McCain and Obama: Hostilities Grow Over The War on Terror

One week after the Supreme Court’s repudiation of the Bush administration regarding the legality of detainments in Guantanamo, the two American presidential candidates revealed hostilities in their discussion of terrorism. In his reaction to an interview between the Democratic candidate and ABC News on Monday, June 16th, John McCain accused Barack Obama of being weak in the face of the terrorist threat.

In this interview, Barack Obama compared the Guantanamo prisoners’ detainment conditions to the legal prosecution of terrorists who placed bombs at the bottom of the World Trade Center in 1993. “Let’s take the example of Guantanamo. What we know is that, in previous terrorist attacks – for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center – we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated. And the fact that the administration has not tried to do that has created a situation where not only have we never actually put many of these folks on trial, but we have destroyed our credibility when it comes to rule of law all around the world.”

The day after the interview, Republicans accused Barack Obama of being too weak, noting George W. Bush’s rhetoric against John Kerry in 2004. “Once again, we have seen that Senator Obama is a perfect manifestation of a September 10th mindset,” said Randy Scheunemann, Mr. McCain’s advisor, referring to the atmosphere on the eve of the attacks of September 11, 2001.

The war in Iraq – a diversion

Mr. Obama responded from his campaign plane. “These are the same guys who helped to engineer the distraction of the war in Iraq at a time when we could have pinned down the people who actually committed 9/11. What they are trying to do is what they’ve done every election cycle, which is to use terrorism as a club to make the American people afraid – to win elections.”

At the heart of the battle are two opposing ideas of the anti-terrorism struggle. For Mr. Obama, terrorism is a problem of maintaining order. Therefore, possible terrorists should be judged by the civil justice system or traditional military courts, and be put in prison like other criminals.

For Mr. McCain’s team, this position proves Mr. Obama’s lack of experience. Former Republican mayor of New York, Rudolph Giuliani, declared in a briefing on this position that this “underscores [Obama’s] fundamental lack of judgment regarding our national security.”

In response, former Democratic candidate John Kerry declared, “[Senator McCain] is the candidate of the Iraq War mindset, a mindset that completely misunderstands and dangerously underestimates the threats of the 21st century.”

Democrats specify that Barack Obama proposes an approach that combines order and military measures, including a possible incursion into Pakistan if Islamabad refuses to cooperate with the United States in situations in which Al-Qaida members cross the Pakistani border.