In the wake of the recent terror alerts, this Sunday’s Meet the Press caused MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough to lock horns with Rick Santorum after the former GOP presidential candidate accused the Obama Administration of being “timid” in the face of terrorism.
“Even the president’s critics inside the CIA have been surprised at [Obama’s] policy, surprised that he’s adopted a lot of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush’s approach in the war on terror,” Scarborough said.
It’s well-documented that Obama has adopted, expanded, and enhanced the drone program in both the military, which authorizes and approves 33 strikes a month in Afghanistan, and the CIA, which uses the program to infiltrate countries like Pakistan and Yemen.
But Santorum was adamant that the drone program is not a sign of an overall effective policy against terror:
The drone policy is one policy. What we’ve seen is an administration that has refused to confront radical Islam, that has — that embraced the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt — and now you can see the consequences of that and you can see what has happened there. They have not been — they won’t even use the word ‘terror.’ They have withdrawn politically from the engagement and fight. Yes, sure they’re going after bad guys with drone programs, but that is not a comprehensive policy against radical Islam.
Scarborough was quick to point out that even conservatives can’t deny that the Obama Administration has been successful in dismantling Al Qaeda:
I am not in the business of defending Barack Obama, but if you talk to people in the intelligence community, they will tell you that Al Qaeda is busted, it’s broken, it’s splintered. There is a reason right now that they are in Yemen because they’ve been chased out of Afghanistan, they’ve been chased out of a lot of other countries. Al Qaeda is not any stronger today than it was when Barack Obama came into office. And most people — conservatives in the intel community — will you that in fact it’s weaker today than it was because the president surprised a lot of people. […] He’s adopted the policies of Dick Cheney and George W. Bush in many instances.
But as Scarborough and others have said, Obama’s drone policy may be doing more to induce anti-American sentiment, resulting in more terror recruits.
Watch the Meet the Press segment in the video below.
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