from other countries regarding an imminent attack.
As for the mustache man friedman... He's in the same league as Judith Miller, Armstrong Williams, and Jeff Gannon as far as I'm concerned.
Was it Bush who saved another plane from blowing up at the hands of the "shoe bomber" or was it some passengers who beat the crap out of him?
some blogsites rejoice when Friedman says something with which they agree.
These people aren't stupid, they are cynical. I'm sure they know that something not happening in no way means that someone did anything to make it not happen. Also, something happening doesn't mean someone made it happen. As a man, I didn't grow breasts in 2008, am I responsible for that?
My house hasn’t been burglarized since I got my new watch kitty!
http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/EUR/...
Extremely cute too.
I am a very jealous person.
http://i39.tinypic.com/rsqvbl.jpg
It was called "Saturday Night Cat scratch fever” 8-)
He loves cheddar cheese and he snores like a buzzsaw.
Alas, his days of 'cutting the rug' are behind him now.
My new kitten just LOVES broccoli!:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JIFNEddeZI4
Remember, dubya's daddy hates broccoli!
We have two kitties - rescues - that need good homes ... all shots, neutered, etc. They're farm kitties - which make the best pets. . . .
*
Other than the 93 trade center bombing, and conservative terrorist Tim McVeigh's attack on America, there hasn't been an attack on this country since Pearl Harbor. I guess we should give Bush credit for that too.
to his grave.
We do not have the real, complete truth as to the Oklahoma City bombing.
Perpetrators were caught and prosecuted under the Clinton administration. Bush not only did not keep us safe on 9/11, despite warnings bin Laden was determined to attack using suicide pilots, he did not catch or prosecute bin Laden, either. And terrorists have multiplied exponentially. Friedman is completely wrong-headed.
that we didn't have terrorist attacks left and right BEFORE 911.
And Timothy McVeigh was a government hating wingnut - EVERYONE must be made aware of that.
has a list of crimes a mile long as he and his Bankster cohorts ride into the sunset with trillions in their pockets and no one after them.
Meanwhile we will be a nation of paupers, literally and figuratively.
Bush has done more lasting damage to America than the 1993 trade center bombing, the 2001 terrorist attacks and Pearl Harbor combined.
Bush depleted our military, wrecked our economy, turned the world against us, made us beholded to China with our national debt, and gave us the worst recession since the Great Depression.
America lay in ruins thanks to Bush but hey, so long as bin Laden didn't do it it's ok with Friedman.
With so many people unemployed this man gets a paycheck?
What is with the phrase going "going forward" that has entered into the lexicon of every talking head out there? When you say "I think that's going to be one of the toughest, toughest challenges", how does sticking a "going forward" at the end of it change its meaning?
And as opposed to what - going backward? Time only goes one way. I want to burn that phrase.
me, too! That's fucking lawyer-speak.
Joking aside, remember that it wasn’t the way we made the world hate us that is as important as the way we were made to hate ourselves, and the wedge that has cleaved us into two seemingly different countries has done more than any terrorist could have dreamed of doing in crippling this country. We can’t heal from the wounding by looking out at the ones that carried the slop buckets of deceit, there were too many of them to keep in mind, all we need do is stay aware of it happening whenever the faces stare out from the screen and try to force a little more shit down our throats. Know your enemies as you know your friends.
Friedman eating pie: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sv6nvMUq10U
me about that! Couldn't have happened to a nicer hypocrite. Would've been even funnier if Friedman had slipped and sat on his rather ample ass.... #:)
Great to see.
what, no shoes?
.
Friedman = Sycophant
.
They REVEL in the fact they they displayed continuous contempt for Congress. Dick Cheney told Senator Patrick Leahy to go f*ck himself. Cheney has repeatedly said that he's pleased he said it and that he'd say it again. How is that "faulting itself?"
He hasn’t kept us safe from corporate terrorism. Oops, I forgot. He are one.
That's RIDICULOUS WINGNUT MENTALITY - and I HATE when the conservatards say that - it implies that there were just SO MANY terrorist attacks in our country BEFORE 911...as if terrorist attacks were some kind of COMMON OCCURENCE before 911.
This talking point deserves the response that terrorists didn't need to come to America to fight us--they still managed to kill and maim thousands of Americans, while we have poured billions of dollars into the sands of Iraq, instead of our own infrastructure and society. We've had leadership on the order of Hitler dithering in Russia.
When I see Friedman's books in the bookstore - I always turn them face down. Sometimes I put another book on top of them too.
I'm really not interested in stopping others from buying them though. I just REALLY don't want to see his book there while I'm browsing that table. Others - Like Coulter and Hannity? I turn their books over to stop myself from vomiting right there in the bookstore.
*
It's a good exercise.
You should have thrown up on the books.
There's nothing I hate more than a Bush apologist and this guy is one of the worst. Here's an article that busts the myth of bush as hero.
Of course the "HERO" of 9/11 could sit there and read about pet goats because his men were on the case already... YES?
