On August 31, The New York Times ran a op-ed in which columnist Charles M. Blow contended that Republicans are trying to use the 9/11 attacks to make Americans fear ISIS and “yoke Obama with the ill effects of a war started by [George W. Bush].”
One immediate problem with this theory is that ISIS–now IS–is not an ill effect of the Iraqi War but of the power vacuum created by President Obama’s precipitous withdrawal of all U.S. Troops in 2011.
But Obama knows this, which is why he blamed the troop pull-out on George W. Bush early last month.
The Washington Times reported that on August 9–just two days after authorizing airstrikes against IS–Obama “blamed his predecessor, George W. Bush, for the absence of American troops in Iraq and rejected the assertion that he could have left a small peacekeeping force in the war-torn country [to prevent the creation of the power vacuum that opened the door to IS].”
Charles M. Blow does not see this. Instead, he contends that the GOP is trying to shift blame to protect Bush and to force Obama into going to war with IS.
He draws examples from Fox News to bolster his assertion, such as Judge Jeanine Pirro saying Obama’s lack of leadership toward IS should make Americans “afraid.” He also points to Republicans like Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who support using the military against IS to “stop another 9/11.” And he mentions Representative Ileana Ros-Lehtinen’s (R-FL-Dist. 27) warning that, under Obama, “we are getting back to a pre-9/11 mentality, and that’s very dangerous.”
Instead of seeing the danger about which Pirro, Graham, and Ros-Lehtinen warn, Blow sees an attempt to blow things out of proportion and blame our current president for his lack of action against IS.
Meanwhile. the Mail Online reports that Billy and Karen Vaughn, parents of deceased Navy SEAL Team Six operator Aaron Carson Vaughn (KIA 2011), are blasting Obama for his lack of leadership toward IS, citing the way Obama responded to the beheading of American journalist James Foley by saying a couple of quick words, then heading out to the golf course.
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter @AWRHawkins Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.
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