Terrorist attacks under George W. Bush and Barack Obama

First, let’s review the worldview of the left with the respect to national security.

This post is from Verum Serum. (H/T Neil Simpson’s latest round-up)

Excerpt:

New York’s Mayor Bloomberg:

[Katie] Couric interviewed Bloomberg to discuss the possibility that the failed attack might have been a precursor to something bigger and potentially, more deadly. At one point, the veteran anchor asked the Mayor whether or not he thought the suspect was American.

“A home-grown?” she asked, to which Bloomberg responded, “Home-grown, maybe a mentally deranged person or somebody with a political agenda that doesn’t like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.”

The Nation’s Robert Dreyfuss:

But it seems far more likely to me that the perpetrator of the bungled Times Square bomb plot was either a lone nut job or a member of some squirrely branch of the Tea Party, anti-government far right.

MSNBC’s Contessa Brewer:

“I get frustrated…there was part of me that was hoping this was not going to be anybody with ties to any kind of Islamic country.  There are a lot of people who want to use terrorist intent to justify writing people off who believe in a certain way or come from certain countries or whose skin color is a certain way.  I mean they use it as justification for really outdated bigotry.”

Oooops. As it turns out, the Times Square terrorist was from Pakistan and was trained in explosives in Pakistan. And he also hated George W. Bush, and often said so to his neighbors. Vociferously.

Comparing George W. Bush and Barack Obama on national security

Let’s review:

Since the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, the number of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil under George W. Bush = ZERO

Since taking office, the number of terrorist attacks on U.S. soil under Barack Obama = FIVE

  • June 2009 – Little Rock, Arkansas – Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad, an American Muslim opened fire on a U.S. military recruiting office. Private William Long was killed and Private Quinton Ezeagwula was wounded.
  • September 2009 – New York, New York – Attempt to detonate bombs in NYC subway system by member of al-Qaeda
  • November 2009 – Fort Hood, Texas – Nadal Malik Hassan conducts mass shooting at Fort Hood killing 13 and wounding 30 others.
  • December 2009 – Detroit, Michigan – Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab attempts to detonate an explosive on an aircraft enroute from Amsterdam to Detroit.
  • May 2010 – New York City, New York – New York’s Times Square was evacuated after the discovery of a car bomb.

Those are the facts.

So, if I am thinking of the safety of my future family and my neighbors, then I should vote Republican. If people vote Democrat, then we get  failure.

There are a lot more good posts in Neil’s round-up.

15 thoughts on “Terrorist attacks under George W. Bush and Barack Obama”

  1. You neglect to mention the Anthrax attacks, as well as the Shoe Bomber. It’s also only fair to mention that the attacks on 9/11 were a little more serious than the recent ones.

    Also, are you saying that Obama was to blame for any of the incidents that happened in the past year? You seem to be.

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    1. I am not counting attacks that occurred BEFORE the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. Let Bush respond to the 9/11 attack with war, and then we see that the attacks (attacks linked to terrorist groups, not isolated incidents of one individual) stopped. The shoe attack was 12/2001 – that was a terrorist attack. The anthrax attacks were done by an American in 9/2001 and 10/2001 – but these were not “terrorist” attacks – not linked to any political cause. I believe in deterrence. After the invasions, there were no terrorist attacks.

      Yes, I am blaming Obama’s weakness for the FIVE attacks we’ve suffered. He favors our enemies like Venezuela and Iran, and he despises our allies like Israel and Germany. Our enemies view this as weakness, just as they viewed the deaths of thousands of terrorists in Bush’s wars as strength. They despise and attack weakness, but they respect and fear strength.

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  2. Rudy Giuliani actually claimed there had been no terrorist attacks in New York City a couple of months ago, completely forgetting about 911, so I’m not surprised at the argument. I guess watching the two planes hit the towers, as I did, firsthand, and seeing people leaping from the two towers, which I also observed from a nearby building, was stricken from his memory? How else do you explain comparing attempted terrorist attacks like the underwear bomber and the motherlode of all terrorist attacks on the WTC and choosing Obama as the weaker of our two last presidents?

