Big Time Throws Down The Gauntlet

One of the most unsung and underappreciated accomplisments of the Bush Administration was that they succeeded in preventing any sequels to 9/11 on American soil or against U.S. interests anywhere else in the world for over seven years.  One of the most unsung and underappreciated - and, yes, greatest - vice presidents in American history went out of his way to tell the Politico just exactly why there were no such sequels, and what will happen if that package of counter-terror policies is ousted in favor of a return to the weak-assed policies that gave us the Khobar Towers attack, the '98 African embassy bombings, the USS Cole attack, and 9/11 in the first place:

Former Vice President Dick Cheney is blasting the fledgling administration of Barack Obama, arguing that its policies dealing with terrorism and international foes are naïve and dangerous, making it all the more likely that terrorists will succeed in their next attempt at killing Americans, according to a report in Politico.

Simply by closing Guantanamo Bay’s detention camp for terrorists, Cheney said, Obama inadvertently will aid enemies eager to make another attack on the United States. Another major attack on this country — perhaps even using biological or nuclear materials — is very likely in the next few years, Cheney said.

“I think there’s a high probability of such an attempt,” Cheney said. “Whether or not they can pull it off depends whether or not we keep in place policies that have allowed us to defeat all further attempts, since 9/11, to launch mass-casualty attacks against the United States.”

As with the economic "stimulus" BS, this facts of this issue are not debatable.  A weak, conciliatory, pacifistic, reactive, "law enforcement" approach to the war on terror emboldens and strengthens Islamist terrorists and their state sponsors, like Iran, who are building nuclear weapons, and breeds ever more direct and horrific attacks.  We saw it throughout the Clinton years, culminating in the 9/11 attacks.  Whereas treating it as a war, launching military campaigns of liberation against terror-supporting states (Operations Enduring and Iraqi Freedom), and taking the tough, hardheaded, realistic homeland security steps necessary to prevent terrorist infiltration (Patriot Act) and communication (NSA Terrorist Surveillance Program) and financing (SWIFT program), prevents major attacks and neutralizes transnational terror networks like al Qaeda, like Hezbollah, like Hamas, as anything other than minor, local nuisances.

Big Time summed it up thusly:

“The United States needs to be not so much loved as it needs to be respected. Sometimes, that requires us to take actions that generate controversy....

“If it hadn’t been for what we did — with respect to the terrorist surveillance program, or enhanced interrogation techniques for high-value detainees, the Patriot Act, and so forth — then we would have been attacked again,” he said. “Those policies we put in place, in my opinion, were absolutely crucial to getting us through the last seven-plus years without a major-casualty attack on the U.S.”

Protecting the country’s security is “a tough, mean, dirty, nasty business,” he said. “These are evil people. And we’re not going to win this fight by turning the other cheek.”

No attacks against the U.S. at home or abroad since 9/11.   It is undeniable.  And when we get hit again even worse - a plague attack in Houston, a radiological attack in Chicago, a suitcase nuke in Washington, D.C., a mass conventional subway bombing in New York - it will be as a direct result of Barack Obama returning to the weak, conciliatory, pacifistic, reactive, "law enforcement" approach to the war on terror that raised al Qaeda to the level of national security threat in the first place.

And unlike President Bush, who never publicly blamed his predecessor (even though Sick Willie was very much to blame) but set about the business of making sure such an attack never happened again on his watch, you can count on Red Barry doing just the opposite to try and save his worthless political ass while We, The People bury our dead - and prepare for sequels.