Posted by
Bert Chapman on Tuesday, May 12, 2009 4:46:19 PM
Former Vice-President Dick Cheney is spot on in his defense of Bush Administration antiterror policies. Although there were flaws in the execution of aspects of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, these policies have succeeded in keeping the U.S. free from subsequent terrorist attacks. I am particularly heartened to see Cheney's stout defense of waterboarding as an interrogation tactic. Time is of the essence in intelligence work and you frequently need to act quickly to be able to extract actionable intelligence from terrorists, their collaborators, and synthesizers. We are not dealing with choir boys who want to sing Kum By Yah. We continually forget that we are dealing with sadistic monsters who want to kill hundreds or thousands of non-Islamists "infidels" in a single act in the fallacious belief that they will inherit heavenly virgins as a reward. We also forget that these individuals want to impose an autocratic Taliban-like regime over the entire world. This is not a esoteric philosophic debate conducted in a pristine academic conference hall. It is an existential struggle between freedom and an centuries old form of tyranny which seeks to use our open society and the multiple characteristics of 21st century telecommunication technology to advance its objectives.
I only wish Cheney, former President Bush, and other Bush Administration officials had made more vociferous defenses of their policies against the pygmy brained Obamaites during the 2008 campaign and earlier. While that might not have been enough to keep the election from swinging to the Democrats given the lamentable state of our economy, it would have heartened the conservative base and reinforced the inclination of some swing voters to not take a chance of Barack Obama's empty "change you can believe in" rhetoric. Unfortunately, antiterrorism policies being pursued by the Obama Administration, if they even merit the phrase "antiterrorism policies", are little more than pathetic attempts to appease Islamist terrorists and the loony left of the Democratic Party, and are daily increasing the possibility of another terrorist attack or attacks within the U.S. which will produce higher casualties than 9/11's attackers ever dreamed of.