With the killing of Osama bin Laden, a significant strategic and symbolic blow was dealt to al-Qaeda and its network of affiliated terrorist organizations. The cache of intelligence obtained during the raid on bin Laden’s compound revealed the terrorist mastermind to be an active and integral player in the engineering of al-Qaeda’s ongoing attempts to wreak havoc against the West. The long-term implications of having killed bin Laden are no doubt favorable to the ongoing efforts of the United States and our allies to contain and eradicate the jihadi threat. …
Taking down Osama bin Laden was an achievement resulting from a culmination of a decade of national security policy. Soft power and diplomacy helped along the way, but it was hard power and military might that made it possible. President George W. Bush put the correct policies in place, including the PATRIOT Act, Gitmo and increased intelligence gathering. President Barack Obama was wise to continue executing many of the same strategies. Here are the main reasons we were able to take him out. #1. We Invaded Afghanistan. Anyone who is …
It’s difficult to know how to react to the ‘new’ TSA security rules announced by the Obama Administration. On one hand, the good news is that the Administration is abandoning the silly process put in place after the Christmas Day plot of targeting 14 suspicious countries for secondary inspection. Any terrorist with half a brain would recognize that this is easily avoidable by simply flying through another country, not on the list. However, the Administration has announced that its new policy would involve “surgically targeting” terrorists on “characteristics of suspected …
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) today swung hard against a public-relations campaign by the Obama Administration to clean up its tattered image over its handling of the war on terrorists, and especially Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. In a major address at The Heritage Foundation, McConnell gave a point-by-point refutation of all of the administration’s failures in this area, from the decision to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay to the botched attempt to try some terrorists in New York. But McConnell took special aim at the administration …
Earlier today the White House promised a “shocking” report on the intelligence failures leading up to the aborted Christmas Day bombing and an address by the President directly from the White House. Neither the report nor the President’s remarks told us much new nor anything particularly shocking. It was pretty clear from the outset that government screwed up big time. It is hard to be in awe of an administration that seems to behind the rest of us. Likewise, the President’s laundry list of remedies seem like cold comfort. Trying …
Yesterday’s address by President Obama on the Christmas Day plot was filled with lots of “well-duh” information that Americans already knew. The fact that the government failed to do its job isn’t much of a revelation. But the one message that was clearly communicated to the American public, in both yesterday’s speech and other White House press junkets, is that President Obama thinks the “system”—the one used to stop terrorists in the United States is flawed. Translation: the Bush Administration’s counterterrorism efforts didn’t work, aren’t we lucky that the Obama …
According to the LA Times, John Brennan, the senior Obama counterterrorism official, declared there was “no smoking gun” in the Christmas Day Detroit bound bombing. Putting aside the frantic phone calls from the father — pardon me, Mr. Brennan, but that’s a big deal. There was no smoking gun found after Pearl Harbor or 9/11. There is almost never a smoking gun. There was no smoking gun in 26 of the 28 terrorist attacks foiled by the US since 9/11 (Abdulmutallab and Richard Reid were stopped by dumb luck). We …
Last year Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.) inserted language into the fiscal 2008 intelligence authorization bill forcing the National Intelligence Council to issue a report on the national security implications of climate change. This Wednesday the NIC released its report, and liberals in Congress got the all the lazy alarmist headlines they wanted all along. None of the articles published in the major papers mentioned that the NIC issued the report with “low to medium confidence” or that no clandestine intelligence was used. The Corner‘s Rich Lowry reports that when Intelligence …
House Democrats continued to block passage of a terrorist surveillance bill today, rejecting a measure by Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) to add the Senate-passed FISA bill to the fiscal 2009 Intelligence authorization bill. The amendment was defeated by one vote in the House Intelligence Committee, the latest proof that the Senate bill would pass the House if Speaker Nancy Pelosi allowed it to come to the House floor. Congress let emergency surveillance powers lapse more than 80 days ago. Rep. Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), the committee’s top Republican, said it …
It has now been 22 days since the House of Representatives asked for a 21-day extension to pass legislation that would bring U.S. intelligence law into the 21st century. This is on top of the 15 days they asked for and were granted on Feb. 1. In total the House has had 214 days since the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act was temporarily reformed on Aug. 5, 2007, to prove to the American people that they are serious about national security. We are still waiting. Director of National Intelligence Mike …
