Cheney strikes a nerve

With speculation about the culpability for the latest failed attempt by a terrorist, Dick Cheney spoke to Politico and charged that the current administration seems to be avoiding the fact that we’re at war with terrorists;

“[W]e are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe,” Cheney said in a statement to POLITICO. “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.”

That certainly is the way it appears. Obama set aside the war to focus on his domestic agenda this year – an agenda that seems to be failing, by the way. Anyway, the Administration took the time out to post on their blog about Cheney’s comments;

First, it’s important that the substantive context be clear: for seven years after 9/11, while our national security was overwhelmingly focused on Iraq – a country that had no al Qaeda presence before our invasion – Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda’s leadership was able to set up camp in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they continued to plot attacks against the United States. Meanwhile, al Qaeda also regenerated in places like Yemen and Somalia, establishing new safe-havens that have grown over a period of years. It was President Obama who finally implemented a strategy of winding down the war in Iraq, and actually focusing our resources on the war against al Qaeda – more than doubling our troops in Afghanistan, and building partnerships to target al Qaeda’s safe-havens in Yemen and Somalia. And in less than one year, we have already seen many al Qaeda leaders taken out, our alliances strengthened, and the pressure on al Qaeda increased worldwide.

Yes, that’s the way it happened – if you ignore all of the facts. Thank goodness that Obama started winding down the war in Iraq – his opposition to the surge probably help speed that along. When the administration can’t muster enough hyperbole, they call in Eugene Robinson Pulitzer Prize-winning dunce at the Washington Post to make unbelievably naive statements

…Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, was given training — and probably the bomb itself, which involved plastic explosives sewn into his underwear — by al-Qaeda operatives in Yemen. It happens that at least two men who were released from Guantanamo appear to have gone on to play major roles as al-Qaeda lieutenants in Yemen. Who let these dangerous people out of our custody? They were set free by the administration of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney.

Reminiscent of the Left blaming the first Bush Administration for not taking out Saddam Hussein and saddling the Clinton Administration with the problem. Robinson has been advocating for the release of Guantanamo detainees for half-a-decade – yet this bombing attempt was the Bush Administration’s fault. It’s as if they don’t realize that “Google” was invented.

Category: Barack Obama/Joe Biden, Media, Terror War, Usual Suspects