What a difference nine years makes

My memories of 9/11/2001 are as crystal-clear as the weather that day. I remember every detail of that morning. I remember my shock and horror, and the seething anger that came later.

I remember, too, the brief period of political unity that followed. With the horrors of that day so fresh in everyone's mind, there was little disagreement that we were, in fact, at war. We knew that this would be a war like no other, one without geo-political boundaries or even a clearly defined end.

But predictably, that didn't last long. As the Bush administration responded first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, the Left saw political opportunity in the president's handling of the ineptly-named "War on Terror". Outside of Afghanistan, everything Bush did was wrong in their eyes. Iraq? Wrong. Gitmo? Wrong. Intercepts of calls placed to terror suspects overseas? Wrong. Just two years after 9/11, Lefty icon Michael Moore told his fans "there is no terrorist threat". Everything was framed by the Left as an indictment of George W. Bush's evil intentions around the world.

So here we are, nine years later and 20 months into Barack Obama's presidency. The Obama administration is desperately trying to return to the pre-9/11 school of thought, treating global Islamist terrorism as a simple law enforcement matter. With each new attempt by radical Islamists to commit mass murder of Americans (last Christmas Day's attempted knickerbomber, the failed Times Square bombing, the too-successful Ft. Hood shootings), we're assured by our betters on the Left that these are just lone nutcases. They're not really representative of Islam. It's all cool now. As for Afghanistan - the theater of operations the Left considered far too important to divert resources to Iraq - well, never mind that now. Let's just leave Afghanistan to the tender mercies of the Taliban and al Qaeda.

A dark running joke following 9/11 went something like this: "Why did radical Muslims kill 3,000 Americans? Because they couldn't kill all 300 million of us." Never forget that if they could, they would.

Will he or won't he?

The burning question ahead of the President's address on Iraq tonight is whether he'll credit his predecessor George W. Bush with any of the undeniable success in Iraq. The word from Obama's spokescritter is that the President will phone Bush before the address, but there's no telling what that means.

Obama's in a real tough spot with this, one he enthusiastically made himself:

If he doesn't credit Bush at all, he implicitly takes credit for policies and strategies he previously (and repeatedly) said would not and did not work.

If he does give Bush any credit, it's an admission that if it had been up to him, Iraq would be in a complete shambles with the US watching helplessly from afar.

Either option provides ample fodder for his political opponents to pummel him.

Three men, three pictures

Posted without further comment:

Via e-mail from my friend AB.

Reuters: Good thing for Haiti Bush no longer president

It amazes me how deep and enduring is the Bush hatred in the media. Since no amount of mental gymnastics can link George Bush to the earthquake in Haiti, Reuters has to content itself with singing hallelujahs that Bush isn't around to handle the American relief efforts.

The administration urgently sought to show it had learned from the mistakes of Obama's predecessor, who was criticized for the initial U.S. response to a tsunami disaster in south Asia in 2004 and for his handling of Hurricane Katrina's onslaught on the U.S. Gulf Coast in 2005.

The White House also took pains to show Obama was staying on top of events, in contrast to Bush, widely seen as detached as Katrina battered New Orleans for days more than five years ago.

So on top is Obama that he spent the whole day yesterday talking health care reform with Democratic cronies.

Actually, I don't recall any real criticism over the US response to the tsunami in 2004. Sure, other countries will always bitch that we don't do enough while they themselves do nothing, but we're used to that.

Senate Tora Bora report: A politically-timed hit piece

The Democrat-controlled Senate Foreign Relations Committee is set to release a report [PDF format] tomorrow on the failure to capture Osama bin Laden at Tora Bora in December 2001. The report aims to place blame for the failure directly on Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and theater commander at the time, Gen. Tommy Franks. Indirectly, the clear intent is to implicate former President George Bush in the failure.

The report details events and command decisions made during the December 2001 battle at Tora Bora during which "...it was clear that Osama bin Laden was within our grasp" and criticizes the decision not to insert a massive force in the area to capture or kill bin Laden. I agree, to a large extent, with those criticisms, more for the psychological message killing or capturing Bin Laden would have sent than for the long-term strategic importance of doing so. I disagree completely with the reports conclusions of the consequences of that failure.

