RJ Eskow: Before They Vote, Tell Your Friends Just How Bad Republicans Are at National Security - They'll Say "WTF!". Wherever you are, this can be your last-minute campaign effort: tell your undecided friends and co-workers about the Republicans' stunning record of incompetence in managing our national security. They don't know the truth, so lay it on 'em. I promise you - they'll say "WTF!"*
WTF! "Homeland Security estimates that the detonation (of a rail-based) chlorine container would kill 17,500 and injure 100,000. Yet despite its own calamitous assessment of the risk ... DHS continues to rely on the voluntary cooperation of the rail industry ..." (The Next Attack, by Daniel Benjamin and Steven Simon)
WTF! The investigative unit that was uncovering outrageous cost overruns and contract failures - failures that put our troops in danger - was just shut down by the Republicans in Congress.
WTF! Several studies have shown that airport screeners are no more effective at preventing weapons from getting on planes than they were before 9/11.
WTF! In another sign of lousy postwar planning, they failed to secure the arms depots in Iraq: "In the fall of 2004, U.S. intelligence estimated that at least 4,000 missiles from Iraq's arsenal could not be accounted for ... The RAND Corporation ... determined that if a single aircraft were destroyed by a missile, the direct economic cost to the United States would be $1 billion. The indirect cost ... would reach $50 billion." (The Next Attack)
Guess they were too busy stealing missiles to welcome us with flowers.
WTF! The missile defense system they keep bragging about is just a boondoggle for their rich contractor friends. It just keeps failing and failing.
WTF! Generals, defense experts, and even the Army Times have called for Rumsfeld's resignation, but they keep him in place anyway. If bullshit was bullets, his name would be Winchester. Talk is cheap and Rummy's the cheapest guy the've got. He's an amateur. Lose him.
WTF! They place politics over our national defense, time and time again: "A number of key appointments to White House posts involving career civil servants with vital experience have been held up because of concerns about the political loyalties of the individuals ... candidates report being flummoxed in their interviews by questions from White House staff about who they voted for in the last election." (The Next Attack )
WTF! The cost of bomb-detection machines at airports has skyrocketed, although the machines are so inefficient that their usefulness is being questioned altogether. Still, somebody's getting rich. (Funny how that keeps happening.)
WTF! There still has been no coordinated effort to create countermeasures against the use of private planes and/or ultralights in a terrorist attack. But did you hear that Michael Chertoff was just given a medal? Unbelievable. Must have had something to do with New Orleans.
There's more - a lot more - where that came from. But you get the picture. The Republicans, who have survived on the image that they're "strong on defense," have actually provided the weakest civilian military leadership ever. These guys live in dreamland. When they're not concocting harebrained schemes that are guaranteed to fail, they're selling out our country to help their defense contractor friends.
So tell your friends and co-workers: Republicans suck at national security. This is the chickenhawk party, and it shows. They couldn't win a stuffed animal in a carnival shooting contest with a bazooka.
Do your friends and coworkers say they want to protect the United States from terrorism? Great. Tell them their best bet is to vote for a Democratic House and Senate. The Dems will demand better performance from incompetent managers (or better yet, insist they be fired), and they'll pass laws that really upgrade our defense capability.
Tell them that if they believe in a safe and strong America, they need to vote for change. They'll thank you someday.
(*"WTF" stands for "What the f.... free people of the world agree is a poor job of protecting us from terrorism.")
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