Obama and Terrorism -- Year 1

Barack And The Bad Guys -- 2009

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Obama Is A Lawyer, Not A Commander

When an elitist lawyer like Obama claims the criminal-justice system works against terrorists, he means it satisfies his top concern: due process. And on that score, he’s quite right. We’ve shown we can conduct trials that are fair to the terrorists. After all, we give them lawyers paid for by the taxpayers whom they are trying to kill, mounds of our intelligence in discovery, and years upon years of pretrial proceedings, trials, appeals, and habeas corpus.

A successful counterterrorism strategy makes criminal prosecution a subordinate part of a much broader governmental response. Most of what is needed never happens in a courtroom. It happens in military operations against terrorist strongholds; intelligence operations in which jihadists get assassinated -- without trial; intelligence collections in which we cozy up to despicable informants since only they can tell us what we need to know; and aggressive treasury actions to trace terror funds.

Obama Boasts

This week, Obama claimed, again, that he'd promptly capture Osama bin Laden. OK, tell us, how?

Specifically, which concrete measures would he take that haven't been taken? How would he force our intelligence agencies to locate bin Laden? And he can't just respond, "That's classified."

He also claimed that fighting terrorism is a law-enforcement problem, not a military one (should we send the NYPD to Mosul and Kandahar?), and that the answer to terrorism is the approach taken after the 1993 World Trade Center attack, featuring conventional trials and prison terms.

That flaccid post-'93 response only encouraged terrorists -- who are unfazed by the prospect of a US prison, where the quality of life's better than it was at home. The Clinton administration's hesitancy and softness gave us the subsequent attacks on the Khobar Towers housing complex in Saudi Arabia, on our embassies in East Africa, on the USS Cole and, ultimately, the events of 9/11.

The senator needs to tell us why it would be different now.

Read the entire article by Col. Ralph Peters -- someone who KNOWS what they're talking about.

Politically Expedient

Obama flip-flops again, by joining fellow senators in passing new wiretapping measure. The Senate easily approved legislation to overhaul government eavesdropping rules in terrorism and espionage cases and effectively granted immunity to telecommunications companies that participated in a secret domestic spying program, ending a contentious debate that has raged for more than two years.

Among the 69 senators who voted "yes" on final passage was Barack Obama (Ill.), who had opposed the immunity provision in earlier versions of the wiretapping bill, a rewrite of the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). The presumptive Democratic presidential nominee said revisions had alleviated his concerns, but Sen. John McCain's campaign -- and many on the left -- seized on the reversal as a flip-flop of the first order.

"He's willing to change positions, break campaign commitments and undermine his own words in his quest for higher office," said Tucker Bounds, a spokesman for the Arizona Republican.

Battlefield Mirandas

If terrorists are entitled to U.S. Constitutional rights, are U.S. soldiers going to be turned into police officers, subject to reading terrorists their Miranda rights and providing them with attorneys overseas if requested? We cannot treat fighting terrorism as a "law enforcement" matter. Barack Obama's motto should be, "Extremism we can believe in."

Some time has now passed for the public to digest the Supreme Court’s Guantanamo Bay ruling, as well as the candidate’s statements on the ruling. Obama praised it and pointed to the prosecutions of the original World Trade Center bombers in regular federal district court as a model for the government to follow now.

10 Questions for Obama on terrorism:

Dazzlin'

Last weekend, Barack Obama dazzled crowds in Europe. Discussing international security, he spoke eloquently about needing an American-European partnership to defeat terrorism.

In Paris, he said that "terrorism cannot be solved by any one country alone," and that we should establish partnerships. In Berlin, he expressed hope that Europeans and Americans "can join in a new and global partnership to dismantle the networks" of terrorists worldwide.

But there’s one problem. We already have a counterterrorism partnership with the European Union. And it works. Indeed, despite news media caricatures of aggressive Americans feuding with pacifist Europeans, both groups are quite serious about protecting citizens by working together.

Agreements between the United States and Europe, like the Declaration on Combating Terrorism and the Extradition and Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty, have helped enormously. And for years, NATO, the Group of 8 industrialized nations, and other multilateral organizations have contributed as well.

In 2004, J. Cofer Black, the State Department’s coordinator for counterterrorism, testified about the success of these partnerships before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee’s subcommittee on European affairs. Had Senator Obama, who now heads that subcommittee, read the transcripts from the meeting, which took place before he came to office, or had he held a similar hearing, he might have known that the partnerships he called for last week already exist.

After years of investment and sacrifice, Americans and Europeans deserve accurate information about our efforts to defeat international terrorism, especially from a prospective commander in chief.

Closing Gitmo

As a presidential candidate, Senator Barack Obama sketched the broad outlines of a plan to close the detention center at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba: try detainees in American courts and reject the Bush administration’s military commission system.

Now, as Mr. Obama moves closer to assuming responsibility for Guantánamo, his pledge to close the detention center is bringing to the fore thorny questions under consideration by his advisers. They include where Guantánamo’s detainees could be held in this country, how many might be sent home and a matter that people with ties to the Obama transition team say is worrying them most: What if some detainees are acquitted or cannot be prosecuted at all?

That concern is at the center of a debate among national security, human rights and legal experts that has intensified since the election. Even some liberals are arguing that to deal realistically with terrorism, the new administration should seek Congressional authority for preventive detention of terrorism suspects deemed too dangerous to release even if they cannot be successfully prosecuted.

The transition team won't even acknowledge that they're even discussing the issue? Hundreds of terrorists' could be released from Gitmo upon the inauguration of the junior Illinois Senator and they want us to believe they're not even discussing it?

I'll Talk To Anybody

The incoming Obama administration is prepared to abandon George Bush's doctrine of isolating Hamas by establishing a channel to the Islamist organization, sources close to the transition team say.

The move to open contacts with Hamas, which could be initiated through the US intelligence services, would represent a definitive break with the Bushpresidency's ostracizing of the group. The state department has designated Hamas a terrorist organization, and in 2006, Congress passed a law banning US financial aid to the group.

The Guardian has spoken to three people with knowledge of the discussions in the Obama camp.

Whadda Policy!

The Associated Press

Friday, January 09, 2009 -- 12:12 p.m. EDT

WASHINGTON -- President-elect Obama says his policy on terrorism strategy will be to uphold high ideals.

That's the whole story!

That's going to work well against an enemy who cuts people into pieces and blows up pizza parlors.

Terrorism Is Now A "Man-Caused Disaster"

Obama's Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano, has an explanation about why she never mentioned the word "terrorism" during her first testimony on Capitol Hill.

Napolitano tells the German news site Spiegel Online that while she presumes there is always a threat from terrorism: "I referred to "man-caused" disasters. That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur."

James Carafano, senior research fellow at the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation says: "By deliberately trying not to use the "T" word they run a serious political risk. If something does happen, they'll be accused of taking their eye off the ball and no amount of explanation after the fact will suffice."

Obama's Man-Caused Disaster Chickens Come Home To Roost

Neil Braithwaite says that in her first testimony before Congress back in March of this year, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano laid the groundwork for the Obama administration's new "politically correct" Homeland Security doctrine. Without ever mentioning "terrorist" or "terrorism" during her testimony, Secretary Napolitano put forth the politically correct term for those two words: "man-caused disaster." Defining the term as "nuance" to the German news site Spiegel Online, Secretary Napolitano further stated, "...it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur." The "T"-word has been off limits by the Obama administration ever since.

Noting Obama's new Homeland Security doctrine as proffered by Secretary Napolitano, James Carafano of the Heritage Foundation may not have known just how prophetic he was when he stated, "By deliberately trying not to use the 'T'-word, they [the Obama administration] run a serious political risk. If something does happen, they'll be accused of taking their eye off the ball and no amount of explanation after the fact will suffice."

Well, something did happen, and Carafano's prophecy has come true.

Obama's new Homeland Security doctrine has taken our country from being the world's strongest and most intimidating superpower to a weak and vulnerable nation being singled out by every terrorist organization in the world. And make no mistake: Whether homegrown or international, these terrorists want America destroyed at any cost. The Obama administration's Homeland Security doctrine has become no more than a politically correct welcome mat for every Muslim jihadist on the planet.

Obama is willfully surrendering America's safety for the sake of political correctness and tolerance. This comes on the back of his selfish ambition to become the savior of the world, the consequences of which are leaving America more vulnerable to attack at home and abroad on every front, be it financial or military.

