I believe it was Pat Buchannon, though I could be wrong. It was a comment he made on MSNBC, following the last Democratic debate. The loose quote is that if another "terrorist attack" occurs on American soil between now and November, people will flock to John McCain. John McCain says he'll stay in Iraq for another hundred years, or more, to keep America "safe" by denying "Al Queda" the opportunity to set up a base of operations there.
This is just one of the hammers the GOP (Greed, Oligarchy, Privelege) has used, and will continue to use, against the Democratic candidates who propose withdrawal from Iraq.
It's time to slam the doors on this absurdity, and stop letting fears of terrorism rule our lives, run our government, and destroy our Constitution.
I will not cite many government "facts" here because, frankly, I don't believe anything the bush government says. I don't believe their economic numbers, I don't believe their terrorism hype, and I don't believe their claims that illegal, warrantless spying has given them anything they couldn't obtain legally. I don't believe they never authorized torture, and doubt they ever referred to it as anything other than "torture" among themselves. I don't believe they have the best interests of average Americans at heart; in fact, I don't believe they give a damn about anybody but wealthy patrons, crony corporations, and themselves.
I do believe that there has been a massive and overt conspiracy, incubated in the '70's, and brought to maturity in the '90's, to establish permanent, single-party conservative rule in the USA. To this end, the players (from the God Industry to mal-trained Stepford children in our government agencies) have shamelessly stooped to maliciousness and deceit of the highest order, to the point of threatening the very lives of Americans who didn't spit in their palms, and swear their loyalty.
No, instead, I will appeal to reason and common sense -- assets which seem to have been sorely compromised since the bush regime took power, and especially since 9-11-01, when the government, the media, and a good number of Americans went completely batshit insane.
Bush's occupation of Iraq did not stop bombings in Indonesia, England, Spain, Saudi Arabia, OR Iraq. Bush's occupation of Iraq did not stop the sniper attacks in the DC area, the school shootings in Virginia or Illinois, or the perpetual conflict between the Palestinians and Israelis. Bush's occupation of Iraq did not stop the alleged plots against British and American airlines, the "liquid bomb" scare, the gang of morons in Florida or New York, or any number of other set-up and entrapped would-be perpetrators who never really had a chance to pull off anything significant on their own. No, if we are to take these alleged plots seriously at all, we can at least agree that old-fashioned police work disrupted them, and not any military action in Iraq. How will this occupation of Iraq stop the next Tim McVeigh, or the next disgruntled anarchist with a machine gun? And, yesterday, we found out that ricin has been found in a Las Vegas motel. Thats RICIN -- a so-called "WMD"; one of those nasty brews the bushies exploited to give credence to their "global war on terror". The funny part is that our omnipotent "Dept. of Homeland Security" says that the incident has no connection to terror. No connection to terror, they said. But, of course, had this ricin, this "WMD", been discovered en route to its destination, perhaps on an airplane, or a train, or in the possession of someone of, say, Arabic descent, the bushies would have surely milked it for every drop of fear, and it surely would have been connected to "terror", at least for the duration of any "investigation" that might have ensued.
Yet, the myth prevails, the myth that depicts Iraq as a kind of giant Bug Zapper, which attracts "terrorists". So goes the myth, Iraq keeps the "terrorists" busy, so they won't "follow us home". We have to "fight them there, so we don't have to fight them here". Yeah, yeah... on and on they drone and, unfortunately, too many Americans still fall for the schtick.
But let's try to get real, and keep it real, for a change. First, 9-11 did not have to "change everything". Whatever happened that day, it did NOT have to bestow dictatorial powers on our president. It did NOT have to launch a futile, expensive, and deadly "global war on terror", which kills tens of thousands of innocent people and military personnel every year. It did NOT have to undermine our Constitution, destroy the separation of powers in our government structure, or open the door for illegal and unconstitutional conduct by our most trusted public servants. Free people must recognize that there are risks that come with freedom, and only cowards would allow those risks to destroy their minds, break their spirits, and overcome their sense of independence and self government.
The Republicans plan to beat our candidates to death with the spectre of another terrorist attack ushered in by the "weakness", the "appeasement", the "surrender" of Democrats. Maybe it's just me, but, if I were a jihad-crazy terrorist, hellbent on killing Americans because I "hate their freedoms", the last place on earth I'd be is Iraq or Afghanistan. I wouldn't "follow them home", because I'd be somewhere else. I'd be in some nondescipt city or village, far away from the "coalition" forces, anonymous, and patient. This is just one of the utter absurdities the bush mob has used to fool and terrorize its own citizens, and I hope our candidates will eventually drive this point home, rather than simply miming the expected responses to these issues.
Let us not fail to remind every American we know that our Constitution is bigger than all of us. We do not need the kind of "security" which destroys everything that made our country worth defending. We do not need the kind of "patriotism" that depends on SUV ribbons, lapel pins, or pledges to inanimate pieces of cloth, while the principles represented by that piece of cloth are shredded, and locked away in Dick's man-sized safe.
Terrorism is a crime, not an act of war. Before the bush mob took power, we did not destroy entire nations as revenge against a handful of murderers. It was not our policy to launch preemptive wars against nations whose leaders said offensive things, or who gave us the finger on the rare occasions when we tried diplomacy.
War, murder, religious fanaticism, superstition, inquisition, genocide... none of these atrocities brought mankind out of the Dark. In fact, these human failures successfully kept mankind in the Dark for ages. We rose from savagery to civilization through language, knowledge, education, science, art, music, and pursuit of the Common Good. Certainly, it takes longer to cultivate trust and cooperation than to simply drop cluster bombs, but the results are longer-lasting, and these tactics don't inspire nearly as much hatred and revenge in our perceived enemies.
I'm sick of being polite to idiots, and those fellow Americans who would lie down like beaten dogs, surrender their liberties, and protect a rogue government run by despots, liars, and criminals. I call them liars because they are; I call them war criminals because they are; I call them war-mongers and profiteers because they are; and my fondest wish is that our candidates and elected officials will eventually call them out, too.