‘War on Terror’ over. Osama bin Laden approves
- January 23, 2009
- News, Politics
- 2 Comments
After less than 3 days on the job, President Obama has effectively surrendered in the War on Terror.
With the stroke of his pen, he effectively declared an end to the “war on terror,” as President George W. Bush had defined it, signaling to the world that the reach of the U.S. government in battling its enemies will not be limitless. …
Key components of the secret structure developed under Bush are being swept away: The military’s Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, facility, where the rights of habeas corpus and due process had been denied detainees, will close, and the CIA is now prohibited from maintaining its own overseas prisons. And in a broad swipe at the Bush administration’s lawyers, Obama nullified every legal order and opinion on interrogations issued by any lawyer in the executive branch after Sept. 11, 2001.
Marc Thiessen, a former speechwriter for George W. Bush, points out:
The CIA program he is effectively shutting down is the reason why America has not been attacked again after 9/11. He has removed the tool that is singularly responsible for stopping al-Qaeda from flying planes into the Library Tower in Los Angeles, Heathrow Airport, and London’s Canary Warf, and blowing up apartment buildings in Chicago, among other plots.
Nice. While we’re busy digging a nice, big hole in the sand to stick our heads back in, Osama bin Laden is laughing his off in a cave somewhere in Afghanistan.
You know, I seem to recall something Obama said in his inauguration speech:
[F]or those who seek to advance their aims by inducing terror and slaughtering innocents, we say to you now that our spirit is stronger and cannot be broken; you cannot outlast us….
Oops. Guess he was wrong.
Previously:
How history will judge the Iraq War
January 23, 2009, 2:30 am
Obama is smart on so many levels for ordering the closure of Guantanamo. It has been a long time coming
January 23, 2009, 2:58 am
Certain changes to the Bush administration policies are certainly justified. I just don't think closing Gitmo is one of those.
By broadly eliminating so many of the tools used to combat terrorism, the concern is that we are putting ourselves in greater danger of attacks.
It's a different ideology. Whereas Bush fought the war on terror as an actual war, Obama seems to be reverting back to the Clinton policy of treating it more as a law enforcement issue, which I think is very naive.