OBAMA IS LEARNING
Seeing the enemy for what it is
President Obama last week inched closer to defining the true nature of the threat America faces from terror ists like the one who nearly downed an airliner over Detroit on Christmas Day.
"We are at war," he said, even acknowledging -- doubtless, to the abject horror of many senior advisers -- that Al-Qaida actually draws its strength from Islam. It was a refreshingly truculent departure for the president -- and a dramatic improvement over his initial response to the attack, when he characterized bomber Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as "an isolated extremist."
Obama said Al-Qaida represents a radical variant of Islam that promises "only misery and death" -- which is true enough -- but it nevertheless appears that the president is increasingly open to a candid public discussion of the nature of the threat facing America.
Alas, the rest of the speech -- an outline of the intelligence failures that allowed Abdulmutallab to slip through the cracks despite multiple warning signs -- was a puzzlement.
"It appears that this incident was not the fault of a single individual or organization, but rather a systemic failure across organizations and agencies," he said.
His proposed solution? More emphasis on tracking down intelligence leads and more information-sharing between agencies.
Problem is, for intelligence bureaucracies information is power -- and power is rarely shared, absent a significant outside motivation.
If Obama had lopped off a couple of heads after the Detroit fiasco -- and last week wouldn't have been too late -- it would have sent a powerful signal: This guy means business.
