December 30, 2009

The “Underwear Bomber” was not successful on Christmas Day. It is a good thing too because the results would have been tragic with more than two hundred dying. Instead of deliberate discourse about what went wrong and how to fix it, the Republicans immediately attacked Obama, characterizing him as soft on terror or not understanding the enemy.

They politicized the event to pad their political resumes, gather contributions and assuage their guilt for being so incompetent during the Bush years. Deep down they know they were unable to effectively confront the forces of terror and must now scapegoat Obama to deflect scrutiny.

Their guilt is from the following notable failures:

Ignoring a presidential memo in August 2001 about a terror plot in New York involving a plane crashing into a building. 9/11 happened less than a month after Bush read then ignored that memo.

Halting efforts to hunt down bin Laden in 2002 and dismantling the special forces unit tasked with finding him. Bush was focused on invading Iraq and not with those who originally attacked us. He even joked about finding him at a speech one day and also said bin Laden was unimportant.

Failing to understand the situation in Afghanistan, and not giving it proper military and diplomatic consideration. This allowed Al-Qaeda to regroup in that country from Pakistan. Afghanistan is now the biggest narco-state in the world and funds terrorist activities directly and indirectly throughout the world and it effectively bribes Afghani leaders for protection.

Failing to see the signs of increased Al-Qaeda influence in Yemen. There were no efforts to deal with the rising threat in that country until Obama was president. By ignoring the Yemeni problems Bush gave comfort and aid to our enemy. He and his GOP advisors should have known and acted.

Failing to lead by insuring agencies work together. The FBI, TSA, CIA and others still do not “talk” to each other. This failure started years ago.

Releasing two terrorists in 2007 for an "Art Therapy Rehabilitation Program" in Saudi Arabia. Those terrorists are "Muhamad Attik al-Harbi" (now known as Muhamad al-Awfi) and "Said Ali Shari". They planned the attack this Christmas.

Not recognizing the threats made by the terrorist in the Fort Hood massacre. The terrorist was clear about his beliefs and first publicly laid out his grievances at a speech in 2007. The Bush administration and the U.S. Army knew of this and did nothing. Being politically correct caused many to die.

In all this time, Republicans were and are silent about their failures. Yet, they are quick to attack Obama for things he inherited from Bush and do it for personal and political gain.

Their guilt runs deep.