So, it turns out, Team Obama suddenly wants the 2012 presidential campaign to be about foreign policy, rather than the economy. Such a pivot might not be surprising given that, by President Obama's own test, he has not cut unemployment to the point where he deserves to be reelected.
The Democrats have - if anything - a weaker case for reelecting this president on national security grounds. The campaign ad they unveiled on Friday, timed to take credit for the liquidation of Osama bin Laden on the first anniversary of that achievement, is a case in point.
The video used former President Bill Clinton to extol his successor's role in the mission - and selectively quoted Republican nominee Mitt Romney to suggest he would not have done the same.
It is an act of desperation and contempt for the American people that, of all people, Mr. Clinton would be used in such a role. Let's recall, during his presidency, he repeatedly declined to take out bin Laden. (So sensitive is the former president about this sorry record that his operatives insisted in 2006 that ABC excise from "Path to 9/11" - an outstanding made-for-TV film by Cyrus Nowrasteh - a dramatized version of one such episode. Check it out at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=asw8fhpz0wA.)
More telling still is an issue inadvertently showcased by this controversy. While the Clinton-Obama-Biden spot tries to make Gov. Romney sound as though he wouldn't have had the courage, or at least the vision, the President exhibited in a risky bid to take out bin Laden, what the presumptive Republican nominee actually said in 2007 in context illustrates a far better grasp than President Obama has of the enemy we confront:
"I wouldn't want to over-concentrate on Bin Laden. He's one of many, many people who are involved in this global Jihadist effort. He's by no means the only leader. It's a very diverse group - Hamas, Hezbollah, al-Qaeda, Muslim Brotherhood and of course different names throughout the world. It's not worth moving heaven and earth and spending billions of dollars just trying to catch one person. It is worth fashioning and executing an effective strategy to defeat global, violent Jihad and I have a plan for doing that."
Mr. Obama, by contrast, would have us believe that the problem in notonly just al Qaeda but that that threat is pretty much a thing of the past,thanks to bin Laden's elimination and the decimation primarily by drone strikes of others among its leadership and rank and file. An unnamed senior State Department official told the NationalJournal last week, "The War on Terror is over" as Muslims embrace "legitimate Islamism."
Unfortunately, as Seth Jones observed in the Wall Street Journal on April 30, 2012, "Al Qaeda is far from dead. Acting as if it were will not make it so."
Even if al Qaeda actually had been defeated, however, we are - as Mitt Romney said five years ago - confronting a host of other jihadist enemies who seek the same goals as bin Laden's al Qaeda and its franchises: the triumph of the totalitarian, supremacist Islamic doctrine of shariah and a global government, known as a caliphate, to govern according to it.
Unfortunately, as demonstrated conclusively in a free, web-based video course entitled "Muslim Brotherhood in America: the Enemy Within" released last week by the Center for Security Policy (www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com), far from understanding the danger posed by the rest of the jihadist enterprise, the Obama administration is actually making it stronger.
The evidence presented in this course suggests that could be due, at least in part, to the six Muslim Brotherhood-associated individuals the Center has identified who are either on the government's payroll, advising it and/or being used for outreach to the American Muslim community. (See Part 8 for the details on the Obama Six.)
Whatever the motivation, consider how Team Obama has managed the three other groups Gov. Romney mentioned. The administration made no effort to impede the take-over of Lebanon by the Iranian foreign legion, the designated terrorist organization known as Hezbollah. It has actively helped bring to power, recognized and effectively turned over $1.5 billion to the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. Worse yet, it has, as noted above, embraced its operatives and front groups here. And President Obama personally directed last week that $170 million in U.S. foreign aid be given to a Palestinian Authority "unity government" which includes another designated terrorist organization, Hamas - incredibly on the grounds tthat "U.S. national security interests" required it.
Unfortunately for the Obama administration, fundamentally misconstruing the nature of the enemy is just part of this president's ominous legacy with respect to his Commander-in-Chief portfolio. The wrecking operation he is engaged in with respect to our military's capability to project power, its unilateral cuts to the U.S. nuclear deterrent and weakening our missile defenses may not be fully evident between now and the election. But the impact will be felt for generations to come. That will be true in spades of the war on the culture of the armed forces being waged inpursuit the radical left's efforts to make-over American social norms and mores, starting with its most esteemed institution: the United States military.
Getting bin Laden isn't the issue. The issue is whether President Obama is getting right the rest of his job as Commander-in-Chief. And, regrettably, he is not.
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