Terrorism is Alive and Well Again

President Bill Clinton and Terrorism 

During the Bill Clinton years from 1993-2001, there were numerous terrorist attacks against this country. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania, the World Trade Center, Oklahoma City, the USS Cole. These are just the well publicized ones like the Khobar Towers. I’d even include the TWA 800 flight that exploded just after take off as a terrorist attack, but that’s another topic for another time…maybe.

The World Trade Center attack took place just over a month after he took office. So a case could be made that having such a large event take place so soon after taking office could make him slow to react and improperly. However, I don’t believe it should. We have a transition take place from one President to the next when the election is over that begins virtually the next day and runs beyond the new President taking office. Presidents also have former Presidents to turn to for assistance or questions, privately or publically if needed. Clinton made the WTC attack a criminal matter rather than an act of war.

Americans died here and around the world during his eight years in office and other than prosecuting a few in the criminal courts, there was only one thing that Bill Clinton ever did as President. He threw a bomb into Afghanistan to try to kill bin laden at a training camp. He missed. Bin Laden was gone already. He also tossed a bomb at pharmaceutical company where a janitor was killed at the same time as the training camp bombing.

So President Bill Clinton did virtually nothing during his 8 years in office about terrorism. By contrast, George Bush took office in January 2001. The first days were filled with replacing computer keyboards that the outgoing staff had destroyed by taking out the W’s from the keyboards, and left the White House looking trashed.

President George W. Bush and Terrorism

Less than 8 months after taking office, this country suffered it’s worst attack on our own soil with the bombing of the World Trade Center where four commercial airliners were flown into, as well as into the Pentagon and the other failed to reach it’s target because of brave citizens that took the plane back from terrorists and crashed it in a field in Pennsylvania. Nearly 3,000 dead from these three places on the same day.

President Bush responded quickly and forcefully. Less than 30 days after the September 11, 2001 attack, on October 7, 2001, we started the aerial attack on Afghanistan. There were no attacks following that. There were attempts, but a combination of new policies and safety measures by the Bush administration and citizens more aware and willing risk their lives to thwart them stopped those attacks before they could succeed.

President Barack Obama and Terrorism

Now we have President Barack Hussein Obama. First terrorist attack was in June in Arkansas. One marine dead, one wounded. One terrorist is charged for a crime.

Another attack at Ft. Hood. 33 people dead or wounded. This one by a military officer that is Muslim and shouted Alihu akbar as he fired. He’s still awaiting trial.

Now we have September 11, 2012. Our embassy has been attacked. Our Ambassador has been killed along with three others. The day after the attack, President Obama said that acts of terror will not be tolerated but never said that this was a terrorist attack.

For the next ten days, the attack was chalked up to being a group of protestors and not an organized attack. The protestors were upset about a video put out in the United States. Susan Rice, the ambassador to the UN appeared on the talk shows saying it was due to a video while on some of the same programs, leaders in Libya, where the attack took place, were saying it was organized although they didn’t know for certain by whom, they suspected Al Queda.

Now it’s over a month later and we know it was organized and implemented by Al Queda operatives. We also know that there was a warning prior to the attack and we also know that the embassy had requested more security before the attack. Still, nothing has been done. It’s October 13, and nothing has been done.

In the debate recently between Vice President Biden and Congressman Paul Ryan, Biden said “we didn’t know “ that they wanted more security. This brings up another question. The State Department knew. That’s part of the administration headed up by Hillary Clinton, wife of former President Bill Clinton. But Biden says that neither he nor President Obama knew of the request for more security. Why didn’t they know? Wouldn’t that have been in the briefings? Doesn’t the State Department report to the White House?

The White House has blamed a video. Blamed the lack of knowledge and even tried to blame Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan. But, still, nothing has been done. Do they have a plan or is this just complete incompetence on the part of Obama?

We are in the midst of an election. Obama is falling in the polls and it’s looking more and more like Romney/Ryan could win this election. So what might happen? The administration has already been accused of cooking the books on the economy by bringing the unemployment rate down to 7.8% just in time for the election.

What could they do about this terrorist attack? Could they fire Hillary Clinton saying that her ambitions sabotaged the administration by not telling them of the additional security desired? Or, could they all of a sudden figure out where a large al queda camp is, send the bombers in and claim that they’ve killed or captured those responsible for the attack on the embassy?

We know that Clinton did next to nothing and treated terrorism as a criminal activity and attacks continued. We know that Bush fought back less than a month following the attack on 9/11/01, and there were no more attacks for eight years, and we know that Obama has treated terrorism as a criminal activity. Will his response be election driven or continued to be treated like a criminal activity? 

You’re welcome to comment.

Brett