National Security is a Full-Time Job, Mr. President
Posted January 18th, 2010 at 11:36am in Ongoing Priorities, Protect America 
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Reuters today reports Somali pirates just released a captured tanker after getting a record-breaking ransom. Pirates may seem so “last year,” but they are as menacing as ever. More troubling, they have links to an al Qaeda affiliate in Somalia, which also has links to the terrorist group in Yemen that organized the Christmas Day bombing against a Detroit bound flight – part of a new “axis of evil” we need to worry about. Last year we wrote a comprehensive assessment of how to deal with the pirates. We concluded there were no quick and easy answers, but the practical things that could be done required concerted leadership.
Somali piracy is typical of the challenges the United States faces today. They are complicated, defy easy answers, and like Haiti, can leap to the headlines in a NY minute, but then required sustained leadership and commitment after the press has moved on.
It is hard to be a first rate national security president and not keep the issue on the front burner 24-7-365. Likewise, it’s difficult to keep to a realistic domestic agenda, one that supports – not supplants – the president’s responsibilities in “providing for the common defense.”
As the White House heads into the second year of the Obama era, they have to ask themselves if they have the balance right.
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3 Responses to “National Security is a Full-Time Job, Mr. President”
Whicket Williams Kingsbury, Tx on January 18th, 2010 at 11:36am said:
Obama thinks his job is to spend money and those around him are failing to correct his attitude. Somebody needs to help him understand what a presidents job is. It is not to spend money. he is spending more that 3 billion TODAY. new spending than yesterday. Somebody needs to STOP this NOW.
Lynn Bryant DeSpain on January 18th, 2010 at 11:36am said:
Our United States Marines were created to find and destroy the Muslim Pirates who were attacking and taking our ships for ransom. President Thomas Jefferson said, “Millions in aide, not one dime in tribute.” Then he sent in the Marines. They captured the pirates, dipped their bullets in pig’s blood and shot them dead on the firing wall.
This was how our Founding Fathers treated Terrorist, and this is how we should be doing it now, full time!
Bobbie Jay on January 18th, 2010 at 11:36am said:
National security? A full time job?
ooh, aahh, umm, gosh, you may be asking too much from THIS president?
hmm…. if it interferes with his vacation time? well, gosh, I don’t know?