Advertisement Yet that’s what CIA Director Leon Panetta said over the weekend.
Cheney’s regular diatribes against the Obama Administration when it comes to foreign policy and national security are over-the-top and meant as saber rattling to energize a battered Republican base.
Yet to suggest that Cheney’s approach to terrorism suggests "he’s wishing that this country would be attacked again, in order to make his point," as Panetta said, simply makes no sense.
Let’s skip back in time to Sept. 11, 2001. The attacks on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and Flight 93, were they the fault of the Bush Administration?
Bush had not been president long enough for his foreign policy and his actions as a president to significantly influence that event. The 9/11 terrorist attack originated from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who first presented the idea to Osama bin Laden in 1996, according to the BBC and other news outlets.
Al-Qaeda had been conducting war on the United States well before 9/11. There were the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. Between 1996 and the 9/11 attacks al-Qaeda was trying to hatch any number of terrorist plots against the United States.
The threat Osama bin Laden posed to our nation was well known in the intelligence community during the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Al-Qaeda gained steam and prepared its plan for the 9/11 attacks under the watch of President Bill Clinton.
It’s been proven that Clinton and those in his administration had significant knowledge of both al-Qaeda’s training grounds and the exact whereabouts of bin Laden in Fall of 2000. In 2004, NBC Nightly News did a series of stories on the opportunities the Clinton Administration had to eliminate bin Laden and strike a blow at al-Qaeda.
Why didn’t Clinton do more as president to prevent 9/11 from occurring? He was a bit preoccupied handling fallout from his affair with Monica Lewinsky. People tend to forget that Clinton basically tied up his presidency from 1998 until he left office. He was still dealing with the affair when he was disbarred in 2001.
I don’t blame the Bush Administration for 9/11. Previous administrations, especially that of Clinton, who was president during a very prosperous time in this nation, but has a legacy that’s quite forgettable, carry most of the United States’ share of responsibility for that horrible national tragedy.
So, back to Panetta. He’s foolish to think that Cheney is "wishing" the United States would suffer a terrorist attack. The Obama Administration has been in place less time than the Bush Administration had been on the clock when 9/11 occurred.
Obama has done nothing other than reach his hand out to try and establish better international relations. Obama and his Administration, at this time, could not be blamed for an al-Qaeda attack on the United States. They haven’t been heading up the executive branch of the government long enough for that to bear out.
Political gamesmanship is rough and the semantics are often ridiculous.
Cheney is trying to create a spark that will reinvigorate the Republicans. He’s harsh, overly critical and personally doesn’t have a reputation of legitimacy that would carry favor with a majority of the people.
Yet loose cannons in the Obama Administration, including Panetta and Vice President Joe Biden better watch what they say. Comments like these only seem to undermine what President Obama already has made progress toward — reminding the world that the United States is a nation that, at its best, can foster relationships that will make the entire world a closer, happier and healthier community.
Panetta should keep quiet and let President Obama do the talking. The President is better at it.
E-mail Matt Johnson at matt.johnson @lee.net.
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