.
Lee Boyd Malvo and John Allen Muhammad
Beltway sniper attacks
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beltway_sniper_a...
Three weeks of terror in the D.C. area in October of 2002
.
.. just a little distraction while Cheney & Bushie & Condi planned their little invasion of Iraq. Be afraid...be very afraid.
today than at any other time.
Another attack could come at any time, could have come at any time.
There is no way either to predict or prevent a really determined attack. It's just a matter of luck, fate and roosting chickens...
that Republicans blame Clinton for the attacks on September 11, 2001.
One couldn't expect a neophyte President to actually come up to speed on such complicated issues as terrorism, even though you received explicit, detailed warnings in plenty of time to act, can you?
Of course we can, and do expect our Presidents to do what is necessary, (and legal), to prevent terrorist attacks against us.
Can you honestly believe the Repubs won't blame Obama for lack of preparedness if we get attacked on January 21st?
Think before you speak. Friedman did not say anything about Bush. He said "there has been no terrorist act in this country since 9/11." It is a valid point about simplistic and perhaps opportunistic comparisons and perceptions and not praise or condemnation of anyone. You hear but do not listen.
There HAVE been terrorist acts in this country since 9/11, as David points out. Terrorist acts need not be defined as al Qaeda piloting a plane into a large landmark, you realize.
The anthrax scare was a terrorist act. It is yet unsolved and unacknowledged by the Bush administration. It happened after 9/11.
Don't forget Bush v Gore which was political terrorism inflicted on America by 5 Republican appointed conservative activist judges. A political terrorist attack by anti-American judicial activists we may never dig ourselves out of.
Anthrax, anyone? (Nicole beat me to it)
Also, the residents of Madrid, London, and Bali must be thrilled...
There were no foreign sponsored terrorist attacks in the US for the 8 years between the first WTC bombing and 9/11. It's stupid for anyone to say that having none between 9/11 and now means anything. If 8 years can go by without them and essentially no one is looking out for them...then to show any measure of success I'd say we have to at least go twice as long without them before we can conclude anything.
That being said, there's been no reason for attacks against America to be made in America. We've lost more citizens in Iraq since we invaded there than we lost on 9/11 by some 1,000+...so how has that made us any safer?
We fight them over there so we don't have to see it over here. But from the enemy's point of view it makes no difference. Over here, over there, they're still dead Americans. Why should they go to all the trouble to hit us here when we've conveniently parked hundreds of thousands of our children in their backyard?
Reslugs often point to the USS Cole as an attack on Clinton's watch. Then they conveniently forget Madrid, London, Bali, etc.
Magically wards off all bad guys. Available for weddings and birthday parties. Senior discount. Call now!
It will not make it true. Bush was ignorant and inept and failed the USA before the 9/11 attacks. The US conspiracies since are crackpots and nuts. Bush has not saved us from anything but his ineptitude. We have been very lucky. However, with all his spying,why did he not save Europe from terrorists? He claims any successes over there and no failures. But Cheney says no one could predict these things--the hypocrisy smells of a vapid coward.
that doesn't make it true.
They still spout this garbage about keeping us safe, they aren't the ones dying for our safety and our country. They aren't the ones suffering every day for what they have brought down on our heads because of their arrogance. Yet they want to claim they have kept us safe. No, sorry George, sorry Dick... YOU FAILED...You have NOT kept us safe. You have made us a target. It is the Men and Women of the military who have kept us safe.
I can't believe people actually look to this idiot for wisdom. "The World is Flat"? Maybe if you're looking at it from the first class section at 30,000 feet.
Renounce Empire.
I don't see terrorists flying jets into the towers of Beunos Aires. I don't see terrorists planting bombs in Denmark.
You want to stop terror? Stop terrorising the planet with your insane and stupid military. Stop terrorising the planet with your gangster capitalism. Leave people the f@ck alone and trade fairly. Support the underdog, not the government oppressing the underdog.
Do that, and the terrorists will leave you alone. Guaranteed.
I've been sounding this horn for years! When I say it I'm immediately condemned as being unpatriotic, a terrorist sympathizer and traitor. What soon follows is that familiar right-wing mantra: "Why don't you move to Iran (or somewhere else) if you hate America so much." I left a couple of opinions on some conservatives Facebook walls (after they were praising Bush for "keeping us safe for 7 years") and you've never read so many hate-filled replies. These people just don't want to hear anything logical. Thanks for posting this tweakerbelle, for a second there these nut-case conservatives who were berating me had me thinking I was the one who was crazy! I'm glad I'm not alone.
following 2/26/1993 until 1/20/2001
No major attack happened on US soil for 2,689 days (projected to 1/20/2009).
Bill Clinton went the criminal route, and the perpetrators are in jail. Bush bombed 2 countries into oblivion, killed hundreds of thousands of people and spent hundreds of billions of dollars, not even mentioning the hate for this country from the rest of the world.
