Then
he tried to sell us an inherent contradiction: "we stepped up the war against
al Qaeda, but also sought to change its course," by which he seemed to mean we
stopped torturing as may people and generally tried to break fewer domestic and
international laws.
But
on the other hand, we should still be afraid: "our nation is still threatened
by terrorists. From Benghazi to
Boston"." He did not clarify when Benghazi became part of "our nation."
At a Crossroads and Choosing to go in All
Four Directions?
The President rambled on in this
contradictory fashion, warning the nation that, "America is at a crossroads"
and quoting Madison that "No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of
continual warfare" -- then assuring us that our war on terrorism would
continue."
"We
must make decisions based not no fear," the President said, suggesting that we
need to understand the threat we face.
Then a short while later he added, "that the scale of this threat
closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11."
"Most,
though not all, of the terrorism we face is fueled by a common ideology," Obama
said, echoing the recent words of South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham: "the
war against radical Islam, or terror, or whatever description you like." Contrary to a good many of his fellow
Americans, the President went on to assert that "the United States is not at
war with Islam."
Then
he used the magic language, defining the enemy as "al Qaeda and its associated
forces." Given the limitations of
the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force against the perpetrators of the
9/11 attacks, the Pentagon has been using the catch-all "and its associated
forces" to argue the legality of doing whatever they want to whomever they
want, or just not interfering with the free hand of the CIA or other
clandestine forces.
Obama
suggested that "we must define our effort not as a boundless "global war on
terror,'" and went on to offer no boundaries to our willingness to attack
whomever we define as an enemy in any part of the world.
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