No War on Terror, Breck Girl?

RUSH: I want to go back and play a little montage for you back on May 23rd in New York City, the Breck Girl, John Edwards, speaking at the Council on Foreign Relations.

EDWARDS: The war on terror is a slogan designed only for politics. It is not a strategy to make America safe. It’s a bumper sticker, not a plan. It has damaged our alliances and has weakened our standing in the world.

RUSH: CNN is reporting that the Glasgow attack, the Jeep Cherokee, the flaming SUV that went into the airport there, was staged by the same men who drove the car bombs in London. By the way, they did try to detonate them. The cell phones didn’t work. For some reason their cell phone connection didn’t work when they tried to detonate the bombs, but they tried. ‘British authorities have arrested two more men in connection with the series of failed attacks, and they have concluded that Al-Qaeda planned and launched the attacks. Authorities suspect that the two men who rammed an explosives laden vehicle into Glasgow’s airport on Saturday are the same people who parked two car bombs in central London, a day earlier.’ In addition, what we’ve also learned about this is that the United States two weeks ago had advance knowledge — this is ABC News — they said that the US warned the UK of an imminent attack at Glasgow two weeks ago. So nobody has any doubts now that that was Islamofascists, and nobody has any doubts that it was Al-Qaeda. So John Edwards is out there, ‘Oh, the war on terror, a bumper sticker, why, it’s just a slogan designed only for politics. It doesn’t really exist.’

How do you think we found out about this attack on Glasgow two weeks in advance? You think it might be the monitoring of these guys’ phone calls that the Democrats want to shut down? What might explain this? How do we find this out? Democrats are hell-bent on closing Club Gitmo, and they want to turn all of the terrorists that are down there, who are still useful as intelligence sources no matter how long they’ve been there, the way intelligence is gathered is something that — this is an intel success story, Gitmo is, an they want to shut it down and they want all of those terrorists, those prisoners of war, if you will, to be brought into the United States legal system. Hasn’t that been demonstrated to be the ineffective way to conduct a war on terror? It’s folly. This is why the Democrats are really vulnerable on this. They do not take this seriously. In the midst of what happened over the weekend in the UK, they’re still talking about closing Gitmo and bringing all these prisoners in and giving them legal rights, habeas corpus and all that, and of course nobody in the Drive-By will ask John Edwards, ‘Well, what about these comments that the war on terror is just a bumper sticker?’ In fact, we have even more. Sunday, June 3rd, at the Democrat debate in New Hampshire, it was on CNN, Wolf Blitzer said, ‘Let me let you clarify what you said the other day. You said the war on terror is a bumper sticker, not a plan. With the news yesterday, this alleged plot at JFK which could have done horrendous damage and caused an incredible number of casualties, do you believe the US is not at war with terrorists?’

EDWARDS: I reject this bumper sticker, Wolf, and that’s exactly what it is, is a bumper sticker. As president of the United, States I will do absolutely everything to find terrorists where they are, to stop them before they can do harm to us before they can do harm to America or to its allies. Every tool available: military, alliances, intelligence, I will use. But what this global war on terror bumper sticker, political slogan, that’s all it is, that’s all it was intended to do, was for George Bush to use it to justify everything he does. The ongoing war in Iraq, Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, spying on Americans, torture, none of those things are okay. They are not the United States of America.

RUSH: And none of them are as the Breck Girl portrays them, none of them are. That’s just a left-wing mantra. It is a mantra of the far-left fringe kook base. I think the Breck Girl actually believes it, though, I think he’s doing more than pandering. But then, later on, on last Friday’s Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, his guest via satellite was Elizabeth Edwards, she had to come to his rescue again, and Blitzer said, ‘Your husband caused a stir recently when he suggested that the war on terror is really nothing more than a bumper sticker. Given what’s happening in London today, two car bombs found, what do you make of the criticism he’s faced because he seemed to be suggesting there really wasn’t much of a war on terrorism?’

