Our president likes to talk a lot about what he inherited when he came into office in January 2009.

He likes to talk about the horrible economy he inherited. And, he keeps trumpeting the two wars he inherited – the one in Iraq and the one in Afghanistan (even though according to him before election, the Afghanistan war was the “good” war).

Well there’s one other thing he inherited when he came into office that he doesn’t seem to want to talk about very much.

He inherited a nation that had been secure from terrorist attacks on domestic soil since that awful day Sept. 11, 2001. He inherited an intelligence community that had made great strides in working together to find and stop enemy combatants. He inherited a controversial – but effective – detention system that kept militant combatants away from their jihadist battlefields.

What has President Barack Obama done with this inheritance? It appears he is systematically tearing down those walls that have been built up as a way to protect our country from more domestic terrorist attacks.

The first thing he did was let his administration put the Central Intelligence Agency on trial. Intelligence gatherers are on the hotseat for using controversial techniques to gain information from accused terrorists. That has left many in the CIA distrustful of each other and of their political bosses. This leads to less information sharing and more intelligence holes to fill.

In many people’s eyes, the attack by a Muslim military psychiatrist at Fort Hood two weeks ago is the United States’ first terrorist attack on domestic soil since 9-11. It fits along with the jihadist attacks that have taken place at military and police installations in Iraq and Afghanistan. The president does not yet want to categorize it as a terrorist attack for good political reasons. But, I expect the investigation to show it was, indeed, a premeditated, jihadist attack on a military installation on American soil.

So, until Nov. 4, the president had inherited a clean slate when it came to domestic terrorist attacks.

The most reckless thing the Obama administration is doing in relation to terrorism is to demand civilian trials for many of the Sept. 11 masterminds and other terrorists.

The Obama administration believes our government was wrong to capture and detain these terrorists and hold them as militant combatants.

Just like their Democratic administration predecessor Bill Clinton, they see these terrorist attacks as criminal endeavors, not acts of war.

The Clinton administration was foolish to think of these terrorist acts this way, and the Obama administration is being doubly foolish by bringing these terrorists back to the “scene of the crime” in a civilian court where civil justice practices may expose national secrets.

No one can predict what will happen when these characters are tried in civilian courts, but there are some probabilities most Americans don’t want to think of. Is it a scare tactic to bring up the possibilities? Maybe. But, as the old saying goes, it’s much better to be safe than sorry.

The president can complain all he wants about inheriting a bad economy and unpopular wars. But he certainly can’t complain about inheriting a much safer United States. Unfortunately, it looks like he’s willing to squander that good inheritance.



Allen is managing editor of the Enid News & Eagle. She can be reached at (580) 548-8163 or by e-mail at editor@enidnews.com.