Today, President Obama spoke at the National Archives regarding terrorism and former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke on the same topic shortly after.
The first thing to notice is that Obama was tardy. This brings back memories of the Clintons who were always late for their press briefings, press conferences, and anything else they did. Originally, Obama was scheduled to speak, and Cheney was scheduled to speak shortly after Obama finished his speech, although Cheney's was at a different location. This delay of Obama's was not lost on Cheney, so he just started his speech later so that he'd not intrude on the Obama's speech.
The second noticeable thing about Obama was that he chose to hold it at the National Archives where the Constitution and Bill of Rights are housed, which was political in choice, and that brings out more politics. The National Archives was in the news earlier this week when they discovered that sensitive material of the Clinton years went missing. Did Sandy Berger complete his period of probation where he lost his security clearance yet and where has he been between October and March?
The speeches were very close to each other in that Obama laid out his plans for the future with detainees and his plan to bring them to the United States, and Cheney who said they shouldn't be brought here among the American people and putting us at risk.
Obama did say again that Gitmo is creating more terrorists around the world, but that's an old argument that nobody has given any evidence or proof that it's a true statement. I fail to see how being a prisoner at Gitmo can lead one to want to terrorize Americans.
Cheney said that we waterboarded 3 terrorists, one of which was the planner of the September 11, 2001 attacks and that we gathered more information that prevented more attacks in this country possibly saving hundreds of thousands of lives.
One thing is for certain. Whatever the Bush/Cheney Administration did worked. We were not attacked again during the remainder of the Bush Administration. Why would anyone want to change success?
The liberals will and have come back and said that the attack on September 11, 2001 happened on Bush's watch. True. Seven months into the Bush Administration we were attacked and Bush was President. We also know that the attack was planned for five years. That's 4 years and five months under Clinton and 7 months under Bush before the plans came to fruition.
However, what happened the previous eight years? In 1993, the World Trade Center was bombed. Clinton's watch. The embassies were attacked in Africa. The Khobar Towers, the USS Cole. All under Clinton's watch. Why weren't we protected after the attack in 1993?
Regardless of how you cut it, the Bush administration protected this country for 7 1/2 years and Obama is dismantling some of those protections that Bush used during that time.
Obama keeps saying that we have to quit pointing fingers, and just move forward. Yet in his speech, he blamed the Bush administration 28 times.
Unfortunately, we will have to wait and see if we're really protected under Obama. There is one of two possible dates that we'll know if we're protected. The first date, and hopefully this date comes to pass, will be his last day in office. If we make it that far, I will have to admit that what he did, did protect us. Unfortunately, it's the other date that is unnerving because we don't know what that date will be, but it will be the day that the terrorists are sucessful again at attacking us.
We already know that many are converted to terrorism in prison when subjected to being locked up with terrorists. There is no evidence that Gitmo creates terrorists. Just political words from politicians tell us that.
We also know that if we bring the detainees to this country to be tried in our courts, that they will gain rights of due process that they are not entitled to when outside the country as enemy combatants. They are not soldiers, so we can't classify them as POW's.
One last irony. On the very day of these two speeches, when Obama says that he'll have them locked up in maximum security prisons, the first detainee was brought to this country from Guantanamo Bay for a trial in this country. The detainee? He was Usama bin Ladens body guard.
Didn't Obama also release one of the terrorists that led the attack on the USS Cole killing our sailors? Obama seems to be taking a successful program that has kept us safe since September 11, 2001 and playing political games with it. Perhaps he should put a little placard on his desk that he'll see each time he looks up that says, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
You're welcome to comment.
Brett
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