« BACK  |  PRINT

RS

FRONT PAGE CONTRIBUTOR

Drain the Swamp

By: Steve Maley (Diary)  |  September 22nd, 2012 at 05:38 PM  | 

RESIZE: AAA

The heroes of Flight 93 didn’t have a week to conclude we were under terrorist attack on September 11, 2001. The attacks had no precedent. Flight 93′s passengers had scant shreds of information but a ton of common sense and the will to act. Were it not for their decisive action, we’d now have a crater on Capitol Hill, or a Perpetual Peace Garden at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, instead of a silent memorial in the woods near Shanksville, PA.

How well I remember when President George W. Bush declared a War on Terror, insisting that our strategy must be to “drain the swamp”. The phrase suggested the mucky, nasty nature of the task ahead. As a former resident of New Orleans (a city, like Washington DC, built largely in a drained swamp), I also knew that swamp draining is a task that is never really complete.

The death of Osama bin Laden was a milestone, not the finish line of the War on Terror. We must be ever vigilant.

So it is terribly unsettling to learn that terrorism is not the default assumption of the Obama Administration when mob violence is directed at an American diplomatic presence in the Middle East, especially when it comes on a key anniversary. We watched for a week, waiting for Ambassador Rice, Jay Carney and President Obama to begrudgingly conclude what was apparent to the average consumer of cable news on the night of the attacks: such a coordinated assault cannot be attributed to anger in the Arab Street over a lame Youtube video.

Unfortunately, our leaders are blinded by ideology, political expediency and a looming election. The next attack may come at a place less remote than the Benghazi consulate.

Cross-posted at my blog.

Follow VladimirRS on twitter.

Tags: ,

COMMENTS

POSTING RULES  |  LOGIN TO COMMENT  |  REGISTER TODAY
  • http://www.chicagobluesgirl.com chicagobluesgirl

    Welcome to our open borders

  • Dave_A

    AQ tends to use legal immigrants and naturalized US citizens…. Same goes for their ‘franchises’….

    They may be scattered, they may be almost broke, but they haven’t become stupid (generally, the opposite is in effect – eg ‘sorting algorithm of evil’… We’ve killed most of the stupid ones)…. Even with our minimal immigration enforcement, having an op blown by someone getting popped for illegal entry… Is an avoidable mistake…

    Which is why you haven’t – and won’t – see an AQ attack involve illegal border crossing.

  • ohiohistorian

    And, until 2001, had not used an aircraft as a strap-on bomb. To make such broad statements as “al-Qida does only this” is to pretend that this is not a war which gets fought with ever-changing tactics.

    I will not claim that all those we killed were stupid; there was also some luck involved. If anything, we have a bloated, stupid system headed by a bloated, stupid Secretary of which al-Qida will take advantage. Count on it.

  • proudmarinemom

    Naive. Venezuela is welcoming Al Qaida trainers and helping them get into Mexico. From there, it’s just a cake walk. Coming soon to a theater near you (or shopping mall, football stadium, university).

  • rjhfl

    President Bush got the first part right, but then we had to listen to Cabinet officials on TV telling us how Islam was the religion of peace, and he allowed the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA to be born.

  • fightnright

    This is why I’m sick and tired of Republicans allowing the debate over our border problem to be framed as a question over which side is more compassionate to poor, hardworking immigrants who are breaking their backs to become part of the American dream. That’s a fool’s game.

    The GOP needs to keep its focus on the border issue as it really is, a critical issue of our homeland/national security

  • Next93

    Just as a historical point, back in the 60′s, when my father worked for NASA on the Apollo program, they had a saying: “When yo

  • Next93

    Sorry, my computer decided to post that before I was done…
    As I was saying, the NASA greybeards had a saying: “When you’re up to your ass in aligators, it’s hard to remember that the objective was to drain the swamp”. Given the fact that KSC was literally in the middle of a swamp and that the launch pad crews did occasionally have to deal with aligators (and the Florida Fish and Wildlife red tape), I always though it was a pretty clever saying
    When I worked for NASA in the early 90′s, there were “DTS teams”, At first, I thought it was another government acronym, but soon discovered that DTS stood for “Drain the swamp”. I always thought that my father and the giants with whom he worked with would have appreciated the sentiment.

  • Dave_A

    I tend to believe in profiles… AQ has an ‘organizational mentality’ that produces a specific targeting set and a rather fixed methodology.

    After all these years, if they were capable of adapting, they’d have done so… They might have started using guns instead of bombs, or attacking targets that weren’t political, military, or economic landmarks – or transportation related (eg going after malls, theaters, and so on)…

    But they haven’t. Even after we started repeatedly busting their bomb plots with fake explosives & FBI moles… Their next attack is always another bombing attempt… Against a ‘landmark’ target (Times Square, WTC, Pentagon, LAX Airport) or transportation infrastructure….

    This indicates a bit of rigidity…

    If AQ wanted to use cross-border attacks against us, they would have already, instead they have focused on recruiting US citizens to their cause, and radicalizing legal immigrants.

