Steve Luxenberg of The Washington Post previewed a new book by Bob Woodward called Obama’s Wars that revealed the process behind President Obama’s exit strategy for the Afghan war. It isn’t very flattering.
He didn’t listen to his military advisors. He crafted his own strategy based on what? His great foreign policy and military experience? Further evidence that he believes he is intellectually superior to those around him; playing to his narcissistic tendencies. I will give him credit for rejecting Vice President Joe Biden’s advice though. He also avoided talk of victory when outlining objectives – that reassures me. He rejected the military’s request for troops as “part of an expansive mission that had no foreseeable end.” (That’s likely because military commanders go by the situation on the ground, not timelines). Luxenberg writes about Obama’s attitude regarding terrorist threats.
During an interview with Woodward in July, the president said, "We can absorb a terrorist attack. We’ll do everything we can to prevent it, but even a 9/11, even the biggest attack ever . . . we absorbed it and we are stronger."
I could absorb a fall from my roof, but knowing that doesn’t give me any solace when I’m up on it. The whole point of taking the fight to our enemies is that we don’t have to. Under President Bush, post 9/11 and Anthrax attacks, we had seven years without any terrorist attack as they implemented their strategy, we don’t know how many terrorist attacks were prevented in that time. Under the Obama administration we have the Times Square Bomber and the Christmas “Underwear” bomber. Both of those attacks were stopped because of ineptness of the terrorists, not anything the Federal government did.
I had little confidence that President Obama’s administration could keep our homeland safe, and today I have even less.