Tuesday, January 31, 2012

Is President Obama's Counterterrorism Policy Wrong?

President Barack Obama leaves a presidential coin at the gravesite of 19-year-old Medal of Honor recipient, Specialist Ross McGinnis, who is one of two Medal of Honor recipients memorialized at Arlington Cemetery from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The President was at Arlington Cemetery to give Veterans Day remarks, November 11, 2009. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

Drones Are Not Enough -- Reuel Marc Gerecht, Weekly Standard

Getting counterterrorism policy wrong.

Has Barack Obama been a good counter-terrorist president? On the left, and even on the right, we usually hear a resounding “yes”: Obama has maintained, sometimes amplified, the programs that really keep us safe (predator drones, expansive use of domestic intercepts, unsavory intelligence liaison relationships, and rendition). Some on the left may be disturbed by the president’s actions, but their moral indigestion is contained by the belief that Obama is still better than George W. Bush. And after SEAL Team Six went for the kill in Abbottabad, the right posed few questions about the action, or the way the administration and the Central Intelligence Agency have characterized the supposedly diminishing al Qaeda threat in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The two leading Republican presidential nominees, Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich, aver that the president appears weak, especially to the regime in Tehran. But apart from highlighting how weak presidents tempt our enemies, they have not really questioned Obama’s counterterrorist credentials.

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My Comment: Drones may not be enough .... but politically .... in Washington .... they are good enough for now. Unfortunately .... my gut is telling me that in the future we are going to pay for this shortness of vision.

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