Rachel: Bin Laden's goal was to bankrupt America. Did he succeed?

[Scuba]

Rachel document's OBL's motives, and shows some of the measures of the damages he caused.

Guest Eugene Washington. Runs about 17 minutes.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26315908/ns/msnbc_tv-rachel_maddow_show/#42889180


Seems only one other terrorist group with the goal of bankrupting America remains: The Republican Party.

[rfranklin]

1. Rope a Dope worked perfectly on George W. Bush....

He responded exactly as OBL wished.

[WinkyDink]

2. Bush pere IS a business colleague of the Bin Ladens.

[LiberalAndProud]

31. As was *.

[Raven]

3. That was a great program. Rachel really connected the dots. n/t

[seabeyond]

4. her show was really excellent. nt

[Uben]

5. Bush/Cheney did a better job

Hey! Let's send $6 billion in hundred dollar bills on pallets to Iraq. Oops! Where did they go?

[eowyn_of_rohan]

16. Bingo. -nt

[Ganja Ninja]

17. Exactly. It may have been bin Laden's goal but Bush beat him to it.

No way Osama could have gotten us into the Iraq war. That was Bush/Cheney/Rummy all the way.

[Citizen Worker]

26. It's not only the missing pallet boards full of money but also the enormous sums that have gone to

the MICC. It will be a classic struggle to wean these pigs from the government trough.

[crickets]

27. Ding! Winner.

OBL was just part of the means to the ends that were already planned.

[aquart]

6. Yes. He succeeded.

WE WERE IDIOTS. (Why am I putting that in the past tense?)

[fredamae]

7. Not if we get rid of

the repubs next election. Sooner as the laws allow.

Repubs are clearly the ones who are now bankrupting us.

The corporatist repubs have already started their "takeover" by Declaring bankruptcy in little "small pockets" in various states. If you don't think they planning to expand this to eventually include all of America, think again!
If you don't know what a "corporate amerika or AMERI-CO" might look like, just take a gander at MI (Benton Harbor, MI)and WI etc with their "EFM's".

[myrna minx]

8. Clearly. K&R n/t

[Puglover]

9. I found it amazing. Spot on

and really frightening. And if he didn't succeed he has come mighty close.

[mod mom]

10. Anyone who studies history knows it was the cost of Russian involvement in Afghanistran NOT Raygun

that brought down the USSR. We should have learned by this but * & his war mongering cronies wanted to enrich themselves and hated government (think Norquist comment) so we took the worst road possible.

[Scuba]

11. +1

[Ganja Ninja]

19. It wasn't the Afghan war that broke us. It was Iraq and that was all on Bush. n/t

[jmowreader]

28. That, and a non-convertible currency

The Soviets could have survived the budget crisis caused by the Afghanistan occupation by manufacturing and exporting everything they could. That the ruble was only viable in communist countries hindered them and led to some REAL strange bartering arrangements: the Soviet record company Melodiya paid for the rights to Bon Jovi's "Slippery When Wet" in firewood. No shit. The reason you could get Stolichnaya vodka in the US during communism was that they were paying for various imported commodities like wheat with it. Bartering only gets you so far--especially when most of the things the Soviets made, you wouldn't want.

China's communist government will last forever because they learned from the Soviets' mistake and floated the yuan.

[iemitsu]

12. we were already bankrupt.

morally anyway.

[madokie]

13. Eugene Robinson not Washington

A most wonderful person I might add

[Scuba]

14. Thank you for that correction.

[madokie]

41. You are very welcome

Have a great day.

[rucky]

20. He needs his own show on MSNBC. n/t

[frazzled]

15. bin Laden did not cause us to pass the Bush tax cuts, and ...

he did not cause the years of reckless speculative activity on Wall Street that led to the financial crisis.

In fact, bin Laden could not have predicted that we would invade Iraq -- because it had nothing to do with him or al Qaeda.

Yes, the cost of the wars has added to the deficit (though one of those wars, Iraq, had nothing to do with bin Laden), but we all know that that is not the largest contributing factor.

[Scuba]

18. Yep, that other terrorist group is very effective too. n/t

[LynneSin]

21. Bin Laden may be evil but the man was pretty darn smart

He saw how the Soviet Union fell apart from out of control military spending.

[Overseas]

22. Excellent segment.

Important questions.

[L. Coyote]

23. Now UBL is being used as a Bush scapegoat? Damn, that's ironic!

Bush single-handedly managed to destroy the world economy with his policies and decisions.

Give credit where credit is due!

[Scuba]

24. It would appear that Bush was a tool in the plot. n/t

[Urban Prairie]

25. The Rethugs greed and avarice is what had/has bankrupted the US

OBL was simply a tool, a loose cannon permitted to operate largely unhindered, as a fear-enhanced and legitimized reason to use him in large part to continue enriching/empowering the wealthy/greedy MIC and at the direct expense of the nation's crumbling infrastructure, as well as indirectly plundering/laying waste through the much more devastatingly effective domestic economic terrorism still being perpetrated upon the poor and the ever-shrinking US middle class.

[Hardrada]

30. This is, alas, probably correct. Certainly all was in place for

the MIC to ramp up AT ONCE!

[jp11]

29. He won, we lost.

[Blue Owl]

32. With Paul Ryan's help he still could succeed

n/t

[Initech]

33. Where bin Laden failed the GOP might actually succeed.

[MasonJar]

34. I hope all of you saw Rachel's show last night. It was original and

brilliant. She took a totally different tack than the others and made a perfectly sound argument. We, the good old USA, have virtually bankrupted ourselves by the war machine response to Osama bin Laden.

[mmonk]

35. Financially and morally.

He should have been the one with the Mission Accomplished banner.

[graywarrior]

36. The oil corporations bought into it, along with Wall St greed

[leftynyc]

37. A comedian - can't remember

if it was Jon Stewart, Bill Maher or Robin Williams said that while bin laden was looking to bankrupt America, he was beaten to it by a Jew named Bernie Madoff. I howled with laughter(and am Jewish).

[bvar22]

38. Even in death, Bin Laden WINS.

~

[deacon]

39. Wall Street did.

[OwnedByFerrets]

40. Beyond his wildest dreams. I have a feeling he never

dreamed he would live as long as he did either.

[PVnRT]

42. I thought his goal was to kick the U.S. out of the Middle East

Followed by the institution of more strict Islamic governments in the region.

At any rate, Bush/Cheney bankrupted this country well enough. If not for bin Laden, they'd have found another excuse to launch a war.

[krabigirl]

43. Yes, taking our civil liberties with the money. Nt