Let me first recall the Bush years, Bush viewed as was said in the report by the 9/11 Commission that these extremists have been at war with us and the west as a whole. In this framework the Bush administration did not seek just to find Osama Bin Laden but all that share his ideology. In reality the only reason why Bin Laden in at the top of our public enemies list is because he was behind 9/11. But Bin Laden is simply one player in a greater community of Extremists. You see Bush saw that Al-Queada and the Taliban operated more like fraternities, in that there were chapters, each chapter had a president, and each chapter was independent of the other. Because of how these organizations independent nature hitting once sect would not effect the others. In the mind of Bush this could not then be fought as a criminal enterprise because if one was taken out then we would have to wait for an attack by one of the other sects before we could go after them. Thus the War on Terror was declared. This means that Bush not only declared war on Osama Bin Laden began but a war on all other organizations that felt the imperial nature of the west was destroying the east. Thus comes the War in Iraq. The war in Iraq was declared for three reasons. They were a strong hold for the Taliban, they have a resource that we want to protect, and a Democratic Iraq is in the best interest for the U.S. But the war in Iraq does stem from the idea that we are at war with a group of people with common interests.
Now we have had a drastic change in the approach of fighting the Extremists. Obama views the acts of every sect are an individual act of crime. This view point is quite simple. Essentially Obama sees that people have broken our laws by committing murder and by our laws should be in our court system and stand trial for their crimes. The problem with this approach is that one has to do a crime against us before we go out and get them. The focus now has become very narrow, now we are only looking for those who have already committed crimes. Unlike in the Bush years where we took preventative measures, whether ethical or not is irrelevant, like one does in a war. But let us look at the events in 2009. There have now been three incidences because we have relaxed our preventative measures. The first was the shooting of a private in Little Rock by a radicalized individual. The Fort Hood Shooting. And now the attempt to blow up a jet liner. Yes, in these cases we have treated them as criminal acts and not acts of war, in that capacity they will be taken to our courts and stand trial for their crimes. But what we are forgetting is that in all three of these instances there was a common ideology and a common point of contact to radical group abroad. This is wear our national security fails.
It seems that we have relaxed our preventative measures so much, because the Obama administration does not think we are at war or that someone is at war with us, that is is becoming even more clear that our national security is at risk. Look at the breach a few week ago where TSA security protocols were released, then then this incident over the holiday happened. When we take out the mind set that we are at war this changes how intelligence is gathered how we can gather it. Furthermore, when we look at criminal acts as the root of the what the Extremists are doing most of the intelligence cannot be useful because of the means in which the intelligence has been acquired. I think that Obama needs to take large preventative measures and communicate more with Leon Penetta and not Eric Holder.
