Inviting another 9/11

This Letter to the Editor, originally published in The Pottstown Mercury, makes a strong case that the Obama administration is inviting another 9/11 with its show of weakness on the issue of terrorism.

Obama has placed political expedience over national security

Two years ago, Barack Obama and his party conceded victory in Iraq to practitioners of electrocution, decapitation and worse. Those not trolling for votes from the uninformed and uneducated knew better and proved it. With now President Obama in office, one must ask if yet a second Democrat administration is setting the table for a terrorist attack.

The selections of Leon Panetta as CIA director and Eric Holder as attorney general should give pause to all Americans. In the aftermath of the '93 Trade Center attack, at a time when Iraq was covertly reconstituting it's war-damaged nuclear weapons program, then OMB Director Panetta gutted the CIA's budget. As a deputy attorney general, Holder did nothing to address the historic "wall" between CIA and FBI that had been raised higher by his predecessor. Acts like these were clearly appreciated by 9/11's Mohammed Atta who arrived on our shores more than seven months before Bill Clinton left office.

Panetta, as White House chief of staff, was a key influence in the Clinton administration's adoption as policy of what was termed the Torricelli Principle. Arising out of the Iran/Contra Affair, "Torricelli" precluded our intelligence services from dealings with "bad actors." The result was an intelligence network pockmarked with blind spots, particularly in the Middle East. Eight-plus years of entrenched myopia and the retention by George Bush of the entire Clinton intelligence hierarchy gave birth to 9/11.

In opting for Panetta and Holder, Obama has placed political expediency above security. Their selections can be interpreted as a response to the mythological template that our government has violated the Geneva Accords as well as the rights of its own citizens. The interesting thing about the "waterboarding," signed onto by Senator Rockefeller(D) and Representative Pelosi(D), is that it was not considered torture when tens of thousands of U.S. special forces, pilots and intelligence operatives were subjected to the aggressive technique in basic training. It only became so when its public disclosure served the agenda of the very people whose policies had enabled 9/11.

The Clinton administration's philosophy on terrorism afforded thousands the opportunity to leap from burning skyscrapers. Through his actions, Barack Obama has elected to take the same path.

MARK FURLONG
North Coventry