The final section of the report beginning on page 19, titled The Price of Failure claims that failing to close the book on bin Laden is the reason we're still in Afghanistan today.

Osama bin Laden’s demise would not have erased the worldwide threat from extremists. But the failure to kill or capture him has allowed bin Laden to exert a malign influence over events in the region and nearly 60 countries where his followers have established extremist groups. History shows that terrorist groups are invariably much stronger with their charismatic leaders than without them, and the ability of bin Laden and his terrorist organization to recover from the loss of their Afghan sanctuary reinforces the lesson.

Eight years after its expulsion from Afghanistan, Al Qaeda has reconstituted itself and bin Laden has survived to inspire a new generation of extremists who have adopted and adapted the Al Qaeda doctrine and are now capable of attacking from any number of places. The impact of this threat is greatest in Pakistan, where Al Qaeda’s continued presence and resources have emboldened domestic extremists waging an increasingly bloody insurrection that threatens the stability of the government and the region. Its training camps also have spawned new attacks outside the region—militants trained in Pakistan were tied to the July 2005 transit system bombings in London and several aborted plots elsewhere in Europe.

This is complete and utter hogwash. Islamist extremists of the Al Qaeda ilk don't need bin Laden to be alive in order to propagate their violent ideology within and outside their region. In fact, as much as I'd have liked to see bin Laden's head on a pike (and still would), I'll go so far as to say that bin Laden's current disposition is preferable to having him dead or in US custody.

There's no shortage of charismatic ideologues in the ranks of the Islamist jihad movement. A dead or captured bin Laden would clear the way for one of them to replace bin Laden, which hasn't happened yet. In death, bin Laden would be a martyr revered above his own idol, Sayyed Qutb, whose writings to this day inspires Islamist extremists all over the world long after his death in 1966.

This report, timed to coincide with President Obama's unveiling of his long-delayed Afghanistan strategy, is nothing more than a politically-timed hit piece on the previous administration designed to give Obama cover with the political left, which opposes continued involvement in Afghanistan. Look for Obama to cite this report extensively when he gives his inevitable speech on his Afghanistan strategy.

Chicago officials: Olympic loss was Bush's fault

It was just a matter of time:

Some Chicago officials say anti-American resentment likely played a role in Chicago's Olympic bid dying in the first round Friday.

President Obama could not undo in one year the resentment against America that President Bush and others built up for years, they said.

Well, of course. It simply couldn't be that the President and First Lady completely failed to convince anyone that Chicago could, in fact, pull off the Olympics. Nah...that's just crazy talk.

"Miss me yet?"

A friend e-mailed me this pic, which got me thinking...how many George Bush detractors - whether they'd admit to it or not - do actually miss the Bush years, if not the man himself?

I'll bet it's more than we think.

War of choice

In President Obama's speech to "the Muslim world" in Cairo, he perpetuated the notion that Afghanistan was a just war while Iraq was a bad one because it was a "war of choice". Since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, this has been the term used by those who opposed the invasion to suggest that it wasn't justified or necessary.

But setting aside for now the question of which of the two wars were justified, aren't all wars wars of choice? President Bush could have chosen not to invade Afghanistan and drive out the Taliban just as he chose to invade Iraq and rid the world of one more despotic dictator. The fact that one choice may have been more evidently wise than the other is not relevant -- they were both wars of choice.

In the months preceding the invasion of Iraq, I wasn't convinced that the time was right for running Saddam out of town. The Bush administration, as well as that of Britain's then-PM Tony Blair, justified the action almost exclusively on the basis of Saddam's weapons of mass destruction program. I never doubted (and still don't) the existence of Iraq's WMD program at the time, but I also didn't doubt that, given the time allowed, Saddam had ample opportunity to erase the evidence. I gradually concluded by early 2003, though, that removing Saddam was necessary for a host of other reasons, not the least of which were his demonstrable ties to international Islamist terrorists*, even if those terrorists weren't directly connected to Osama Bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Ultimately, Iraq would have to be dealt with in the broader context of fighting and Bush appears to have asked the question "if not now, when?", to which one might add "at what cost of delay?". Bush knew he had a small window of opportunity to move against Saddam, the alternative being to leave the problem for his successor. Had Bush chosen to do so, what would his obsessive critics had to say if in the intervening years there'd been a terrorist attack on the US traced back to Saddam, or a situation forcing Barack Obama to deal with him?

