With a hatchet man like Dick Cheney, who needs the truth

I don’t often get angry while watching a news broadcast, but on Friday 9/24/04 I happened to catch our local newscast giving an update on the Presidential campaign, I got very angry. Angry enough to walkout of the break room just so I wouldn’t have to watch the story.

It started with a clip of John Kerry giving his 7 point plan for the war on terrorism and critiquing Bush and company for going after Saddam instead of finishing the job against Bin Laden.

“George Bush made Saddam Hussein the priority,” Kerry told a group of students and faculty at Temple University. “The invasion of Iraq was a profound diversion from the battle against our greatest enemy, al-Qaida, which killed more than 3,000 people on 9/11 and which still plots our destruction today. And there’s just no question about it: The president’s misjudgment, miscalculation and mismanagement of the war in Iraq will make the war on terror harder to win.”

“Iraq is now what it was not before the war: a haven for terrorists,” Kerry said. “I will grant no one, no country, no sweetheart relationship a free pass,” he said. “As president, I will do what President Bush has not done; I will hold the Saudis accountable.”

http://tinyurl.com/4ykkv

So then Vice President Cheney responds:

Vice President Dick Cheney complained Friday in Warrenton that the Democratic presidential nominee, Sen. John Kerry, suggested that Iraq wasn’t a home for terrorists before Saddam Hussein was deposed.

“Ladies and gentlemen, Saddam himself was a terrorist,” Cheney told about 1,500 people at a Republican rally at the Warren County Fairgrounds.

Cheney said Saddam had provided a safe haven for terrorists over the years, made $25,000 payments to families of Palestinian suicide bombers and had a relationship with al-Qaida.

http://tinyurl.com/48ubn

The Bush-Cheney team continue to LIE about the reasons for invading Iraq. That is why I got mad. The news allowed Cheney to spit out his untruths without ANY questioning from the press or anyone.

Taking a closer look at Iraq and terrorism finds that Saddam was considered dangerous, no one disputes that, but not an immediate threat to the US. Col. Muammar Abu Minyar al-Qadhafi of Libya was more of an immediate threat to the US than Saddam. Bin Laden had ordered the killing several thousand innocent civilians in the 9/11 terrorist act yet the President shifted the focus from Bin Laden to Saddam without a resolution.

The other lie Cheney is fond of stating is that Saddam and al-Qaida had a relationship. He is then assuming you and I will connect the dots and think Saddam had something to do with 9/11. There was no relationship. Saddam was too busy keeping his grip on Iraq to help another terrorist group. He wasn’t looking for an excuse to be attacked.

Cheney is also the one who inferred that if Kerry was elected, the US would be attacked by terrorists.

Terrorism is a threat. Unfortunately, the Republicans are too busy keeping Cat Stevens out of the country and forcing book stores to tell the government what books I buy, among other civil rights abuses, to fight terrorism as it needs to be fought. Terrorism and the groups who commit terror acts are in the shadows. They have no country or army to fight. Fighting terror requires a concerted effort of intelligence agencies across the world and old fashion police work. Just ask the Italians how they broke the back of the Red Brigades, or how the British turned down the IRA troubles, or how the Germans defeated the Baader-Meinhof gang or how Japan dealt with the Japanese Red Army group.

Cheney and Bush want you to think that terrorists care who is in the Whitehouse.