{"id":272601,"date":"2010-02-03T16:21:44","date_gmt":"2010-02-03T21:21:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.szone.us\/f95\/mcconnell-takes-aim-white-house-terror-spin-38999\/"},"modified":"2010-02-03T16:21:44","modified_gmt":"2010-02-03T21:21:44","slug":"mcconnell-takes-aim-at-white-house-terror-spin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/272601","title":{"rendered":"McConnell Takes Aim At White House Terror Spin"},"content":{"rendered":"
On 02.03.10 11:41 AM posted by Mike Gonzalez<\/p>\n

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) today swung hard against a public-relations campaign by the Obama Administration to clean up its tattered image over its handling of the war on terrorists, and especially Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.<\/p>\n

In a <ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/03\/watch-live-sen-mitch-mcconnell-r-ky-addresses-the-war-on-terror\/">major address at The Heritage Foundation, McConnell gave a point-by-point refutation of all of the administration\u0092s failures in this area, from the decision to close the detention facilities at Guantanamo Bay to the botched attempt to try some terrorists in New York. But McConnell took special aim at the administration decision to treat Abdulmutallab as a common criminal after the al Qaeda terrorist tried to blow up a plane over Detroit on Christmas Day.<\/p>\n

It was the first significant Republican response to a concerted effort by the White House to catch up to yet another looming PR<\/acronym> disaster. The White House mop-up effort came after intensified criticism, even from Democrats in Congress, of the administration\u0092s decision to read Abdulmutallab Miranda rights 50 minutes into his interrogation on Christmas Day.<spanid="more-25548"><\/span><\/p>\n

McConnell\u0092s address followed 24 hours in which administration sources selectively leaked to the media that Abdulmutallab has been cooperating with authorities for weeks. Many in the media have, of course, bought the White House line that confessions can be obtained even while trying terrorists like common criminals and without enhanced interrogation techniques.<\/p>\n

But McConnell said intelligence is \u0093<ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/03\/watch-live-sen-mitch-mcconnell-r-ky-addresses-the-war-on-terror\/">perishable\u0094 and that the country\u0092s safety cannot depend on a terrorist having family members cajoling him to talk\u0097a response to the administration sources\u0092 claim that they have flown Abdulmutallab\u0092s family from Nigeria to convince him to cooperate.<\/p>\n

\u0093All the intelligence he possessed concerning locations, training techniques and communications methods of al Qaeda in Yemen is perishable,\u0094 <ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/03\/watch-live-sen-mitch-mcconnell-r-ky-addresses-the-war-on-terror\/">said McConnell. \u0093Yemeni forces needed the information on Dec. 25, not six weeks later. Meanwhile the American people are left to wonder whether, in place of interrogation, their safety depends on terrotists having families who can persuade them to talk.\u0094<\/p>\n

And while the Obama Administration\u0092s handling of the Christmas Day bomber was the \u0093most egregious\u0094 example of its \u0093blind spot\u0094 when it comes to fighting the war on terror, \u0093it was not an isolated case,\u0094 said McConnell. He also lambasted Attorney General <ahref="http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/stories\/2010\/02\/03\/politics\/main6170460.shtml">Eric Holder\u0092s actions on terrorism and questioned the administration\u0092s wisdom for putting its trust on him when it comes to our national defense. \u0093This is wrong. The attorney general should not be running the war on terror.\u0094<\/p>\n

The overall thrust of the Obama Administration\u0092s war on terror has not been to pursue what works but to \u0093conspicuously distance itself from the policies of the past, even the ones that worked.\u0094
\n On closing the facility at Guantanamo Bay where the terrorists are held, <ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/03\/watch-live-sen-mitch-mcconnell-r-ky-addresses-the-war-on-terror\/">McConnell asked, \u0093Why are they closing it? Because the Europeans don\u0092t like it?\u0094<\/p>\n

And McConnell made a pledge on the <ahref="http:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/blogs\/2010\/02\/02\/politics\/politicalhotsheet\/entry6166417.shtml">Manhattan trials. If despite all the bad publicity it is getting, the Obama Administration stubbornly attempts to try terrorists there, \u0093we will do everything we can to deny them the funds.\u0094<\/p>\n

You can <ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/03\/watch-live-sen-mitch-mcconnell-r-ky-addresses-the-war-on-terror\/">read McConnell’s speech here.<\/p>\n

You can follow Mike Gonzalez on Twitter <ahref="http:\/\/twitter.com\/Gundisalvus">@Gundisalvus<\/p>\n

http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/03\/…e-terror-spin\/<\/a><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

On 02.03.10 11:41 AM posted by Mike Gonzalez Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) today swung hard against a public-relations campaign by the Obama Administration to clean up its tattered image over its handling of the war on terrorists, and especially Nigerian terrorist Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab. In a <ahref="http:\/\/blog.heritage.org\/2010\/02\/03\/watch-live-sen-mitch-mcconnell-r-ky-addresses-the-war-on-terror\/">major address at The Heritage Foundation, McConnell […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4292,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-272601","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272601","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4292"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=272601"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/272601\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=272601"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=272601"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=272601"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}