The 2nd attack on the WTC came while Bush was in office.
He failed to protect us.
So did Clinton however after they attacked the WTC 1 month after Clinton was sworn in.
They somehow managed to arrest and imprison the terrorists and he still managed to balance the budget for 4 years brought the ship of state into port, warned Bush to be careful. Bush ignored Clinton's warnings the PDb's warning's and we know the rest.Look give Tom 6 more month's and he'll get it right.
Friedman is nothing but a legend in his own mind. He's an attention whore who flips and flops with the prevailing winds. I have no doubt that should a spaceship land in Springfield, he would be among the first to welcome our new insect overlords. Suck on that Friedman.
I feel the least safe and the least secure I have ever felt in my entire 54 years on this planet. On top of his wars and terrorism BS, he reversed all kinds of consumer protection and environmental rules and of course we all know about our retirement plans and our job security. I hope I live to see things straightened out. Screw Bush and all his ignorant or greedy fans!
ENOUGH with the stupid Dr. Evil outfit, Tom! You've got some good ideas, but occasionally you make an ass out of yourself, and this stupid COSTUME that you insist on appearing in just makes it worse. Hint: the black T-shirt underneath the jacket worked okay when you were trying to start up a punk rock band in 1980, and it worked okay for the local FINE ARTS CRITIC on PBS in the 1990s, but when you're a political pundit on ABC, the "walrus in a t-shirt" look just doesn't fly.
PUT ON A SHIRT AND A TIE, YOU FAT, PUDDING-FACED PUTZ!
Maybe the reason we haven't seen any new attacks here in the USA is because Bin Laden stated that he would economically destroy the United States - and it seems that he has been fairly successful due to the incompetence of the Bush-Cheney regime.
Flathead
The peculiar genius of Thomas L. Friedman
http://www.nypress.com/article-11419-flathead...
Pretty much says it all.
The Knoxville UU Church was terrorized by a former member. People died. It was planned.
You are an ignorant ass that just got paid how much to follow the party line?
People why bother watching these propaganda programs?
Why listen to the corporate republican party line that has made such a mess of everything in the past eight years?
This man make more money for reading what is put on a teleprompter then you will ever make in your lifetime.
Think about all that money about how it would change your life style. Think about not having to worry about paying your bills, about buying anything you wanted whenever you wanted? As long as you say what they tell you to say?
Pretty strong motivator! Really strong motivator after you have been doing it long enough to get used to the lifestyle!
These people are all paid shills, salesmen, no different then the used car salesman down the street.
Whatever he has on his lot is the best there is no matter it's actual condition.
As you drive away he turns to one of his fellow salesmen and says man that hunk of junk I wouldn't give a quarter for that thing!
That is the type of people you have in the corporate owned news media! Forget them let them dry up and blow away!
What about the anthrax scare?
Close to 5,000 Americans have been killed since 9/11 in Iraq and Afghanistan. If we take the Administration at its word -- that they were fighting "terrorists" -- then we've lost 5,000 American lives to terrorists since 9/11.
The dodge that's used is to claim that there hasn't been a terrorist attack "on our soil". But that's a distinction without a difference -- certainly to the 5,000 dead Americans.
I'm surprised Friedman doesn't raise this claim for the "keeping us safe" Bush revisionism, since it has a comparable basis in fact.
As Naomi Klein has painstakingly documented, Bush has outsourced Homeland protection to corporate disaster profiteers whose spectacular corruption is only matched by their systemic inefficiency, and compromised considerably by their ability to make vastly greater profits in the event of an actual attack.
Added to that is Bush's foreign policy which has made an actual attack all but inevitable: Alienating and enraging the entire Islamic world, alienating and enraging former allies that were previously inclined to share intelligence, destroying US credibility in terms of its own intelligence and forfeiting all internatonal moral credibility through the practices of torture, rendition and detention without trial.
Friedman's flabbily machismo "Suck.On.This." cheerleading about the slaughter of hundreds of thousands, makes his claim about Bush's contribution to American safety about as credible as a Bernie Madoff lecture about corporate ethics. Everything Friedman has ever sagely pronounced upon -from foreign policy to economics to global markets - has proven to be an unmitigated, usually gore-splattered, humanitarian disaster of continental proportion. If he had a shred of decency he'd never open his criminally complicit, pompously paternalistic, atrocity enabling mouth again.
You nailed the truth! And thanks for the Madoff analogy chuckle!
Interesting. So Bush kept us safe despite ignoring the warnings that preceded 9/11? And he has kept us safe since then while breaking the U.S. Army and Marines in an uneccessary pre-emptive war in Iraq?
No. The number one priority for a president is stated clearly in his oath of office:
Great Job!Epic Fail.That's it. Not protect us. Not protect the home/mother/father -land. Not stop the turrists. All of these things they've been touting as their #1 priority can be accomplished as side effects by following what they swore to do on day one. And they could have done it honorably, too.
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