Posted by
Patrick Henry on Thursday, May 21, 2009 10:15:04 PM
Today we heard speeches by President Barack Obama and former Vice President
Dick Cheney on the topic of national security. The most interesting thing about the
speeches was how much they focused on the past, Obama attacking and Cheney
defending. Now there are undoubtedly Americans who still want either retribution
or vindication regarding alleged wrongdoings by people in the Bush administration.
But I suspect that most Americans are far more concerned about what will keep us
safe going forward. All we got on that front was glittering generalities and very few
specifics. Obama is a fine speaker. But if you asked me whether I feel a little safer
after listening to him today, I'd have to reply in the negative.
He clearly intends to proceed with the closure of Guantanamo Bay, symbolic
gesture though it is. His breakdown of the detainees there into five categories
and his assurance that no one has ever escaped from a U.S. supermax prison were
neither new or especially reassuring. Mostly, he spent the time whining about the
"mess" he'd inherited and castigating the former administration (36 times, if I
counted correctly). While that may have played well to his leftist base of psychotic
Bush haters it did little to explain what concrete steps he will take to keep the
nation as safe as it proved to be after 9/11. Since Obama won't order the release
of CIA records showing just what was learned through "enhanced interrogation"
we'll never really know if it was helpful. Obama wants us to take his word for it
that it wasn't. He didn't tell us how he will obtain similar information.
He seemed to wander afield with his claim that enemy soldiers will now eagerly
surrender to us because they know they will be better treated than if they returned
to their superiors. Hmmmm! He forgets that the Taliban and al Qaeda are not
"soldiers" in the classical sense. The fight according to no laws, codes or rules,
wear no uniforms, fly no flag, represent no country or government and seem to
have no compunction at all about killing or using as human shields innocent
civilians. And there is no record of which I am aware of mass executions of their
own fighters by these groups. These are fanatics driven by insane hatred of the
west and misguided religious fanaticism. It strains the credibility that they are
going to lay down their arms in significant numbers just because Obama promises
not to torture them.
There is no inkling of a plan as to what to do with detainees who cannot be tried
but clearly pose a danger to this country. Worse, there seems to be no forethought
regarding what to do with future detainees captured in Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Are we going to dispatch 100,000 FBI agents to do criminal investigations into each,
bring them all back, try them in American courts and hold them in our prison system?
And even if that were feasible (not even close), how much would it cost?
It is the sheer recklessness of making extreme commitments out of loathing for the
past without substantial planning with regard to how to accomplish the same result
by different means that is making even members of Obama's own party nervous. A
much better speech would have said, "Here's what we're going to do differently, and
here's why it will work better." It wasn't there, and it underscores the amateurism in
play at today's White House. We can only hope they can figure it out before we find
ourselves digging out of the rubble from another ground zero. When they do, you
might be suprised just how much the future resembles the past.