Ignoring the GWOT Does Not Make It Go Away

There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare. ~ Sun-Tzu, Art of War, Chapter 2, Paragraph 6

Terminated Domestic Surveillance Program

Siobhan Gorman (2009), staff writer at The Wall Street Journal, wrote that the Obama administration terminated a domestic surveillance satellite program (National Applications Office, NAO) at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The program was to provide federal, state, and local officials with extensive access to spy-satellite imagery – but no eavesdropping capabilities – to assist with emergency response and other domestic-security needs such as identifying where ports or border areas are vulnerable to terrorism. This was a loss of an important, new terrorism-fighting tool for terrorist attacks, border security, and natural disasters.

Gorman (2009) further reported that Rep. Jane Harman (D., Calif.), who oversees the House Homeland Security subcommittee on intelligence, said she was concerned when she recently saw that the Obama administration had requested money for the program in a classified 2010-budget proposal. She introduced two bills that would terminate the program. “It’s a good decision,” Ms. Harman said in an interview. “This will remove a distraction and let the intelligence function at [the DHS] truly serve the community that needs it, which is local law enforcement.”

Gorman (2009) reported further that supporters of the program lamented what they said was the loss of an important new terrorism-fighting tool for natural disasters and terrorist attacks, as well as border security. “After numerous congressional briefings on the importance of the NAO and its solid legal footing, politics beat out good government,” said Andrew Levy, who was deputy general counsel at the department in the Bush administration.

Washington PostStaff Writer Spencer Hsu (2009) wrote that the HSD Secretary, Janet Napolitano, announced on June 23, 2009, that she would cancel a controversial Bush administration program to expand the use of spy satellites by domestic law enforcement and other agencies. Napolitano said that she acted after state and local law enforcement officials said that access to secret overhead imagery was not a priority for them.

Hsu (2009) went further to state that, in 2007, President George W. Bush’s top intelligence and homeland security officials authorized the NAO to expand sharing satellite data with domestic agencies. However, congressional Democrats barred funding for what they said could become a new platform for domestic surveillance that would raise privacy and civil liberties concerns. In early June 2009, House Democrats expressed surprise that Obama included funding for the program in the classified portion of the DHS’s 2010 budget, and they threatened to kill the office.

Terrorism Now Man-Caused Disasters

The Obama administration ordered the word “terrorism” no longer be used but instead be referred to such terrorist acts as “man-caused disasters.”

Tim Graham (2009) wrote in the NewsBusters that even as President Obama compares bankers to suicide bombers, his Homeland Security Secretary is suggesting the T-word, terrorism, is too inflammatory and representative of old-fashioned “politics of fear.” She has announced a new term, i.e., “man-caused disaster.” From an interview with the German magazine Der Spiegel:

SPIEGEL: Madame Secretary, in your first testimony to the U.S. Congress as Homeland Security Secretary, you never mentioned the word “terrorism.” Does Islamist terrorism suddenly no longer pose a threat to your country?

NAPOLITANO: Of course it does. I presume there is always a threat from terrorism. In my speech, although I did not use the word “terrorism,” I referred to “man-caused disasters.” That is perhaps only a nuance, but it demonstrates that we want to move away from the politics of fear toward a policy of being prepared for all risks that can occur.

Graham (2009) wondered, but what if the suicide bomber is a female? Is it not sexist to use “man-caused disaster”?  Political correctness is killing us.

Enemy Combatants Now Detainees

The Obama administration has eliminated the term “enemy combatants” for those terrorists detained in the Guantanamo Bay detention center and now calls them only “detainees.”

Terry Frieden (2009), CNN Justice Producer, reported that, in a dramatic break with the Bush administration, the Justice Department on March 13, 2009, announced it is doing away with the designation of “enemy combatant,” which allowed the United States to hold suspected terrorists at length without criminal charges. Officials will no longer use the designation of “enemy combatant,” the Justice Department said. In a court filing in Washington, the department said it is developing a new standard for the government’s authority to hold detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba. The announcement says the Justice Department will no longer rely on the president’s authority as commander-in-chief, but on authority specifically granted by Congress. Further, the government document says that individuals who support al-Qaeda or the Taliban are detainable only if the support was “substantial.” The category of “enemy combatant” had been an important aspect of the Bush administration’s legal construct for dealing with terrorism suspects.

