CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Heckuva Job. “The reason the country is uneasy about the Obama administration’s response to this attack is a distinct sense of not just incompetence but incomprehension. . . . Any government can through laxity let someone slip through the cracks. But a government that refuses to admit that we are at war, indeed, refuses even to name the enemy — jihadist is a word banished from the Obama lexicon — turns laxity into a governing philosophy.”Glenn Greenwald, December 31st, 2009:
As always, Charles Krauthammer is one of Al Qaeda's greatest allies:
Obama reassured the nation that this "suspect" had been charged. Reassurance? The president should be saying: We have captured an enemy combatant -- an illegal combatant under the laws of war: no uniform, direct attack on civilians -- and now to prevent future attacks, he is being interrogated regarding information he may have about al-Qaeda in Yemen.
He sounds just like Richard Reid and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.Who are Reid and Mohammed? The infamous al-Qaeda "shoe bomber" and "plot mastermind," respectively, who made it eminently clear they view themselves as warriors, not as the common, psychopathic, murderous criminals that they are. As Greenwald points out, the worst thing we can do is play into this notion that terrorists are some warriors, engaged in a "war" against us, rather than some fringe extremist murderous terrorists.
Krauthammer doesn't get this, and seems to respond as if this is all a real life video "war" game. And as if the grave threat that we face from terrorism means that somehow calling it something "big" helps us, rather than hurts us. But then again, Krauthammer preaches on Fox, and the Washington Post.
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