During the Clinton years, the American government looked at the world as a safe place. The cold war was over before Clinton took office. The Soviet Union was gone. The Chinese were acting more like business partners than adversaries. All the old threats were gone. As a result, Clinton and his administration decided to treat the world as a much safer place. The military budget was slashed. Indeed, one of the major reasons for the surplus achieved once the Republicans took control of Congress was the ongoing reduction in military spending sought by the White House coupled with slowing the growth of domestic spending in the Congress. This mindset that we were living in an era of peace was responsible to a great extent for the 9-11 attacks. American intelligence was cut back. The activities of the Islamist jihad, particularly al Qaeda, were ignored. Even when al Qaeda bombed embassies in Africa and attacked a navy destroyer with great loss of life, the USA did nothing meaningful in response. Oh, Clinton used cruise missiles to attack a pharmaceutical factory in Africa that was claimed to be a jihadist base, but that was more for show than any other purpose. When the Saudis had bin Laden in their control and offered to turn him over to the USA, Clinton demurred. He saw no reason to wake up our foreign policy to this threat. Instead, it took 3000 dead Americans for the country to get the message that the jihadists were real and a major threat to boot.
At least in the 1990s, it was understandable how the country and the president could ignore the jihadist threat. The big enemy, the USSR, was gone. We were entitled to a breather and a victory lap. But today, we have a government that is taking us back to the 1990s style foreign and military policy. Terrorists have changed from our "enemy" back to "criminals" who are to be dealt with in the criminal justice system. After the attack in Benghazi in which our ambassador and three others were killed, the American response has been to seek permission from Libya authorities to have the FBI interview witnesses and attempt to arrest the terrorists. Think about that. Imagine that in October of 2001, president Bush sent the FBI to Afghanistan to interview al Qaeda terrorists in their training camps in order to try to arrest those responsible for the 9-11 attacks. In Syria, we are watching a civil war between the Iranian-backed monster Assad and Sunni rebels who are increasingly coming under the sway of Islamist terror groups. A year and a half ago, when the uprising began, there were no Islamists involved; it was just a protest movement against a harsh dictator who used sniper attacks to disperse the protesters. Our government decided to forego even an attempt to "lead from behind" as had been done in Libya. Instead, Obama chose just to ignore the entire uprising. At a point where a well placed push from the USA could have ousted Assad and led to a Syrian government unlikely to have Islamist ties, Obama chose to just sit back and watch the killing continue. Since then there have been close to 70,000 people killed in Syria and about 1.5 million turned to refugees. But hey, Obama wants to believe that the world is a peaceful place with little danger for the USA.
Going to sleep in the 1990s was a major mistake by the American government. Going back to sleep in the current time is totally delusional. We have a president who believes in the ideology of the peace movements of the past. We all just need to talk it out, or so they think. Well, it just ain't so.
At least in the 1990s, it was understandable how the country and the president could ignore the jihadist threat. The big enemy, the USSR, was gone. We were entitled to a breather and a victory lap. But today, we have a government that is taking us back to the 1990s style foreign and military policy. Terrorists have changed from our "enemy" back to "criminals" who are to be dealt with in the criminal justice system. After the attack in Benghazi in which our ambassador and three others were killed, the American response has been to seek permission from Libya authorities to have the FBI interview witnesses and attempt to arrest the terrorists. Think about that. Imagine that in October of 2001, president Bush sent the FBI to Afghanistan to interview al Qaeda terrorists in their training camps in order to try to arrest those responsible for the 9-11 attacks. In Syria, we are watching a civil war between the Iranian-backed monster Assad and Sunni rebels who are increasingly coming under the sway of Islamist terror groups. A year and a half ago, when the uprising began, there were no Islamists involved; it was just a protest movement against a harsh dictator who used sniper attacks to disperse the protesters. Our government decided to forego even an attempt to "lead from behind" as had been done in Libya. Instead, Obama chose just to ignore the entire uprising. At a point where a well placed push from the USA could have ousted Assad and led to a Syrian government unlikely to have Islamist ties, Obama chose to just sit back and watch the killing continue. Since then there have been close to 70,000 people killed in Syria and about 1.5 million turned to refugees. But hey, Obama wants to believe that the world is a peaceful place with little danger for the USA.
Going to sleep in the 1990s was a major mistake by the American government. Going back to sleep in the current time is totally delusional. We have a president who believes in the ideology of the peace movements of the past. We all just need to talk it out, or so they think. Well, it just ain't so.
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