CHENEY SEZ: WATCH OUT FOR NUKES!

Ha! This is a good one--no, it's a GREAT one. The following excerpt is from an opinion piece by former Clinton-man, Sydney Blumenthal that ran over at Salon.com:

Yet suddenly Bush found himself on the defensive when the New York Times reported on the closed gathering of his campaign contributors in which he revealed his radical program for his second term -- complete right-wing capture of the Supreme Court, privatizing Social Security, turning over national land to the oil companies, more tax cuts. Of course, Kerry was prompted to raise these issues. And Bush whined that Kerry was practicing "the politics of fear," relying on "old-time scare tactics." The next day, Dick Cheney, vicar of doom, projected terrorists exploding nuclear weapons within the United States, events darker than Sept. 11 -- "not just 3,000" dead, but hundreds of thousands -- and offered Bush as our savior from looming apocalypse.

A similar accusation of fearmongering was levelled at the Dems by the Repubs a few weeks ago regarding the spectre of the draft. So, think about these two instances where Bush and Co. have accused others of fearmongering as you read this next clip from an article from the AP and My Way News:

Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday raised the possibility of terrorists bombing U.S. cities with nuclear weapons and questioned whether Sen. John Kerry could combat such an "ultimate threat ... you've got to get your mind around."

"The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us - biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans," Cheney said.

"That's the ultimate threat. For us to have a strategy that's capable of defeating that threat, you've got to get your mind around that concept," Cheney said.

Of course, Dick fails to mention how terrorists will get nukes in the first place. The only reasonable explanation for where they might get nukes from would be NoKo or Iran. Two places, the USGov perhaps should have invaded before Iraq.

Regardless, terrorism is still a tiny threat to American citizens inside the US. Statistically, it's MUCH more likely that any one of us will die in a car wreck long before we are killed by terrorists, let alone by a terrorist nuke--and I say that as a person living in a major American city.

This is something I'll be working on between now and the election. I plan to provide some hard numbers regarding terrorism deaths compared to killers like car accidents and AIDS. I did touch on it here but I hope to go into more detail in a future post, so STAY TUNED!!

In the meantime, read more about Cheney's comments in that AP article over at My Way News.



From the AP and My Way News:

Cheney: Terrorists May Bomb U.S. Cities

Oct 19, 6:03 PM (ET)

By ANDREW WELSH-HUGGINS

CARROLL, Ohio (AP) - Vice President Dick Cheney on Tuesday raised the possibility of terrorists bombing U.S. cities with nuclear weapons and questioned whether Sen. John Kerry could combat such an "ultimate threat ... you've got to get your mind around."

"The biggest threat we face now as a nation is the possibility of terrorists ending up in the middle of one of our cities with deadlier weapons than have ever before been used against us - biological agents or a nuclear weapon or a chemical weapon of some kind to be able to threaten the lives of hundreds of thousands of Americans," Cheney said.

"That's the ultimate threat. For us to have a strategy that's capable of defeating that threat, you've got to get your mind around that concept," Cheney said.

Cheney, speaking to an invitation-only crowd as he began a bus tour through Republican strongholds in Ohio, said Kerry is trying to convince voters he would be the same type of "tough, aggressive" leader as President Bush in the fight against terrorism.

"I don't believe it," the vice president said. "I don't think there's any evidence to support the proposition that he would, in fact, do it."

The Democrats called Cheney's comments ironic.

"He has the audacity to question whether a decorated combat veteran who has bled on the battlefield is tough and aggressive enough to keep America safe," said Mark Kitchens, Kerry campaign national security spokesman. "He wants to scare Americans about a possible nuclear 9/11 while the Bush administration has been on the sidelines while the nuclear threats from North Korea and Iran - the word's leading sponsor of terrorism - have increased."

Cheney raised the specter of nuclear attacks at the same time he said Kerry was "over the top" with remarks during the last presidential debate about daughter Mary Cheney.

"It's the first time I can recall where one presidential candidate tried to drag the family of another into - to make a political point, some kind of policy point in connection with the presidential debates," he said in an interview on Fox News Channel, to be broadcast Wednesday night.

Kerry mentioned the vice president's daughter, noting she is a lesbian, while answering a question about homosexuality.

The Kerry campaign has contended its Republican opponents are trying to frighten people with warnings of likely terrorist attacks in the United States and by suggesting America's enemies want Bush to be defeated.

In Des Moines, Iowa, on Sept. 7, Cheney told supporters: "It's absolutely essential that eight weeks from today, on Nov. 2, we make the right choice, because if we make the wrong choice, then the danger is that we'll get hit again, that we'll be hit in a way that will be devastating from the standpoint of the United States, and that we'll fall back into the pre-9/11 mind-set, if you will, that in fact these terrorist attacks are just criminal acts and that we're not really at war."

Cheney praised the recent elections in Afghanistan but said they don't mean the U.S. mission there is finished.

"Does that mean it's over now and we can walk away? No, it doesn't," he said. "This is three yards and a cloud of dust. There's no touchdown passes in this business. We'll stay as long as we need to help them train their own security forces, which we're doing actively so they can take over responsibility for their own security."

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