It could be argued that Osama bin Laden is roasting in hell right now largely despite, not because of, Barack Obama. Had Obama gotten his way, the world would likely have watched a far different spectacle play out in lower Manhattan on Thursday: the trial of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, rather than an Obama photo-op, 'spiking the football' at the death of Osama bin Laden.
Perhaps more than any other person, Obama was responsible for efforts to hinder policies which led to bin Laden's assassination. Or, in words that won't offend our liberal friends, bin Laden's sudden cessation of life-related activities.
The Obamamedia is already busy scrubbing history of Bush administration efforts which started the search that eventually found bin Laden. They are also ignoring efforts by Obama which would have short-circuited those efforts.
Obama wasn't unique among Democrats in his criticism of Bush anti-terrorism policies -- including enhanced interrogation techniques that even his hand-picked CIA Director, Leon Panetta, admitted were partially responsible for finding bin Laden. Nor was Obama's the lone voice wailing over detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay. But Obama was singular in the lengths to which he went to try to force an end to those policies.
A core effort of Democrats opposed to George W. Bush's War On Terror was to extend habeas corpus to enemy combatants at Gitmo, a move that would have freed at least some detainees and impeded or halted the flow of information to U.S. interrogators, including information which reports say was vital to finding bin Laden.
Obama, though, took the rare step of making his U.S. Senate office a satellite office for activists trying to ram through a bill extending habeas corpus to Gitmo detainees. According to a group of those activists who endorsed Obama's presidential campaign:
"Senator Obama helped lead the fight in the Senate against the administration's efforts in the Fall of 2006 to strip the courts of jurisdiction, and when we were walking the halls of the Capitol trying to win over enough Senators to beat back the administration's bill, Senator Obama made his key staffers and even his offices available to help us. Senator Obama worked with us to count the votes, and he personally lobbied colleagues who worried about the political ramifications."
Just months after Obama's failed effort, in 2007, ABC News reports, "U.S. officials who were interrogating Guantanamo detainees finally learned the real name of a former Khalid Sheikh Muhammad protégé who had become an important confidante of Abu Faraj al Libi."
The protégé turned out to be the courier who eventually led Navy SEALS to go knocking on bin Laden's door.
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