Terrorist organizations are taking advantage of Obama's perceived weakness and ignorance. But the truly ignorant are our political leaders -- and they should know better -- not to mention the ObamaMedia and the millions of duped Americans who have turned a blind eye and deaf ear to reality as they play in concert with Obama's insidious plan to weaken and socialize America.

Furthermore, Obama's ceaseless apologies for all the world's problems will have the exact opposite effect of what he intends. His apologies for American "hate" will only empower those who hate us. His apologies for American "violence" will serve to invite violence from those who would do us harm. His apologies for America's "oppression" will further oppress all those living under the same dictatorial regimes he seeks to appease and befriend. His apologies for America's "intolerance" will insight a backlash of zero tolerance for everything American and invoke calls for reparations from all who have been offended. .

Our new president has opened a giant Pandora's box, and from it flows an evil stream of contempt, anger, hate, and danger aimed point-blank at our great nation. There can be no better example of this than the attack on American soil by a homegrown terrorist, Muslim jihadist Nidel Malik Hasan. Hasan's calculated domestic terrorist attack at Fort Hood can be directly traced to the Obama administration's Homeland Security doctrine.

Many Americans are now beginning to honestly wonder about our country's future as they ask themselves a very disturbing question...will America sleep safely tonight?

ObamaMedia Doesn't See Terrorism

Flopping Aces asks why was the ObamaMedia so reticent to call the Ft. Hood Shooting a "terrorist attack?" Is it to shield Obama or because they preferred to use the incident to bash the military? Or both?

Nidal Hasan, the Fort Hood shooter made no secret of his radical Islamic views. He passed out business cards with the acronym SOA indicating he was a "soldier of Allah." Hasan gave a bizzare PowerPoint presentation in which he quoted the Koran (slide 43): "I have been commanded to fight the people until they testify that there is no deity worthy of worship except Allah and that Mohammed is the Messenger."

In secret, Hasan was in contact with Al Queda and a string of radical Islamists. As Hasan began to fire on the unarmed soldiers at Fort Hood he shouted the Jihadi war cry: "Allahu Akbar." So why has it been so difficult for the ObamaMedia to call this a terrorist act?

PC News: Networks Downplay Terrorism, Muslim Connection in Ft. Hood Attack
All three networks mention ‘terror’ only after Obama hints at ideology during funeral ceremony.
By Carolyn Plocher and Dan Gainor
Culture and Media Institute
November 11, 2009

	Networks Decide Attack Wasn’t Terror: 85 percent of the broadcast stories didn’t mention the word "terror." ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news referenced terrorism connections to the Fort Hood attack just seven times in 48 reports.

	ABC, CBS, NBC Follow White House Line: Before Obama’s Nov. 10 speech, 93 percent of the stories had ignored any terror connection. But after Obama hinted at what ABC called "Islamic extremist views," all three networks mentioned terrorism.

	Alleged Attacker’s Muslim Faith Not Important Either: Slightly more than one-fourth (29 percent) of evening news reports mentioned that Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan was a Muslim. Of those, half (7 out of 14) defended the religion or included experts to do so.

Continue reading here . . .

Obama Bows To "World Opinion"

Thomas Sowell says that in the string of amazing decisions made during the first year of the Obama administration, nothing seems more like sheer insanity than the decision to try foreign terrorists, who have committed acts of war against the United States, in federal court, as if they were American citizens accused of crimes.

Terrorists are not even entitled to the protection of the Geneva Convention, much less the Constitution of the United States. Terrorists have never observed, nor even claimed to have observed, the Geneva Convention, nor are they among those covered by it.

But over and above the utter inconsistency of what is being done is the utter recklessness it represents. The last time an attack on the World Trade Center was treated as a matter of domestic criminal justice was after a bomb was exploded there in 1993. Under the rules of American criminal law, the prosecution had to turn over all sorts of information to the defense -- information that told the Al Qaeda international terrorist network what we knew about them and how we knew it.

This was nothing more and nothing less than giving away military secrets to an enemy in wartime -- something for which people have been executed, as they should have been. Secrecy in warfare is a matter of life and death. Lives were risked and lost during World War II to prevent Nazi Germany from discovering that Britain had broken its supposedly unbreakable Enigma code and could read their military plans that were being radioed in that code.

"Loose lips sink ships" was the World War II motto in the United States. But loose lips are mandated under the rules of criminal prosecutions.

Tragically, this administration seems hell-bent to avoid seeing acts of terrorism against the United States as acts of war. The very phrase "war on terrorism" is avoided, as if that will stop the terrorists’ war on us.

The mindset of the left behind such thinking was spelled out in an editorial in the San Francisco Chronicle, which said that "Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the professed mastermind of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, will be tried the right way -- the American way, in a federal courtroom, where the world will see both his guilt and the nation’s adherence to the rule of law."

This is not the rule of law but the application of laws to situations for which they were not designed.

How many Americans may pay with their lives for the intelligence secrets and methods that can forced to be disclosed to Al Qaeda was not mentioned. Nor was there mention of how many foreign nations and individuals whose cooperation with us in the war on terror have been involved in countering Al Qaeda -- nor how many foreign nations and individuals will have to think twice now, before cooperating with us again, when their role can be revealed in court to our enemies, who can exact revenge on them.

Behind this decision and others is the notion that we have to demonstrate our good faith to other nations, sometimes called "world opinion." Just who are these saintly nations whose favor we must curry, at the risk of American lives and the national security of the United States?

Internationally, the law of the jungle ultimately prevails, despite pious talk about "the international community" and "world opinion," or the pompous and corrupt farce of the United Nations. Yet this is the gallery to which Barack Obama has been playing, both before and after becoming President of the United States.

In the wake of the obscenity of a trial of terrorists in federal court for an act of war -- and the worldwide propaganda platform it will give them -- it may seem to be a small thing that Obama has been photographed yet again bowing deeply to a foreign ruler. But how large or small an act is depends on its actual consequences, not on whether the politically correct intelligentsia think it is no big deal.

As a private citizen, Barack Obama has a right to make as big a jackass of himself as he wants to. But, as pResident of the United States, his actions not only denigrate a nation that other nations rely on for survival, but raise questions about how reliable our judgment and resolve are -- which in turn raises questions about whether those nations will consider themselves better off to make the best deal they can with our enemies.

Update: No American president ever bowed to a foreign leader -- until Obama.

Code Pink Gives Terrorists Direct Line To Obama

Top Obama donor and fundraiser Jodie Evans met with the Taliban in Afghanistan on a recent trip there, according to a report by Jane Fonda of a discussion she had with Evans last month. The meeting with the Taliban took place just weeks before Evans was videotaped directly handing to Barack Obama a package of information about her trip to Afghanistan at a high dollar fundraiser in San Francisco.

The meeting with the Taliban was kept secret by Evans and her group Code Pink in reports she and the group posted from Kabul and in interviews with the media and bloggers about the trip. Fonda, a close friend of Evans, let the secret meeting slip in an account of her dinner with Evans at a fundraiser for the Armand Hammer Museum in Los Angeles:

Last Saturday, My dear friends Jodie Evans and Max Palevsky, invited Richard and me to join them at their table at a fundraiser at the Armand Hammer Museum in Westwood. It was a good evening for lots of reasons. I had never been to the museum and definitely want to go back. Clearly it is a courageous place, very cutting edge. Then, too, I saw lots of friends I hadn’t seen in a long time and I sat next to Jodie who told me a little about her recent trip to Afghanistan with an American delegation that included a retired colonel, and member the State Department (Army Reserves Col. (Ret.) and ex-diplomat Ann Wright). While there, she met with people ranging from the brother of President Karzai, Afghan members of Parliament, activists, to warlords and members of the Taliban (emphasis added.) Jodie is co-founder of the peace organization, Code Pink, and always willing to go to any lengths to try and find out what’s really going on. Bottom line: everyone she met with wants the U.S. Military out of their country. They feel our presence there has brought more violence rather than security. Please read a short article she wrote about the trip which is on the Women’s Media Center website.

There is precedent to suspect that Evans is acting as a conduit for the Taliban to Obama. In June, her fellow Code Pink co-founder Medea Benjamin hand carried a letter out of Gaza from the terrorist group Hamas addressed to Obama.

Over the seven years of its existence, Code Pink has acted as propaganda shills for the anti-American governments of Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Venezuela’s President Hugo Chavez, Bolivia’s President Evo Morales, Cuba’s Castro brothers and Iraq under Saddam Hussein, as well as Middle Eastern terrorist groups.

