I blogged not to long ago on an analysis between global warming and missile defense. We’re spending a huge amount of time and energy to focus on a “crisis” called “man-made” global warming meanwhile we’re allowing the current defense of America from our enemies to go fallow. From the Guardian UK (The whole article can be found here):
Yes, the buck stops in the Oval Office. Obama may have rather smuglygiven himself a “B+” for his 2008 performance but he gets an F for the events that led to Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab boarding a Detroit-bound plane in Amsterdam with a PETN bomb sewn into his underpants. He said today that a “systemic failure has occurred”. Well, he’s in charge of that system.
If you threaten to criminally charge members of the CIA for doing their job; if you refuse to call this a war; if you promise to bring terrorists caught on the battle field trying to kill American soldiers to New York for criminal trials; if you spend more time on David Letterman, in Copenhagen, and schlepping for the Olympics than you do meeting with generals; then what do you expect? If you spend more time trying to socialize 20% of the US economy after having taken over the financial services sector and the automotive sector then what do you expect? If you play “I’m a nice guy not like mean-old-George-Bush” with Ahmedinejad, Chavez, etc then what do you expect?
Here’s what the Administration missed:
“Abdulmutallab’s father spoke several times to the US Embassy in Abuja, Nigeria and visited a CIA officer there to tell him, apparently, that he feared his son was a jihadist being trained in Yemen.
After 9/11, the huge bureaucracies of the Homeland Security Department and the Directorate of National Intelligence (DNI) were created. Inside the DNI, the National Counter Terrorism Center was created. These organisations were created to “connect the dots”…If NCTC knew about it, then did someone at the National Security Council within the White House?
Obama took three days before speaking to the American people, emerging on Monday in between golf and tennis games in Hawaii to deliver a rather tepid address that significantly underplayed what happened. He described Abdulmutallab as an “isolated extremist” who “allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device on his body” – phrases that indicate a legalistic, downplaying approach that alarms rather than reassures. Today’s words showed a lot more fire and desire to get on top of things – we’ll see whether Obama follows through with action. In the meantime, he went snorkelling….
It seems that two of the Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) planners behind this attack were released from Guantanamo Bay during the Bush administration. That calls into question the competence of Bush administration officials but also the wisdom of closing Guantanamo Bay.
I’ve got an idea… Let’s quit the silliness… Let’s put destroying the best healthcare delivery service in the world on the back burner. Let’s quit trying to regulate carbon dioxide. Let’s quit tying up the entrepreneurial engine of the United States. With all the free time, let’s focus on protecting Americans from our enemies.
Charlie,
Obama’s behavior and demeanor over the Hassan massacre and now the airline incident clearly say to America, “My dear, I don’t give a damn.”
He is almost completely detached from his own country and the peril we face.
It appears the only thing that would wake him up is a very large explosion in a major US city, but I’m not betting it.
If he perseveres in his present pattern of response to Islamist attacks, he will once again proclaim any such incident an isolated aberration rather than a blatant act of war.
His passivity and detachment from reality are placing the American people in horrible danger. I truly am coming to believe the man is on the edge of committing treason by his feckless incompetence and endangerment of America.
Fay
“Even so, Obama’s description of Abdulmutallab as an “isolated extremist” was remarkable and disturbing. This radicalized young Nigerian is nothing of the sort. He operated, in fact, as an Al Qaeda-recruited, Al Qaeda-supplied, Al Qaeda-directed foot soldier – as, to put it directly, an enemy combatant, and not as the criminal “suspect” of Obama’s description.”
Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinions/2009/12/30/2009-12-30_its_time_prez_for_you_to_get_serious.html#ixzz0bEfU5XSm
“Isolated extremist”? Yep, I’m sure Abdulmutallab procured the PETN all by his little-jihadi self.
Yet were we not TOLD that Obama was a smart, man-of-the-world genius, whose superior judgement could discern such obvious indicators of a greater collusion? Were we not TOLD that Obama as President would equal a more peaceful and America-loving world?
What happened?
We have a self absorbed prince whose visage radiates immense beauty to his own face running the show. He will make Jimmy Carter look competent.
In fact he will never even wonder why things are going to hell in a handbasket because he is, after all, smarter then everyone else.
He is the modern version of the emperor having no clothes.
I read something where the Iranian dissidents were chanting, “Obama, Obama you’re worse than Carter!”
A sign of things to come?