Tag Archives: 9/11 attacks

national news, political news

Where were you on Sept. 10, 2001, Gov. Christie?

Chris-Christie

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie needs to come clean on a statement he made during Thursday night’s joint appearance with nine other Republican candidates for president.

He said something about being “appointed U.S. attorney” on Sept. 10, 2001, a day before “the world changed forever” during the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

Oops, governor.

Not so, sir.

President Bush appointed Christie to be U.S. attorney in New Jersey on Dec. 7, 2001. But to make some kind of argument against U.S. Sen. Rand Paul during the Thursday night “debate,” he said he’d been named to the job the day before those attacks and that on the day of the attacks he was “hugging” family members of victims.

Look, I happen to like Gov. Christie. I hope he does well during the upcoming GOP presidential primary campaign. I like his no-nonsense approach to problem-solving, his sometimes-blunt talk, his can-do attitude — and I even like the fact that he hugged Barack Obama when the president came to the Jersey Shore to inspect the damage done by Hurricane/Super Storm Sandy on the eve of the 2012 presidential election.

However, he need not inflate his resume by putting himself a tad too quickly into a federal office just to score political points.

It’s unbecoming.

 

national news

Terrorism occurred in Charleston

I want to weigh in on the discussion of whether the Charleston, S.C., massacre was an act of terrorism.

Here goes: I believe it qualifies.

Dylann Roof is accused of murdering nine people after he spent an hour studying the Bible with them. He reached into a pocket, or something, pulled out a gun and started shooting.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/06/the-killings-in-charleston-werent-terrorism-119233.html?hp=m1#.VYY_CVLbKt8

The victims never saw it coming. An act of terror? By my definition of the word, yes.

Yet we’re not calling it that. It’s a “hate crime.” Muslims who opened fire in Texas before they were killed were “terrorists.” A young white man in Charleston does the same thing and he’s called a “racist,” a “lunatic,” or a “mass murderer.”

You want mass murder? The 9/11 attacks certainly qualify. They, too, were carried out by terrorists.

I am growing weary of these word games.

The Charleston shooter was a terrorist, who committed a hate crime, who killed many people at once and thus, qualifies as a mass murderer.

Why not lump all these descriptions together?

We can stop playing semantic games with the language.

International news

Drone kills another al-Qaeda leader

Before we get too excited about news regarding the death of an al-Qaeda terrorist leader, let’s ponder the obvious.

Someone else is going to emerge to take this guy’s place.

And someone will emerge once we eliminate the new terrorist leader.

It’ll go on and on and on.

http://www.foxnews.com/world/2015/06/16/us-targets-leader-al-qaeda-in-yemen-with-cia-drone-strike/

A drone strike killed Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader Nasir al-Wuhayshi. It’s been called the most significant death of a terrorist leader since the May 2011 commando raid killed Osama bin Laden.

That’s good news. The more leaders we kill, the fewer of them are left to take up arms against us.

Does it mean we’ve wiped out the recruiting pool? Hardly.

What we’re seeing, though, is the consequence of President George W. Bush’s declaration of war against international terrorism in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. It’s a war that will go on long after those who are reading these words are gone. It’s a war we must fight, given that the terrorists started it with their heinous attack on us in 2001.

The question remaining though is: How will we know when we’ve finished the fight?

The answer remains as elusive today as it was when this fight began.

 

national news, political news

‘Protecting the homeland’?

Forgive me, please, for expressing this, but Jeb Bush might be suffering from brotherly-love blindness.

He was questioned by Bob Schieffer on CBS’s “Face the Nation” news talk show.

Schieffer asked the former Florida governor and likely 2016 Republican presidential candidate what he learned from his brother, former President George W. Bush.

“Well, the successes clearly are protecting the homeland,” the former Florida governor opined. “We were under attack, and he unified the country, and he showed dogged determination, and he kept us safe.”

And he kept us safe. He said that.

OK, let’s reel this back a bit. The 9/11 attacks occurred on President Bush’s watch, which Jeb has acknowledged. It’s been reported from various sources that the president likely ignored warnings from his national security team that a major attack was imminent. He was briefed by his predecessor, Bill Clinton, about the threat that al-Qaeda posed.

And yet …

The attack occurred on that bright Tuesday morning in New York and Washington.

President Bush “kept us safe”?

Yes, but only after all hell broke loose.

national news, political news

Fibs = lies? Sometimes

Someone asked me the other day if I could explain the difference between a “fib” and a “lie.”

My quick answer to him was that I “like the word ‘fib’ better.”

“Fib” has a less-damaging ring to it than “lie.”