Fonda has her own history of working with America’s enemies. During the Vietnam war she visited North Vietnam in 1972 and was photographed manning an anti-aircraft battery used to shoot down American planes. Fonda also recorded propaganda radio broadcasts for the North Vietnamese communists. In 2007 Code Pink brought Fonda out of protest retirement at a so-called antiwar demonstration held at the Navy Memorial in Washington, D.C.

What was in the package that Evans gave Obama at the San Francisco fundraiser? She describes what she gave Obama in an article at the Huffington Post:

…we were careful to make the package very user and security friendly. It was filled with photos, quotes, thousands of signatures (on a petition against more troops for Afghanistan), a copy of Rethink Afghanistan and our 25-minute interview with Afghan MP, Dr. Roshanak Wardak from Wardak Province, who is adamant that the U.S. should not send new troops and rather, must leave.

Evans notes that she gave a similar package to Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi who was also at the fundraiser being held in her city. No mention is made by Evans on whether she relayed oral or written messages from the Taliban to Obama. However, it is a strong possibility given Fonda’s revelation and Code Pink’s history.

Code Pink’s image as kooky but well-meaning women committed to peace is belied by their words and actions. At home they work to undermine morale in our soldiers, their families and the American public. Abroad they work with terrorist enemies of the United States.

And one of Code Pink’s co-founders, Jodie Evans, works with Obama. Is anyone in our nation’s capital paying attention?

Obamateur Hour

Andy McCarthy is reporting a meeting with the press in China, in which Obama said that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed would be "convicted" and had "the death penalty applied to him" . . . and then said he wasn't "pre-judging" the case. He made the second statement after it was pointed out to him -- by NBC's Chuck Todd -- that the first statement would be taken as his interfering in the trial process. Obama said that wasn't his intention. I'm sure it wasn't -- he's trying to contain the political damage caused by his decision -- but that won't matter. He has given the defense its first motion that the executive branch, indeed Obama himself, is tainting the jury pool.

Besides, Holder knows that the KSM trial is a "show trial" -- he admitted this fact to Sen. Charles Grassley in this exchange:

Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa: "I don’t think you can say that failure to convict is not an option, when we have juries in this country."

Attorney General Eric Holder: "I have thought about that possibility. Congress has passed legislation that would not allow the release of these individuals in this country. If there is not a successful conclusion to this trial, that would not mean that this person would be released into this country…"

Grassley: "My understanding is that if for some reason he’s not convicted, or a judge lets him off on a technicality, he’ll be an enemy combatant, so you’re right back where you started."

Not only will we be right back where we started, it will expose the federal trial as nothing more than a show trial. Show trials are conducted by despots and dictators to give only a thin veneer of legality to political detentions and executions. If the state isn’t prepared to abide by the decision of the court, including dismissals and acquittals, then the use of the trial system is worse than useless. It demeans the federal system needed for Americans to seek unbiased justice.

Obama Sides with Terrorists

Bill Levinson says that the Obama Justice Department is seeking to block enforcement of judgment against Iran for murder of 241 United States Marines.

In 1983, 241 United States Marines were murdered by a suicide bombing. A Federal court ruled that Iran was complicit. The court ordered Iran to pay the families of the murdered service members $2.65 billion. The Boston Globe reports that the Obama Justice Department has, in an effort to appease Iran, intervened to quash the judgment; in other words, Barack Obama has sided openly with terrorists who murder U.S. Marines.

IsraPundit blog reported previously that the Obama State Department (Hillary Clinton) has cut off funding for Freedom House and other organizations that report on human rights violations in Iran and other countries. Now Obama and his Justice Department (Eric Holder) have made themselves, at least morally if not legally, willful accessories after the fact to terrorism against the Armed Forces of the United States.

What about rule of law, Holder? Didn’t you swear to uphold the law when you took office? That is what you tell us all the time when you say your duty requires you to prosecute CIA personnel for alleged mistreatment of terrorists -- and don't forget the Black Panthers, either. The truth, Eric Holder, is that your "duty" seems to consist of selective enforcement of laws to meet the needs of Barack Obama.

The law, as interpreted by a Federal court, says that Iran is liable for its role in the murder of 241 United States Marines. Obama and Holder wish to deny justice to the Marines' families so they can appease the butchers of Tehran. Barack Obama has accordingly forfeited the trust and respect of the American people and the Armed Forces, noting again that his Administration has made itself at least morally an accessory after the fact to terroristic violence against the Armed Forces. We cannot possibly imagine how any United States Marine would now want to be posted to the White House, which was once a position of honor but which would now involve saluting and saying, "Sir," to an individual who seeks to condone the murder of Marines.

Terrorist Asks Judge to Dismiss Case

Surprise! Surprise!

Lawyers for a terrorism suspect once held at Guantánamo Bay, who is now facing prosecution in Manhattan, asked a judge on Tuesday to dismiss his case on the ground that his nearly five years in detention denied him "his constitutional right" to a speedy trial.

The terrorism suspect, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, who was a cook and a bodyguard for Osama bin Laden, was captured in Pakistan in 2004. He has been charged with conspiring to help carry out Al Qaeda’s 1998 bombings of the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania -- attacks that killed 224 people.

His speedy trial motion could foreshadow issues that could arise in the prosecution of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the professed organizer of the 9/11 plot, and four other Guantánamo detainees who Obama ordered sent to New York for trial.

"We respectfully submit that this case presents possibly the most unique and egregious example of a speedy trial violation in American jurisprudence to date," Mr. Ghailani’s lawyers said in a motion that was heavily censored because of its reliance on classified information.

The motion was originally filed several weeks ago with Judge Lewis A. Kaplan, but it was kept almost entirely under seal pending a review by the government. The new version, with many pages blacked out, was made public on Tuesday.

"This motion asks one primary question," the lawyers, Peter E. Quijano, Michael K. Bachrach and Gregory Cooper, wrote. "Can national security trump an indicted defendant’s constitutional Right to a Speedy Trial? We respectfully submit that the answer is emphatically and without qualification, 'no.’'"

And, it begins.

Dennis Miller On Barack Obama

Here is video of Dennis Miller on The O'Reilly Factor last night where he assessed Obama's Afghanistan Speech.

Miller said "no one gives a more eloquent or nuanced acquiescence to the bad guys than our President. That is a well-embroidered towel he throws in."

Miller said about Obama putting an end-date to the war: "Mr. President -- this is a war against radical Islamic fundamental evil. This is not a Yoplait container. There's no end-date on this thing."

I'm no fan of O'Reilly, but Miller nails this one -- he's dead on -- oh, and he's eloquent.

Obama to Terrorists: You Win In 2011

Kevin McCullough says, when Barack Obama addressed the cadets at West Point and the American people in a prime time television address, he did so with immense expectations. After all, how would he explain the fact that it took five months to claim that his strategy "was not 'wavering'" from his own policy as it was expressed in March of this very year?

His lengthy speech was a bag of confusion, poorly defined terms, badly defined objectives and even less overall clarity. In one sentence Obama proclaimed that the effort in Afghanistan was the greatest threat to peace for the worldwide community and in the next sentence he declared the deadline by which the military objectives must be completed.

Message to the terrorists? Wait it out. Blend in. Pretend to be a non-terrorist until July of 2011, then all will be well. But since he can't come out and say that, and since he can't allow the man he put in charge to fail, Obama had to find a middle ground.

So, starting with a troop deployment by Christmas, General McChrystal will begin to get the first few of the 30,000 troops Obama decided to allow to go. That number -- some 50,000 less than the general originally wanted -- will be Obama's last chance to demonstrate that he takes the threat of terrorists seriously.

Obama sounded defensive. Some of his verbiage harkened back to his campaign stump speeches. He also looked awkward condemning the war in Iraq -- explaining that he had always been opposed to it -- while claiming the fight in Afghanistan was as simple as the harboring of Al Qaeda.

Did he not know that Saddam Hussein also allowed Al Qaeda operatives to operate openly in Iraq? If the policy was to go after those who harbored terrorists, and those who funded terrorists, didn't Saddam fit the bill for paying the families of suicide bombers in other nations $25,000 per suicide?

Obama tried to speak about the war efforts in the two theaters as two separate wars, yet he betrayed brazen ignorance, or dishonest intention, in not admitting the very ties that bound them together -- even Usama bin Ladin labeled the Iraq front as the primary fight in the war. Or laptops recently recovered that revealed new e-mail communication between the top terrorists in Iraq and UBL.

Obama had a tough job. He needed to explain how he would protect America, but he still had to pander to his anti-war base that have called for all our troops to be brought home.

In the end he adopted the Bush/Cheney strategy. In the end he adopted the recommendations made from the Bush review completed in November of 2008. A review that he had asked the Bush administration to remain silent on concerning its findings. A review that he adopted as his own policies in March of this year. A review that after nine additional review sessions with his war council -- he did not significantly alter.

