Cheney Unleashed On The 9-10 Mindset; The Left Tries To Rewrite History

In the wake of the attempted Christmas Day bombing by would be jihadist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, Dick Cheney goes feral on the Obama administration over their 9-10 mindset. This from the Politico:

. . . Here is Cheney’s full statement:

"As I’ve watched the events of the last few days it is clear once again that President Obama is trying to pretend we are not at war. He seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gives terrorists the rights of Americans, lets them lawyer up and reads them their Miranda rights, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if we bring the mastermind of Sept. 11 to New York, give him a lawyer and trial in civilian court, we won’t be at war.

“He seems to think if he closes Guantanamo and releases the hard-core Al Qaeda-trained terrorists still there, we won’t be at war. He seems to think if he gets rid of the words, ‘war on terror,’ we won’t be at war. But we are at war and when President Obama pretends we aren’t, it makes us less safe. Why doesn’t he want to admit we’re at war? It doesn’t fit with the view of the world he brought with him to the Oval Office. It doesn’t fit with what seems to be the goal of his presidency — social transformation — the restructuring of American society. President Obama’s first object and his highest responsibility must be to defend us against an enemy that knows we are at war."

Cheney as ususal, is dead on point. As I posted the other day, the worst part of this is that now, the Obama administration, having bestowed constitutional rights on this would be jihadist and, concomitantly, having allowed him to lawyer up, our chances of getting actionable intelligence have dropped substantially. As I have written before, Obama's moral compass - the one he so ostentatiously points to at every opportunity - is faulty indeed. His first moral, ethical and Constitutional duty is to protect the U.S. Period.

But it was inevitable that some idiots on the left would crawl from under their slime encrusted rocks to blame Bush. And indeed, they appear today at Hotline On Call:

. . . While many Dems stay silent and let the WH lead the way, DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen and Rep. Eric Massa (D-NY) say the previous admin let down their guard.

"In general, we are facing the consequences of the Bush administration's failures to deal with al Qaeda," Van Hollen told Hotline OnCall. "The Republicans have no business in pointing fingers at the Obama administration on terrorism and national security."

"The Obama administration has been much more aggressive about going after al Qaeda than the Bush administration, which turned its focus from al Qaeda to Iraq," he added. The Obama admin has "been on the offense in places where the Bush administration had taken its eye off the ball."

Meanwhile, Massa has taken on ex-VP Dick Cheney, who he says is directly responsible for releasing the top al Qaeda figures in Yemen who aided and trained the Nigerian-born suspect.

"I would remind the American public that the apparent leaders of the al Qaeda cell in Yemen were 2 terrorists who were released by Vice President Cheney in secret. I think there's a level of accountability that has to be levied personally on the vice president," Massa said in an interview. "He is personally responsible for that."

Not since Stalin rewrote the history of the communist movement in Russia has there been such a blatant attempt at a historical rewrite. Or maybe not since the left tried to rewrite themselves out of the vote for the Iraq war. Hmmm, or maybe not since Pelosi tried to rewrite the history of her CIA briefings on waterboarding . . .? Well, whatever, let's deal with the historical rewrite being attempted at hand. As to the claim that the left has been far more "aggressively" going after al Qaeda," than the right ever has, that turns history on its head, pulls it inside out, runs it through a meat grinder and tosses it into an industrial strength trash compactor.

The U.S. Congress near unanimously voted for war authorization for Afghanistan and Iraq. Afghanistan fell and al Qaeda was all but driven out from there within months of 9-11. Iraq fell in weeks once the war started. It was a year and some months later when al Qaeda, at the top of their Muslim-wide popularity, explicitly made Iraq the centerpiece of their efforts. They wanted to drive America out of Iraq. In this, they were aided and abetted by the Democrats who did their absolute best to surrender to al Qaeda at whatever would have been the cosmic cost to our national security. Who can forget the Senate Majority Leader officially surrendering to al Qaeda after two bloody suicide bombings in April, 2007:



Obama himself was quite willing to see a genocide in Iraq if we would only surrender to al Qaeda there. We didn't - only because of George Bush. In the end, our military defeated al Qaeda in their theater of choice, Iraq. The al Qaeda brand was humiliated throughout the Middle East.

The Predator Drone strikes that Obama is now using to kill al Qaeda leaders didn't start in January 2009. That program began under Bush. Indeed, as near as I can tell, there is not a single new program undertaken by Obama to target al Qaeda. At any rate, in sum, for the utter scum on the left - those who placed a raw grab for political power over our national security - to now claim that they have always been the better guardians of our national security is to tell an obscene fairy tale.

As an aside, the reason al Qaeda is still extant - though very much near the ebb of its power - has everything to do with Bush AND Obama AND Congress down both aisles. Al Qaeda is as much an idea based on Salafism as it is a loose organization, and until that idea is altered, we are going to be playing whack-a-mole with al Qaeda whereever they can find a failed state to hide in. Nothing our government has done yet has addressed the toxin of Salafism spreading throughout the world on the backs of Saudi petrodollars. As I have said ad infinitum on this blog, our war against al Qaeda will continue ever on until we engage in the war of ideas.

Ok, back to Rep. Massa and his one semi-valid point in what is otherwise a massive steaming pile of bull excreata:

I would remind the American public that the apparent leaders of the al Qaeda cell in Yemen were 2 terrorists who were released by Vice President Cheney in secret.

It is true the Bush administration released these two "leaders" of the al Qaeda cell at issue - though the "in secret" bit is utterly ridiculous. It was well known at the time that the Bush administration were releasing Gitmo detainees who they thought no longer posed a threat and/or could be dealt with in their home countries. I hadn't, before today, heard a single Democrat object to that. This was an experiment that has worked in some cases, not in others. Apparently, the recidivism rate has been about 15%.

The two men Massa refers to, Said Ali Shari and Muhamad Attik al-Harbi, were released from Gitmo to Saudi Arabia in 2007. The Saudis promised to detain them until they were rehabilitated. Shari was "rehabilitated," then went to Yemen to become a leader of the al Qaeda cell there. Al-Marbi, though named by Massa and initially thought to have done the same, in fact was no longer involved with the Yemeni al Qaeda cell.

Why were these men - and indeed - anyone in Guantamo ever released? We always had the option to keep every Guantamo detainee under permanent detention until the end of hostilities. That, by 2006, is what had every leftwing nut near a microphone going into full moonbat mode, accusing the Bush administration of everything from violating the Constitution to committing war crimes. Indeed, it is this same group of moonbats that had, until about yesterday, planned to send close to 100 Gitmo grads to Yemen in the coming weeks so that they can close Gitmo at all costs. Where is Massa on that one? Need anyone ask?

But no matter. The real problem is the 9-10 mindset, as Cheney points out. And whether Gitmo-grad Shari took part in the planning of the Christmas bombing or not is merely a collateral attack on Cheney. It has nothing to do with whether Cheney's criticims of Obama are valid. They are.