While most of us in the conservative commentariat have found much to appall us, as it pertains to this president’s management of national security and the war on terrorists, in order to maintain our collective credibility, it’s imperative that we give him credit when it is due. This week the number two man in al Qaeda, Abu Yahya al-Libi was killed inside Pakistan (what a surprise) by U.S. drone attack. This an important victory for which the President should be credited.
There are a number of things which make the “hit” historic. First, the success of the operation that killed al-Libi also showed that the U.S. has maintained its intelligence capacity in Pakistan despite the tensions generated between the US and Pakistani governments resulting from the deeply humiliating raid on bin Laden’s compound.
Second, it signals that long gone are the cold-war days when an American spy was a shadowy collector of information, a person of secrecy and subterfuge. As I profiled in my new book, Lessons from Fallen Civilizations, the new CIA was transformed forever altered by the crucible the lightening speed of the Afghanistan invasion. The intelligence officer is one-part spy, two parts Special Forces warrior
But the drone attacks with their collateral death toll and the bin Laden raid raise an obvious question: Were a Republican President waging this clandestine war, wouldn’t the liberals in Congress be convening new Church committee hearings which oversaw the decimation of the CIA?
It is one more example of how candidate Obama’s campaign to discredit President Bush “the torturer,” for his enhanced interrogation techniques, has now been rendered a negative as he seeks another term as Commander in Chief. It was only the latest in this president’s ten-fold increase in drone attacks and assassinations. What is more immoral in a liberal’s worldview: waterboarding a terrorist or killing him, his family, and associates? Obama’s the judge, jury, and executioner. Where’s the justice?!
But credit is due Obama because American will is taking effect in the tribal regions of Waziristan (Northwest Pakistan). Al Libi’s hit was made possible because al Qaeda is clearly losing support there. As Seth Jones, an al Qaeda specialist at Rand Corp, points out: “There appear to be a range of individuals on the ground, in the very tribal areas in which al Qaeda is operating, who are willing to report on them.”