Obama, in outlining his Afghanistan strategy on Tuesday night, has adopted President Bush's strategy for winning in Afghanistan -- with one major difference -- that stupid deadline.

Now all our enemies must do is blend in for the next 18 months or so. Look for them to do it. And brace yourself for what such stupidity will rain down upon us. Now it's just a waiting game.

FReeper Candor7 adds -- American exceptionalism is at the foundation of the West Point ethos, and it's more than just "ethos." I t is the rock solid foundation of our country. Obama saw it, and it unnerved him -- his speech rang hollow, and was so obviously stupid, picayune, self serving when confronted with the "ethos" of these West Point cadets.

Obama walked away knowing that his socialist agenda-Alinsky plan can never succeed in America. Obama was thoroughly shaken, as he should be.

If Obama and the left want to socialize and communize America, they will have to pay the blood price of civil war, and conflict. Obama saw that in that field of gray, and walked away from it a shaken man. Obama’s very world was quaked by what he saw and felt at West Point.

I am very glad that happened in front of a nation entire, which voted for a romantic notion, and received in return a surreptitious national socialism for its caring about race.

That gray field shook Obama. It was populated by the best and brightest of America, and its ranks are well seeded with people of all the races of the world. You bet it shook him. Obama saw in their eyes, the complete defeat of his socialist agenda. Obama no longer believes.

Matthews picked up on it, and revealed a fundamental truth about Obama, not about West Point.

Obama Orders Terrorists To Illinois

The Land of Lincoln may still be licking its wounds over Chicago’s losing the Olympics to Rio, but Obama has delivered up a small consolation prize, the state’s very own federal prison for terrorists.

Big Government has received what is claimed to be a leaked DOJ memo that was allegedly sent yesterday from Eric Holder’s Department of Justice to Defense Secretary Robert Gates. The memo authorizes the transfer of Gitmo terrorists to the Thomson Correctional Center (TCC) in Thomson, Illinois.

Presumably, the inmates at Guantanamo Bay are there because they are believed to be a threat to national security. How moving them into the United States then is a good idea is beyond our powers of reasoning. While we are well aware of the Corleone advice to keep one’s friend close and enemies closer, we’re pretty certain it wasn’t meant as national security advice.

Thomson, Illinois, is little village. It's quite small. There's no real infrastructure to deal with any sort of "incident." It's about 15 miles upriver from the Cordova Nuclear Power plant, and not too far from the Rock Island Arsenal. Lots of good targets for "outside" influences. It's populated by many simple agricultural folk who don't lock their doors at night. There are small schools, ripe for a hostage incident. You get the picture. But, I guess Obama and Holder think Thomson is a good, safe place for these enemy combatants!

Update: Breitbart's site describes the document as "a leaked DOJ memo" from Holder to Gates. But, assuming it is authentic, it is clearly a memo from Obama to Holder and Gates the constitutional powers relied on are those of the president, not the attorney general, and the memo gives directions to both Holder and Gates. (Holder has no power to order Gates to do anything -- they are peers, and the Constitution vests all the executive power in the president, not members of the president's cabinet.)

Catch and Release

Stephen F. Hayes reminds us that last spring, in an interview with 60 Minutes, Barack Obama criticized his predecessor over the detainees at Guantánamo Bay. That wasn't new. What was surprising was one of the arguments Obama made. When Steve Kroft pointed out that some of those released had been working to recruit others to jihad, Obama agreed:

Well, there's no doubt that we have not done a particularly effective job in sorting through who are truly dangerous individuals that we've got to make sure are not a threat to us, who are folks that we just swept up.

A classified Defense Intelligence Agency report leaked to the New York Times in May supported that claim. Return to the Battlefield showed that 74 detainees transferred or released from Guantánamo had returned to jihad. That's one in seven -- a recidivism rate of 14 percent.

So the problem, according to Obama, was that the Bush administration was too lenient. The obvious solution: Apply greater scrutiny to detainees under consideration for release and slow the pace of transfers. But Obama went the opposite direction. Having promised to shutter the detention facility at Guantánamo within one year, the administration has lowered the threshold for detainees eligible to be shipped out and is expediting the procedures for transferring or releasing them.

A total of 31 Guantánamo detainees have been transferred or released since Obama took office.

Among them are several men who acknowledged receiving training in al Qaeda's notorious "al Farouq" camp. One, Binyam Mohamed, was slated to participate in the next wave of al Qaeda attacks on American soil in 2002. Another, Ahmed Zuhair, was convicted in absentia of participating in terrorist attacks in Bosnia in the late 1990s and almost certainly participated in the assassination of William Jefferson, an American working for the United Nations. Several others that have been released have admitted to training at a camp at Tora Bora under Abdul Haq, a member of al Qaeda's shura council and a senior al Qaeda leader the Treasury Department has designated as a terrorist.

And dozens more are coming.

Continue reading here . . .

Obama Orders Navy Strikes In Yemen

The U.S. has launched two missile strikes against Al Qaeda targets in Yemen, two U.S. officials told Fox News, signaling an escalation of the Obama administration's fight against the terrorist organization.

The politically sensitive strikes, first reported by ABC News, supplement efforts already under way by the government of Yemen to go after Al Qaeda in the country, the officials told Fox News, speaking on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the operation.

Such an operation is particularly sensitive in Yemen. "It's very difficult for Yemen to ask the U.S. for help given the nature of their population and its views about the West," one official said. "And the U.S. doesn't want to compromise their ability to ask for help."

The United States has faced similar concerns in Pakistan, where reports of U.S. drone attacks on militants are common -- but never acknowledged publicly by the U.S. or by Pakistan.

In the new attacks, cruise missiles, on Obama's orders, hit a suspected Al Qaeda training camp north of Sanaa, the capital, and another site, where terrorists were thought to be plotting an attack on the U.S., ABC News reported, citing unnamed administration officials.

A Yemeni official contacted by ABC News insisted that the attacks were carried out by Yemen, not the United States. Yemeni forces also reportedly have targeted Al Qaeda in raids conducted at three locations.

On the home front, Obama is planning to repatriate six Yemenis held at the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, a transfer that could be a prelude to the release of dozens more detainees to Yemen, according to sources with independent knowledge of the matter.

The release is a significant first step toward dealing with the largest group of detainees at the prison -- there are currently 97 Yemenis there -- and toward meeting Obama's goal of closing the facility.

Obama Sends Gitmo Detainees Home or Someplace

Joy Tiz says that while you were busy with holiday preparations and screaming in horror as the Politburo met behind close doors to wreck the health care system; Obama quietly returned twelve Gitmo detainees to their homelands.

The US has transferred 12 detainees from its Guantanamo Bay prison camp to Afghanistan, Yemen and the Somaliland region, the Justice Department says. Six Yemenis, four Afghans and two Somali detainees were sent to their homelands over the weekend, it said.

Obama acknowledged in November that he would miss his January deadline to close down the camp.

The US plans to send 116 detainees to their home countries or to third countries willing to accept them. Third countries willing to accept them? Might this be a bit open ended?

Merry Christmas from the White House.

Obama Emboldens Terrorists

John Lillpop says when former President George W. Bush spoke to terrorists his message was simple and clear: We will hunt you down and kill you! Period, end of story. W’s "clenched fist" kept America safe for nearly eight years following the 9.11 attack.

Regrettably, since Barack Obama was sworn in, the message to terrorists is:

• Unclench your fists and let us talk.
• Terrorists will be treated with the same dignity and politically correct manners afforded any American citizen.
• Terrorists will be read their Miranda rights, provided with taxpayer-paid legal representation, and will be allowed to broadcast their anti-American, Jihad messages from the great media center that is New York City.
• Terrorists are guilty of crimes which will be adjudicated in civilian courts rather than military tribunals, even for thugs like KSM who master-minded the 9-11 attack
• America is NOT a Christian nation -- so fret not about your background in Islamofascism
• All things considered, 9-11 was justifiable and understandable. Let’s talk.

Obama’s unilateral unclenching of America’s mighty fist does not seem to have resonated. In just eleven months, a Muslim at Fort Hood has killed thirteen fellow soldiers. And an Al-Qaeda devotee tried to blow up an airplane headed to Detroit. In addition, nothing has been done to address Iran and its drive toward nuclear weapons. President Bush kept us safe for almost eight years; Obama has squandered home land security in order to pacify leftists who continue to operate under the illusion that Islam is a Religion of Peace. Moonbats who voted for Obama need to answer a fundamental question: Is America safer today than it was before noon on January 20, 2009?

