Cheney: Obama Learned Bush Was Right

The Hill:

President Obama has “learned from experience” that some of the Bush administration’s decisions on terrorism issues were necessary, according to former Vice President Dick Cheney.

[…]

“I think he’s learned that what we did was far more appropriate than he ever gave us credit for while he was a candidate. So I think he’s learned from experience. And part of that experience was the Democrats having a terrible showing last election.”

Cheney also asserted that Obama has learned that the prison at Guantanamo Bay simply cannot be closed, despite the promises he made while campaigning for the White House.

“I think he’s learned that he’s not going to be able to close Guantanamo,” Cheney said. “That it’s — if you didn’t have it, you’d have to create one like that. You’ve got to have some place to put terrorists who are combatants who are bound and determined to try to kill Americans.”

[…]

The former vice president cited the Obama administration’s expanded use of drones in Pakistan as more evidence of continuity from the policies of the Bush White House.

“As I say, I think he’s found it necessary to be more sympathetic to the kinds of things we did,” Cheney said. “They’ve gotten active, for example, with the drone program, using Predator and the Reaper to launch strikes against identified terrorist targets in the various places in the world.”

As in so many things in the past, Mr. Cheney is absolutely right. President Obama has indeed followed many of the Bush policies that Senator Obama and Candidate Obama denounced.

Things look a lot different once you start getting the presidential briefings, don’t they, Mr. Obama?

Giving credit where credit is due, Obama is perfectly correct to continue these Bush-era policies, because while they may not be perfect, they’re the best we’re going to get in the imperfect world we live in. Two cheers to Obama for realizing this and not messing things up.

Of course, the conservative in me also relishes the fact that following these Bush-era policies might just drive a wedge between Obama and the lefties, especially if Obama continues to move to the right in an attempt to follow the Clinton-Morris “triangulation” strategy. That wedge, if it happens–and there have been some hints, tho nothing really solid yet–would make it much easier for the GOP to unseat Obama in 2012.

Good News, Bad News

The Irish Independent:

Al-Qa’ida has been forced into retreat as the flow of funds to the terrorist network is steadily choked off, a senior American official said yesterday.

In the first half of this year, al-Qa’ida’s core leadership was compelled to make four public appeals for cash, complaining in one case of a “weakness in operations because of lack of money”.

Part of the reason for this is that some funding is believed to have gone to the Taliban instead.

This financial squeeze has compounded the problems faced by “core al-Qa’ida”. Highly effective attacks launched by American Predator drones have eliminated a raft of its most able leaders. Experts believe that Osama bin Laden’s network is under immense pressure inside its last redoubts in the tribal areas lining Pakistan’s north-west frontier.

David Cohen, the assistant secretary at the US Treasury responsible for countering terrorist finance, said that al-Qa’ida’s recent appeal for funds showed its “financial predicament”.

He added: “We assess that al-Qa’ida is in its weakest financial condition in several years, and that, as a result, its influence is waning. This success is important. It is a sign we are moving in the right direction.”

While it’s all to the good that we’re choking off al-Qa’ida’s money supply, I am not so sure that having some of it go to the Taliban is really that much of an improvement, especially since what we’re currently fighting in Afghanistan is more Taliban than al-Qa’ida.

September 11, 2001: A Day Of Remembrance

September 11, 2001

NEVER FORGET!!!

Ayman al-Zawahri on Al-Qaida’s views of President-Elect Obama

Well, Bin Laden didn’t perform his expected October Surprise this time around but the Z-man has slipped a November video Op-Ed into the mix.  From a couple of AP writers (Maamoun Youssef and Lee Keath) on Yahoo’s “World” news.

Zawahri doesn’t think very much of African-Americans involved in the US government from Condi Rice to Colin Powell to (gasp) President-Elect Barack Obama.  He called them “House Negroes”.  In his most recent video, the Z-man believes Obama will have to do the bidding of “white men” and Barack represents “the exact opposite of honorable black Americans like Malik al-Shabazz or Malcolm X.” (from the subtitle translation of the video included with the story)

It will be interesting how Barack, his transitional staff, and the Left in general will react to Zawahri’s characterization.  I’d be all in favor of him sending the Reverend Jesse Jackson to Pakistan’s Tribal areas to protest such horrific racism.