Fearmongering = $$$

Republicans have been jumping on the bandwagon to criticize President Obama because of the failed terror attack on Christmas Day. Some have been using the incident for fundraising, look at Rep. Pete Hoekstra (who is running for governor of Michigan):

They just don’t get it. The system didn’t “work” here. Far from it! It is insulting that The Obama administration would make such a claim, but then again, these are the same weak-kneed liberals who have recently tried to bring Guantanamo Bay terrorists right here to Michigan!

My promise to you, as your governor, my first duty and most solemn responsibility is to keep Michigan safe!

For almost a decade I have been a leader on National Security and at the forefront of the war on terror. I understand the real and continuing threat radical jihadists pose to our great state of Michigan and our great Nation.

I have pledged that I will do “everything possible” to prevent these terrorists from coming to Michigan.

But I need your help.

If you agree that we need a Governor who will stand up the Obama/Pelosi efforts to weaken our security please make a most generous contribution of $25, $50, $100 or even $250 to my campaign.

Look who’s jumping on the blame-Obama bandwagon, it’s none other than wannabe Senator Rep. Mike Castle (full press release):

The failed bombing attempt by Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on a Northwest Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit on Christmas day has raised several important areas of immediate concern. There has been a clear failure within our current intelligence sharing system to connect the dots which must be reviewed and immediately addressed. Also, in a rush to close Guantánamo, it seems clear that this Administration has overlooked some key information that could affect the safety and security of all Americans. Specifically, the rushed statement made by Secretary Napolitano failed to acknowledge the serious nature of the gaps in our existing system and the evidence linking the failed attack to a broader terrorist network.

The bomber has been linked to Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), an Al Qaeda cell active in Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Two of the AQAP leaders were repatriated to Saudi custody in 2007 under the Bush Administration and ultimately released. Half of the remaining Guantánamo detainees are Yemeni, approximately 90 men, and the Pentagon has identified 60 as dangerous. Yet, in the past few weeks, the Obama Administration has overseen the repatriation of six Yemenis from Guantánamo back to their home country. As we learn more about Abdulmutallab’s ties to Yemen and AQAP, it is increasingly clear that the transfer of detainees from Guantanamo is a flawed process demanding immediate review.

We are also seeing some of the same failures within our intelligence systems to share information and collaborate to enact protections based on that information. The CIA reportedly had a person of interest, dubbed “The Nigerian,” suspected of meeting with terrorist elements in Yemen for the past several months. In November, Abdulmutallab’s father went to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria to warn the CIA about his son’s ties to suspected al Qaeda operatives in Yemen. The CIA has stated that the agency passed this information to the government’s terrorist database-including mention of his possible extremist connections in Yemen and key biographical information to the National Counterterrorism Center. The NCTC, created on the recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, was designed to connect the dots on terrorism.

There were many aspects of Abdulmutallab’s recent actions that should have raised red flags and included him on the No Fly list. He had no checked luggage; he paid for his ticket with cash; British officials had rejected his visa renewal application and had his name on their own watch list; and his name had already surfaced on the National Counterterrorism Center’s database of known or suspected international terrorists. In spite of all this information, his name never made it to the database used by Transportation Safety Administration. An immediate review by the Administration and Congress to identify the problems within the current system and a blueprint for solutions is in order.

We’ll see if he sends this out in a fundraising letter. My question is – why do Republicans pretend that their policies have worked to prevent acts of terror? The Bush administration was in place for 9/11, as well as other acts such as the Anthrax letters and the D.C. snipers. There were attempted acts on their watch, like the shoe bomber Richard Reid.

Bush and Cheney released two of the admitted masterminds of the attempted underpants bomber from Guantanamo in 2007. So, despite all the torture that’s supposedly kept us safe, we still didn’t know the bad guys from the not-so-bad guys.

You know, if we had tried these guys in U.S. courts and put them in U.S. prisons perhaps they wouldn’t be out there trying to commit terrorist acts against the United States.

If you’re going to criticize the “system,” Mike Castle, you need to acknowledge your own party’s culpability.

The White House has finally responded to these criticisms, better late than never (full press release):

There has been a lot of discussion online and in the mainstream media about our response to various critics of the President, specifically former Vice President Cheney, who have been coming out of the woodwork since the incident on Christmas Day. I think we all agree that there should be honest debate about these issues, but it is telling that Vice President Cheney and others seem to be more focused on criticizing the Administration than condemning the attackers. Unfortunately too many are engaged in the typical Washington game of pointing fingers and making political hay, instead of working together to find solutions to make our country safer.

First, it’s important that the substantive context be clear: for seven years after 9/11, while our national security was overwhelmingly focused on Iraq – a country that had no al Qaeda presence before our invasion – Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda’s leadership was able to set up camp in the border region of Pakistan and Afghanistan, where they continued to plot attacks against the United States. Meanwhile, al Qaeda also regenerated in places like Yemen and Somalia, establishing new safe-havens that have grown over a period of years. It was President Obama who finally implemented a strategy of winding down the war in Iraq, and actually focusing our resources on the war against al Qaeda – more than doubling our troops in Afghanistan, and building partnerships to target al Qaeda’s safe-havens in Yemen and Somalia. And in less than one year, we have already seen many al Qaeda leaders taken out, our alliances strengthened, and the pressure on al Qaeda increased worldwide.

To put it simply: this President is not interested in bellicose rhetoric, he is focused on action. Seven years of bellicose rhetoric failed to reduce the threat from al Qaeda and succeeded in dividing this country. And it seems strangely off-key now, at a time when our country is under attack, for the architect of those policies to be attacking the President.

Second, the former Vice President makes the clearly untrue claim that the President – who is this nation’s Commander-in-Chief – needs to realize we are at War. I don’t think anyone realizes this very hard reality more than President Obama. In his inaugural, the President said “our nation is at war against a far-reaching network of violence and hatred.” In a recent speech, Assistant to the President for Terrorism and Homeland Security John Brennan said “Instead, as the president has made clear, we are at war with al-Qaida, which attacked us on 9/11 and killed 3,000 people. We are at war with its violent extremist allies who seek to carry on al-Qaida’s murderous agenda. These are the terrorists we will destroy; these are the extremists we will defeat.” At West Point, the President told the nation why it was “in our vital national interest” to send an additional 30,000 U.S. troops to fight the war in Afghanistan, adding that as Commander in Chief, “I see firsthand the terrible wages of war.” And at Oslo, in accepting the Nobel Peace Prize, the President said, “We are at war, and I am responsible for the deployment of thousands of young Americans to battle in a distant land.”

There are numerous other such public statements that explicitly state we are at war. The difference is this: President Obama doesn’t need to beat his chest to prove it, and – unlike the last Administration – we are not at war with a tactic (“terrorism”), we at war with something that is tangible: al Qaeda and its violent extremist allies. And we will prosecute that war as long as the American people are endangered.