Period, end of story.

Five Jihad Terrorist Attacks

Freedomphobe blog points out that there have been at least five Islamic terrorist attacks on U.S. soil in the 8 months since Obama bowed to the Saudi king in London, in April, 2009.

1. Binghamton, New York -- May, 2009 -- Taliban chief claims responsibility for N.Y. shooting massacre.

2. Bronx, New York -- May, 2009 -- FBI arrest four in alleged plot to bomb Bronx synagogues, shoot down plane

3. Little Rock, Arkansas -- June, 2009 -- Shooting at military recruiting center; 1 dead, 1 wounded; suspect is anti-military Muslim convert

4. Fort Hood, Texas -- November, 2009 -- Fort Hood massacre: gunman linked to al-Qaeda as he awakes from coma.

5. Detroit, Michigan - December, 2009 -- Northwest 253 passengers tell of thwarted Detroit terror attack.

Just a coincidence? I think not.

The Enemy Knows We're At War

"As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war."

"He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, 'war on terror,' we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency -- social transformation -- the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."

Dick Cheney

Obama Admits Failures, Goes Snorkeling

The Chicago Tribune reports that yesterday, after a vacationing Barack Obama conceded that both human and systemic failures of U.S. Intelligence had failed to bar a Nigerian man posing a reported security risk from boarding that Detroit-bound jetliner -- a near ''catastrophic" breakdown in security -- Obama left the reporters talking about his words in Hawaii -- and went snorkeling.

The day before, after making his first televised comments on the matter-- it was a "systemic failure" -- it wasn't Obama's fault -- he headed for the golf course -- an outing interrupted by the child of a close, vacationing friend from Chicago suffering a surfboard accident.

Obama dropped his golf game an immediately and returned to the vacation house -- it took him three days to respond to the Crotch-Bombers jihad.

Says something about where this guy's priorities are.

The Telegraph's (UK) US Editor says Obama 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 yesterday that a "systemic failure has occurred." Well, he’s in charge of that system.

Obama, instead of defending the system, sided with critics who complained that it did not work and positioned himself as a reformer who will fix it.

Obama's going to fix the system? Ha! That's a laugher!

Obama! The guy that's bowing to Muslim kings; closing Gitmo; freeing terrorists and sending them to Yemen; giving other terrorists rights and lawyers; stonewalling terror investigations; claiming these are all "isolated incidents" -- he's gonna fix the system! -- sure, right after he goes snorkeling.

Terror Crackdown ... On Bloggers

Investors.com is reporting that as the Obama administration scrambles to review security and repair the damage from its "system worked" comments after the attempted Christmas Day airliner bombing, the government is targeting bloggers:

The Transportation Security Administration is going after bloggers who wrote about a directive to increase security after the incident.

TSA special agents served subpoenas to travel bloggers Steve Frischling and Chris Elliott, demanding that they reveal who leaked the security directive to them. The government says the directive was not supposed to be disclosed to the public.

We're in the very best hands.

Are These Guys Serious Or Delirious

Democratic strategists Wednesday asserted Barack Obama "has been far more aggressive in fighting al Qaeda" than the previous administration .

In an e-mail this afternoon to supporters -- which incidentally excoriated Republicans for politicizing the attempted bombing of Flight 253 -- the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) stressed it was President George W. Bush, not his successor, who relegated the fight against the terrorist network to the back burner by turning "its focus from al Qaeda to Iraq."

More "it's Bush's fault." What a bunch of miserable incompetents. These guys know how to steal an election, but they haven't got a clue about governing.

Regarding the basic claim, "Obama 'has been far more aggressive in fighting al Qaeda,'" the DCCC, like Obama, has tunnel-vision and believes the only place al-Qaeda is, is in Af/Pak -- evidently they never heard of al-Qaeda in Iraq -- they're all dead now -- Bush killed them -- or al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula -- or al-Qaeda in the Maghreb -- or worse, HERE -- and Obama and the DCCC barely acknowledge the simple fact -- al-Qaeda is everywhere.

Obama, and his crowd, won't even acknowledge that we're engaged in a war of survival.

Happy New Year From Barack Obama

The USA Patriot Act, passed in response to the 9-11 Islamic terrorist attacks on the United States, is aimed at providing the tools law enforcement officials need to prevent further terrorist attacks.

Two key provisions are the ones regarding the government's authority to conduct "roving wiretaps" of targets with multiple phones or e-mail devices, and the government's powers to seize business records with the FISA court's approval.

The authority of the United States to employ these critical, terror-fighting tools expires at midnight tonight.

Tomorrow morning, when you wake up, terrorists will be free to openly communicate with throw-away cell phones and PDAs -- organizations like the Holy Land Foundation will flourish.

Happy New Year from Barack Obama!

The Enemy Knows We're At War

Obama Admits Failures, Goes Snorkeling

Terror Crackdown -- On Bloggers

We're in the very best hands.

Happy New Year From Barack Obama

Obama Not Serious About Terrorism

Ed Weaver says Obama talked tough last week when referring to the War on Terror. Well, to a point he did. And then he failed -- again.

"We are at war against al Qaeda, a far-reaching network of violence and hatred that attacked us on 9/11," Obama said. "And we’ve made progress. Al Qaeda’s leadership is hunkered down. We have worked closely with partners, including Yemen, to inflict major blows against al Qaeda leaders. And we have disrupted plots at home and abroad, and saved American lives."

Obama refuses, though, to give any credit for President Bush’s policies and actions that severely weakened al Qaeda, nor will he make any reference to the plots prevented by the Bush Administration.

More importantly, Obama cannot bring himself to state that it’s far more than al Qaeda who want to kill Americans. It’s a world-wide jihad of radical Islamists and if Obama can’t overcome his warped left-wing viewpoint and state what is true, we will be less safe.

If Obama were serious about combating terrorism, underwear bomber Umar Farouck Abdulmutallab would be treated as an enemy combatant, be imprisoned at Guantanamo right now and be facing a military trial, not a criminal trial with U.S. Constitutional rights and taxpayer-paid lawyers.

Obama's greatest problem is that he's at war with al-Qaeda -- he just doesn't get it -- Islam is engaged in a world-wide jihad -- and it's just not a "small minority" of Muslims that support jihad.

The worldwide jihad is simply the sum of all the local jihads. Each local jihad receives automatic support from Muslims worldwide, who are quick to identify, always and everywhere, with other Muslims.

Click this link to get a sense of how extensive the world-wide jihad really is -- including Jamaat ul-Fuqra, our very own jihadis, who have over 45 compounds in rural areas throughout the United States of America -- and this list doesn't include the stealth jihads, taking places in Europe through the subversive strategy of Islamization.

And poor Barry thinks he's dealing with a several hundred al-Qaeda in Pakistan and Yemen -- he really, really doesn't get it.

The Consequences Of Obama: Terrorism Is Back

Dick Morris And Eileen McGann remind us that Rev. Jeremiah Wright said that the "chickens came home to roost" on 9-11. He was wrong. But they have now, indeed, come home to roost as we witness the results of the unilateral disarmament Obama has practiced in the war on terror. Beset once more by terrorism on our soil and in our airspace, we find ourselves suddenly overmatched by those who the Bush Administration kept away from our shores for seven years.

This new onset of terrorism is not the product of any change in the international environment or some new "systemic" flaw in our intelligence operations. It is due to Obama's policy of letting down our guard and inhibiting those charged with our protection.

Under Obama, the hunters have become the hunted as America inverted her priorities. Those who have been working to keep us safe have, themselves, come under scrutiny for profiling, harsh interrogation techniques, and a failure to give terrorists constitutional rights they don’t have.

The result is predictable: Timidity and caution have become the order of the day in our intelligence community. In a world where hunch, guesswork, and a willingness to leap to conclusions by imagining the worst are vital to success, a cover your butt mentality has taken over. If you come to the wrong conclusion, if you profile without adequate justification, if you accuse incorrectly, you are finished. Your career and your pension will be gone. Guess right and you are accorded anonymity. Guess wrong and you’re through.

The failure of the intelligence operatives to pass along the information about the Ft. Hood shooter or the airline bomber did not flow from a blind spot or a lack of co-ordination, they stemmed from terrorism of a different sort -- the terror of making a mistake and falling on the harsh mercies of Eric Holder.

Now Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutall sits, lawyered up, in a federal prison. His interrogation will proceed, if at all, under the watchful eye of his counsel. He will not finger other operatives nor warn us of other impending attacks. He will receive the full panoply of constitutional rights, none of which he is entitled to.

