Peter Marshall
There are certain Old Testament passages that seem terribly relevant to America these days. Isaiah 3:4 and 12, and Proverbs 29:2:
“And I will make boys their princes, and infants shall rule over them.
“My people — infants are their oppressors, and women rule over them.
O my people, your guides mislead you and they have swallowed up the course of your paths.”
“When the righteous increase, the people rejoice, but when the wicked rule, the people groan.”
This is not a particularly happy note on which to begin the New Year, but folks, as we move into the early days of 2010 I just don’t see much to be happy about when it comes to the state of the nation. When I said above that these verses are “terribly” relevant, I chose that word advisedly. The course on which the Obama Administration has embarked our country is indeed terrible. For my money, the President is not up to the job. But it’s worse than that — much worse.
I find myself wondering whether the hideous mistakes he’s making as President of the United States stem from the fact that Obama is simply not qualified to handle the job, or whether they are occurring for more sinister reasons.
Peter, there’s no wondering for me. They are occurring DECISIVELY for sinister reasons and for reasons Obama has stated and written publicly. They are also stated and evidenced by the Marxist Subversives who groomed him to the presidency like terrorist William Ayers, Atheist George Soros and Marxist race-baiters like Van Jones and Jeremiah Wright. Obama stated unequivocally that he sought to “fundamentally change” the United States of America. It continues to stun me how many people still do not grasp the depth of what he meant when he said that. Obama and his Politburo should make it clear to any casual observer that the undermining of our foundation and culture is precisely the goal and intent.
I will go so far as to say what few others will warn about Obama and this tyrannical bunch now in power. Given the past history of boy-king narcissist demagogues like Obama – the genocide of our own people at the hands of these people is in our near future if they are not stopped.
I have written recently about the wrongheaded insanity of Obama’s foreign policy (which is bestowing on it an unwarranted dignity, since anything one could call a policy doesn’t seem to exist). And there will be more to say about that in coming months, you may be sure.
One can go on and on listing the disasters inflicted on the world by this Administration in the year they’ve been at it, but today I want to focus on the matter of our struggles with global terrorism. This has been raised anew by the Christmas Day attack on Delta Flight 253 and the upcoming trial of Khalid Sheik Mohammed (hereafter KSM) in New York City.
“I will make boys their princes.” Obama really does seem to be a boy, in the sense that he has an immature, uninformed, and badly skewed view of the world. The indicators are that he does not take seriously that America is at war with global jihadists, who have made it clear that they are determined to destroy us. This is not an exaggeration, nor some sort of paranoia on my part — these people have made statement after statement saying that their objective is to bring us down and destroy our “infidel” civilization. I believe them.
Obama and his Administration, per his order, refuse to use the words “terrorist” or “jihadist.” He has also banished the phrase “war on terror.” Janet Napolitano, former Governor of Arizona, and now in way over her head as the Director of Homeland Security, runs away from the reality of global terrorism by renaming it “man-caused disasters.” The President consistently downplays and minimizes the nature of the terrorist threat against us. Immediately after Nidal Hassan’s mass murder at Fort Hood, Obama warned us “against jumping to conclusions,” when the conclusions that this guy was an Islamic jihadist engaged in a terrorist attack were screamingly obvious. Even worse were Obama’s references to terrorist Abdulmutallab as a “suspect” who “allegedly tried to ignite an explosive device.” Charles Krauthammer, who is my favorite political columnist these days, vividly remarked that that was akin to FDR saying to the Congress on the day after Pearl Harbor: “Yesterday, December 7, 1941 — a date which will live in infamy — Japanese naval and air force suspects allegedly bombed Pearl Harbor.”
By the grace of God (and let me underline that!) Abdulmutallab’s explosive device failed to ignite properly, and when one of the passengers quickly jumped him any damage to anyone except the terrorist was averted.
Janet Napolitano quickly made the incredible statement that “the system worked.” No, it certainly did not! Of course the President went public with the correct statement that what was almost a monstrous tragedy had been made possible by “human and systemic failures.” But that was too late to prevent the Administration from making itself look completely foolish, due to Napolitano’s brainless blurting.