I’ve given some further thought to the question, which actually is a pretty good one.

Here’s my more thoughtful answer: A fib is meant to describe a false statement that doesn’t carry as much consequence as a lie.

I used the term “fib” to describe, in this latest instance, what NBC reporter/news anchor Brian Williams had said about being shot down in Iraq. He fibbed about it. He wasn’t shot down. He was riding in a helicopter that accompanied the ship that actually was shot down.

Why is that a “fib” and not a “lie”? Because all it means is that one man’s career is likely ruined. The rest of us will carry on.

What, then, constitutes a lie?

Let’s try this one: “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.” That came from President Bill Clinton as he wagged his finger at the American public and told a lie about what he did with the White House intern. All by itself, that shouldn’t constitute a lie. Except that the result of that untrue statement — which he also made to a federal grand jury — resulted in his impeachment by the U.S. House of Representatives.

I suppose I could go on with more actual lies, such as when the Bush administration kept telling us about Saddam Hussein’s alleged complicity in the 9/11 attacks. We all know where those lies led us.

It’s one thing to fib about a personal experience and another thing to lie when it involves the future of the country.

Awww, what the heck. I still like the sound of the word “fib” better.

 

International news, national news

Drone takes out ex-American

Adam Pearlman was born to Jewish parents and raised on a California goat farm.

Then he changed his religion. He became a Muslim. Then he changed his name, to Adam Gadahn.

After all that, he joined a terrorist cult.

And in January, he was killed by an American drone strike. It apparently wasn’t planned, but he’s dead nonetheless. Americans — other than his family — shouldn’t be shedding a tear over this man’s death.

Count me as one American who scores his death as a victory in our war against international terrorism.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2015/04/al-qaeda-adam-gadahn-isis-rebirth-americans-recruited-to-isil-117285.html?hp=t1_r#.VTmsfFJ0yt8

Gadahn was killed in a drone strike that reportedly also killed two hostages, and American and an Italian. For those two men’s deaths, President Obama rightly apologized “on behalf of the U.S. government.”

Gadahn, though, is a different matter. As some Texans might say, “He needed killin’.”

And yet, civil libertarians — and I count myself as one of them — keep arguing that the United States shouldn’t kill Americans without giving them due process.

I am prepared to argue that these terrorists no longer qualify as deserving equal protection under the laws of the land. They forgo those protections the moment they take up arms with an enemy forces hell bent on killing Americans or any other innocent victims.

Gadahn had forsaken his rights as a citizen when he decided to join al-Qaeda. He had turned his back on his country by becoming a spokesman for the late Osama bin Laden’s terrorist organization, the monsters who plotted the 9/11 attacks and, thus, fired the first shot in what’s become known as the “global war on terrorism.”

Yes, we should mourn the deaths of innocent victims. I join those in grieving for the loss of the American and Italian hostages who were held captive by al-Qaeda.

But for the man formerly known as Adam Pearlman? I won’t grieve for a single moment.

 

national news

Obama echoes Bush on Islam

This video is worth watching as the nation debates whether the 44th president of the United States harbors some sort of bias that gives terrorists a pass just because they purport to be of the Islamic faith.

Listen to the words spoken here by the 43rd president, George W. Bush, just six days after the 9/11 attacks.

He quotes the Quran, noting that acts of evil will be the end of those who commit those acts.

President Bush refers to Islam as a great religion, that its tenets condemn violence committed against innocent victims.

Where was the outcry then as the president sought to inform the nation that our anger should not be directed at peaceful Muslims, those who pay their taxes and who go about their business daily without regard to harming other human beings?

Yet we keep hearing from those who suggest that President Bush’s successor, Barack Obama, harbors sympathies to those who have done us harm.

Listen carefully to the words spoken on the video.

 

International news

News flash: Pakistanis knew bin Laden was among 'em?

This must rank as perhaps the least-surprising item to come out of the Global War on Terror.

Pakistan’s intelligence apparatus likely knew Osama bin Laden was hiding in that country when he was killed in May 2011 by Navy SEALs and CIA spooks.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/pakistan-probably-knew-bin-laden-was-hiding-ex-spy-chief/ar-AA9fWFf

What’s more, they well could have know precisely where the world’s most wanted terrorist was hiding when the U.S. strike force landed in the middle of a moonless night in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

The possible revelation comes from former Pakistani Lt. Gen. Asad Durrani, who once led ISI, Pakistan’s major intelligence agency.

The fact that bin Laden was holed up in a large compound so close to a military academy in the city just north of Islamabad has brought suspicion on Pakistan almost from the moment he was shot to death and carried out of Pakistan aboard a Special Forces helicopter.

