AMERICA’s DILEMMA: We Have a Derelict President
The most important power granted the President by the Constitution is the role of Commander in Chief. The President is primarily responsible for national security. He commands the armed forces. He is chief executive in charge of the departments of State and Defense. He is chief executive in charge of law enforcement and intelligence and security services. Essentially, the President is CEO of national security.
In this role the President is constantly briefed by all intelligence and military officials concerning threats to the homeland. Every day the President is provided the best intelligence available. It is called the daily intelligence briefing, or, the President’s Daily Brief (PDB). It has been provided the President each morning since 1961.
The PDB draws information from all intelligence sources. It is considered the best, most current information on sensitive and volatile situations worldwide. It is an essential report for any President responsible for making crucial national security decisions hour-to-hour, especially in a world filled with unprecedented lethal threats. Former CIA directors and other highly placed officials have called the PDB the most important, classified document in the U.S. government.
Consequently, one would expect any President to thoroughly study the PDB each day, that is, if that President was serious about his primary responsibility as Commander in Chief, the head of national security. A responsible, effective, engaged and dutiful President would make the PDB his top priority each morning, correct? What would you think of a President that reads the PDB only half the time, giving national security scant attention as a result?
According to both the Washington Post and Brietbart, Barack Obama misses the Presidential Daily Briefing 58% of the time. He has been in office 2,080 days as of Sept. 30, 2014. This means he has attended the PDB 875 days, and missed it a total of 1,205 days. (Source: Government Accountability Institute)
We know that Obama was fully briefed about the decision to withdraw completely from Iraq in 2011, that all his chief military and intelligence advisers recommended against complete withdrawal, pleading instead for a residual force of at least 24,000 troops to secure the country against attack by Al Qaeda. Obama ignored his advisers and pulled out completely, creating the vacuum now filled by ISIS.
In like fashion, Obama’s advisers sounded the alarm in Syria more than a year ago, telling him ISIS was on the march, that we must intervene in Syria on behalf of civilians and others in the murderous path of ISIS. Obama ignored his advisers and refused to act. Almost 200,000 Syrian civilians have been slaughtered, ISIS has a stronghold in Syria, and thousands of people have been murdered in Iraq thanks to Obama’s refusal to face reality.
As hearings on Benghazi continue, it will be interesting to learn if reporting by Seymour Hersh proves true, that Obama purposefully funneled weapons from Libya to Syria with Turkish assistance, arming ISIS, intentionally, or incompetently. Of course the outstanding question remains: did four Americans have to die to cover Obama’s tracks in this regard?
Today, Obama blames his own Director of National Intelligence for not advising him accurately about the threat posed by ISIS, a bold-faced lie, an adolescent attempt to shirk responsibility for his deeply irresponsible behavior.
The evidence is stark: Barack Obama has been negligent. He has not done his job. He is derelict. He fails to inform himself fully, is therefore ill-equipped to make command decisions, and refuses to heed the advice of his own military and intelligence officials. Consequently, national security is a joke, and the entire world suffers for it.
Not only is the Middle East on fire, terrorism is more widespread and cruel than ever, nuclear weapons proliferate, and Iran, Russia, China and North Korea have the upper hand. Barack Obama has the blood of hundreds of thousands of people on his hands, including the grandmother that was beheaded in Oklahoma last week.
For all this, and so much more, he is rightly called a disgrace, thoroughly unfit for office.
Image: http://www.flickr.com/photos/seneweb/4734535517/
