President Obama’s insistence on a date to begin withdrawing troops from Afghanistan in the middle of a surge is self-defeating, Sen. Kit Bond, the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, tells Newsmax.
A date to begin withdrawing in a war that is not going well telegraphs that Obama is not serious about winning, the Missouri Republican says. The Taliban have calendars too, he says, and they will wait to launch major offenses until July 2011, when the drawdown is set to begin. In the meantime, the deadline encourages the Taliban while discouraging the Afghan government.
“All of the people who have gone over and made sacrifices, particularly the families of those who lost their lives, don’t want to see us lose over a thousand American lives, put so many people at risk, and then see Afghanistan fall back into a haven for the Taliban,” Bond says.
If the withdrawal policy does not make sense, neither do Obama’s other policies, Bond says. Throughout the country, people have buyer’s remorse.
“Americans don’t like doubling the budget deficit in five years and tripling it in 10 years,” Bond says. “They don’t like the federal takeover of healthcare. They don’t like that that the Environmental Protection Agency is going to impose a cap-and-trade tax that destroys jobs.”
At the same time, “They have seen an administration that shows every evidence of being totally incompetent in responding to the oil spill,” Bond says.
In contrast to the spill, responding to the Hurricane Katrina disaster was primarily the responsibility of governors, Bond notes.
“President Bush got blamed for that, but this disaster is in the deep waters and is purely the responsibility of the federal government,” Bond says.
The same ineptitude is evident in the administration’s decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a civilian court in New York, Bond says.
“More important, when we catch a terrorist and give him a Miranda warning, that is not a good way to get intelligence from a terrorist who probably has the best information on what’s going on in areas where they are plotting to launch further attacks against us,” Bond says.
“We knew Obama was liberal, but I didn’t know he would be this liberal,” Bond says. “When he promised change, a bumper strip back home said, ‘I’ll keep my religion, my Bible, and my guns, and you can keep the change.’”
Ronald Kessler is chief Washington correspondent of Newsmax.com. View his previous reports and get his dispatches sent to you free via e-mail. Go here now.
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