* See, for example, Abu Nidal, killed in Baghdad in August 2002 by Iraqi agents, and Abu Abbas, captured by US troops in Baghdad in April 2003, right after the invasion.

A wry observation

Over at Hot Air, reader "andycanuck" snarks on Hugo Chavez's gift to the president:

And, oh, the irony that President Bush would be able to read the book while the unilingual Obama can’t.

And America's Comedy Corps (hey, there's a corps for everything now...why not?) can't find anything funny to say about Barack Obama.

Scenes soon to be forgotten

During the Bush presidency, the left memorialized and exaggerated every petty Bush blunder. But since they'll quickly flush down the memory hole any similar acts by their man Obama, we'll just set this picture aside for safe-keeping.

It seems that the most intellectually gifted president ever can't quite tell a window from a door.

H/T Iowahawk

White House calls bullshit on New York Times

The New York Times published a hit piece on George Bush today, saying the sub-prime mortgage crisis was a mess of his making and laying blame for the ensuing economic meltdown at his feet, and the White House wasted no time in calling bullshit on the Times.

The response accused the nation's largest Sunday paper of "gross negligence."

"The Times' 'reporting' in this story amounted to finding selected quotes to support a story the reporters fully intended to write from the onset, while disregarding anything that didn't fit their point of view," White House Press Secretary Dana Perino said in an e-mailed statement.

[ ... ]

"The Times story frequently repeats a charge by the Administration's critics: a 'laissez faire' attitude toward regulation. We make no apology for understanding the concept of regulatory balance. That is, regulation should be stringent enough to protect the greater public good and safety but not overly strong so that it unnecessarily inhibits innovation, creativity and productivity gains that are the sole source of increasing Americans' standards of living. But while repeating this charge, the reporters gave glancing attention to the fact that it was this Administration that pushed for strengthened regulation and oversight, greater transparency, and housing reform.

"The story also gives kid glove treatment to Congress. While the administration was pushing for more transparent lending rules and strengthening oversight and supervision of Fannie and Freddie, Congress for years blocked attempts at stronger regulation and blocked reform of the Federal Housing Administration. Democratic leaders brazenly encouraged Fannie and Freddie to loosen lending standards and instead encouraged the housing GSEs to play a larger and larger role in the housing market -- even while explicitly acknowledging the rising risks. And while the story notes the political contributions of some banks to Republicans, it neglects that political contributions from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac overwhelmingly supported Democratic officials -- in particular the chairmen of the banking committees. In fact, even in the midst of what by then was a housing crisis, it took Congress nearly a full year to pass specific legislation called for by the president in the summer of 2007, especially legislation to reform oversight of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Actually, I think the White House went easy on the Times, and on members of Congress like Barney Frank, Chris Dodd and Barack Obama by not calling them by name in their response.

Here's a link to the full text of the response.

Update: The White House must have been really pissed. Here's another link to the White House web site in which they engage in a righteous Fisking of the NYT piece, and they do name names.

'A nation of men, not laws'

Ace links to another great article by Victor Davis Hanson, in which Hanson says:

For years now we have been preached to that Guantanamo is a gulag where Korans are stomped and flushed (not laptops provided to the chief architect of 9/11), that we waged a foolhardy, amoral, and hopelessly 'lost' war against the Iraqi people, that the rich plundered the economy on the backs of the poor, and that the Constitution was burned so that covert agencies could play James Bond. I could go on, but you get the picture.

Given all that, are we now suddenly — in 1984-fashion — around late January either to be told all that was not quite so, or will we simply hear no more about how these Bush legacies have ruined America — or what exactly is the party line to be? There is still such a thing, after all, as Google.

Ace's closing remark - "A nation of men, not laws" - sums things up perfectly, for this is what we've become. This was evidenced in part by the sudden love among the left for the American flag immediately following the election. Their 'patriotism' seems to be conditioned on who's wielding power.

The more Obama walks back from his campaign positions, the more the Left's objections to George Bush become exposed as objections to the man and not his policies.