We don’t expect much. It’s been nearly six years. We’re long past the point of hoping that Barack Obama will adopt policies that deserve our grudging approval, if not enthusiastic endorsement, particularly on foreign policy and national security.
But we do expect something.
We believe that the president, whatever his ideological disposition, ought to be an unapologetic defender of America when she is smeared or slandered. At a bare minimum, a president ought not lend credence to those who disparage the United States for imagined offenses.
This is apparently too high a standard for Barack Obama.
As Thomas Joscelyn reports elsewhere in these pages, two days before the United States transferred six Guantánamo detainees to Uruguay, President José Mujica released a statement denouncing the United States. “We have offered our hospitality for humans suffering a heinous kidnapping in Guantánamo,” it read. Because of their suffering, the detainees—all with direct ties to al Qaeda leadership—were accepted by Uruguay for “humanitarian” reasons and given refugee status.
A subsequent Defense Department statement about the transfer said nothing about these outrageous claims and simply thanked Uruguay for taking in the detainees. Did we miss the administration’s reaction to Mujica’s comments? Did the administration miss the comments? We asked the White House if the U.S. government had responded to Mujica’s statement or pushed back against it in any way. And if not, does the administration believe that Mujica’s comments are a fair characterization of how the al Qaeda members came to be detained at Guantánamo?
Patrick Ventrell, spokesman for the National Security Council, gave us this response:
We are grateful to President Mujica and Uruguay for providing to these individuals an opportunity to start anew their lives in Uruguay and to become contributing members of the Uruguayan society. However, we must refer you to the government of Uruguay for more information related to President Mujica’s comments.
There was nothing at all from the White House disputing Mujica’s calumny about a “heinous kidnapping,” no protest of the suggestion that al Qaeda operatives need “humanitarian” relief from the United States, and not a word in defense of the U.S. military and intelligence officials who risked their lives to help bring these dangerous terrorists into U.S. custody.
It’s not just what the White House refused to say, but what it said. The administration went out of its way to articulate a belief that the freed al Qaeda terrorists—five of whom were classified as “high risk” detainees by Joint Task Force-Guantánamo—may well become productive members of society.
Critics have long complained that the Obama administration mistreats our allies and coddles our enemies. There are exceptions, of course, but does anyone seriously dispute that general tendency? In just the past few months:
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