Obama National Security Pt. 2

“Unfortunately, faced with an uncertain threat, our government made a series of hasty decisions..based on fear rather than foresight..[so I] called for a new approach -- one that rejected torture and one that recognized the imperative of closing the prison at Guantanamo Bay.”

Why is Guantanamo Bay prison so unique? It surely is not the only prison created during the War on Terror, nor is it where the worst atrocities were committed. But when he says this, we’re impressed nonetheless. Obama promised this. “I argued that is should be closed throughout my campaign, and that is why I ordered it closed within one year.” He simultaneously placates and castrates progressives by invoking fulfilled campaign promises and conveniently avoiding the real problems: Abu Ghraib, mercenaries, extraordinary rendition, etc. President Obama is surgical with the English language.
He continues on theme saying Guantanamo “is a rallying cry for our enemies.” I’d assume the more effective rallying cry would relate to foreigners invading their country, occupying their nation, removing its government, and installing a puppet government in its place. Besides being great motivators, these actions are very imperial. Obama deftly prevents that question from entering your mind; “Fidelity to our values is the reason why the United States of America grew from a small string of colonies under the writ of an empire to the strongest nation in the world.” He invokes the taboo “E” word to describe Great Britain a few hundred years ago, but not the country he represents today.

President Obama doesn’t believe in dwelling in the past, near or ancient. He had to address the current nuclear dilemma that is Pakistan, and indirectly Iran.

“We have re-energized a global non-proliferation regime to deny the world's most dangerous people access to the world's deadliest weapons. And we've launched an effort to secure all loose nuclear materials within four years.”

I’m not denying that there are crazies that want nuclear weapons. It’s a fact. But we’ve created a situation of rewarding illegal nuclear powers (India, Israel, Pakistan) with legitimacy, giving motivation for rouge states to acquire nuclear technology. Appearing as nuclear hypocrite doesn’t help our global image. And speaking of image, he touches on the dreaded torture photos.

When talking about the torture photos he refuses to release Obama says,

“It was my judgment – informed by my national security team -- that releasing these photos would inflame anti-American opinion and allow our enemies to paint U.S. troops with a broad, damning, and inaccurate brush, thereby endangering them in theaters of war.”

Are you serious, looking at photos (of widely known criminal acts) will suddenly tarnish our glowing reputation in Iraq? Washington doesn’t want to show the photos because they fear what Americans will think or do in response. This has nothing to do with the rest of the world. The world knows of these abuses and have formed opinions long ago. And when does the perpetrator of crimes determine what happens to evidence? Why don’t we ask the victims in these photos if they want the world to see them?

Some wonder why Obama refuses to allow an investigation into the previous administrations war crimes, it’s because he’s continuing them.