Terrorism threats: The President still doesn’t get it.
Every day I have to hear from some Republican pundit, voter, or politician that we are “fighting them over there so we don’t have to fight them over here” or that Democrats want to “cut and run” from Iraq and hand over victory to Iraq.
I have already described why setting up a timetable is good. It is not cutting and running or giving them a date where they can just “wait” for us to leave. When we leave, the Iraqi people will be trained to defend themselves. I have faith in the ability of our men and women in uniform to train others to be quality soldiers.
However, there are two examples in the recent news that shows why President Bush is absolutely wrong in his so called “plan” to protect us from the terrorists. Fighting them “over there” so we don’t have to fight them “over here” is not working.
In an AP report, a group of people where going to make a terrorist attack against Ft. Dix in New Jersey. It was the actions of a store clerk that protected us from a terrorist attack. It wasn’t the Iraq war. It wasn’t fighting them “over there’. It wasn’t even the “Patriot Act” that protected us. It was one citizen who stepped forward and reported a threat.
In a report on MSNBC.com, Iranian backed Hezbollah built a base of operations in South America and its doing so (in a very hard to police region) has increased the threat of a terrorist attack in America. Again, the Iraq war has not prevented Hezbollah from setting up this base, nor has the patriot act, the prison in Guantanamo Bay, or any other action by this administration.
The answer to all this is clear. The sooner that we enable the Iraqi people to completely defend themselves, the faster we will be able to protect ourselves from the real threats facing our nation. If Bush cannot figure this out, it is time that the Republicans in Congress do. Otherwise, all our “fighting them” over there will only have served as a distraction to us in our attempts to increase national security and it will have aided our real enemies in their attempts to attack us.