Has Barack Obama's ego endangered lives?
By Peter
Foster
Back in
2008, in the aftermath of defeat, Republicans probably banked on the fact
that come 2012 they’d be able to attack the effete Harvard law don and
community organiser Barack Obama for being weak on national security
issues.
As it turns
out, Big Bad Bo is a self-appointed, one-man hit squad, raining down
righteous retaliation on America’s Islamist enemies from the
drone-infested skies above Pakistan, Afghanistan and Somalia.
This week,
therefore, senior Republicans have tried a different tack – hammering Mr
Obama not for his record on national security, but for the endless leaks
trumpeting top-secret successes, most of which seemed designed to paint Mr
Obama as the steely tough guy.
First three
Republican senators, including Marco Rubio in Florida (a Romney Veep
possibility), published a joint Washington Post editorial accusing Mr
Obama of authorising leaks that jeopardise informants' lives (or get them
sent to jail for 33 years, like the Bin Laden informant Shakil Afridi),
and make it harder to build ties with other intelligence agencies who
don’t want to be splashed all over The New York Times.
Then today,
Sen John McCain blasted the White House for the latest leak – a detailed
account of how computer worms had been sent in to cripple the Iranian
nuclear programme. The Senate Armed Services Committee will now hold an
inquiry into the leaks.
“It makes
the president look very decisive,” McCain said, accusing Obama of
cynically using national security for political ends, “and it gives very
little credit to the other men and women who make these things happen.
This puts American lives in danger, revealing our most highly classified
operations both in cyberwar and in drones.”
There is, of
course, more than drop of electoral humbug in all this, but it is also
absolutely true that some of the "leaking" has been eye-poppingly
gratuitous – though the White House has the gall to deny this.
In fact,
"leaking" is really the wrong word, since it implies that the
information has come out in an unauthorised fashion, whereas much of the
material appearing the New York Times and other sanctioned organs really
amounts to a fly-on-the-wall documentary.
"President
Obama, overseeing the regular Tuesday counterterrorism meeting of two
dozen security officials in the White House Situation Room, took a moment
to study the faces…” we read in a New York Times piece, as if it was
the opening of a Tom Clancy novel.
The piece
– sourced by “three dozen” current and former advisers, no less –
recounts how Mr Obama, brow furrowed and with carefully annotated texts of
Aquinas and Augustine in hand, personally reviews every one of his
extra-judicial killings.
This is
meant to make Mr Obama look admirable – just like all those
documentaries about Mr Obama’s lone wolf decision go after Osama bin
Laden – but increasingly he sounds, and looks, utterly egomaniacal.
The torrent
of leaks is upsetting some people in the US military. In the last month
I’ve had two separate conversations with serving US officers who were
scathing about the fact that every time Mr Obama finds himself needing to
bury bad news domestically, he lays down another national security
smokescreen.
If it
hasn’t already, this, I suspect, will soon become a turn-off for the
public, who love a hero but can’t stand a braggart, particularly when
they are trading on the bravery of other people.
Everyone
knows that Obama has been surprisingly tough on national security. He
should shut up about it already.
Caption:
Barack Obama has been trying too hard to paint himself as a tough guy
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