Barack Obama does not seem to understand that these terrorists come here to use our laws and our system, not to protect us, not even to shelter themselves, but to destroy us.

Abdulmutall should be interrogated by the military, without benefit of counsel. The evidence we obtain should not be admissible in a court of law nor used as the basis for his sentencing. But it must be used to ward off future threats and attacks.

But Obama is a true believer. His persistence in downgrading the war on terror to a criminal investigation will continue. And we will experience more and more attacks. Because pessimism is the bodyguard of liberalism, he will explain to us that the world has become more threatening and that he is doing all he can to keep us safe. But the truth will be that it will have been his policies and priorities that are leaving us exposed.

And the attacks will continue.

Obama Was Warned And Went On Vacation

Obama has acknowledged that the United States had early signals that a terrorist attack was being plotted in Yemen and failed to take adequate steps to prevent it. According to a page one story in the New York Times, two federal officials told the paper that U.S. intelligence was aware that a Nigerian Muslim was preparing an attack, yet officials did nothing to give warning of such an attack.

The paper reported Wednesday: "Two officials said the government had intelligence from Yemen before Friday (Christmas) that leaders of a branch of Al Qaeda were talking about 'a Nigerian' being prepared for a terrorist attack."

Obama received a high-level briefing only three days before Christmas about possible holiday-period terrorist threats against the U.S., NEWSWEEK has learned. The briefing was centered on a written report, produced by U.S. intelligence agencies, titled "Key Homeland Threats," a senior U.S. official says.

The administration official, who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information, says that nowhere in this document was there any mention of Yemen, whose affiliate of Al Qaeda is now believed to have been behind the Christmas Day attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab to bring down a transatlantic airliner with a bomb hidden in his underpants. However, the official declined to disclose any other information about the substance of the briefing, including what kind of specific warnings, if any, Obama was given about possible holiday attacks and whether Yemen came up during oral discussions.

According to the official, the holiday threat briefing -- one in a series of regularly scheduled sessions with top counterterrorism officials -- was held in the White House Situation Room on Dec. 22. Present were representatives of agencies involved in counterterrorism policy and operations, including Attorney General Eric Holder, Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, and FBI Director Robert Mueller. The CIA and the national intelligence director's office were represented by deputy agency heads: CIA deputy director Steven Kappes and David Gompert, the principal deputy to national intelligence czar Dennis Blair. Also present was Michael Leiter, director of the National Counterterrorism Center, a unit of the intelligence czar's office that was created after 9/11 to ensure that intelligence reporting about possible terrorist plots was shared quickly among all U.S. agencies that might have some capability to do something about it.

The senior official says that beginning in early December, based on reports coming in from intelligence agencies, policymakers had begun tracking a stream of information that alluded to a possible holiday-period plot against the U.S. orchestrated from somewhere in Pakistan. However, the official says, this reporting later turned out to be "garbled," and it was determined that the threat was probably a washout. The official denies that the White House received any report, representing the consensus of U.S. intelligence agencies, warning that a holiday-period plot originating in Yemen and targeting the U.S. homeland could be in the works.

Continue reading here . . .

The writer is covering for Obama here, trying to make the issue Pakistan v Yemen. Al-Qaeda is Al-Qaeda. Crotch Bomber was trained and equipped in Yemen. The go-order came from Pakistan. It's naive to think otherwise. In his remarks yesterday, Obama referred to Al-Qaeda as a "network."

Obama was warned and still went on vacation.

Update: Here's a laugher -- Obama's top counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, lied his ass off on "Fox News Sunday," saying there was "no smoking gun" that U.S. intelligence agencies should have found ahead of the alleged Christmas Day attack on a U.S. airline. He said there were a series of what he called lapses and errors in sharing intelligence about the Nigerian man accused in the foiled attempt -- but the Brits said they've been watching the Crotch Bomber for 3 years -- and an Al-Qaeda terrorist in Yemen warned the United States "we are carrying a bomb" in a video posted online four days before the attempt to blow up a Northwest Airlines flight bound for Detroit.

Brennan, should be in jail. He's the guy behind the scrubbing of Obama's passport files.

Re-Update: Here's a double-laugher -- Brennan was briefed in October on an assassination attempt by Al Qaeda that investigators now believe used the same underwear bombing technique as the Nigerian suspect who tried to blow up Northwest Airlines Flight 253 on Christmas Day.

The briefing to Brennan was delivered at the White House by Muhammad bin Nayef, Saudi Arabia's chief counterterrorism official. In late August, Nayef had survived an assassination attempt by an operative dispatched by the Yemeni branch of Al Qaeda who was pretending to turn himself in. The operative had tried to kill the Saudi prince by detonating a bomb on his body, but stumbled on his way into the prince's palace and blew himself up.

U.S. officials now suspect that Nayef's attempted assassin and Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the Nigerian suspect aboard the Northwest flight, had the same bomb maker in Yemen. At the briefing for Brennan, Nayef was concerned because "he didn't think [U.S. officials] were paying enough attention" to the growing threat from Al Qaeda in Yemen, said a former U.S. intelligence official familiar with the briefing.

Obama: America’s Gift To Terrorists

Nancy Morgan says for al Qaeda and other terrorists across the globe, Obama is the gift that just keeps on giving. The fanatical Muslim terrorists who are intent on wiping out every man woman and child that doesn’t accept Allah as God was just handed another victory by Obama.

In response to yet another threat from the al Qaeda faction in Yemen responsible for training the panty bomber who tried to take out a U.S. bound jet on Christmas day, the Obama administration decided to close down our embassy in Yemen. "The U.S. Embassy in San’a is closed today, January 3, 2010, in response to ongoing threats by al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula ... to attack American interests in Yemen," the embassy said in a message on its Web site.

Obama’s counter-terrorism expert also informed the nation on Sunday that the United States would not be opening up a new front in Yemen to battle the increasing presence of al Qaeda there. This mirrors the Obama administration’s response to ever increasing threats from terrorist murderers: if we just ignore them, maybe they’ll go away.

Obama has made it official. Faced with murderous threats from fanatical Muslims, America will cut and run. Al Qaeda and assorted terrorists the world over are rejoicing. Yet again.

These barbaric animals are laughing out loud at the policies Obama and his buddies have enacted since he usurped the office of POTUS.

First, Obama did what Democrats do when faced with an uncomfortable reality. They redefine it. Obama abolished the war on terror with a stroke of the pen. Presto, we now have man-made catastrophic events, not to be confused with the bogus global warming catastrophic events.

This was followed by the left’s favorite response to any crisis not of their own making: dialogue. Despite the fact that "reaching out" is considered a distinct sign of weakness by our enemies and has never worked, Obama scored political points by convincing half the nation that he could effect world peace through the sheer force of his personality. Obama’s dialogue did accomplish something, however. It allowed him to appear to be doing something, when in actuality he was merely avoiding the hard decisions associated with real leadership.

This man of action then handed terrorists legitimacy, along with all the legal rights American citizens have fought and died for. Enemy combatants, for the first time in history, will be tried in civilian courts in New York. In the same neighborhood they demolished on 9/11. How cool is that, terrorists say.

This insane policy does have a silver lining. It just might encourage terrorists in Yemen and Afghanistan to surrender. That way they can leave the blood and guts battlefield and wage jihad from the worldwide platform being afforded (courtesy of U.S. taxpayers) by a New York courtroom. Again, courtesy of Obama. Who knows, terrorists might just be able to accomplish more effective jihad from within America. Just think of the recruitment opportunities in American jails. Yahoo!

Then again, these animals may just opt to stay on the battlefield overseas. After all, Obama’s new rules of engagement have severely hampered U.S. fighting men. All al Qaeda has to do is hide behind women and children and they get a virtual free pass. And if by chance they get caught killing Americans and they aren’t Mirandized, well, its off to Gitmo, where they’ll have a chance to rest up and regroup. Once they gain 20 pounds or so, they’ll be shipped back home where they pick up right where they left off.

Unless, of course, Obama is successful in closing Gitmo, in which case the terrorists will have to make do with 3 squares and cable TV from Chicago until they get shipped home to the same old goat meat and drafty caves.

No wonder our enemies are laughing. As the Taliban indoctrinate kids as young as five years-old into being killing machines, Obama focuses his efforts on sanitizing and avoiding a fight to the finish that our enemies wage as a war and Obama wages as an exercise in rhetoric.

