The announcement last night that our Special Operations forces killed Osama bin Laden was an amazing statement of our growing capability of dealing with terror. Certainly, the most dramatic of the events which occurred was the actual killing of bin Laden. In the long run, it may not have been the most important. As significant is the fact that the President demonstrated that the Executive Order that prohibits targeting individuals for assignation has more holes than substance and should be ignored. Also, as significant is the fact that our intelligence capability is improving dramatically and our Seals, Special Forces Special Ops and our military in general is the best in the world. They sent a message that the terrorists can run, but they cannot hide. President Obama made a courageous decision that could have easily gone wrong and subjected him to criticism. He did the right thing.
In the 1970’s, Senator Frank Church and his Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence Activity began the systematic emasculation of our intelligence community. His activities resulted in legislation which limited the ability of the Government to gather human intelligence. The activities resulted in President Ford’s Executive Order to ban sanctioned assassinations of foreign leaders. The decimation continued under President Carter. The eventual result was that our intelligence was collected by hundreds of analysts reading newspapers at NSA and hundreds of analysts reviewing photographs from the satellites. Our intelligence operatives were effectively discouraged from effectively gathering meaningful intelligence by being subjected to criminal prosecution by those who are more concerned about political correctness than the security of our Country. The result was our having virtually no human intelligence.
While we pursued relatively ineffective policies in Afghanistan and Iraq, we were beginning to develop human intelligence resources during the Bush Administration and continued under Obama. This was important in that regardless of the representation of our relationship with Pakistan, there can be no question that the Pakistani Intelligence and Military provided virtually no assistance to the United States and, in fact, provided misinformation to us. Under Obama, the developing capability was correctly placed under the control of the CIA. This capability is what I refer to as the “Hunters” and the “Killers.” First, we give our covert operatives the authority and capability to gather intelligence on where the “bad guys” are and what they are doing. These are the Hunters. Once identified, our Special Operation teams, the Killers, take the bad guys out. They have proved yet again, they are the best.
Today is a good day. We are rid of a vile, evil person who followed the mantra of Islam to rid the world of the infidels. We have proven that our military has the capability to find and kill those who would kill us. We also have witnessed the most recent example of why we should be and are proud of our military which does so much to protect our freedoms and asks so little in return.
I recall once seeing a bumper sticker which said: “If you can read, thank a teacher. If you read English, thank a soldier.”
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