Posted by
Oscar De Los Santos and Kelly L. Goodridge on Monday, September 14, 2009 3:40:27 PM
By now, most of us have heard about the new Osama bin Laden tape which surfaced. In it, the al-Qaeda mastermind – or a clever imitator – calls President Barack Obama “powerless” to end the Afghan war (“Bin Laden Calls Obama ‘powerless’ in New Tape,” FOX News, September 14, 2009, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,549780,00.html). Whether the voice actually belongs to bin Laden isn’t as important as the challenging statement. The truth is that Obama isn’t powerless, but rather, that he’s chosen to water down the power of our American government and military to advance his foolish pacifist dreams. Foolish because nobody Obama tries to coddle pays attention to him. In fact, they regard his olive branches as a sign of weakness and ignore him. Foolish, also, because by continuing to project such wishy-washiness, Obama is putting the United States military – and indeed, all of America – in danger of future terrorist attacks.
A few weeks ago, we learned that captured Afghan terrorists were being read Miranda rights. Then last week, we heard that the rules of engagement in Afghanistan changed and that if any Afghan civilians are potentially at risk, American soldiers can’t attack the enemy. This new game plan has already cost us American lives.
We also heard that Obama is hamstringing our military from making headway in winning the war. According to Ralph Peters, “The classified status report from Afghanistan by Gen. Stanley McChrystal was censored by the White House before its submission. As a result it’s all buns and no burger. According to multiple (angry) sources, McChrystal – our top soldier on the ground – intended to ask for 28,000 more US troops. A presidential hatchet man directed the general not to make the request” (“O’s Afghan woes,” New York Post, September 3, 2009, http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/afghan_woes_J8JZ95su7y550Pqj1ddQ3I).
In other words, the president is using military strategists as figureheads and sending yes men to say no That’s some way to fight a war, isn’t it?
Yesterday’s Wall Street Journal features a powerful piece co-written by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Joe Lieberman (I/D-CT) and John McCain (R-AZ). They’ve assessed the war and think it’s winnable, but “we need more than the right team and the right strategy. This team must also have the resources it needs to succeed – including a significant increase in U.S. forces” (“Only Decisive Force Can Prevail in Afghanistan,” September 13, 2009, http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970203440104574404753110979442.html).
Given Obama’s track record, that surge is unlikely to happen anytime soon. If anything, he will continue to make it easier for the enemy to get away with literal murder.
To wit: there’s more reconfiguring in the works. According to yesterday’s New York Times, Afghan war detainees will be provided more power to challenge their imprisonment. What does this mean, exactly? Only that hundreds of Afghan prisoners can get in line and make it more difficult for the U.S. to win this war. Oh, and it’ll be a U.S. representative who will be helping to set free the enemy.
Each day we hear of another misstep by this novice community organizer turned president, from refusing to go tough on North Korea to re-thinking overseas missile defense bases to being diffident about Israel’s plight in the wake of Iran’s mounting nuclear capabilities.
The question naturally arises: why? Does Obama want to endanger us? Maybe Ralph Peters’ explanation of the president’s decision not to send more troops into Afghanistan provides us with the answer to all questions when it comes to Obama’s behavior in matters of foreign policy: “Worried about poll numbers, our president is making a bad situation worse. He’s given McChrystal the impossible mission of turning Afghan Flintstones into Jetsons, while starving him of means” (“O’s Afghan woes”).
Obama has never stopped campaigning. He’s constantly worried about image and his popularity ratings. The man is clearly on a mission to erect a historical monument to himself, the rest of us and his country be damned.
The trouble is that in the process of doing so, he’s leaving us vulnerable overseas and on our own soil. America may be closer to the world of the Jetsons than the Flintstones, but with regressive Obama at the helm, we can easily find ourselves living in Fred and Wilma’s Bedrock nation.