As the left steps up their efforts to sensitize males, our enemies breed warriors and come ever closer to obtaining the technology and materials needed for a nuclear weapon. America will then have no choice but to follow Obama’s policy of appeasement. And the terrorists will have won. And America will be no more.

If you’re not scared yet, let me offer you this visual exercise: Imagine Obama and his buddies coming face to face with a coven of jihadists. Which side is going to win? Obama’s words or the terrorist’s sword?

For Obama, Terrorism Is A Four-Letter Word: Bush

Byron York says The attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253 was more than just al Qaeda's latest attempt to bring death and destruction to American shores. It was also, in its still-unfolding political aftermath, a head-on collision between Barack Obama's soaring rhetoric and the reality of terrorism.

Obama's first response to the incident, or nonresponse, did not surprise anyone who followed his 2008 campaign. As a candidate, Obama repeatedly accused the Bush administration of using terrorism to spread fear among the American public for political gain.

"Since 9/11, we've had a president who essentially fed us a politics of fear," Obama said at a December 2007 Democratic debate in Iowa. "We have been governed by fear for the last six years," he said two months earlier in Philadelphia. "We're tired of fear," he said still earlier at a debate in South Carolina.

Obama pledged a new, quieter approach. He would improve America's image in the world, reach out to Muslims and dial back the fear.

So when a radical Islamist Army officer shouting "Allahu Akbar!" murdered 13 of his fellow soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, Obama's response was so low-key it took him days to recognize it as a terrorist incident. And when a radical Islamist Nigerian nearly succeeded in detonating enough explosives to bring down a Northwest Airlines jumbo jet as it approached Detroit, Obama remained silent.

Some observers thought it was a mistake for Obama to continue golfing, swimming and munching shave ice in Hawaii while the nation learned the details of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's terrifying plot. But it was a deliberate plan.

"There is a reason why Obama hasn't given a public statement," journalist Marc Ambinder wrote the day after the attempted bombing. "It's strategy."

Ambinder, politics editor for The Atlantic and chief political consultant for CBS News, is perhaps the most reliable conduit for White House spin outside the White House itself. "A two-bit mook is sent by al Qaeda to do a dastardly deed," Ambinder wrote, channeling the White House theory of the case. "[Obama] presides over the federal response ... but an in-person Obama statement isn't needed; indeed, a message expressing command, control, outrage and anger might elevate the importance of the deed, would generate panic. ..."

Obama chose not to "chest-thump, prejudge, interfere, politicize." Instead, he would "project his calm on the American people." It was, Ambinder wrote, "a tough and novel approach" to terrorism.

It was also dumb, and it did not survive its first contact with reality. But it was precisely what Obama's supporters on the Left wanted.

A few days after the attempted bombing, a widely read blogger named Matthew Yglesias, who writes for the Center for American Progress, the think tank founded and run by Obama insider John Podesta, wrote an article titled, "Not So Scary Terror." The Detroit plot was "pretty unserious," Yglesias declared. "And even if you did manage to blow up an airplane in mid-air, that would be both a very serious crime and a great tragedy, but hardly a first-order national security threat."

Yet another influential writer on the Left, the blogger Glenn Greenwald, mocked "hysteria" over the Detroit incident and said such an uproar "inevitably happens to a citizenry that is fed a steady diet of fear and terror for years. It regresses into pure childhood." A truly tough approach to terrorism wouldn't stir such infantile anxieties, Greenwald said.

It's hard to imagine an attitude more out of touch with the public's concerns. And yet that kind of thinking is precisely what animated Obama's initial reaction to the Detroit attack.

By New Year's Eve, however, Obama and his team knew they had mishandled matters. Not only had Obama remained silent for too long, but he mischaracterized al Qaeda soldier Abdulmutallab as an "isolated extremist" in another apparent attempt to downplay the seriousness of the attack.

By Sunday, the White House sent top counterterrorism adviser John Brennan on a tour of the Sunday talk shows -- Fox, NBC, ABC, CNN -- to do damage control. Brennan belatedly stressed that the White House took Abdulmutallab, Yemen, al Qaeda, air safety -- the whole range of issues -- very, very seriously.

But Brennan's talking points could not undo one fact. On Dec. 25, Americans saw Barack Obama's carefully considered initial response to a serious terrorist incident. And it left them worried not only about the threat itself, but Obama's ability to handle it.

Obama To Send Reinforcements To Al-Qaeda

At least a dozen former Guantánamo Bay inmates have rejoined al-Qaeda to fight in Yemen, The Times (UK) has learned, amid growing concern over the ability of the country’s Government to accept almost 100 more former inmates from the detention centre.

Obama promised to close the Guantánamo facility by January 22, a deadline that he will be unable to meet. The 91 Yemeni prisoners in Guantánamo make up the largest national contingent among the 198 being held.

Six prisoners were returned to Yemen last month. After the Christmas Day bomb plot in Detroit, US officials are increasingly concerned that the country is becoming a hot-bed of terrorism. Eleven of the former inmates known to have rejoined al-Qaeda in Yemen were born in Saudi Arabia. The organization merged its Saudi and Yemeni offshoots last year.

The country’s mountainous terrain, poverty and lawless tribal society make it, in the opinion of many analysts, a close match for Afghanistan as a new terrorist haven.

Continue reading here . . .

The fact that Obama is letting a political decision, to close Camp delta, endanger Americans and enable terrorists, clearly demonstrates that Barack Obama is not working in the best interests of the American People -- anyone surprised?

Obama's Orders Enabled 2009 Domestic Terror Attacks

Flopping Aces is reporting that an anonymous State Department employee, talking to The American Spectator about Flight 253 and underwear bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab:

This employee says that despite statements from the Obama Administration, such information [that Abdulmutallab had been banned from Britain] was flagged and given higher priority during the Bush Administration, but that since the changeover "we are encouraged to not create the appearance that we are profiling or targeting Muslims."

If this statement is accurate, it makes Obama directly responsible for Abdulmutallab’s success in spiriting a bomb aboard Flight 253, and the statement is easily believable, given STRATFOR’s report last June about intelligence agencies being ordered to stop investigating Black Muslims:

Several weeks ago, STRATFOR heard from sources that the FBI and other law enforcement organizations had been ordered to "back off" of counterterrorism investigations into the activities of Black Muslim converts.

This was just before 23 year old Black Muslim convert Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad shot two soldiers at an Army recruiting station in Little Rock. The FBI had opened an investigation of Muhammad after he returned from Yemen with a phony Yemeni passport, yet he was apparently off the radar screen when he murdered one soldier and critically wounded another. Obama’s "back off" order may well have contributed to Muhammad having a free hand.

In the Fort Hood case, our intelligence agencies intercepted Major Nidal Hasan’s discussions with top al Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki about killing American soldiers, then they stopped investigating on the grounds that mere discussion is protected free speech:

U.S. officials now confirm Hasan sent as many as 20 e-mails to Awlaki. Authorities intercepted the e-mails but later deemed them innocent or protected by the first amendment.

Continue reading here . . .

Treating Terrorists Like Citizens And Citizens Like Terrorists

KT McFarland says that with the Detroit bomber we now have a clear pattern that reveals how Obama deals with terrorists -- try them in civilian courts with the full rights of American citizens.

When the young Mr. Abdulmutulib got off the plane in Detroit he had started talking to the FBI. He told them there were more like him -- that is, Yemeni trained suicide bombers -- coming to America. But once we granted him Miranda rights, he got him lawyered up and clammed up. Does Abdulmutullab know who the next terrorist attacker is, where he’ll strike, what weapons he will use? Now, we’ll never know. Yet Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano was quick to claim the "system worked."

Attorney General Eric Holder has decided to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept 11 attacks, in public civilian courts -- even though the evidence gathered against him might be thrown out of court, his testimony gives Al Qaeda a propaganda platform, and the trial presents a irresistible target for suicide bombers.

Obama remains committed to closing Gitmo and releasing some of the prisoners to Yemen, though previous Gitmo "grads" have returned to Al Qaeda, rather than join the Yemen Rotary Club.

And Team Obama remains so committed to political correctness that they refuse to use profiling to identify potential terrorists.

Contrast this to the way they’re treating three Navy SEALs who succeeded in capturing an Iraqi terrorist. They’ve been court-martialed for giving the terrorists a bloody lip.

Obama believes that many of the ills besetting America are the result of Bush administration policies and if we reverse course and apologize and are deferential enough, those ills will disappear. So far, it’s not working. Meanwhile, Al Qaeda has spread its tentacles to new countries, recruitment is up and they’re sending a new wave of suicide bombers to attack us.

Obama is treating terrorists like citizens and citizens like terrorists. It’s not working -- it’s not making us safer -- and it’s time to stop.

