CNN (2004) - "Bin Laden: Goal is to bankrupt U.S." - Will GOP Succeed Where Bin Ladin Failed?

[TomCADem]

The Republicans could easily address the budget deficit in the context of budget negotiations by agreeing to some tax increases, including letting the tax increases to the rich expire. Instead, in order to push their ideological war to end Medicaid and Medicare, they are holding the debt ceiling vote ranson, and threatening to push the U.S. into default. Yet, the media praises Republicans for being "bold" on debt reduction. There simply is nothing bold about attacking the poor and vulnerable. Republicans under Bush went along Bin Ladin's strategy by waging two wars while passing huge tax cuts AND an unfunded Medicare presciption plan creating an unfunded liability. By failing to fund the plan, they set the stage for arguments to kill Medicare. Sadly, if successful, Republicans will succeed where Bin Ladin failed by pushing the U.S. into insolvency and default on its financial obligations.

http://articles.cnn.com/2004-11-01/world/binladen.tape_1_al-jazeera-qaeda-bin?_s=PM:WORLD

The Arabic-language network Al-Jazeera released a full transcript Monday of the most recent videotape from Osama bin Laden in which the head of al Qaeda said his group's goal is to force America into bankruptcy.

Al-Jazeera aired portions of the videotape Friday but released the full transcript of the entire tape on its Web site Monday.

"We are continuing this policy in bleeding America to the point of bankruptcy. Allah willing, and nothing is too great for Allah," bin Laden said in the transcript.

* * *
"We, alongside the mujahedeen, bled Russia for 10 years until it went bankrupt and was forced to withdraw in defeat," bin Laden said.

Ezra Klein revisited the progress on this stated goal, and it turns out that notwithstanding Sarah Palin's effort to give credit to Bush for fighting Al Queda, it appears that Republicans happily played along under Bush by insisting on policies that pushed the U.S. to its current precarious economic position:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/ezra-klein/post/bin-ladens-war-against-the-us-economy/2011/04/27/AFDOPjfF_blog.html

Nobel laureate Joseph Stiglitz estimates that the price tag on the Iraq War alone will surpass $3 trillion. Afghanistan likely amounts to another trillion or two. Add in the build-up in homeland security spending since 9/11 and you’re looking at yet another trillion. And don’t forget the indirect costs of all this turmoil: The Federal Reserve, worried about a fear-induced recession, slashed interest rates after the attack on the World Trade Center, and then kept them low to combat skyrocketing oil prices, a byproduct of the war in Iraq. That decade of loose monetary policy may well have contributed to the credit bubble that crashed the economy in 2007 and 2008.

Then there’s the post-9/11 slowdown in the economy, the time wasted in airports, the foregone returns on investments we didn’t make, the rise in oil prices as a result of the Iraq War, the cost of rebuilding Ground Zero, health care for the first responders and much, much more.

But it isn’t quite right to say bin Laden cost us all that money. We decided to spend more than a trillion dollars on homeland security measures to prevent another attack. We decided to invade Iraq as part of a grand, post-9/11 strategy of Middle Eastern transformation. We decided to pass hundreds of billions of dollars in unpaid-for tax cuts and add an unpaid-for prescription drug benefit in Medicare while we were involved in two wars. And now, partially though not entirely because of these actions, we are deep in debt. Bin Laden didn’t — couldn’t — bankrupt us. He could only provoke us into bankrupting ourselves. And he came pretty close.

[Zorra]

1. Republicans have done more damage to this country

than OBL and al Qaida have done and could have done in their wildest dreams.

[Leopolds Ghost]

2. Where Bin Ladin failed? I'm looking at the US budget now and comparign it to the military budget

Hmmmmmm