Mr. Cheney's War Belongs to Mr. Obama Now

It may have taken almost two weeks after the Christmas Day terror attack, marked initially by three days of total silence from Obama’s “Hawaiian” White House, a number of rounds of golf and a few trips to get ice cream, but the President finally seems to have morphed into Commander-in-Chief. On Thursday, January 7, President Obama declared, “We are at war. We are at war with Al Qaeda. And we will do whatever it takes to defeat them.” President Obama is, at least in these words, facing the reality that what we face in Iraq and Afghanistan, and now on the Arabian Peninsula, is war. It is not an exercise in “overseas contingency operations”, in response to “man-caused disasters.”

Since March of 2009, when the Obama Administration made it known to the Pentagon that Bush Administration language such as “global war on terror” would no longer be used, the Administration has gone to great lengths to be the “anti-Bush” on all matters, especially those involving issues of national security. While credit should be given to the Obama Administration for more troops and more drone attacks in Afghanistan and western Pakistan, the President makes these decisions with great difficulty. President Obama is willing to attack and kill Al Qaeda overseas, but he wants them to have all the rights of U.S. citizens if they are captured in this country. This makes no sense. Is it because of the pressure he is getting from the left wing of his Party? Is it because adoption of Bush Administration policies is repugnant to him? Is it because he would rather be Head-of-State instead of Commander-In-Chief? After all, no matter what you may think of the Bush Administration, it is undeniable that no domestic attacks followed the 9/11 attacks in the remaining seven years of his presidency; and it is possible and even probable that the policies put in place by the Bush Administration and the culture and intensity of the effort to fight the war on terror are what kept us safe.

President Obama has assumed responsibility for the “system failure” that allowed Abdulmutallab to board Northwest flight 253 to Detroit, but he still has given no clear signal that he understands the nature of the threat we face. A lack of leadership on his part in this fight was evident up to and during the Fort Hood massacre and again up to and in the aftermath of the “underpants bomber” attack. The President has filled his plate with massive domestic initiatives and a lot of travel to improve relations with nations around the world. He has been on a crusade of sorts to have all of humanity again love the United States and has relied on his own charisma to achieve this goal. His efforts to set the right tone and commitment as regards the fight with Al Qaeda have been benign at best.

While he took a step in the right direction on Thursday to characterize the threat in a way most Americans believe and understand, we will have to see whether President Obama backs his words with actions. As former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said, “The reality is, whether he likes it or not, we are at war with terrorists. They haven’t forgotten it. And if he recognizes we’re at war with terror, a lot of things follow from that. Are we really going to treat it as a war or is it just rhetoric?”

The Obama administration will need to decide whether they want to prosecute “suspects” after terror attacks (as we did in the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center) or whether instead they will harness all resources at our nation’s disposal to uncover these plots before they happen, kill the enemy who would harm us, and “protect and defend” the American people. It is not enough to outlast our terrorist adversaries; they must be stopped and destroyed. This cannot be an exercise in criminal justice. It is a matter of national priority. We face huge challenges at home. We have out-of-control government spending and a weak and fragile economy. But none of that really matters, if we are not safe and protected against those who would do us harm.

While an earlier column for CenterMovement.org indicated that former Vice President Cheney needs to be reminded that seriousness of intent does not pivot on semantics, President Obama needs to know that words alone are not sufficient for the effort required to defend the United States and destroy her enemies. The most important job the President has is that of Commander-in-Chief, to defend and protect both the Constitution and the American people. What the Christmas Day attack shows is that this administration has not addressed this threat with the sufficient urgency and commitment it deserves. Critics of the Administration point out that while there is a level of incompetence in the handling of this terrorist attack (as in DHS Secretary Napolitano saying “the system worked”), there is equal concern that the Administration lacks sufficient comprehension of the threat. As Charles Krauthammer notes, “Obama goes abroad and pledges to cleanse America of its post-9/11 counterterrorist sins. Hence, Guantanamo will close, CIA interrogators will face a special prosecutor, and Khalid Sheik Mohammed will bask in a civilian trial in New York…a trifecta of political correctness and image management.” This is not a serious way to wage war on a group who declared jihad in Osama bin Laden’s 1998 fatwa against the United States. The war was declared not just because we had military bases in Saudi Arabia (which we no longer do) or because of the sanctions against Iraq (which obviously are no longer in place) but because the United States represents “modernity with its individual liberty, social equality (especially for women) and profound tolerance (religious, sexual, philosophical)”, observes Krauthammer. The Obama administration’s desire to fight this battle as a criminal pursuit is fraught with problems. Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, the would-be “underpants” bomber had reportedly begun to talk about his training and his contacts with Al Qaeda, but stopped once he was “Miranda’ized” by Eric Holder’s Justice Department and “lawyered” up. He now sits in a federal prison facility near Detroit. The United States is not able to extract any further information from him. We do not know whether there are parallel threats underway. The Administration may pat itself on the back and say that our treatment of Abdulmutallab demonstrates how fair and just the American judicial system is, but does anyone really believe that our enemies care?

Our humane treatment of these terrorists on our soil is not going to prevent them from continuing to plot to attack us. Al Qaeda does not care about justice. They don’t care that a law enforcement approach may show America to be “the shining city upon a hill”. If they did, would they have beheaded Daniel Pearl? Would they have shot and hung the contractors on the bridge outside Fallujah, Iraq? Would they continue with attacks in Iraq and Afghanistan that harm not only American military personnel, but also innocent men, women and children? Al Qaeda doesn’t care if America reasserts its moral authority.

Al Qaeda has declared war on the United States and on its values. They mean to destroy us. A war on terrorism will be long. It will be difficult. It is the existential struggle of our time. While President Obama may wish the war is over, and may be shocked and angered by the wake-up call his administration received on Christmas day, the facts are right in front of us. Al Qaeda is still at war with us. And the new front on the war on terror is Yemen.