Bin Laden’s Back and Bush Is To Blame

Every time Osama bin Laden’s vile visage reappears on America’s television screens, the pundits hyperventilate with excited anticipation of the political benefits for Bush. John Kerry blames his 2004 defeat on bin Laden’s sudden reappearance, on tape, in the days before the election. The calcified conventional wisdom persists that when Americans are reminded of bin Laden and terrorism, they quiver in fear and cower for the cover of their big bad Republican protectors. This is, of course, at best, absurd. In 2004, some right wing shrillmongers even insisted that bin Laden was openly hoping for a Kerry victory. That exact presumptive political calculus actually explains bin Laden’s true motives.

When Bush needs a boost, bin Laden is there to lend a hand. Bin Laden is no fool, and he understands the foolishness of the American media. He understands that they will comply with his true desire, which is to bolster Bush and to help facilitate the continuance of Bush’s national security policies. Unlike the idiots in the American punditocracy, bin Laden is mockingly confident that whatever Bush does will be to bin Laden’s benefit. Never in American history has an American administration’s ineptitude so consistenly benefited America’s enemies.

Once again, because they need be continually explicated, these are the facts:

The Bush Administration’s incompetence and negligence allowed the September 11 terrorist attacks to happen

Clinton National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and the National Security Council’s counterterrorism chief, Richard Clarke warned Condoleezza Rice, Dick Cheney and Stephen Hadley in January 2001 that: “You’re going to spend more time during your four years on terrorism generally and al-Qaida specifically than any issue.” They were ignored.

Clarke later testified that “the administration did not consider terrorism an urgent priority before the September 11, 2001, attacks, despite his repeated warnings about Osama bin Laden’s terror network.

Although Predator drones spotted bin Laden at least three times in 2000, Bush did not fly them over Afghanistan for the first eight months of his presidency.

The Bush Administration ignored the two and a half year Hart-Rudman U.S. Commission on National Security/21st Century’s warnings about terrorism, choosing, instead, to conduct their own study.

Neither Bush nor Cheney made good on an announced plan to study the consequences of a domestic attack.

Obsessed with missile defense, the Bush Administration thought it was wrong to even focus on Osama bin Laden.

Throughout the summer of 2001, Tenet, Clarke, and several other officials were running around with their “hair on fire,” warning that al-Qaida was about to unleash a monumental attack.

In July, 2001, CIA Director George Tenet warned Rice “that ‘the system was blinking red,’ meaning that there could be ‘multiple, simultaneous’ al-Qaeda attacks on U.S. interests in the coming weeks or months.

On August 6, 2001, Bush received a Presidential Daily Brief titled “Bin Laden determined to strike in US.”

Bush’s response to his CIA briefer was: “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.”

Meanwhile, Don Rumsfeld was vetoing a request to divert $800 million from missile defense into counterterrorism.

Not to be outdone, just a day before the attacks, Attorney General John Ashcroft turned down “F.B.I. requests for $58 million for 149 new counterterrorism field agents, 200 intelligence analysts and 54 additional translators.”; instead, he “proposed cuts in 14 programs. One proposed $65 million cut was for a program that gives state and local counterterrorism grants for equipment, including radios and decontamination suits and training to localities for counterterrorism preparedness.”

The Bush Administration’s incompetence and negligence allowed Al Qaeda and the Taliban to get away with it, and because of that, both groups are now growing stronger and more dangerous.

Bush Administration incompetence allowed bin Laden to get away, when he could have been caught or killed, at the battle of Tora Bora.

The Taliban in Afghanistan are growing stronger.

They’re also growing stronger in nuclear armed Pakistan, threatening to overrun the government.

Al Qaeda has also regrouped, and is growing stronger in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

A recent assessment by the National Counterterrorism Center, was even titled “‘Al-Qaida Better Positioned to Strike the West.”

The failure is so complete that both Afghanistan and Pakistan are now having to negotiate reconciliation with the Taliban

The Iraq War is bin Laden’s best propaganda tool.

It’s spawning a new generation of terrorists.

Terrorism is on the rise, all around the world.

Our detention camps in Iraq are breeding grounds for new terrorists.

The corporate media will continue to spin lies, and the Democrats will continue to misunderstand how to reframe the discussion. We need to continually broadcast the truth, and to teach our Party leaders how to explain themselves. The political stereotypes could not be more backwards, and this false framing is not only politically damaging, but a legitimate threat to our national security.

Bin Laden is back because he wants to help Bush perpetuate the endless war. Bin Laden is back because he knows  that Bush’s Iraq disaster is the best thing that ever happened to him. Bin Laden is back because he fears that, at some point, the American people and the American Congress might come to their senses and demand an end to the war that serves bin Laden so well.

It’s time for Congress to stand up to bin Laden. It’s time for Congress to stand up to Bush. It’s time for Congress to stand up for America, and for the world. It begins be reframing the debate. We all need to keep explaining it. We need every Democrat who appears on television or radio to reduce the discussion to the most simple, the most honest, and the most devastating sound bite: Bin Laden’s back, and Bush is to blame!

The facts speak for themselves: Bin Laden’s back, and Bush is to blame!