  • Dave_A

    Still fits the over-all MO: ‘Big boom, landmark targets, all attackers entered with legit immigration papers’…

    They adapt ‘what’ the bomb is – but the targets, the fact that it will be a bombing, and the methods of inserting their operatives (everyone having papers or citizenship) all remain fairly consistent…

  • darrell5151

    Then after all this, Senator Rand Paul submitted a bill, with conditions, to stop sending our tax dollars to these animals. The Senate voted on it. Well it didn’t pass. Not only did it not pass, it was voted down in a landslide. Republicans and Democrats alike voted it down. The only time these fools seem to work together, always turns up being against what the American people want. They voted and then ran home for recess. I sent my two spineless Republican Senators emails that I was not happy. We all need to remind them, they work for us, not the other way around. Here’s the roll call. Call them, email them, or whatever, but let these cowards know how we feel.
    http://donnyferguson.blogspot.com/2012/09/roll-call-vote-on-rand-pauls-foreign.html

  • barbara125

    Has anyone noticed that the only Muslim country not on fire now is Iraq? Is it possible that in a country exposed to 10 yrs of western ideals gets it? Shall we blame Bush for this one?

  • gavinwca

    Do you really think there is a chance politicians would have common sense. The only sense any politician has in both parties is who will pay me the most, who will contribute the most, what group can I lie to and easily get their vote. What votes should I commit to to get me reelected . There is no honor or patritism In politicians anymore we definitely need to drain the swamp, on both sides,.

  • cwfoster

    I’m SICK of Republicans following Romney’s campaign example of say “well, he’s a nice guy, but he’s just in WAY over his head.” Obama and his fellow travelers aren’t “blinded by their ideology , political,, expediency and a looming election”! Obama KNOWS that to admit that this was a preplanned coordinated attack, by an Al Queda that KNEW in advance where the Benghazi safehouse was, we have not only given up the Middle East, but any advantage we held in the intelligence field as well! (Oh, and for the ONE administration official who admitted it was a terrorist attack, but NOT preplanned, I submit the same fact that they had identififed the safehouse, AND while AK’s and RPG’s are rampant over there, it takes some setting up to use mortars!

  • swordofzorro

    But somehow Obama and his team had their wits about them enough to make it to a fund raiser in Las Vegas and personal appearances on David Letterman show. Somehow the idea of lowering the national flag to half mast as a show of respect to the dead of the Bengazi attack never crossed their minds? Or, perhaps those quick political calculations all came up with the same answer as those of the main stream media…make it all go away fast. They tried, we gotta give them credit for that.

  • swordofzorro

    Did you see Jim DeMint on Hannity obfuscate the notion that we shouldn’t send money to Egypt?? I was aghast at how he tried to quickly dodge the question and suggest American shouldn’t disengage from the world. Did the virus get to him too?? He voted for the bill but his words on Hannity leaves me puzzled.

  • vipervindow29

    Notice the President claimed to drain the swamp with the help of Nancy Pelosi and when elected ( the ACORN Sleaze factor) they expanded the swamp by 10 and unionized it !! ,nearly codifying the new swamp in law. Hence the corn husker kickback union opt out..etc Now Right after Benghazi attack OBAMA was exhausted meeting with celebs and went to bed. Oh By the way his closest confidant is IRANIAN and likes Communist Van Jones. WTF is that how to win the future…a famous commander said to the Nazi’s once……NUTZ

  • gizmo

    Muslim Communist. Anything else need be said?!?!?

  • cbartlett

    This is even more insidious than incompetence or arrogance. If you have seen the film “2016″, the theory is that Obama is an anti-colonialist and everything he’s done in this administration fits the theme. Basically he is not only interested in re-distributing wealth in America; he thinks we should be re-distributing “rich America” throughout the world. We have become too big and too successful “on the backs of other poor countries” and we “owe” the world. He welcomes this terrorist activity – it is a method of leveling the playing field. He really, really needs to be fired in November.

  • edintexas

    The 4 “bumps in the road” in Libya weren’t lucky.

  • edintexas

    Which AQ is that? We now have several, and according to intel organs they are definitely not clones of the original.

  • edintexas

    I’m certainly glad you know there are no undetected terrorists gaining illegal entry into the US (other than MS-13, who are criminals engaging in some terroristic acts against people and non-governmental entities solely for criminal ends).

  • Dave_A

    MS13 are common gangsters. Not terrorists.

    We have had a good number of attack-attempts since 2001, and none of them have involved illegal border-crossing. The fact is, to believe that Al Queda has not used these ‘undetected terrorists’ against us – as we have pecked their organization to pieces over the past 10 years – makes it all the more absurd…

    They have done many things to attack the US – recruiting our own citizens, radicalizing legal immigrants, committing with-papers illegal immigration (eg, visa violation)…. But yet despite the claims otherwise, there is no evidence of any terror plots involving an illegal border crossing….