Memorial Day allows us to remember those who have fought to keep us safe. I also believe it should be a day to remember those who have failed to keep us safe. This list provide irrefutable evidence of where Republicans and Democrats have come out on the question of national security.
The next time Liz Cheney, or Karl Rove, or Peter King goes on TV to complain about how Democrats are endangering American lives, I hope the person doing the retorting actually has a list such as mine handy. I am sick of Democrats allowing Republicans to take the stage on national security issues and I will beat back any claims otherwise with FACTS not myths.
Please feel free to email the list out to family and friends.
Keeping America Safe: Republican Edition
Step 1) Ignore memo that reads terrorist mastermind “Determined to Attack Inside the U.S.” (CNN, 5/19/04)
Step 2) Allow 2,996 Americans and their friends to die in largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil. (NYT, 9/11/01)
Step 3) Allow family members of the terrorist mastermind to leave the U.S. without interrogation. (CBS News, 2/11/09)
Step 4) Start spying on Americans instead. Start with their emails, internet surfing and phone conversations. (Cato Institute, 1/20/03)
Step 5) Escalate spying by deputizing plumbers, truck drivers, cable guys and painters to spy on Americans in their homes and in their neighborhoods. (cnet.com, 7/17/07)
Step 6) Invade the wrong country. (NYT, 3/20/03)
Step 7) When her husband questions the invasion of the wrong country, compromise a CIA operative and all of the national security sources she has nurtured throughout her career in pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. (CQ Transcripts Wire, 3/16/07)
Step 8) Send $12 billion in cash on pallets to that wrong country. Lose the money, possibly to the enemy. (The Guardian, 2/8/07)
Step 9) Alienate long-held allies by referring to them as "old Europe," ensuring that the U.S. must shoulder 90% of the cost of the invasion in blood and treasure. (CNN, 1/24/03)
Step 10) Be forced to send state-based National Guard troops overseas now, making them unavailable to handle local disasters. (CRS Report for Congress, 1/17/08)
Step 11) Confiscate guns from law-abiding Americans following local disasters. (NRA, 10/10/08)
Step 12) Force our soldiers to provide their own body armor and weapons on the battlefield. (USA Today, 3/26/04)
Step 13) Exhaust our soldiers by extending deployments by 50%. (WaPost, 4/12/07)
Step 14) Send our wounded soldiers to moldy, rodent infested hospitals. (WaPost, 2/18/07)
Step 15) Let terrorist mastermind escape. (DailyMail, 10/7/08)
Step 16) Dismantle CIA group hunting the terrorist mastermind. (NYT, 7/4/06)
Step 17) Admit you “don’t spend that much time on” the terrorist mastermind just six months after the attack. (Remarks by the President, 3/13/02)
Step 18) Adopt practices that encourage non-terrorists to become terrorists. (WaPost, 11/30/08)
Step 19) Outsource so much of the military that it cannot fix its own planes anymore without help. (AFLMA, 2002)
Keeping America Safe: Democratic Edition
Step 1) Tell the head of CIA that finding the terrorist mastermind behind the largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil is the top national security priority (Remarks by the President, 5/20/11)
Step 2) Take out more Taliban leaders in one month than predecessors did in six years. (NYT, 2/18/2010)
Step 3) Expand availability of health care for veterans. (Whitehouse, 5/6/10)
Step 4) Provide support for the caregivers of seriously injured Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. (Whitehouse, 5/6/10)
Step 5) Expand services preventing veterans from becoming homeless. (Whitehouse, 5/6/10)
Step 6) Improve services for women veterans. (Whitehouse, 5/6/10)
Step 7) Cut military programs that politicians want but military leaders do not want. (ABC News, 2/16/11)
Step 8) Go to places such as Chechnya and Chile to lock down loose nuclear materials capable of building over 1,500 bombs that could be used against the U.S. and her allies (The Rachel Maddow Show,11/19/10)
Step 9) Kill terrorist mastermind behind largest terrorist attack on U.S. soil. (USA Today, 5/2/2011)
Any questions?
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SOURCES
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Republican Edition
1) Ignore memo: http://articles.cnn.com/...
2) Sept 11: http://topics.nytimes.com/...
3) Bin Laden family: http://www.cbsnews.com/...
4) Total Information Awareness: http://www.cato.org/...
5) TIPS Program: http://news.cnet.com/...
6) Iraq War: http://www.allposters.com/...
7) Valerie Plame: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
8) Billions lost: http://www.guardian.co.uk/...
9) Old Europe: http://articles.cnn.com/...
10) National Guard readiness: http://www.fas.org/...
11) Guns: http://www.youtube.com/...
12) Body Armor: http://www.usatoday.com/...
13) Deployments: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
14) Walter Reed: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
15) Torabora: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/...
16) CIA: http://www.nytimes.com/...
17) Ignore Bin Laden: http://www.youtube.com/...
18) Torture: http://www.washingtonpost.com/...
19) Outsourcing: http://www.aflma.hq.af.mil/...
Democrat Edition
1) Priorities: http://m.whitehouse.gov/...
2) Taliban: http://www.nytimes.com/...
3) Military: http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
4) Military: http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
5) Military: http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
6) Military: http://www.whitehouse.gov/...
7) Engine: http://abcnews.go.com/...
8) Nukes: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...
9) Bin Laden: http://www.usatoday.com/...
UPDATE 1: At Anne Elk's suggestion, I adjusted the language concerning the 9/11 attack death toll to reflect the fact that not everyone who perished was an American citizen. Original read: "Allow 2,996 Americans to die..." Revision reads: "Allow 2,996 Americans and their friends to die...."