{"id":1180,"date":"2015-11-18T03:03:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-18T03:03:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nebraska.precisionnewmedia.com\/?p=1180"},"modified":"2016-08-16T03:04:27","modified_gmt":"2016-08-16T03:04:27","slug":"returning-the-gop-to-power-to-keep-the-country-safe-would-be-like-bringing-back-bill-callahan-to-run-the-nebraska-football-program","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nebraskademocrats.org\/zh\/blog\/returning-the-gop-to-power-to-keep-the-country-safe-would-be-like-bringing-back-bill-callahan-to-run-the-nebraska-football-program\/","title":{"rendered":"Returning The GOP To Power To Keep The Country Safe Would Be Like Bringing Back Bill Callahan To Run The Nebraska Football Program"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tragedy struck recently in Paris in which a series of ISIS attacks resulted in the deaths of over 150 people. \u00a0 Unfortunately, the GOP chose to play politics with the deaths of innocent people and and were quick to blame President Obama for the attacks. \u00a0This stands in sharp contrast to the days immediately after the 9\/11\/01 attacks when the Democrats rallied around then President Bush during an international crisis.<\/p>\n

GOP Presidential candidate and failed CEO Carly Fiorina alleged:\u00a0\u00a0\u201cThe murder, mayhem, danger and tragedy we see unfolding in Paris, throughout the Middle East and too often in our own homeland, are the direct consequence of this administration\u2019s policies.\u201d \u00a0GOP rising star and establishment darling Marco Rubio went on social media to use the Paris attacks as a fundraising opportunity. \u00a0Ben Sasse ally Ted Cruz \u00a0went so far as to challenge the patriotism of the commander-in-chief during a crisis by saying: “\u201cI recognize Barack Obama does not wish to defend this country.\u201d<\/p>\n

The unspoken assumption behind these irresponsible and dishonest GOP attacks on the President of the U.S. after our oldest ally was attacked was that they could do a better job protecting our country if the GOP is returned to power in the 2016 elections. \u00a0Is there anything in recent history that would lead anybody to believe that the GOP is up to the job of keeping the U.S. safe?<\/p>\n

The record of the most recent Republican President certainly calls into question the ability of the GOP to protect the American people. \u00a0Beginning in the spring of 2001, then President Bush received (and ignored) several warnings that Osama Bin Laden and Al\u00a0Qaeda were planning a series of spectacular attacks on America. \u00a0Most memorably, on August 6, 2001, Bush received a memo from the CIA with the title: ”\u00a0\u201cBin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.\u201d Just five weeks later, on 9\/11, Al Qaeda accomplished that goal.<\/p>\n

Shortly after these terrorist attacks, Bush publicly boasted\u00a0that he wanted Bin Laden “dead or alive.”\u00a0\u00a0Unfortunately, the next\u00a0seven and half years demonstrated that there was a huge gap between\u00a0Bush’s cowboy like bluster and his Administration’s actual performance.<\/p>\n

The Bush Administration got off on the wrong foot when its incompetence\u00a0allowed OBL to escape from Tora Bora in December 2001. After that\u00a0blunder, Bush no longer made the killing or capture of OBL a high\u00a0priority.\u00a0\u00a0Instead, on March 13, 2002, George W. Bush said of bin Laden, “I\u00a0truly am not that concerned about him.” Subsequently, in July 2006,\u00a0the Bush administration closed its unit that had been hunting bin\u00a0Laden. In September 2006, Bush told Fred Barnes of Fox News that an\u00a0“emphasis on\u00a0bin Laden doesn’t fit with the administration’s strategy for combating\u00a0terrorism.”<\/p>\n

Another factor that contributed to the Bush’s Administration’s failed search to find Bin Laden was it’s disastrous decision to invade Iraq and conduct a multi-year nation building project in that country. \u00a0In the run up to the Iraq war in 2002-03, the Bush Administration assured the American people that U.S. forces would be greeted as liberators, \u00a0the war would only last a few weeks, Iraqi oil would finance the reconstruction of that country and U.S. forces would find a vast weapons of mass destruction arsenal.<\/p>\n

As it turned out, just about every pre-war prediction made by the Bush Administration turned out to be very wrong. \u00a0No weapons of mass destruction were ever found. \u00a0In addition the war ground on for over eight years and according to Nobel Prize winning economist Joseph Stiglitz, will eventually cost U.S. taxpayers $3 trillion.<\/p>\n

After his inauguration on \u00a0January 20, 2009, President Obama took a very different and much more effective approach to national security issues. \u00a0As a starting point, in early 2009, Obama\u00a0directed the CIA to\u00a0make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top\u00a0priority.\u00a0\u00a0It was, in other words, a major shift from the previous\u00a0administration. Thanks to that change in priorities, Obama did in two\u00a0and a half years what George W. Bush, despite all of his “dead or\u00a0alive” big talk and swagger, couldn’t do in over seven years.<\/p>\n

Bringing Bin Laden to justice isn’t the only success of President Obama’s national security and foreign policies. \u00a0What is seldom mentioned by Democrats and the mainstream press is that President Obama is quietly compiling a list of significant achievements that will make the U.S. more safe.<\/p>\n

According to Matthew Ygelsias, President Obama can justifiably claim credit for these accomplishments:<\/p>\n