Yesterday Katie Pavlich posted a story at Townhall.com about President George Bush‘s response to the attacks on 9/11. There are some amazing statements in the article.
The article reports:
According to one of the world’s most deadly and infamous terrorists, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, President George W. Bush wiped out plans for other imminent attacks by quickly invading Afghanistan after 9/11/2001.
According to a new book detailed by The Federalist and former Bush staffer Marc Thiessen, KSM admitted during enhanced interrogation the President’s swift “shock-and-awe” action not only thwarted plans for follow up attacks to 9/11, but changed Al Qaeda‘s entire strategy.
…Far from trying to draw us in, KSM said that al-Qaeda expected the United States to respond to 9/11 as we had the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut — when, KSM told Mitchell, the United States ‘turned tail and ran.’
‘Then he looked at me and said, ‘How was I supposed to know that cowboy George Bush would announce he wanted us ‘dead or alive’ and then invade Afghanistan to hunt us down?’’ Mitchell writes. ‘KSM explained that if the United States had treated 9/11 like a law enforcement matter, he would have had time to launch a second wave of attacks.’ He was not able to do so because al-Qaeda was stunned ‘by the ferocity and swiftness of George W. Bush’s response.’
As much as I hate war, this shows the wisdom of the attack on Afghanistan following 9/11. It also shows that the ‘law enforcement’ approach to terrorism does not work. Unfortunately, at some point we are going to have to take action against the sponsors of terrorism around the world. That action should not involve ground troops, but we have enough fire power in other areas to get the point across that fomenting terror in America is a losing proposition. It is very obvious that the ‘law enforcement’ approach is not a deterrent to terrorism and that terrorism requires a stronger approach.
These statements by Khalid Sheik Mohammed are an example of why the prison camp at Guantanamo needs to stay open. The facility was very useful in gathering information and planning our strategy in the war on terror based on that information. Unfortunately, because President Obama has tried to close down Guantanamo and has not added any prisoners to the camp–preferring to kill the terrorists with drone strikes–eliminating the possibility of collecting intelligence, any information that could be gained from the prisoners at Guantanamo is at least eight years old. That is a serious problem for those trying to fight the war on terror.
It will be interesting to see whatever approach President Trump uses will be more effective in preventing domestic terrorism in America that the actions taken by President Obama.