The Patriot Post® · Warfront With Jihadistan: Al-Qaida's Fate Not Yet Fully SEAL'd

Here’s a question: If al-Qaida has been “decimated” by the liberals’ messiah – that “decisiveness” term was of course what Barack Obama himself used to characterize what he had done to the world’s most notorious terrorist group – how come Africa is now a chaotic rubble of al-Qaida terrorist bombings that require U.S. Special Forces’ retaliation? Frankly, the only things we view as having been “decimated” lately are Kenyan shopping malls and the president’s reputation as the free world’s leader.

Of course, our strong support and thanks goes out to the brave members of the Army’s Delta Force and the Navy’s SEALs, teams from both of which ran headlong into harms’ way over the past weekend. In Libya’s capital, Tripoli, Delta Force successfully captured al-Qaida leader Abu Anas al Libi, who has been wanted since 1998 for the bombings of U.S. embassies in Africa. In Somalia, Navy SEALs went after leaders of al-Shabaab, al-Qaida’s branch there that’s linked to the recent shopping mall bombing in Kenya’s capital, Nairobi. Unfortunately, after encountering considerably greater resistance and non-combatant presence than anticipated, SEAL Team Six had to abandon its firefight with al-Shabaab. This, of course, will only embolden the Somali terrorist group.

However, notwithstanding our concerns about how Mr. Executive Clown Act got us here in the first place, we applaud the gutsy decision by the White House to take the risks inherent in both of these raids: Without boots-on-ground intervention into these would-be sanctuaries, another 9/11 is not only possible, but also very likely. Actionable intelligence yielded by such raids is likewise priceless to securing the U.S. and preventing another 9/11.

From a national security standpoint, however, our real problem with this administration is its head-in-the-sand approach to dealing with worldwide terrorism and its Pollyanna-like painting of the world as a peaceful haven of bliss since Team Chosen arrived on-scene. Nothing of the sort has happened. In fact, it’s exactly the opposite: Al-Qaida networks are expanding, not contracting; worldwide terrorist acts are rising, not falling; and the Middle East is virtually on fire, not by any means at peace. What the nation really needs is not only a leader who acts decisively when crises reach their boiling points, but also one who does not lay fertile ground for those crises in the first place, by appearing weak and unaffected, and by ignoring real threats to national security until they fester to the point they are impossible to ignore.