Obama's War Against Terrorism: A Farcical Look at Reality

Every time President Obama gets into trouble at the polls it’s time to bring up something from the Bush administration.  We heard about Gitmo, we heard about “torture,” we heard about putting suspects on trial in U.S. courts, we heard about interrogation techniques, we heard about CIA Director Leon Panetta getting angry at how his organization was being targeted by Liberals.  I’m sure none of these things caused any deterioration in the effectiveness of our anti-terror programs.  Well, if you work for President Obama then you’d think these things actually helped:

Responding to criticism from former Vice President Cheney that President Obama is making the nation more vulnerable to terrorism, the president’s National Security Adviser, Gen. Jim Jones (Ret.), told ABC News in an exclusive interview that actually the reverse is true: President Obama’s greater success with international relations has meant more terrorists put out of commission.

“This type of radical fundamentalism or terrorism is a threat not only to the United States but to the global community,” Jones said. “The world is coming together on this matter now that President Obama has taken the leadership on it and is approaching it in a slightly different way – actually a radically different way – to discuss things with other rulers to enhance the working relationships with law enforcement agencies – both national and international.”

I guess by the “global community” he means North Korea launching missiles and testing nukes, Iran running with rigged presidential election results, and telling the Russians we’d appease them by killing the SDI program Bush had favored by putting radar stations in Eastern Europe.

Since Obama has pressed ahead with pledges to reduce U.S. troop size in Iraq civilian deaths there have increased and Democrats are looking to prevent Obama from increasing the number of soldiers in Afghanistan with people like Sen. Russ Feingold calling on an American withdraw of forces there.  Of course, al Qaeda took refuge in Afghanistan when the Taliban took them in and there’s not doubt the same thing would happen again were American troops there to leave.

U.S.S. Cole: A Clinton Legacy.

The article continues:

Jones made his comments the day after Mr. Cheney said he has “serious doubts” about the extent to which President Obama “understands and is prepared to do what needs to be done to defend the nation.” Cheney assailed the decision by Attorney General Eric Holder to begin a preliminary investigation into whether any CIA officers went beyond what they were told was legally permissible in interrogating detainees.

“It’s an outrageous precedent to set, to have this kind of, I think, intensely partisan, politicized look-back at the prior administration,” Cheney said.

Jones dismissed questions that the investigation was the result of political pressure and said “people that were acting within the law don’t have anything to worry about.”

Jones said he couldn’t provide any definitive answer as to whether, as Cheney argues, any detainees who were interrogated using methods President Obama has banned – ones that qualify as torture under international law – provided information they would not have offered using other means.

“I haven’t seen any compelling evidence  that  would argue because somebody was subjected to enhanced techniques that there was a revelation that we wouldn’t have had,” he said, “but it is very hard to prove the negative on this.”

I respect Jones’ service to this country but I think he is just wrong on these issues and his excuse-making is only offering a cover for Obama’s policies to continue.  Let us not forget that this same kind of laissez-faire attitude took hold during Bill Clinton’s administration where we had terrorist attacked against two American embassies, the World Trade Center was bombed once and the U.S.S. Cole was nearly sunk not to mention the three times Osama bin Laden declared war against the U.S. and 95% of 9-11 was planned not to mention Clinton’s humiliating withdraw of U.S. forces from Somalia which emboldened bin Laden to go for the gold.