If you haven’t read the previous posts I’ve written about war and peace, national security, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the atrocities that were committed under the Bush administration, please read through the categories “civil rights and justice”, “terrorism” and “war and peace”. This post is another piece of a huge chunk of history being made week-by-week as more information is uncovered about Bush administration policies; especially foreign policy, war policy, and blatant violations of the law and U.S. Constitution.
Tom Ridge was the first Secretary of Homeland Security under the Bush administration. His book
The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege…And How We Can Be Safe Again
was just published, and he’s already back-peddling from what he said about politicization of raising or lowering the security threat level. Why is he backing down from his statements that he thought raising the threat level may have been politically motivated? Did somebody get to him? He also claims he left DHS after Bush’s first term because that was the agreement he had originally made with the administration when he came on board. He doesn’t explain this in the book, and called his language a poor choice of words.
Please watch the following video of the first segment of his interview with Rachel Maddow on September 1 (13 minutes):
Tom Ridge wrote about the botched response to Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. He was no longer the Secretary and let the DHS have it in the book. (6 minute video, same interview):
I think the slip of saying “heart burn” instead of “heart break” is telling. The government seems to see the whole thing as a bad case of heart burn for them. His disgust over what happened because of the actions of an agency of which he was the former Secretary was evident.
His statements about FEMA and DHS not being responsible for not evacuating the poor, handicapped, and hospitals and nursing homes is false. As soon as the President declares an area a disaster the Stafford Act goes into effect, nationalizing everything in the disaster area, and that authority is retroactive 24 hours. So the federal government was fully responsible for the evacuation of New Orleans. Though the state can still act and Governor Blanco and Mayor Nagin should have had plans in place to get those people out, the feds were in charge. State and local government are culpable, but FEMA and DHS were responsible.
Following is part 3 of the interview (10 minutes) with Former Governor Ridge debating Rachel about the decision for the Iraq War.
Does Mr. Ridge really buy it that we had national security reasons to go into Iraq? Does he really believe he would sell the Iraq war to the American people knowing then what he knows now? Does he really believe the whole thing hung on faulty intelligence? Does he believe it was not based on a highly politicized forgone conclusion that we were going into Iraq because the Administration already decided to do it? That they were combing the intelligence for any piece of evidence they could highlight to justify the war?
If he really believes what he’s saying, he is naive. I strongly believe the Cheney/Bush administration had decided to invade Iraq for their oil and to get rid of Saddam Hussein. It was clear to me that Colin Powell was struggling through his presentation to the U.N. to convince them that we had clear evidence of WMDs in Iraq. Secretary Powell’s body language and hesitated speech made it clear that he didn’t believe what he was saying.
I believe our former administration would and did commit our blood and treasure to invade Iraq because they wanted to. History will show this Iraq war was by choice, and we were acting imperialistically. It will not be looked on kindly in the future.
One of the things I truly love about The Rachel Maddow Show is that she does long-form interviews with guests. This interview took 31 minutes of actual content of the roughly 43 minutes of content produced for each one-hour show. You get 17 minutes of commercials per hour of broadcast time. Another thing I love so much about TRMS is Rachel has very civil, though sometimes heated, debates with guests with whom she disagrees or who disagree with her. These are the kinds of debates that should be going on in Congress over the issues our country needs to resolve.
On September 2, Rachel reflected and commented on her interview with Former Secretary of Homeland Security Tom Ridge. Her reflections are about the big picture consequences of people like Tom Ridge not stepping up to the plate and distancing themselves from the Bush administration and the continued protagonism of the Bush/Cheney Doctrine (9 minutes):
I agree with Rachel. The failure of the GOP to admit regret and show any remorse or investigate the Bush administration’s leadership role and acknowledge that mistakes were made is the primary reason it no longer has credibility and won’t return to power for a long time, if ever. I am saddened that the two party system we rely on in American political discourse has completely broken down.
My questions are: Do we ever get the GOP back as a thinking and intelligent party that can once again take part in real debate of the facts of the issues facing us? Are we destined to remain a one-party system? Will another party rise up and become the other major political party in America?
The book is The Test of Our Times: America Under Siege…And How We Can Be Safe Again by Tom Ridge.
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