Randall Mikkelsen (2009) of Reuters wrote that the Obama administration stopped calling Guantanamo inmates “enemy combatants” on March 13, 2009, and incorporated international law as its basis for holding the prisoners while it works to close the facility. The U.S. Justice Department filed court papers outlining a further legal and linguistic shift from the anti-terrorism policies of Republican President George W. Bush, which drew worldwide condemnation as violations of human rights and international law. U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a statement, “As we work toward developing a new policy to govern detainees, it is essential that we operate in a manner that strengthens our national security, is consistent with our values, and is governed by law.”

Mikkelsen (2009) further reported that attorney Hina Shamsi of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) said, “In key elements they are a continuation of the Bush administration.” “This is really a case of old wine in new bottles,” said the Center for Constitutional Rights in New York, which represents a number of Guantanamo prisoners. Holder had signaled at a Justice Department ceremony that much of his work would consist of scrapping Bush administration legal policy. “There is an awful lot of work that we have to do,” Holder said. “There are things, quite frankly, that we have to reverse, policy changes that we have to make.”  So, what happens after Obama is defeated in 2012? Do we change all of the policies back to where they were previously? All that they are doing seems so ridiculous. All that is being done is to protect the terrorists. Unbelievable! Political correctness is killing us.

GWOT Now Overseas Contingency Operation

The Obama administration eliminated the use of the term “Global War on Terror (GWOT)” and replaced it with the nebulous term “Overseas Contingency Operation.” It seems as though the Obama administration thinks that if the GWOT is out of sight and out of mind; therefore, it will be out of existence. Not! If we do not take the war on terrorism to the terrorists overseas, we will fight the war on terrorism within the borders of the United States homeland.

Al Kamen (2009) wrote in The Washington Post that the end of the “Global War on Terror” – or at least the use of that phrase – was codified at the Pentagon. Reports that the phrase was being retired have been circulating for some time amongst senior administration officials, and this morning speechwriters and other staff were notified via this e-mail to use “Overseas Contingency Operation” instead. “Recently, in a LtGen [John] Bergman, USMC, statement for the 25 March [2009 congressional] hearing, OMB required that the following change be made before going to the Hill,” Dave Riedel, of the Office of Security Review, wrote in an e-mail that OMB says, “This Administration prefers to avoid using the term ‘Long War’ or ‘Global War on Terror’ [GWOT]. Please use ‘Overseas Contingency Operation.’”  Political correctness is killing us.

The catch-all phrase “the war on terrorism,” in all honesty, has no more meaning than if one wants to wage a war against “criminal gangsterism.” Terrorism is a tactic. You can’t have a war against a tactic. It’s deliberately vague and non-definable in order to justify and permit perpetual war anywhere and under any circumstance. ~ Congressman Ron Paul, Republican, 14th district Texas, from a speech given on the house floor, 2007

War is Against People. When you fight a war, you fight people. You cannot effectively wage a war and win when you fight against an idea, an ideology, a concept, an “-ism,” an inanimate object, land, an infrastructure, animals, plants, and any other such ridiculous things. In other words, you cannot fight and win a war against drugs, against poverty, or against terrorism. There will be no end to them unless and until we change our paradigm to make them a war on specific people – the bad guys.

War on Drugs. The War on Drugs continues and never seems to have an end or conclusion. Until we change the War on Drugs to the War on Drug Dealers, War on Drug Pushers, War on Drug Addicts, War on Drug Cartels, War on Drug Traffickers, or War on Drug Smugglers, nothing positive will happen to win that war. You win the War on Drugs only when you knock off (one-by-one) all those who are illicitly participating in advancing the sale and use of drugs for money.

War on Poverty. Likewise, the War on Poverty rages on for years and years, and there is no end in sight. The War on Poverty will always exist until we change its designation to one or more of the following:

• War for educating poor people
• War on those who attempt to keep poor people on the virtual plantation
• War on extreme left-wing secular progressives who advance handout (entitlement) programs

We Can Never Win the War on Poverty. By definition, you cannot eradicate poverty. As long as we have the rich, we will always have the poor. As long as we have the “haves,” we will have the “have-nots.” Hence, by definition, we will never eliminate the poor. However, we can make things better for the poor by educating them, increasing the overall economic pie, and outlawing those who attempt to keep the poor on the figurative plantation.

War on Terrorism. The same argument applies to the War on Terror. It is no different with the War on Terrorism. We must change that paradigm to the War on Terrorists, War with al-Qaida, War with the Taliban, War with Hezbollah, War with Hamas, and/or War on Islamo-fascists. You need not fight a country or nation to go to war. We can go to war with an organization, a group of people, and members of an ideological party. We need to start killing off Islamo-fascists one by one until our work is done. These groups represent a finite number of lowlife human bodies.

