Pale Rider Roasts Another Wingnut

In the current Newsweek, Mark Hosenball and Jeffrey Bartholet interview retired Vice Admiral John Scott Redd, the head of the National Counterterrorism Center. He cranks up the propaganda, and Pale rider takes it, makes a club out of it, and batters him severly about the head and shoulders.

The excerpts are in red, and Pale Rider's assault and battery appears as blue italics.

Enjoy!

Last thing: Are we winning or losing the war on terrorism?
This is a long war. People say, "What is this like?" I say it's like the cold war in only two respects. Number one, there is a strong ideological content to it. Number two, it is going to be a long war. I'll be dead before this one is over. We will probably lose a battle or two along the way. We have to prepare for that. Statistically, you can't bat 1.000 forever, but we haven't been hit for six years, [which is] no accident.

[We've never come close to losing a single battle nor will we lose a single battle. Did we lose the battle of the Pentagon? Of New York City? Or were they cowardly acts of terrorism by suicide bombers? How is that a battle? We prefer to lose the hearts and minds than do that. But since the good Admiral thinks there are "battles" in an irregular war against terror, the only "battles" we will lose are the ones we refuse to fight.]

I will tell you this: We are better prepared today for the war on terror than at any time in our history.

[no-our borders are not secured, our ports are not secured, airport security is a joke, the cargo industry thumbs its nose at the idea of inspections and vehicles come into this country every day full of drugs and illegal aliens. Drug traffickers are using submarines to infiltrate this country. There are not enough first responders and there is no concentrated blood supply that can handle a major disaster. There is no viable American Red Cross anymore. There is no department of homeland security--there IS a major vacuum that sucks up dollars and distributes them via largesse and nobid contract. The Republicans fight tooth and nail to stop the implementation of the 9/11 committee and then claim to be defending America? Katrina showed how they defend America.]

We have done an incredible amount of things since 9/11, across the board. Intelligence is better. They are sharing it better.

[RIGHT now, FBI agents are still isolated and independent of all communities, and they do not share. They send lackeys and clowns to "integrated" facilities, just like all of the other intel agencies. THere are still turf wars. Good people who want to have careers don't "integrate" with other agencies. The greatest threat to safety in this country is having an FBI agent with a national security letter decide that he doesn't like the way your kid does better than his kid in school. You damned sure better hope no one with subpoena power in this Republican administration loses out to you in the race for Best Sports Dad because these sons of bitches can use the full weight of the Justice Department to destroy you if they so much as think you have more hair and a better looking wife than they do. And how many Arabic linguists are they hiring? How many do they have in the entire FBI?]

We are taking the terrorists down. We are working with the allies very carefully.

[The ones abandoning Basra turned out to be great allies, huh? And when your allies won't even send troops to secure safe regions, your allies aren't working with you at all.]

We are doing the strategic operational planning, going after every element in the terrorist life cycle. So we have come a long way. But these guys are smart. They are determined. They are patient. So over time we are going to lose a battle or two. We are going to get hit again, you know, but you've got to have the stick-to-itiveness or persistence to outlast it.

[In other words, we don't know what the fuck we're doing, we know they have the wherewithal to hit us again, so when it does, I want to have plausible deniability and take an early retirement so that I won't be held accountable for anything. When we were standing against the Soviets, we had a *bit* more certainty and confidence. How is it that a few thousand rag wearing intellectuals who can't even light gasoline on fire have this mighty nation scared to death?

Oh--that's right. We have Republicans in charge of defending us. Republicans--who no doubt know how to defend America from paying too much for a gay blow job and a greasy reacharound but have demonstrated that they can't protect an American city from standing water. Great!]