What did work on that Delta flight was good old fashioned Yankee alertness, resourcefulness, and quick action on the part of passengers and crew. The security system utterly failed. The terrorist’s own father alerted our government ahead of time — twice — and nothing was done. Abdulmutallab should have been immediately put on international no-fly lists, pending a thorough investigation. But, of course, this kind of practice, which is an obvious basic step that has to be taken to keep the skies safe, would instantly bring a huge outcry from the civil liberties people. In conditions of war, however, sometimes civil liberties have to undergo temporary suspension in order to expose and capture the undercover agents that the enemy employs. The Constitution makes provision for that very thing, which President Abraham Lincoln made use of during our Civil War, when he temporarily suspended the right of habeas corpus in order to prevent the undermining of the Union war effort. And, if memory serves correctly, Woodrow Wilson did something similar during World War I. There is no remote chance, unfortunately, of our current President doing any such thing, given his unwillingness to face the reality of the crisis. Mark my words, the way in which the Obama Administration is conducting the war on terror is greatly encouraging the jihadists to continue to launch attacks against America — particularly within the continental U.S. We can look forward to more of the same.
Why? Because any terrorist act which takes place on American soil is being treated as a matter for a civil court, instead of a military tribunal. What this means is that civil laws apply, instead of military law. What the President should have done is to announce that Abdulmutallab was an illegal enemy combatant without uniform caught in the midst of an attack on civilians, and that he will be interrogated by military personnel to get information on his connections with al Qaida. But, what happened instead was that he was jailed in Detroit and instantly got “lawyered up” as if he were a domestic criminal. Which means that the first thing his lawyers told him was to shut up, and tell the authorities nothing. So, we lost the opportunity to learn from this enemy everything he knows about al Qaida, how they trained him, who his contacts were, etc.
As Krauthammer has pointed out, this treatment is completely nonsensical. If we had found this guy in Yemen, where he was being trained as a terrorist, we could have snuffed him out with a Predator drone — quickly, efficiently, and without recriminations. But, if we catch him in (or over) the U.S. in the very act of attempting mass murder, he “instantly acquires protection not just from execution by drone but even from interrogation.” We don’t even get a chance to practice our waterboarding techniques! All of this, because we have a government in power that doesn’t even want to correctly name our enemies, much less properly combat them.
The KSM trial in New York City promises to be a media circus, which will probably devolve into a farcical political show trial. The fact that he’s being tried in civilian court means that through his lawyers’ rights of discovery and cross examination KSM will have access to critical information about intelligence sources and methods. That is precisely what happened in the New York City trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. The prosecution was forced by the court to turn over to the defense a list of 200 unindicted co-conspirators, including the name of Osama bin Laden. “Within ten days, a copy of that list reached bin Laden in Khartoum,” wrote former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, “letting him know that his connection to that case had been discovered.” In addition, as KSM spends the rest of his life behind bars here in the U.S., he will have the opportunity to share all the information that he has learned with inmates. And, as everybody knows, one of the most fruitful sources for jihadist recruiting is the American prison population.
Further, KSM has already confessed to planning the World Trade Center attacks, and has stated that he wants to be executed for it — angling for the chance to play the Islamic terrorist martyr role. Instead, he will now take advantage of all the publicity surrounding the trial in the world’s media center to make his case for jihad before the cameras and microphones. So, attacking a U.S. military target, like the U.S.S. Cole, gets you a military tribunal and swift justice levied out in comparative obscurity. But, attack thousands of civilians on American soil, and you get your Miranda rights, lots of lawyers, instant global celebrity, and a huge propaganda platform — all courtesy of Obama’s leftist Attorney General, Eric Holder, who is the one insisting on doing it this way.
We’re only about a year into a four-year Presidential term, folks. Lots of opportunities for more horrendous leadership to come out of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. But, in November of this year, we the people get an opportunity of the mid-term Congressional elections to express our attitudes about the “wickedness” coming out of Washington. God grant that the people will rise up. May the “guides” (who) “mislead” us be replaced, and may the “righteous increase,” that the “people (may) rejoice.” If we truly depend on God’s grace and blessing, and actively do our part, we can change the direction of our nation.
Sword At-The-Ready 