Supporting HAMAS Activists

The Obama administration offered travel and living subsidies in the United States to Hamas activists displaced from the Gaza Strip.

Aaron Klein (2009), WorldNetDaily’s Jerusalem bureau chief, reported that Hamas is “very happy” with a pledge in the last week in February 2009 from the Obama administration to provide $900 million in aid for rebuilding the Hamas-controlled Gaza Strip, a spokesman from the Islamist organization told WND. “We are very happy with this decision,” said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum, speaking by cell phone from Gaza. “In the first place, this money will go toward reconstructing efforts.” Barhoum said he expects the money to be tightly controlled. He said the funds are likely to be delineated to the Palestinian Authority and to the United Nations Relief and Work Agency (UNWRA), which administers aid to millions of Palestinian “refugees” in the Gaza Strip and West Bank.

Klein (2009) further reported that Hamas has a close relationship with UNWRA; the agency openly employs a large number of Hamas members, including some of the group’s most senior terrorists. The U.S. aid has not yet been officially approved by Congress. The package is expected to be formally announced by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton when she attends an international Gaza donors’ conference in Egypt during the first week of March 2009. A U.S. official reported the money will not reach Hamas but will go instead to nongovernmental organizations, most notably UNWRA. Still, the terrorist organization controls the Gaza Strip. Any reconstruction efforts in the territory are likely to bolster Hamas.  This action further proves to me that we have a bunch of idiots running the State Department and Congress.

John Maddalena (2009) of Navy Veterans: A Social Network for Navy Veterans of the United States of America wrote that, whether you are an Obama fan or not, everyone in the United States needs to know this fact. Something happened. H.R. 1388 was passed on August 9, 2009, behind our backs. You may want to read about it. It was not mentioned on the news but just went by on the ticker tape at the bottom of the CNN screen. Obama funds $20M in taxpayer dollars to immigrate Hamas Refugees to the USA. This is the news that didn’t make the headlines. By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in “migration assistance” to the Palestinian refugees and “conflict victims” in Gaza. The “presidential determination,” which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States, was signed on January 27, 2009, and appeared in the Federal Register on February 4, 2009.

I still cannot wrap my arms around this picture. Why is the Obama administration providing nearly a billion dollars to help Hamas, one of the terrorist enemy groups that are out to destroy the United States? It is unfathomable as to why Obama is helping these terrorists! One thing is for sure: The American people don’t have a say anymore in what our crooked government does. Our Congress just spent $20.3 million to move members/supporters of Hamas, a terrorist organization out to kill us all, to the United States. They get housing, food, the whole enchilada.

References

Frieden, T. (2009, March 13). U.S. reverses policy, drops ‘enemy combatant’ term. CNN.com. Retrieved from www.cnn.com/2009/POLITICS/03/13/enemy.combatant/index.html.

Gorman, S. (2009, June 23). White House to abandon spy-satellite program. The Wall Street Journal. online.wsj.com/article/SB124572555214540265.html.

Graham, T. (2009, March 19). Obama-speak: Homeland security secretary replaces ‘terrorism’ with the term ‘man-caused disaster.’ NewsBusters. Retrieved from newsbusters.org/blogs/tim-graham/2009/03/19/obama-speak-homeland-security-secretary-replaces-terrorism-term-man-caus.

Hsu, S. S. (2009, June 24). DHS to cut police access to spy-satellite data. The Washington Post. Retrieved from www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/23/AR2009062302060_pf.html

Kamen, A. (2009, March 24). The end of the Global War on Terror. The Washington Post. Retrieved from voices.washingtonpost.com/44/2009/03/23/the_end_of_the_global_war_on_t.html?hpid=news-col-blog.

Klein, A. (2009, February 24). Hamas ‘happy’ with Obama’s $900 million pledge: Funds earmarked for U.N. agency that openly employs terrorists. WorldNetDaily. Retrieved from www.wnd.com/index.php?pageId=89949.

Maddalena, D. J. (2009, August 10). HB 1388 passed. Navy Veterans: A Social Network for Navy Veterans of the United States of America. Retrieved from www.navyvets.com/profiles/blogs/hb-1388-passed. 

Mikkelsen, R. (2009, March 14). Guantanamo inmates no longer “enemy combatants.” Reuters. Retrieved from www.reuters.com/article/newsOne/idUSTRE52C59220090314?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0.