Ed Lasky
americanthinker.com
A President is charged with the responsibility of protecting our
nation from foreign threats. This duty is particularly vital during
the age of anxiety and terror we are enduring now; this duty will
become even more important when (and it is no longer a question of if)
Iran -- a sworn enemy of America and the number one state sponsor of
terror in the world -- develops nuclear weapons.
The prospect of nuclear weapons being smuggled into America and being
given to domestic terrorists is grave. Dick Morris and Eileen McGann
take a look at President-elect Barack Obama's security picks and finds
them wanting in today's New York Post:
PRESIDENT-elect Barack Obama's appointments to Homeland Security, the
Justice Department and now the CIA indicate a virtual abandonment of
the War on Terror.
As Homeland Security chief, he's named a governor whose only
experience has been with the US-Mexican border. His attorney general
pick, meanwhile, took the lead in pardoning FALN terrorists. Now he
has rounded out his national-security and Justice Department teams by
naming ultraliberals.
Leon Panetta, his choice for CIA chief, is as liberal as they come.
Though originally a pro-Nixon congressman, he long ago embraced the
left with the fervor of a convert and brings these values to the CIA.
James Robbins also has comments that are typical of critics of the
appointment of Panetta:
His lack of intelligence background will not inspire the employees at
the Agency, who have seen their institution under attack from all
sides in recent years and need some breathing space. Those on the
Democratic side who complained loudly about the politicization of
intelligence during the Bush years will be hard-pressed to support
what can only be seen as a politically inspired appointment.
Angello Codevilla, author the new book Advice to War President: A
Remedial Course in Statecraft, echoes the view that this is a
political choice -- but not in the way commonly assumed: to appease
the left by appointing a critic of the CIA that in no way can be
implicated in enabling the CIA during the Bush years. Apparently,
Panetta can be seen as ensuring security in one particular area:
protecting Obama from critics within the Agency:
Leon Panetta may not know very much about foreign affairs or defense
matters. He is wholly unacquainted with the questions and quarrels
that have roiled the US intelligence community for a half century.
But, as veteran political warrior, he will do what President Obama
expects of him: prevent CIA from making war upon him as it made war on
George W. Bush. When Bush appointed Porter Goss as CIA director to
stop that war, CIA's old boys somehow convinced Bush to fire him.
Panetta's appointment however tells CIA's old boys that if they
trouble the Obama team, they will be the ones fired.
The Justice Department picks also come in for criticism on national
security grounds by Morris and McGann:
Over at Justice, Obama is naming four liberals to staff the agency,
each determined to rein in effective intelligence-gathering.
Professor Dawn Johnsen of Indiana University Law School is to head the
Office of Legal Counsel. She distinguished herself by writing a law-
review article taking issue with President Bush's efforts to keep us
safe. It was titled, "What's a President To Do: Interpreting the
Constitution in the Wake of the Bush Administration Abuses."
Presumably, she'll bring back the days of the wall between criminal
and intelligence investigations, which led to our failure to examine
the computer of "20th hijacker" Zacharias Moussaoui, which contained
wire-fund-transfer information on the other hijackers.
No less an authority than Harvard Law professor Laurence Tribe, who
taught Elena Kagan, the new solicitor general, predicted that she and
Johnsen would "freshly re-examine some of the positions the previous
administration has taken."
Obama's other Justice appointments, David Ogden as deputy attorney
general and Thomas Perrelli as associate AG, bring back Clinton/Reno
Justice Department retreads. Both participated eagerly in the
constraints on intelligence-gathering that left us so vulnerable on
9/11.
The Obama campaign was marked by a sense of optimism that at times
verged on the delusional ("this is the moment when the oceans will
stop rising"). Optimism is an American trait and has been key to our
nation's growth but such sunny optimism should not blind us from the
threats we still face. In this case, it may very well have.
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