The Old Adage is True: Actions Speak Louder Than Words, Mr. President

OK, WE'RE RIGHT! ^ | January 5, 2010 | Oscar De Los Santos

[OK Right]

Don’t be fooled by the tougher talk coming out of the mouth of our president the past few days. In Obamaland, the rhetoric may be laced with a little more acid – a little more, mind you – but it’s still the same pacifist president running the show. Obama needs to learn that what he does will impress us more than what he says.

Consider the way Obama danced around calling would-be plane bomber Abdul Mutallab a terrorist. The first time he spoke about the incident – three days after it happened – the president kept using careful wordage (“alleged suspect”) throughout his speech. It was only after his second discussion of the near-mishap that the president stopped trying to convince us that the bombing attempt was instigated by yet another “isolated extremist” and in effect admitted the perpetrator was a terrorist with ties to al-Qaeda. (Such words are so rare in an Obama speech that one can’t help but wonder if perhaps a speechwriter in training snuck in the tougher language and lost his job afterward.)

Yet regardless of whether Obama is convinced that Abdul Mutallab is a terrorist, he’s still shortsighted when it comes to dealing with those who hate America most. Rather than treat Abdul Mutallab as a terrorist and subject him to military interrogation and trial, the administration read him his rights, assigned him a lawyer and promised him a civilian trail.

Such behavior boggles the mind. It’s another ridiculous move on the part of the Obama administration – quite frankly, one of its dumbest. As FOX News anchor Chris Wallace noted, as soon as Abdul Mutallab was “lawyered up” he stopped talking. Deputy National Security Adviser John Brennan tried to defend the administration’s decision and said they decide on a case-by-case basis how best to handle each incident – but anyone can see the grotesque illogic here (FOX News Sunday, January 4, 2010).

Equally irrational was the administration’s decision to continue its shipment of Gitmo detainees back to Yemen. The Times of London and others have reported that Yemeni Gitmo goons return to al-Qaeda when they are released (Tom Coghlan, “Freed Guantanamo Inmates are heading for Yemen to join al-Qaeda fight,” January 5, 2010, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/middle_east/article6975971.ece) – yet when he spoke on FOX News Sunday, John Brennan insisted there was no plan to close that spigot.

Thankfully, the president backpedaled on that position today. There seems to be a lot of backpedaling by this administration lately – but it’s still not enough. To wit: although Obama will not be able to close the Guantanamo prison facility by the proposed January 22 deadline, he is still determined to shutter it – even as terrorism is on the rise.

If you’re still not convinced that Obama behaves like the most irresponsible 1960s Vietnam War protestors – namely, those who believed in Communism and wanted America smeared by the North Vietnamese – remember that he’s the president who waited over three months to make a troop escalation decision in Afghanistan. Moreover, recall that when he finally announced one, it was after he told us of his commitment to bring our troops home by a certain deadline.

Say what you will about President Richard Nixon, the man could be a tenacious war strategist in ways that Obama doesn’t even begin to comprehend. Nixon took great heat for invading parts of allegedly neutral Cambodia (a ludicrous belief held by some, even after the North Vietnamese bases around Cambodia’s perimeters were exposed), but his move to push back the North Vietnamese actually helped shorten the war. Troops came home in increasing numbers after Cambodia.

But more important is the marked difference between the way Obama handled his decision to bring our soldiers home from Afghanistan and Nixon’s decision to bring our troops home from Vietnam:

“Many of my congressional supporters had urged me to announce a complete withdrawal schedule in 1969 so the American people would know our involvement in Vietnam was coming to an end. I discussed this idea in a conversation with Dean Acheson . . . In his usual blunt and incisive manner, he said, ‘That would be a stupid move, both on the battlefront and on the home front. If you tell the North Vietnamese in advance that you are going to withdraw all our forces on a certain date in the future regardless of what they do, you lose all negotiating leverage. They will just continue the war until we get out and take over when we leave’” (No More Vietnams, 124-125).

What did Obama accomplish by announcing an Afghan withdrawal timetable except hamstring our efforts to overthrow al-Qaeda? In effect, the president’s words sent a signal to those fighting us to just hunker down and play a waiting game.

Finally, remember what the Obama administration has done after the passing of its Iran nuke site inspection deadline: namely, nothing. Sure, there’s a lot going on, but that shouldn’t have stopped Team Obama from having stern measures ready to implement. Even the Democrat-heavy Congress wanted tougher resolutions than Obama & Co: Capitol Hill called for gasoline embargo. That’s better than sending John Kerry over for one more pleading session to get Iran to cooperate or the “targeted sanctions” the administration has decided to implement (Benny Avni, “Bam’s Iran Blunder,” New York Post, January 4, 2010, p. 23).

Obama is trying to sound tougher, but actions really do speak louder than words. This afternoon, he admitted there were signals aplenty that the attempted Detroit jet bombing was in the works. As Obama put it, “I will accept that intelligence by its nature is imperfect, but it is increasingly clear that intelligence was not fully analyzed or fully leveraged. That’s not acceptable and I will not tolerate it” (Frank James, “Obama Chides U.S. Intel Officials For Not Linking Airliner Bomber-Plot Dots,” January 5, 2010, NPR, http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2010/01/obama_chides_us_intel_for_not.html).

Thanks for the update, Mr. President, but will anyone lose a job as a result of the latest mess? Is Janet “the system worked” Napolitano squirming? What about Leon Panetta? Probably not, given the votes of confidence heaped their way by Obama team members.

So we’re back to business as usual in Obamaland, with tougher talk mixed in to deflect the usual modus operandi, which is to do everything but hand the enemy victory on a platter, rather than behave like a tough commander in chief committed to protecting the American people and defending liberty.

[combat_boots]

[skeeter]

Don’t be fooled by the tougher talk coming out of the mouth of our president the past few days.

No need to worry about that.

[SunkenCiv]

The first time he spoke about the incident -- three days after it happened -- the president kept using careful wordage ("alleged suspect") throughout his speech. It was only after his second discussion of the near-mishap that the president stopped trying to convince us that the bombing attempt was instigated by yet another "isolated extremist" and in effect admitted the perpetrator was a terrorist with ties to al-Qaeda. (Such words are so rare in an Obama speech that one can't help but wonder if perhaps a speechwriter in training snuck in the tougher language and lost his job afterward.)