Monday, October 3, 2011

Barack Obama: National Security President?

It sure seems like we’ve been killing a lot of key Al Qaeda figures lately including yesterdays killing of the American born Anwar al-Awlaki. At the risk of inciting a hornets nest, Barack Obama is developing quite a mantle of national security successes that any Republican president would relish being able to run an election campaign upon. No candidate currently in the Republican field can boast anywhere near the national security resume of President Obama.

It strikes one as odd that all these terrorists are suddenly being blown away with precision and regularity over the last few months, while for seven years we fought the vaunted War on Terror and though there were successes, never netted the biggest fish.

 There are two potential explanations. 1. Terrorists are becoming horrendous at hiding out or 2. Our intelligence has gotten much better. The latter explanation is probably much more likely. But this recent spate of success is baffling because many of these terrorists are exactly where people have been screaming they’d be for years.

Maybe there were different priorities within different administrations and I’m not a fan of conspiracy theories and the like. But I don’t grasp how we can put so much emphasis on terrorism in one administration with uncertain results, while in another we’re having a flood of terrorist casualties.

Unfortunately for President Obama, he will either be reelected or dismissed on the strength of the economy.

No comments:

Post a Comment