Many skeptics in this country have wondered how bin Laden could have hidden in plain sight for as long as he did, how he was able to escape detection for a decade after the 9/11 attacks.

As MSN.com reported: “Asked whether it was possible for bin Laden to have lived in the town without the powerful ISI’s knowledge, Durrani said: ‘My assessment… was it is quite possible that they (the ISI) did not know, but it was more probable that they did.'”

ISI is known to be a crack intelligence outfit, with some seriously sophisticated sleuthing skills. Yet, bin Laden was going about his business inside that compound without anyone inside Pakistan ever knowing about it?

Yes, it stretches credulity — and it provides some more tough questions for American intelligence officials to ask of their so-called “allies” in this war on terror.

 

International news, national news, political news

Trying to figure out why they're called 'truthers'

Andrew Napolitano is a so-called “truther.”

He believes the 9/11 attacks were somehow concocted by the federal government.

According to Media Matters, a left-wing journalism watchdog organization, Napolitano — a Fox New contributor and former judge — said this: “Napolitano has made numerous appearances on (radio talk show host Alex) Jones’ show. During a 2010 interview, Napolitano told Jones, ‘It’s hard for me to believe that [World Trade Center building 7] came down by itself,’ adding, ‘I think twenty years from now, people will look at 9-11 the way we look at the assassination of JFK today. It couldn’t possibly have been done the way the government told us.’ After his appearance, families of 9-11 victims criticized Napolitano for being “willfully ignorant of the facts surrounding the collapse of WTC 7.”

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2014/11/10/rand-paul-writes-foreword-for-confederate-apolo/201516

Why bring this up?

A potential candidate for president in 2016 has written a foreword in Napolitano’s new book, “Suicide Pact: The Radical Expansion of Presidential Powers and the Assault on Civil Liberties.” The possible candidate is U.S. Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who now is associated with someone who has some truly nutty ideas.

His new book also chastises President Lincoln for provoking the Civil War when, according to Napolitano, slavery was dying a natural death anyway.

Let’s not forget as well that he believes President Obama is usurping our liberties and freedom.

But this post is about truthers and the idiocy surrounding the notion that the 9/11 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington were an inside job.

Andrew Napolitano is one of them. And for the life of me I cannot understand a sitting member of the Senate contributing to this guy’s literary career. To think we call these people “truthers.”

Be sure to keep this bit of intelligence in mind the moment Sen. Paul declares his presidential candidacy.

 

International news, military news, political news, State news

Dewhurst is pushing the panic button

David Dewhurst always seemed like a reasonable, responsible, reliable Republican.

I didn’t know much about him when he and I met the first time as he ran for Texas land commissioner back in 1998. He was new to the Texas political spotlight. He seemed bright and engaged fully in the nuance of Texas government at many levels.

Now he’s gone to the dark side. He’s joined the nut-case crowd of the Texas Republican Party. He’s now a lame duck, having been beaten for his job by someone who’s even farther out there on the rightest wing of the party, Dan Patrick.

So what does Dewhurst do? Does he recede quietly back into the shadows and wait for his term to end? Oh no. He goes to that Values Voter Summit in Washington, D.C. and proclaim that Muslims are infiltrating our southern border.

http://www.texastribune.org/2014/09/26/dewhurst-tells-dc-crowd-prayer-rugs-found-border/

How does he know that? He says Border Patrol authorities have found prayer rugs way down yonder. That means those dreaded “Islamic fanatics” are coming into Texas to blow up buildings, kill people and convert the United States of America into an Islamic nation.

Of course, the federal government denies such rugs exist.

The Texas Tribune reports: “(A) Texas congressman who sits on the U.S. House Homeland Security Committee has argued that there’s no threat of extremism on the border. U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-El Paso, said during that same panel that top Pentagon officials had denied that there was any threat on the Texas-Mexico border from the Islamic State (ISIS) or similar groups. He added that similar claims were made about extremists crossing into Texas from Mexico during the United States’ conflicts with Libya in the 1980s, which he also mentioned to The Economist in an article published this week.”

Dewhurst always struck me as a studious guy, dedicated to the meticulous detail of legislating. It’s been said of him that he at times lacks the people skills needed to be an effective politician.

After reading his remarks at that Values Voter gathering, he also seems to lack the judgment to keep his finger off the panic button that signals the start of a religious war.

This isn’t a fight against Islam. It’s a fight against terrorists.

Cool it with the prayer rug talk, Lt. Gov. Dewhurst.