After a week of shifting facts, the picture is now clear: Eight days ago, President Obama charged into Pakistan unilaterally, guns ablaze. He blasted an unarmed Osama bin Laden to kingdom come — and then dumped the corpse into the sea. Then he took a mission-accomplished victory lap around Manhattan, followed by a stop at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, to say “job well done” to troops and gloat about how “we have cut off the head” of the enemy.
Meanwhile, he was sending drones to fire missiles at bin Laden wannabe Anwar al-Awlaki in Yemen.
And they called George W. Bush a cowboy? All Obama lacks is a Stetson.
Indeed, never mind Bush; Obama makes Dirty Harry look like a by-the-book lawman.
Fact is, with America’s Enemy No. 1 in his crosshairs, Obama did exactly what had to be done. But while many of Bush’s actions were equally justified (some apparently paid big dividends in Abbottabad), it seems only a messiah of the left (however hypocritical) can fight an asymmetrical war with all new moral challenges — and survive the political heat. White guys from Texas don’t stand a chance.
Consider Dubya’s biggest “cowboy” sin: failing to get permission from allies like France and Germany to invade Iraq. Hmm — Obama sent troops onto an ally’s soil without telling anyone (that ally included), let alone asking permission.
Pakistan griped. But sensible folks gave Bam a pass. This is “hope and change” bin Laden never saw coming.
“When we use force in situations other than self-defense,” Obama said before taking office, “we should make every effort to garner the clear support and participation” of other nations.
Uh, maybe not: Holed up behind barbed wire and seven-foot “privacy” walls, bin Laden was hardly on offense personally at the time of the raid. His compound was barely guarded; reports now say only one man there was armed — and it wasn’t bin Laden. Yet Obama sent dozens of America’s meanest, best-equipped hombres to do the job — and without any international signoff.
Consult allies? he must have thought. To hell with that!
Good for the prez. Fact is, the world needs more brave cowboys on the side of right, not less.
And what about all his talk of American “values” — due process and the rule of law? Where’s the Harvard-trained law professor and his civil-liberties-trump-all attorney general?
Remember Obama’s long-held view of terror as law-enforcement matter? “In previous terrorist attacks — for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center — we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial,” Obama had said. “They are currently in US prisons, incapacitated.
“And the fact that the [Bush] administration has not tried to do that has . . . destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world — and given a huge boost to terrorist recruitment in countries that say, ‘Look, this is how the United States treats Muslims.’ ”
Gee, what are Muslims thinking now?
“Today, the dogs of the West are rejoicing at the killing of one of the lions of Islam,” a preacher at the Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem told congregants last week. “We say [to Obama]: You . . . personally gave the order to kill Muslims. Know that the day will soon come when you find yourself hanging from the gallows, next to little Bush.”
As for Attorney General Eric Holder, he’s insisting the bin Laden hit was “justified as an action of national self-defense” against “a lawful military target.” Khalid Sheik Muhammed, the 9/11 mastermind being held at Gitmo, should be tried in a civilian courtroom, the AG believes — but his partner-in-terror, bin Laden, was a legitimate “military target.” Any doubt these guys make this stuff up as they go along?
And, of course, there’s Cowboy Bam’s past criticism of tough US interrogations. “They did not advance our war and counterterrorism efforts — they undermined them,” he’d insisted. Yet now his administration admits that interrogators squeezed critical evidence from detainees that made the offing of Osama possible.
Still, the news here is encouraging. Much of the world, including the left (albeit, with some exceptions), is grateful to our Wild West White House.
How ’bout that? The good guys may win this fight after all.