WASHINGTON – There’s been a lot of talk about continuity. The seamless nature of George W. Bush’s foreign policy and Barack Obama’s national security strategy. Of course, there are some similarities that are quite troubling to invoke, but they’re lost on Mr. John Yoo.
In a post recently he said Pres. Obama’s administration is to be “congratulated for the flawless execution of the operation that killed OBL.” What he said next is now the debate raging in political circles: Also, buried in the stories may be yet another sign of the vindication of the Bush administration’s war on terror policies. In the entire conversation about Bush and Obama something has gone missing.
It was Pres. Reagan bugging out of Lebanon that sent the message that if you hit the U.S.A. hard enough we’ll crumble.
Seal Team Six, under the leadership of their commander in chief Barack Obama, proved this theory wrong.
Pres. Clinton was barely in office after George H.W. Bush when the first World Trade Center attack happened, Khobar Towers, there were the bombings in Kenya and Tanzania, the USS Cole, so Clinton’s team was well versed in the rise of Al Qaeda. The “wag the dog” charge by Republicans thoroughly and completely rebutted by Gen. Hugh Shelton in his book.
By the time Pres. George W. Bush got into office Al Qaeda had gotten very busy.
Oh, but I can hear the whines now. Why are you bringing up Bill Clinton?
Pres. Bush didn’t think continuity between Pres. Bill Clinton’s presidency and his administration was important, not even on terrorism. In fact, Bush-Cheney made a point of distancing themselves thoroughly from the Clinton administration, even though it was the first presidency that openly identified and dealt with the developing threat of Osama bin Laden, even if Clinton failed to capture the man.
In the first months of George W. Bush’s presidency, Richard Clarke, the first cabinet-level counter-terrorism adviser and chief adviser on the National Security Council, was demoted, but also stiff-armed in trying to communicate with Pres. Bush. We all know what happened when Bush got the famous PDB about bin Laden determined to attack inside the U.S.
Pres. Bill Clinton gave George W. Bush warnings about Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, as we learned via the 9/11 Commission, but because it came from William Jefferson Clinton, Bush didn’t taken them to heart. When Clarke later exposed George W. Bush, Republicans moved in to discredit him at all costs. Then while the entire build up was happening in the summer of 2001, not only did Pres. Bush miss it, but so did his entire team.
One reason, is by former Pres. Bush’s own analysis, he just wasn’t that interested in catching OBL. From the White House transcript:
Q But don’t you believe that the threat that bin Laden posed won’t truly be eliminated until he is found either dead or alive?
THE PRESIDENT: Well, as I say, we haven’t heard much from him. And I wouldn’t necessarily say he’s at the center of any command structure. And, again, I don’t know where he is. I — I’ll repeat what I said. I truly am not that concerned about him. I know he is on the run. I was concerned about him, when he had taken over a country.
Maybe that’s why they also missed the construction of bin Laden’s $1 million compound starting in 2005, which is where Seal Team Six found him and killed him, at Pres. Obama’s direction.
Democrats let George W. Bush off the hook, something Republicans never do with Bill Clinton, while trying to diminish Barack Obama whenever they can.
Now John Woo and others are hailing enhanced interrogations, with media sucking it up, when whatever was gotten through torture took years and years to develop, because the clarity of the intel was so discombobulated. Republicans can’t admit that good, old fashioned investigative work is what finally led the U.S. to kill bin Laden.
Al Qaeda developed over many presidencies, both Republican and Democratic. Foreign policy is supposed to stop at the water’s edge, but we all know it doesn’t especially on the Republican side, with Democrats having to always defend themselves as just as strong on national security, even if it’s actually Republicans that Democrats are always cleaning up after.
We’ll never know what might have been averted if George W. Bush had heeded the warnings of the Clinton administration.
When Pres. Barack Obama came into office he paid attention. George W. Bush did not, because he didn’t think he could learn anything from Bill Clinton’s presidency and the fight he waged against Al Qaeda.
We all paid dearly for George W. Bush’s presidency, while the entire media establishment thinks this point is no longer relevant. It’s unseemly to say it open today.
Continuity between Clinton and Bush never happened, but because no one ever held George W. Bush accountable, John Woo, Rush Limbaugh, and the entire Republican establishment are bending over backward to give him credit today.
Taylor Marsh is a Washington based political analyst, writer and commentator on national politics, foreign policy, and women in power. A veteran national politics writer, Taylor’s been writing on the web since 1996. She has reported from the White House, been profiled in the Washington Post, The New Republic, and has been seen on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, CNN, MSNBC, Al Jazeera English and Al Jazeera Arabic, as well as on radio across the dial and on satellite, including the BBC. Marsh lives in the Washington, D.C. area. This column is cross posted from her blog.
White House photo by Pete Souza.