All Major Taliban Leaders Are Gitmo Grads

The Chicago Sun-Times is reporting that U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.) said, "All of the major leaders of the Taliban in the south of Afghanistan are former Gitmo releasees -- all of them."

That is among the things the U.S. Naval Reserve Intelligence officer learned on his holiday deployment to Afghanistan, he told an audience at Chicago’s Union League Club Thursday.

Kirk said NATO Major Gen. Michael T. Flynn told him, "Tell the people back home this: that not only are the people being released from Guantanamo and rejoining Jihad against the United States and our allies in Afghanistan, but the Gitmo detainees are they hardest nut to crack...their status as someone who was at Gitmo makes them instant leaders."

"I would urge the administration to stop all further releases from Guantanamo because otherwise they enter our battlespace."

Kirk’s position as a congressman and a Naval Intelligence officer helps his status as the front-runner in Illinois’ Republican primary election for the U.S. Senate.

Kirk says 61 former Guantanamo prisoners have returned to fighting against U.S. forces.

He says they report to Abdul Qayum Zakir, also known as Abdullah Ghulam Rasoul, a 2008 Guantanamo releasee who Kirk called "the principal commander killing our forces in the south of Afghanistan." But an Obama administration official said, "We have been presented with no information that suggests that any of the detainees transferred by this administration have returned to the fight." But that doesn’t account for those such as Zakir released before this administration took office.

Related: Gitmo recidivism rate up to 20%, and surprise, surprise! Obama blames Bush.

If It's War, Obama, Act Like It

The New York Post reports that Obama finds himself facing a new headache -- Yemen. Indeed, by (finally) acknowledging, "We are at war against al Qaeda," he's guaranteed that even Yemen won't be the last stop, but let's start with Yemen, since Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) cleric Anwar al-Awlaqi is said to have advised both the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Malik Hasan, and the crotch-bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.

Like Afghanistan, Yemen's population is more loyal to family and tribe than to a weak central government, and like the Saudis, Yemen at times plays footsie with Islamists. Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, told Abu Dhabi TV yesterday that, yes, he'll fight terrorists who embrace violence, but he's also willing to negotiate with al Qaeda members who don't.

Indeed, also like Afghanistan, Yemen suffers from outside meddling by powerful neighbors. Iran and Saudi Arabia, for example, increasingly use it as grounds for a proxy war for regional domination, and add poverty (Yemen will soon become the first country in the world to run out of water), and the country is a perfect fit for al Qaeda.

However, the problem is actually regional. Peek from the Yemeni port of Bab el Mandab across the Red Sea strait, into Africa. Last year alone, 14 men from Minneapolis were indicted or pleaded guilty for recruiting young men to go to their ancestral homeland, Somalia, to be trained as terrorists.

Like Yemen, Somalia has suffered from decades of internal wars. Various factions are backed by the Saudis, the Iranians, the Ethiopians, the Eritreans, even the Yemenis -- assuring unending conflict. Al Qaeda's local franchise is called al-Shabab.

Other failed or soon-to-fail African states range from Djibouti in the east to Western Sahara -- a zone of trouble that ranges at least to Lebanon and Gaza. Among the neighbors that instigate wars in those countries, some are our allies (Ethiopia), some are foes (Iran), and some are both (Saudi Arabia). We can trust some local leaders, but mostly we have to rely on ourselves.

The administration has its eye on Africa. " Extremists from the Pakistan-Afghanistan border are going to Somalia, and there's a fear that the tentacles will spread from there into Northern Africa, into Europe," Obama's top anti-terror adviser, John Brennan, said at a press conference last week. In addition to AQAP, he named al-Shabab, al-Qaeda in East Africa and al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb as groups we must watch.

In short, Obama can't deliver the peace in our time so anxiously anticipated by his supporters. This struggle will last at least as long as the Cold War (and won't be as "cold," either).

But we can't send the Marines everywhere. First, for Brennan's "watching," we need increased budgets for intelligence gathering. As the above sketchy description indicates, quality reading by humans is essential if we want to understand the nuances of the alliances between terror groups and their supporters and how terrorism migrates from one region to another.

That means limited terror-combating budgets shouldn't be poured into things like shiny new inspection tools at airports or more bureaucracy, or ordering CIA satellites to watch glaciers melt. Instead, intelligence gathering in terror-infested hot spots must widen -- and be followed up as needed with strikes and longer campaigns by US troops.

Despite Obama's use of unmanned drones to assassinate top terrorists, his bias against clandestine operations by humans is a big problem. To succeed in this war, he'll have to reverse his focus: coddle officials his political allies have publicly tangled with (CIA Director Leon Panetta) and muzzle the likes of Attorney General Eric Holder, who's threatened lawsuits against our frontline warriors.

And since we can't have a major war against our enemies, we must embrace some of the tactics that Obama's fans unfairly dub "dirty," from toppling bad overseas actors to assassinations -- and be ready to fight small wars, too.

If we're at war, we have to act like it. Forget the kid gloves.

Another Flip-Flop From The Amateur In The White House

CommentaryMagazine.com has a few words to say about on Michael Isikoff's report in Newsweak:

Top administration officials are getting nervous that they may not be able to proceed with one of their most controversial national-security moves: trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and four other accused 9/11 conspirators in federal court in New York City. Last November Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. portrayed the trial as a way to showcase the American justice system to the world -- and to accelerate President Obama’s stalled plans to shut down the U.S. prison at Guantánamo Bay. But because of shifting political winds in Congress, the trial is now "potentially in jeopardy," a senior official, who did not want to be named talking about a sensitive situation, tells Newsweek. The chief concern: that Republicans will renew attempts to strip funding for the trial and, in the aftermath of the bombing attempt aboard Northwest Flight 253, pick up enough support from moderate Democrats to prevail.

It seems that Sen. Lindsay Graham and Rep. Frank Wolf will try to force votes in Congress to cut off funding for the trial. And one additional issue: the more than $200 million price tag for each year of the trial. The kicker: "If Holder’s plans are thwarted, though, one top administration official, who also didn’t want to be named talking about delicate issues, notes there is a Plan B -- reviving the case against the alleged 9/11 conspirators before a military tribunal, just as the Bush administration tried to do."

This would be a stunning turnaround, an admission of Holder’s irresponsibility and of the Justice Department’s loony leftism. But this, of course, was part and parcel of Obama’s personal vision and his "not-Bush" approach to the war against Islamic fascists. Obama spent his campaign and the first year of his presidency eschewing the Bush anti-terror policies -- employing enhanced interrogation techniques, maintaining Guantanamo, using military tribunals to prosecute terrorists -- and pronouncing that they represented a betrayal of "our values." He told us we’d rack up credit with … with whom was never quite clear, but we’d rack up credit. Those who sought to incinerate innocents or who were attracted to the words of Major Hassan’s favorite imam (or was it the European elites who give out prizes for such foolishness?) would, presumably, be impressed. And we’d lure the butchers of children and women out of their mindset by impressing them with the wonders of the federal criminal procedure.

But alas, that proved to be politically untenable and logistically difficult. We had three domestic terror attacks. Obama was hammered for his clueless reserve and the Keystone Kops response to the Christmas Day bombing. So now being "not Bush" doesn’t seem like such a good idea. It was born of arrogance and from a distorted view of the nature of our enemy. If Obama retreats on both this and Guantanamo, it will be a bitter pill for the Left and sweet vindication for those who kept us safe for seven and a half years after 9/11. But more important, it will be a step toward sanity in the administration’s national security policies. And should Obama and Holder feel the sting of humiliation if forced to abandon their plans to shutter Guantanamo and give KSM a propagandistic platform, the White House may find that a small price to pay to sync up its anti-terror policies with both reality and public opinion.

It's The Enemy, Stupid

Scott at PowerLine blog says Scott Brown's remarks at last night's victory celebration reiterated one of the winning themes of his campaign in a memorable fashion: "And let me say this, with respect to those who wish to harm us, I believe that our Constitution and laws exist to protect this nation -- they do not grant rights and privileges to enemies in wartime. In dealing with terrorists, our tax dollars should pay for weapons to stop them, not lawyers to defend them."

Obama's national security policy -- his treatment of enemy combatants as American citizens is indefensible. The case of Umar Abdulmutallab is a powerful example. The Obama administration has in fact put forth no principled defense of its endowment of enemy combatants such as Abdulmutallab with the rights of American citizens. Obama's irrationality on this point is obvious and devastating. Andrew McCarthy elaborates in, "It's the enemy, stupid."