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March 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Israel's New Enemy: America?
JWisdom.com Love me not? with Rabbi David Aaron (5 minutes)
Jonathan Rosenblum: Washington Throws a Tantrum
March 17, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Orwell, Santayana, and Me
Jonathan Tobin: How Many Lives Is Biden's Pride Worth?
March 16, 2010
Steven Emerson: Combating Lawfare
JWisdom.com How to perform a miracle with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair (4 minutes)
Anne Bayefsky: Behind Obama's Dangerous Overreaction on Israel
March 15, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Father's obligations toward minor children
JWisdom.com Moody, Grumpy, Irritable Children with Sarah Chana Radcliffe (5 minutes)
Judith Graham: Get the whole picture before a CT
March 12, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: You CAN have Heaven on Earth
JWisdom.com Manufacturing mediums with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick: The march of the Red-Green brigades
March 11, 2010
Glenn Garvin: Conspiracy theories, why people believe them and how they spread
JWisdom.com For Yourself, Not By Yourself with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff (8 minutes)
The Kosher Gourmet by Linda Gassenheimer : Turn leftovers into tasty New England hash
Paul Richter: Biden promises 'viable Palestine' is in the offing
March 10, 2010
Paul Greenberg: Death Checks In
JWisdom.com How To Get A (Real) Life with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( EXTENDED EPISODE)
Paul Richter: Israel exerts soverign right to its capital as Biden looks on astounded
Richard A. Serrano: 'Jihad Jane' indictment alleges threat from within U.S.
March 9, 2010
Wesley Pruden: Joe's Israeli adventure
JWisdom.com Free To Be (Responsibly) You and Me! with Rabbi Naftali Brawer ( 8 MINUTES)
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to rule on free speech in case of soldier's funeral
March 8, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Make a fuss about those who cuss?
JWisdom.com Finding or Losing Yourself? Here's How! with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Steven Emerson: America must learn from the UK about the future of Islamist subversion
March 5, 2010
Rabbi Berel Wein: Golden Calf still with us --- except it has multiplied
JWisdom.com The Limits of Eternity with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Biden's lost cause
March 4, 2010
Alan M. Dershowitz: How About A Real Campaign Against Abuses?
JWisdom.com Using Things, Loving People with Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff ( 7 MINUTES)
Jordan "Gorf" Gorfinkel's Everything's Relative
March 3, 2010
JWisdom.com Grasping The Name of Your Life Game with Rabbi Warren Goldstein ( 8 MINUTES)
The Kosher Gourmet by Marialisa Calta : A cowboy's recipes for really good grub
March 2, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: Someone's there
Diane Toroian Keaggy : Have we misunderstood Michelangelo?
March 1, 2010
JWisdom.com Whole in One with Rabbi David Aaron ( 5 MINUTES)
Michael Muskal: Hillary meets with Israeli official, discusses gefilte fish dispute
Feb. 26, 2010
Rabbi Francis Nataf: The Megilla of Spring
JWisdom.com A Biblical Secret for a More Powerful You with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: When rhetoric rules the roost
Feb. 25, 2010
The Jewish Ethicist By Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: When walking away from your mortgage is both economically sound and makes ethical sense
JWisdom.com The Second Most Important Question in Your Life with Rabbi Yehoshua Karsh ( 5 MINUTES)
Seema Mehta : U.S.-Israel relations raised in California's Senate race --- by conservatives
Feb. 24, 2010
Rabbi Avi Shafran: The gift of the ‘prayer bomber’
Steven Emerson: Why Religious Freedom Commission is under attack
Feb. 23, 2010
Dennis Prager: Government, Yes! The Divine and Parents, No!
JWisdom.com The Last Laugh of Enlightenment with Rabbi Yaakov Asher Sinclair ( 5 MINUTES)
Anne Applebaum: Prepare for war with Iran --- in case Israel strikes
Feb. 22, 2010
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Is it not refreshing Tiger Woods' career has crashed and burned so dramatically?
JWisdom.com Esther and the third Truth with Rabbi David Aaron ( 9 MINUTES)
Kelly Brewington: Going smoke-free may raise diabetes risk
Feb. 19, 2010
Rabbi David Aaron: Is the Divine beyond us or within us?
JWisdom.com Olympic Faith with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 MINUTES)
Caroline B. Glick: Israel and the West are perpetrators of a myth that endangers the Jewish State
Feb. 18, 2010
Cal Thomas: Who is Rashad Hussain?
JWisdom.com A Wedding Disaster to Remember with Rabbi Y.Y. Rubinstein ( 3 MINUTES)
Feb. 17, 2010
JWisdom.com Think your life is messed up? with Rabbi David Aaron ( 11 MINUTES)
Greg Logan: 'Greatest Jewish sporting event of all time since David versus Goliath' may be postponed because of bar mitzvah
Feb. 16, 2010
Anya Martin : Boy's 'cerebral palsy' fixed with diet
JWisdom.com Feet On The Street Spirituality with Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 8 MINUTES)
Marty Peretz: Let Europe Mind Its Own Business. It Brings Nothing To The Table Save For Mischief
Feb. 15, 2010
Herb Geduld: Lincoln and the Jews
JWisdom.com Are Our Children Really Ours? with Rabbi Mordechai Becher ( 5 MINUTES)
Susan King: 'Wolf Man' reflected writer's wartime Jewish experience

