Is President Obama Clueless on National Security?

The new President has shown little interest when it comes to national security issues. And it ain't just the pressing issues having to do with the collapsing economy. And he doesn't seem to have many answers on that front either. But appointing a lobbyist to run the Pentagon raises serious questions about the President's commitment to change in Washington. But Lyon was only a tip of the iceberg. Previously, Mr.Obama had picked a political hack, Leon Panetta, as the new CIA Director. He kept Bush's Secretary of Defense. He chose another political hack, Hillary Clinton, as the Secretary of State. This suggests to me that we have a President who is willing to politicize national defense, much like his disastrous predecessor. And lets not forget what happened with Bush: 9-11 happened. And let's not forget that Clinton faced a World Trade Center attack just weeks into his presidency. Given this President's lack of national defense expertise, we expect another major attack on America:

The Senate voted 93 to 4 on Wednesday to confirm William J. Lynn III as deputy defense secretary, which will put a former military lobbyist in charge of day-to-day operations at the Pentagon.

The Senate Intelligence Committee, meeting in closed session, approved without opposition the nomination of Leon E. Panetta to head the Central Intelligence Agency, a committee spokesman, Philip LaVelle, said.

Mr. Panetta, a former congressman who was chief of staff for President Bill Clinton, has no direct intelligence-gathering or analysis experience. Mr. Obama said he was selected because of his managerial skills and ability to repair the agency’s relationship with Congress.

Not to mention the Obama administration's backsliding on his opposition to the fascist tactics of George W.:

Bad news today for people who were hoping that Barack Obama would roll back some of the imperial executive which Bush, Cheney and their wacky legal theorists built over the last eight years. The new administration's lawyers picked up a questionable legal theory from the old administration, that national security trumps due process of law.

The issue came up Monday in a court case where five former detainees are suing for Boeing helping with the Bush administration's "extraordinary rendition" program. The Bush administration had argued that the case should be dismissed because, as today's New York Times puts it, "even discussing it in court could threaten national security and relations with other nations."

Candidate Obama was rather critical of extraordinary renditions. So the judges hearing the case on Monday were a bit taken aback when governmental lawyer Douglas Letter declined an opportunity to change the government's argument in the case.

And he certainly doesn't know what to do with Afghanistan. A knowledgeable analyst of the war in that country would tell the new President that there is no winning there. But Barack will remain in Afghanistan because it is too political sensitive for the President to pull out. We will remain in a quagmire for years to come because Mr.Obama doesn't want to be soft on terror. Just like JFK didn't want to be seen as soft on Communism when escalated our involvement in Vietnam.

President Obama is facing a choice on whether to grant commanders’ requests for additional troops in Afghanistan before he has decided on his new strategy there.

While the decision is expected to be the first significant military move of his presidency, defense officials said that Mr. Obama could choose a middle ground, deploying several thousand more troops there in the coming months but postponing a more difficult judgment on a much larger increase in personnel until after the administration completes a review of Afghanistan policy.

The officials said that Mr. Obama may deploy one or two additional brigades, between 3,500 and 7,000 soldiers.

But he has other options, and several administration officials said it was also possible — though less likely — that he could postpone any deployments until after his review was complete. Such a move would not find much favor with commanders in Afghanistan, who have a standing request for an additional three brigades, or more than 10,000 soldiers.

It is also possible that Mr. Obama will fill the request for all three brigades, administration officials said.

Mr. Obama’s military commanders want additional brigades in place by late spring or early summer as part of an effort to counter growing violence and chaos in Afghanistan, particularly before presidential elections that are expected to take place there in August.

Robert M. Gates, the defense secretary, said Tuesday that he had presented options to Mr. Obama that “give him several ways of going forward,” and added that he expected a determination “in the course of the next few days.”

Referring to the additional brigades being sought by commanders, Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary, said Mr. Obama “could make a decision about none, one, two or all of them.”