Are Americans safer now that George Bush is history and President Barack Obama is completing his first year of “change”?
We continue to have two wars. The primary difference between now and then is that Obama has given the enemy in Afghanistan notice that we plan to begin withdrawing troops by a certain date. That is a violation of the unchanging principles of warfare. You never tell an enemy that you are going to stop fighting before you achieve victory. This action will cost lives and make success less likely.
Let’s compare the facts on domestic terrorism. After the attacks of Nine-Eleven, there were no successful attacks on American soil resulting in loss of life in the United States during the remaining Bush years. Government agents preempted several potential incidents before they could be carried out. The Bush Administration kept Americans safe on American soil for the remainder of his eight years in office.
Since the inauguration of Barack Obama in January 2009, two successful terrorist attacks have been carried out resulting in the death of Americans in this country and an attempted attack on an aircraft approaching Detroit, Michigan, was foiled by airline passengers on Christmas Day. Failures of government security measures allowed the incident to occur.
The Obama Administration has refused to acknowledge terrorist attacks, referring to terrorism as criminal acts instead. Profiling of likely terrorists by security personnel is forbidden.
The first terrorist attack on American soil during the Obama Administration’s tenure was the murder of a US Army Recruiter by an Islamic radical earlier this year. The administration barely acknowledged the incident and refused to acknowledge it was a terrorist attack.
The second attack was the murder of 14 people including an unborn child and severely wounded dozens of others at Ft. Hood, Texas. This attack was planned and carried out by an Islamic radical US Army Psychiatrist whose ties to terrorists had been virtually ignored by the Obama Administration Justice and Defense Departments.
The first statement made by an Administration spokesman was that the Fort Hood incident was not a terrorist act. The opposite is the undeniable truth. This imbedded terrorist planned and carried out an ambush on defenseless fellow soldiers and civilians at a medical processing facility at Fort Hood.
The incident on Christmas Day was carried out by a third lone terrorist who had access to sophisticated explosive material that was sewn into his underwear and set off by adding a second ingredient. Fortunately he was unable to get the ingredients to explode but instead caused a fire. Extinguishers were used to prevent damage other than burns to the terrorist.
The Nigerian man who attempted to destroy the plane and its passengers reportedly claimed to be acting on orders of al-Qaida. The terrorist attempted to set-off his bomb as Northwest Airlines Flight 253 carrying 278 passengers from Amsterdam prepared to land in Detroit. For the first time, the White House said the incident appeared to be an act of terrorism. Later in the day, the father of the accused terrorist issued a statement saying he had informed the US Embassy in Nigeria that his son had become radicalized. Apparently no action was taken to investigate the individual or prevent him from boarding an aircraft heading for the United States.
Had it not been for alert passengers on flight 253 all 278 of them would likely have perished in this attempted act of Islamic terrorism.
Security by the US Government failed in every respect. The US Embassy in his country was notified by the father of the young man that he had turned radical. They took no action to monitor his activities. Using a US Visa he boarded a US Airline with explosives, was allowed to sit in the seat located over the largest fuel tank to do the most damage and would have succeeded if not for failure of his device to explode and quick action by passengers.
Innocent elderly grandmothers can expect more hassle and searching at the airport, but we can no longer assume the US Government will provide safety from terrorists.