Jewish World Review May 22, 2009 / 28 Iyar 5769

When in doubt, blame Bush

By Linda Chavez


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Listening to President Obama this week as he tried to defend the decisions he's made on closing Guantanamo, you have to wonder what he would do without George W. Bush to kick around. Obama has yet to offer an acceptable plan to deal with the 240 remaining detainees at Guantanamo when he closes the doors on the detention facility. His fellow Democrats have been so frustrated with his lack of clarity that many of them have now voted, along with Republicans, to deny funding for closing Guantanamo until he comes up with a real plan. But he's hoping the rest of us will forgive his lack of a workable policy and remember; it's all Bush's fault anyway.


The longer President Obama is in office, the less presidential he appears. In a speech at the National Archives on Thursday, Obama wrapped himself in the Constitution and Bill of Rights, but he spent much of his time playing politics. "We are cleaning up something that is — quite simply — a mess," Obama whined, describing the Bush policies as a "misguided experiment that has left in its wake a flood of legal challenges that my administration is forced to deal with on a constant basis."


The underlying message of the speech was: Don't blame me; blame Bush. "I knew when I ordered Guantanamo closed that it would be difficult and complex," he said. But where's his empathy for how difficult and complex a decision his predecessor faced in opening Guantanamo in the first place?


It's instructive to remember the conditions President Bush faced when he opened the detention facility. We were a nation at war with a stateless enemy committed to acts of terrorism against innocent civilians. Three thousand Americans had already been killed on U.S. soil on Sept. 11, 2001, the worst terrorist attack against Americans in history, and we weren't sure when the next attack would come.


Guantanamo received its first detainees in 2002 when the U.S. was fighting a war in Afghanistan to rid that country of the terrorists responsible for training, planning, and financing the 9/11 attacks. The legal memoranda that laid out how these men would be interrogated, held, and prosecuted were drafted in the same atmosphere. President Obama now dismissively describes this process as "ad hoc" and accuses his predecessors of having made "decisions based upon fear rather than foresight, and all too often trimmed facts and evidence to fit ideological predispositions." But what he would have done in the fog of war had history put him in the Oval Office in that fateful period?


Obama spent most of his speech criticizing others. What he did not do was lay out his precise plans for dealing with the most dangerous terrorists when he closes Guantanamo. This includes men like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks and highest-value terrorist we have captured to date. He says he's not going to release KSM or others who "remain at war with the United States," but he simply kicked the can down the road in detailing concrete plans on where he's going to detain such prisoners and for how long.


"If and when we determine that the United States must hold individuals to keep them from carrying out an act of war, we will do so within a system that involves judicial and congressional oversight," Obama promised. And how, exactly, is that different than the judicial and congressional oversight that prompted the Bush administration to release some Guantanamo prisoners, try and convict others, and participate in endless legal challenges in our courts? Obama believes we should trust him to do what's right, even though he won't afford his predecessors the same courtesy.


In a matter of months, KSM and dozens of other terrorists will be taken from Guantanamo and brought to the U.S. Americans deserve to know where these killers will be held. President Obama promises that his administration "will do everything in our power to keep the American people safe." But those are empty words without a detailed plan. The best Obama has come up with so far is to keep in place many of the Bush policies, while denouncing the man who proved he could keep us safe for seven years, George W. Bush.

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JWR contributor Linda Chavez is President of the Center for Equal Opportunity. Her latest book is "Betrayal: How Union Bosses Shake Down Their Members and Corrupt American Politics". (Click HERE to purchase. Sales help fund JWR.)

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© 2006, Creators Syndicate

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