August 28th / 30th, 2009
"Bush Played Politics with Terror Alerts"
If ever a book should be color-coded, it is ‘The Test of Our Times’.
Written by former Homeland Security chief Tom Ridge, ‘Test’ is full of
shocking revelations about how the Bush Administration used terror alerts to
influence elections and public policy.
Ridge says that Bush and company pressured him to issue a terror alert the
night after John Kerry’s nomination in 2004. But according to CNN, “
senior law enforcement officials” told the Washington Post at the time that
there was no justification for raising the threat level. Never the less, the
alert (which made Bush look more Presidential) was issued, and later
augmented by a series of Rovian style dirty tricks (such as TV ads about Kerry’s
swift boat days in Viet Nam ). Taken together, the strategy of threat levels
and mud slinging served to call into question the democratic nominee’s
ability to lead during times of crisis.
This was not the first time the Bush White House had used fear tactics to
sway the opinions of voters. In 2002, Karl Rove released an internal memo
which began with the words, “Focus on war”. Then just three weeks before
the 2002 mid term elections, Ridge was told to raise the terrorist threat
level. Bush then scheduled a vote on the war, and suggested that anyone in
Congress not supporting him was siding with the terrorists. Naturally none of
our spineless Congressmen wanted to look unpatriotic during a re-election
campaign, so Bush got their blessing to invade Iraq. And so, just as
voters had flocked to FDR and his fellow incumbent Democrats upon entering World
War II, they were now willing to let Bush and the GOP lead them on the
brink of a war with Iraq.
But perhaps the most telling incident of using terror alerts for political
gain was the one that Ridge refused to issue. Having already discredited
Kerry’s ability to deal with foreign enemies, the Bush White House just four days prior to
the 2004 election, pressured Ridge to raise the terror alert from yellow
to orange.
By now, Ridge had good reason to believe that the Bush administration was
using terror alerts for political purposes. Commenting on the
aforementioned mid term alert, Ridge wrote, “post election analysis demonstrated a
significant increase in the President’s approval rating in the days after
raising the threat level”. So this time, Ridge would not be bullied by Bush and
his cronies. When they demanded the terrorist alert be issued 72 hours
before voters went to the polls in November, 2004 , Ridge refused. Said Ridge, “
I consider this episode to be not only a dramatic moment in Washington’s
recent history, but another illustration of the intersection of politics,
fear, credibility, and security”. Ridge then resigned one month after the
re-election of George Bush.
A number of other Bush insiders have disputed Ridge’s allegations, but
given Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld’s propensity for lying, I tend to believe
Ridge. Still, Ridge has a credibility problem. After all, it was big Tom who
told us that we would be safe from bio terrorist attacks if we just put duct
tape over our windows and doors. But lunacy in one instance doesn’t
necessarily preclude veracity in another. For proof that such fear mongering
occurs, just look at the tactics still being used by Bush Republicans who are
trying to defeat healthcare reform so that their benefactors in the
insurance industry can continue to profit from death and disease.
FDR and the democrats might have benefitted from being in power when our
nation was in economic ruin, and later under attack from Japan, but no
historian has ever suggested that Roosevelt created imaginary threats in order
to remain in office. Just the opposite. In his first inaugural address, FDR
comforted a depression-ridden populace, saying, “we have nothing to fear,
but fear itself”. It was his way of assuring us that we need not panic, and
that no threat, foreign or domestic would deter us. That’s a far cry from
Bush and company who encouraged us to be frightened, knowing that we would
look to them for leadership, even though the basis for that fear did not
exist. Saddam was not involved in 9/11. There were no weapons of mass
destruction. Iraq did not have to be occupied. The list goes on. Under Bush,
politically motivated terrorist alerts resulted in increased funding and
support for a needless war that killed over 5,000 American soldiers, and over a
half million innocent men, women and children.
As much as I deplore Bush and Cheney for their misdeeds, I blame Tom Ridge
for lacking the courage to come forward earlier, when his disclosures
could have saved lives. Instead, Ridge joins a growing club of former Bush
officials whose revelations are too little, too late. In that regard, the
messenger is just as guilty of war crimes as the men who perpetrated them.
|
