Posted on 05/24/2009 10:36:49 AM PDT by Maelstorm
(CNN) — Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge is taking President Obama to task over his handling of closing the detention center on Guantanamo Bay.
In his interview with CNN's John King on State of the Union Sunday, Ridge said Obama "doesn't have a plan" on how to relocate the current detainees, and suggested the president announced he was close the facility prematurely.
"Reaching conclusion that you can shut it down without determining the manner in which you were going to adjudicate those who should stay somewhere… How are we going to dispose of them?" he said.
"And at the end of the day, doesn't the world community have another problem? If you think we're going to be dealing with international terrorism in many forms for the next decade or two or three, aren't we going to encounter this again?" He continued. "Maybe not only in the United States, but elsewhere around the world? How are we going to deal with this?"
The comments come days after Obama delivered a high profile speech in Washington, during which he argued closing the facility at this time will ultimately enhance America's national security.
"The record is clear: rather than keep us safer, the prison at Guantanamo has weakened American national security," he said in the Thursday speech. "It is a rallying cry for our enemies. It sets back the willingness of our allies to work with us in fighting an enemy that operates in scores of countries. By any measure, the costs of keeping it open far exceed the complications involved in closing it."
Obama also pledged, "We are not going to release anyone if it would endanger our national security, nor will we release detainees within the United States who endanger the American people."
(Excerpt) Read more at politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com ...
Tom Ridge: lighting his cigar on both ends and smoking it in the middle
This is the perfect example of talking out of both sides of your mouth. First disses Cheney on his speaking out against Obama and now disses Obama.
The list, ping
I met Tom Ridge at a town hall meeting in San Diego. I realized he was just a tool for Jorge Bush but I found him to be a coward...a coward who, while attending a town hall meeting in a border city REFUSED to entertain any querstions regarding ILLEGAL aliens and what the Bush Administration was doiing to stop it.
Obama behaves as if he were an ally of the terrorists. He is trying to “blame” Bush for capturing the terrorists and putting them at Gitmo, which is actually a state of the art facility. Obama and his Socialists in Congress seek to “blame” Bush and Cheney for successfully preventing another 9/11 after Sept. 2001. Obama said on TV last week that he was trying to clean up “the mess” left behind by the Bush administration. In fact, Obama has created a mess by announcing that he would close Gitmo even though he has no idea what to do with the terrorists kept there. Many of our soldiers died or were wounded capturing the terrorists, but Obama’s idea has been to set them free again. For what purpose? So that more American soldiers might be killed or wounded recapturing the same terrorists? Obama’s incompetence will lead to more 9/11’s, and just One more would devastate our economy.
All I can say is Obama had better hope that another 9-11 style event does not happen because he and his ilk will be blamed and hung for it.
I honestly cannot tell where this goober is coming from. I do know, that the war on terror is not going to be won by subdividing each and every nuance into sub-nuances and subdividing those nuances into sub-sub nuances. That is what I associate with a British way of thinking, no insult intended. It will not work, turning every issue into an endless navel-gazing exercise. And that is Cheney’s message, as far as I’m concerned.
Cheney and Bush (or Bush and Cheney) did not have the luxury of 7+ years of breathing room and partisan spin-efforts to look back and revise and rewrite what occurred. They had a job to do and they did it, successfully. It may not have been perfect, it may not have been elegant, but to criticize it from the relatively safe haven B&C policy created, while running roughshod over long established law in the case of Chrysler (plus the ugly, ugly crap that is to come on Cap & Trade and Universal Healthcare Rationing and is already here in terms of orgiastic overspending) is despicable. Edisons’ first 9,999 attempts at inventing the light bulb weren’t elegant either. Liberals LOVE to call out Bush and Cheney for their supposed incompetence allowing 9/11 to happen, and of course anyone looking at a calendar can see it happened “on their watch”. But they never even hint at the dozens and dozens of clues and opportunities Clinton let drift by. It’s always a one-way street with these folks.
A coward? Funny, I thought he was a highly decorated Vietnam war veteran.
Ridge may be a RINO, but calling him a coward is stupid.
Ridge is way too quick to attack his friends and to comfort his enemies.
This “above the fray” bullsh** posturing of moderates in the GOP is sickening. You simply cannot rely on people of this ilk to stand by you on anything. In fact, like clockwork, you can count on them to hose you at the most inopportune time.
He’s a coward for attending a town hall meeting in San Diego and avoiding an issue critical to all San Diegans. Failing to recognize that and/or granting him a pass simply because he served in the military years earlier is what’s stupid.
Exactly.
Physically courageous? What the hell does that mean. Speaking as a vet that has been under fire, physicality has nothing to do with it. It’s what’s in your mind, your heart and the fortitude to move forward knowing you could get killed or captured. Moral cowardice? Sounds like a condition exemplified by someone that has never been under fire.
Ridge, who I disagree with on numerous issues, is a typical politician who makes idiotic statements and is hypocritical. But flat out calling him a coward on an anonymous board is, well, cowardly.
True have we forgotten “the highly decorated vietnam vet” kerry
Yeah, John Frickin' Kerry is a "war hero" also. Actually this guy can be a physical hero but a coward when it comes to politics and the courage one shows in youth may not be there as a person gets older.
If you ever wonder how these RINOs get elected now you know; there's always some so-called "Republican" willing to elect them despite how liberal they may be.
Thanks for chiming in.
Good analogy.
“Obama behaves as if he were an ally of the terrorists.”
This is exactly my take on Obama. I feel that Obama listens to terrorists to make the laws and rulings of the USA, and not the people who live here. He thinks he knows more than all of the people, and he thinks he knows more than Congress, and he is deluded! I live in fear for our great nation if Obama is allowed to continue.
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