Catastrophe - Dick Morris [61]
Otherwise, we could wake up one day and find that our talk radio has been replaced by dead air.
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OBAMA SENDS MESSAGE
The War on Terror Is Over
In his first few months in office, President Obama has sent a clear message to both Americans and our enemies: the war on terror is over. On a host of fronts, he has pulled back and is pulling out. It’s as if 9/11 never happened.
But terrorists did attack the United States that day. And they still have us in their sights. The fact that a president of the United States is disarming us—unilaterally—in the war on terror is a catastrophe in the making!
If Obama’s policies are wrong, the people he has appointed to top jobs at the departments of Justice and Homeland Security are worse! They have won fame and celebrity by criticizing aggressive actions to stop terrorism. They specialize not in making us safer but making the terrorists safer.
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OBAMA’S WAR ON THE WAR ON TERROR
In his first few months in office, Obama has:
Dropped the death penalty and declined to prosecute the mastermind behind the USS Cole bombing. May the seventeen sailors who died in that attack—a precursor of 9/11—rest in peace!
Closed all overseas CIA interrogation centers.
Banned the use of waterboarding in any terror investigation, no matter the circumstances or even the imminence of the threat.
Appointed an attorney general and Justice Department officials who are on record as opposed to the use of enhanced interrogation techniques in terror investigations.
Announced the closing of the Guantánamo prison for terrorists.
Granted Al-Arabiya television his first news organization interview.
Chosen Fatah Party leader and Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas as the first foreign leader he would contact by telephone.
Donated $900 million for Gaza reconstruction—much of which will end up under Hamas control.
Raised no objection when Pakistan ceded control of the entire mountain area (the Swat Valley) on the Afghan-Pakistani border to the Taliban, pledging to allow it to govern the land under Shariah law. Predictably, the Taliban then used the Swat as a staging area to invade Pakistan.
Made no protest when Yemen released more than one hundred al-Qaeda terrorists from its prisons.
Dissolved the Homeland Security Council, a White House group of cabinet officers and staff founded after 9/11 to focus on domestic anti-terror precautions and protections. Obama has folded the council’s operation back into the National Security Council (NSC), the umbrella group charged with conducting foreign policy. Since the NSC is concerned primarily with outward-looking foreign policy questions, it is unlikely to look inward and take full account of our homeland security needs.
Chosen as his Homeland Security director Arizona governor Janet Napolitano, an expert on Mexican border issues but not on terrorism or homeland security! As CBS News has noted, Napolitano “avoid[ed] the terms ‘terrorism’ or ‘9/11’ in remarks prepared for her first congressional testimony since taking office, signaling a sharp change in tone from her predecessors.”216 Instead, she speaks of terrorism as a “manmade” disaster.
Failed to utter a peep of protest when Sheik Sharif Ahmed of the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) became the new president of Somalia, a key strategic nation because of its geographic position on the horn of Africa. The Bush administration recognized the UIC as a terrorist group.
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On his first day in office, Obama reversed the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) policy of the Bush Justice Department and pledged “an unprecedented level of openness in government.”217 He ordered the new FOIA guidelines to be written with a “presumption in favor of disclosure,”218 even though such disclosure