The Success of Bush’s Pro-Terror Anti-Terror Policies
Perhaps the stupidest and most widely circulated outgoing Bush talking point is that the George W Bush’s anti-terror policies were a success.
For one thing it starts the “anti-terror success clock” ticking the day after we were attacked thereby utterly ignoring the biggest national security failure since Pearl Harbor, and this idiotic talking point is simply not true.
That’s why this reality based Q&A during a press briefing by the White House’s Deputy Press Secretary Scott Stanzel is so refreshing:
Q The administration has been boasting about the success of the President’s war on terror, yet data compiled by the RAND Corporation show that the global rate of terrorism, as measured by the number of people killed per year, increased by almost fivefold during the Bush presidency. And according to the government’s own terrorism statistics, 2007 was the worst year ever, with over 22,000 people killed worldwide. Does the President consider that record a success?
MR. STANZEL: The President considers it very much a success that we have kept this nation safe since the devastating attacks of 9/11. The magnitude of the attacks on 9/11 were unprecedented, unseen, when 19 individuals armed with box cutters flew airplanes into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and were fought and died in a field in Pennsylvania.
We have taken the fight to the terrorists. It has been this President’s sole mission throughout his presidency to confront those threats where they are. He has a much talked about Bush Doctrine. The President has made it very clear that if you aid, abet, house, feed, fund a terrorist, you are just as guilty as the terrorist, and that we will also confront the challenges where they emerge so we don’t have to face them here at home. And we will work to spread an ideology of hope and freedom, which will be the ultimate tool in combating terrorism around the world.
So I’ll move on. Yes, go ahead —
Q But shouldn’t the anti-terrorism efforts reduce terrorism rather than increase it?
Maybe Bush considers his administration successful because terrorism is only up five fold instead of ten fold? If that is his position I guess he has a point.
h/t kos
The President has made it very clear that if you aid, abet, house, feed, fund a terrorist, you are just as guilty as the terrorist
Well, except for Saudi Arabia.
He has a much talked about Bush Doctrine.
“In what respect, Charlie?”
And Pakistan.
I think the real Bush doctrine is if you have nuclear weapons we’ll negotiate and if you don’t we’ll attack. The second Bush doctrine is that we want to spread democracy but only if you vote for people we like.