    As for deterrence, W, just look around the world and tell me which governments have managed to eliminate terrorism from their midst? Not Israel, Colombia, Pakistan, India, Turkey, Russia, Spain, Britain.

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    1. That’s why I was careful to say AFTER THE INVASIONS of Afghanistan and Iraq. The military response – the use of military power – is what stopped all the future attacks. Once the lion was gone from office, and the ass took his place, the terrorist attacks resumed. And now we have had FIVE attacks under Obama, compared to ZERO under Bush, following his decisions to use force to deter. The terrorists know that Obama is weak, and it emboldens them to attack. Those are the facts.

      The standard is not the elimination of all attacks, but deterrence of attacks against the United States.

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  3. Great. Then tell me which government facing worse terrorist attacks than the underwear bomber, the Time Square bomber, etc. are “soft on terror.” What should the be doing? Are their leaders asses too?

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    1. The United Kingdom, Spain and India. They all had major attacks and they are all soft on terrorism. Their leaders are appeasing asses, on this issue. What they should be doing is starting with small peaceful penalties, like economics sanctions. But additionally, they should be sending troops to areas where terrorists are actually being encountered, to indicate that they are willing to use force if they are attacked. The willingness to make terrorism costly for the terrorist is the only way to deal with them. And that is what the numbers show with Bush and Obama. They feared Bush, but they do not fear Obama. And that will likely cost American lives.

      Notice that the same thing happened with Bill Clinton, you just didn’t hear about it from the left-wing media. We had continuous terrorist attacks.

      So Clinton talked tough. But he did not act tough. Indeed, a review of his years in office shows that each time the president was confronted with a major terrorist attack — the February 26, 1993, bombing of the World Trade Center, the Khobar Towers attack, the August 7, 1998, bombing of U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, and the October 12, 2000, attack on the USS Cole — Clinton was preoccupied with his own political fortunes to an extent that precluded his giving serious and sustained attention to fighting terrorism.

      Now if you are dealing with a group that has legitimate grievances and they are not willing to use violence then you don’t use violence, you use negotiation and mediation.

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        1. Didn’t think so. I live in the UK and I can tell you for a fact that it is NOT soft on terrorism.
          I’ll tell you who is soft on terrorism- Germany, France, Scandinavians. Have there been many terrorist attacks there?

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  4. Don’t forget we also had the DC sniper who was a self-proclaimed muslim and was post Afghanistan. However, I agree with Wintery Knight in that the terrorists have been emboldened by the Obama administrations reluctance to face the reality of the situation. As he pointed out, other countries, whose leaders have sought appeasement or been in denial have suffered heavy terrorist attacks. We (and I mean all of us, not just the administration) are forgetting that this is an ideological war in which the enemy has nothing to lose (no country or territory, etc). How do you defeat an ideology? It’s got to start with our own security and end with winning over a new generation, not visa-versa. This is a long haul endeavor, generations perhaps.

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    1. The sniper attack was not connected with any larger group.

      I think there are things we could be doing to defeat them, like supplying assistance to pro-democracy groups in Iran, broadcast pro-democracy messages into Iran, economic sanctions, etc.

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    2. If you want to count the DC sniper, which I don’t because it was aimed at an individual, you will have to count Aurora, and Newtown in the Obama column. However, I do not believe any of these should be considered terrorism.

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  5. Although the DC sniper was a Muslim, his goal was to kill his ex-wife. The murders were cover for that not a religion issue.

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  6. I know you wrote this a couple years ago but would the Wisconsin Sikh temple shooting be considered an terrorist attack to you?

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    1. Only attacks that are linked to AQ or a specific nation count, because those can be “quashed” by an authority if they fear being invaded, like Libya did when they gave up their WMDs. Rogue attacks of one or two people acting alone are not linked to AQ or any group. Those don’t count.

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