MRS. EDWARDS: I think that it’s easy to misconstrue what John said. His intent — he believes that there are terrorists out there and that we need a concerted effort to where certainly everyone applauds the work of London police and London law enforcement officials who discovered these bombs and the work that was done obviously as a predicate to finding them. But when we use words like a war on terror, we create an awfully big frame, and what it’s done is whenever somebody objects to torture or objects to spying on American citizens or objects to the ignoring of the Geneva Conventions —

RUSH: Stop the tape a second. Stop the tape. This torture thing has gotten out of control. Club Gitmo is legitimate. Spying on American citizens was never what was happening. It was not what was going on. The administration just doesn’t do a very good job of explaining all this, particularly the PR case they could make about how great the intelligence gathering at Club Gitmo has been. And the Geneva Conventions, for crying out loud, anybody with a brain knows that terrorists are not subject to it. They are not granted those protections, even though the pressure has been brought by leftists in this country to include terrorists who do not fits the definition in any way, shape, manner, or form, bring them in under the umbrella of the Geneva Conventions. She has to know that. Well, I say that, but maybe she doesn’t. Maybe she really doesn’t. But anyway, she’s out there having to pick up all the mess that her husband makes, to straighten out what he said, and to try to explain — here’s the rest of the bite.

MRS. EDWARDS: — they get hit over the head with this language, ‘but there’s a war on terror.’ There are terrorists, but it’s when we have a — this slogan, it stops us from behaving the way we ought to and it’s used as a weapon against those who would like to complain about some of the methods.

RUSH: Now, Blitzer wanted to clarify the Edwards position, and he continues with this leading question.

BLITZER: If he were president of the United States he would vigorously go out after those terrorists?

MRS. EDWARDS: Absolutely. He said that at every turn. And one of the terrorists he’d go after, I have to say, is Osama bin Laden. You know, somehow we seem to have lost track, when we made this great big frame, we lost track of the fellow that we should have been going after with a laser.

RUSH: Well, let me take a break here, folks, before I blow a gasket. I should know not to let this stuff irritate and agitate me as much as it does, but sometimes even I have my boundaries fail.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: And here’s the latest on the non-war on terror. From Sky News, one of the men involved in the failed terror attack on Glasgow airport was an Iraqi doctor who trained in Baghdad. Sources name the man as Bilal Abdulla. ‘He was left relatively unscathed in the incident, pictured being led away from the explosion by police. He worked at the Royal Alexandra Hospital near Glasgow. Police blew up a second suspect car outside the hospital on Monday – the first car was detonated on Sunday. The other man detained at Glasgow airport had severe burns and remains in a critical condition at the Royal Alexandra – he was in the flaming jeep that was driven at one of the airport terminals.Meanwhile, Mohammed Asha, 26, has been named as a man arrested on the M6 on Saturday night. The Jordanian was detained with a woman of 27 dressed in traditional Muslim dress, believed to be his wife, on the M6 near Sandbach in Cheshire.’

The Daily Mail has a little bit more about this. An Iraqi junior doctor and a brilliant neurologist working for the national health services are among the suspects being quizzed over the series of bomb attacks across Britain, it emerged today. The junior doctor named as Bilal Abdulla, is said to have completed his medical training in Baghdad. The suspected ringleader of the Al-Qaeda car bomber is a ‘brilliant neurologist’ working for the NHS. Saudi Mohammed Asha, 26, arrested with his wife, as you just heard. You’d have to say they’re homegrown. They’re living and working there, and they are respected in their professions, or let me put it this way: They are in respected professions. But they’re clearly Al-Qaeda, and they trained in Baghdad. Now, terrorists trained in Baghdad. How can that be? I thought there was no reason for us to be — oh, I know, because if we hadn’t gone to Iraq, then Baghdad would not have become terrorist central, and of course then these guys could not have been trained. They might not even be terrorists if we hadn’t gone to Baghdad. That’s how it will play out. That’s the latest news on the non-war on terror, according to the John and Elizabeth Edwards campaign.