GOP Hypocrisy
July 28, 2016 at 4:25 p.m.
By -
What we have learned a few weekends ago from the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is that the GOP and its conservative allies are willing to lie about anything to re-gain power. They have also decided to put what's good for the GOP ahead of what's good for the nation. In a case in which the Republican lies and hypocrisy is shown to know no bounds and the truth escapes them, I give you the war on terror.
Before President Obama took office, members of the Bush administration were telling anyone who wanted to hear that the president didn't realize that we were at war with the terrorists. We've heard Dick Cheney talk about how the current administration has dropped the ball when it came to the war on terror. He, of course, leaves out the fact that during the early Afghan theater of operations, America's most wanted, Osama Bin Laden, was pinned down and ready for the taking only for the Bush administration to call of the dogs and send in private contractors or, as they used to be called, soldiers for hire. Bin Laden got away. But hey no worries because President Bush and Vice President Cheney then decided to abandon Afghanistan so they could finish up the first Gulf War that the first President Bush didn't finish. They cherry-picked intelligence, called dissenters unpatriotic, and soon after sent thousands of American forces to fight and die in Iraq. The American occupation began and Afghanistan was forgotten.
In that election, President Obama was elected and a re-dedication to Afghanistan, that the military had been calling for since that terrible day when the Bush administration let Bin Laden get away, had begun.
The failed terrorist attack on Christmas day 2009 led Cheney to criticize the president (which according to conservatives is an un-patriotic thing to do to a sitting war time president) for their handling of the Christmas day terror suspect. All of a sudden the Republicans who had supported the Bush administration's treatment of the captured terrorist, Richard Reid, now had a problem with the Obama administration handling of a similar terrorist. But an interesting fact emerged after the Christmas day failed terror attack. It was reported that the suspect had been trained by hardcore unrepentant terrorists who were once held in Guantanamo Bay and who were released in 2007 by no one other than Vice President Cheney. One of these same released terrorists is now behind the re-emergence of Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
Recently after several successes in the Afghan theater which now openly includes Pakistan, former Bush administration officials, conservative pundits and the GOP in Washington are now complaining that Obama is being too hard on the terrorists and that the current administration is killing too many terrorists. Now we have seen that the GOP will not support the current administration on anything. They are already on record for opposing legislation that they themselves had sponsored and supported so that the Obama administration could be denied any successes. So after a year of distortions, scare tactics, and lies regarding the healthcare bill and the stimulus package, the historic level of GOP hypocrisy has now entered the national security debate. Where it goes from here is anyone's guess.
Robert Betances
Warsaw, via e-mail[[In-content Ad]]
What we have learned a few weekends ago from the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) is that the GOP and its conservative allies are willing to lie about anything to re-gain power. They have also decided to put what's good for the GOP ahead of what's good for the nation. In a case in which the Republican lies and hypocrisy is shown to know no bounds and the truth escapes them, I give you the war on terror.
Before President Obama took office, members of the Bush administration were telling anyone who wanted to hear that the president didn't realize that we were at war with the terrorists. We've heard Dick Cheney talk about how the current administration has dropped the ball when it came to the war on terror. He, of course, leaves out the fact that during the early Afghan theater of operations, America's most wanted, Osama Bin Laden, was pinned down and ready for the taking only for the Bush administration to call of the dogs and send in private contractors or, as they used to be called, soldiers for hire. Bin Laden got away. But hey no worries because President Bush and Vice President Cheney then decided to abandon Afghanistan so they could finish up the first Gulf War that the first President Bush didn't finish. They cherry-picked intelligence, called dissenters unpatriotic, and soon after sent thousands of American forces to fight and die in Iraq. The American occupation began and Afghanistan was forgotten.
In that election, President Obama was elected and a re-dedication to Afghanistan, that the military had been calling for since that terrible day when the Bush administration let Bin Laden get away, had begun.
The failed terrorist attack on Christmas day 2009 led Cheney to criticize the president (which according to conservatives is an un-patriotic thing to do to a sitting war time president) for their handling of the Christmas day terror suspect. All of a sudden the Republicans who had supported the Bush administration's treatment of the captured terrorist, Richard Reid, now had a problem with the Obama administration handling of a similar terrorist. But an interesting fact emerged after the Christmas day failed terror attack. It was reported that the suspect had been trained by hardcore unrepentant terrorists who were once held in Guantanamo Bay and who were released in 2007 by no one other than Vice President Cheney. One of these same released terrorists is now behind the re-emergence of Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
Recently after several successes in the Afghan theater which now openly includes Pakistan, former Bush administration officials, conservative pundits and the GOP in Washington are now complaining that Obama is being too hard on the terrorists and that the current administration is killing too many terrorists. Now we have seen that the GOP will not support the current administration on anything. They are already on record for opposing legislation that they themselves had sponsored and supported so that the Obama administration could be denied any successes. So after a year of distortions, scare tactics, and lies regarding the healthcare bill and the stimulus package, the historic level of GOP hypocrisy has now entered the national security debate. Where it goes from here is anyone's guess.
Robert Betances
Warsaw, via e-mail[[In-content Ad]]
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