During his 2008 campaign for President, Barack Hussein Obama made numerous promises that, if elected, he and his administration would be "the most transparent" in history. It appears that Obama deserves at least partial credit for fulfilling that promise.
The recent Obama administration fiasco in which the Justice Department redacted significant portions of the "911" transcripts of Omar Mateen's communications during the Pulse nightclub terror attack prompted a massive public outcry that forced the Justice Department to release more unredacted text.
Apparently, the notion that the American public will docilely accept whatever this administration feeds them no longer applies. Could it be that Obama's long history of dissembling, half-truths, and dishonesty has finally caught up with him?
In a quick about-face, the administration did release more of the original transcript, though with the term "Allah" replaced with "God" (evidently, the American people cannot entirely be trusted).
Now, it turns out, there may be as much as 20 seconds of the transcript that has not been released.
What purpose is served by redacting any of the 911 transcript? Could it be that the redacted material very clearly reveals the radical Islamist terrorist's motive -- support for radical Islam, also known as "Sharia"?
This is reminiscent of the persistence with which the Obama State Department, led by then-Secretary of State Clinton, insisted the Benghazi attack was about a little-viewed online video, and then persisted with that absurd story well beyond the point it had been thoroughly refuted.
Evidently, to acknowledge that these terrorist acts are inspired by radical Sharia Islam just doesn't fit Obama's narrative that they're inspired by guns!
Wednesday morning's FOX News' program, "Fox and Friends", put together evidence of an enormous disconnect between President Obama and his intelligence agencies. A series of Obama's statements concerning America's security and the battle against ISIS (known as ISIL to Obama) were contrasted with the opposing views of his expert agency heads.
Obama on 1/20/15:
”Instead of getting dragged into another ground war in the Middle East, we are leading a broad coalition including Arab nations, to degrade and ultimately destroy this terrorist group.”
Robert Gates (former CIA Director and Secy of Defense) on 2/1/15:
”…our intent being to destroy ISIS, with the means that he [Obama] has approved so far, I think that’s an unattainable objective.”
Obama on 6/11/14:
”The world is less violent than its ever been, it is healthier than it has ever been, it is more tolerant than it has ever been…”
James Clapper (Director of National Intelligence) on 1/20/15:
”When the final accounting is done, 2014 will have been the most lethal year for global terrorism in the 45 years such data has been compiled.”
Obama on 11/13/15:
”From the start, our goal has been first, to contain, and we have contained them.”
Gen. Joseph Dunford (Ch, Joint Chiefs) on 12/1/15:
”We have not contained ISIL.”
Obama on 12/3/15:
”ISIL is not gonna pose an existential threat to us. Ahh… they are a dangerous organization like Al Qaida was, but we have hardened our defenses, our homeland has never been more protected.”
James Comey (FBI Director) on 12/9/15:
”Their [ISIL’s] ability to have a safe haven from which to gather resources, people, and plans and plot, increases the risk of their ability to mount a sophisticated attack against the homeland…”
Obama on 6/14/16:
”We are making significant progress… This campaign at this stage is firing on all cylinders, and as a result, ISIL’s under more pressure than ever before.”
John Brennan (CIA Director) on 6/16//16:
”Unfortunately, despite all our progress against ISIL on the battlefield and in the financial realm, our efforts have not reduced the group’s terrorism capability and global reach.
Now, as you well know, CIA is not just a counter-terrorism agency, we are a comprehensive intelligence service with a global charter. We are called upon to address the full range of 21st-century threats. And as I often tell young officers at CIA, I have never seen a time when our country faced such a wide variety of threats to our national security.”
The testimony of Obama’s own heads of security agencies is clearly at odds with Obama’s statements. Either Obama is not being honest, or he has a peculiarly distorted view of reality. Neither option reflects well on Obama.
Later in that revealing FOX & Friends segment, LT Gen. Michael Flynn (former Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Director) revealed:
“He [Obama] never asked me for my opinion [as his] senior military intel advisor.”
Clearly, there is a dangerous disconnect between Obama’s muddled view of the state of terrorism, its serious nature, and the actions required to address it with clarity, and the clear understanding every one of the heads of his military and civilian security agencies possesses.
Obama’s partial credit for his administration’s transparency is evidenced by the testimony of his top security advisors, astonishingly, not all of whom have had a single face-to-face meeting with him.
Obama’s promise of his own transparency also deserves partial credit, though not in the sense many might think.
Obama has been the most transparently dishonest President in American history. Apparently, he cannot even be honest with himself!
Author of "Looking Out the Window", an evidence-based examination of the "climate change" issue, Bob Webster, is a 12th-generation descendent of both the Darte family (Connecticut, 1630s) and the Webster family (Massachusetts, 1630s). He is a descendant of Daniel Webster's father, Revolutionary War patriot Ebenezer Webster, who served with General Washington. Bob has always had a strong interest in early American history, our Constitution, U.S. politics, and law. Politically he is a constitutional republican with objectivist and libertarian roots. He has faith in the ultimate triumph of truth and reason over deception and emotion. He is a strong believer in our Constitution as written and views the abandonment of constitutional restraint by the regressive Progressive movement as a great danger to our Republic. His favorite novel is Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand and believes it should be required reading for all high school students so they can appreciate the cost of tolerating the growth of unconstitutional crushingly powerful central government. He strongly believes, as our Constitution enshrines, that the interests of the individual should be held superior to the interests of the state.
A lifelong interest in meteorology and climatology spurred his strong interest in science. Bob earned his degree in Mathematics at Virginia Tech, graduating in 1964.
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