Former Senator, TV star and presidential candidate Fred Thompson tells Newsmax that President Barack Obama is revealing his “naivete, ineptitude and arrogance” as he deals with matters of national security.
The Tennessee Republican said the “dogs of war have been loosed” over left-wing attempts to single out Bush-era officials for prosecution relating to the treatment of detainees.
“This was set in motion when the president first decided to release” CIA memos on interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects, Thompson told Newsmax.
“There was no purpose in doing that except to make him look good internationally and to the left wing here at home,” he said. “It did a lot of damage.
“In one stroke of a pen he declassified top-secret documents that people would otherwise go to jail for releasing. It gave al-Qaida and the Taliban a blueprint as to the outer limits of our interrogation techniques.
“We have to remember that [the techniques were used] in the aftermath of 9/11. Congress was briefed on these techniques. Some of them asked if they were really going far enough to get what they needed to get, and it was approved at high levels in the administration.
“They carefully crafted them as best they could to not go too far, and to provide safeguards when they were carrying out these admittedly rough techniques on these people who had this vital information.
“So now we’re really talking about a war crimes tribunal, which this country has never done. We’ve never brought to criminal court prior administrations in this country.
“Harry Truman could have been accused of war crimes, I suppose, for dropping the bombs. President Obama authorized the killing of those three [pirates] in the Indian Ocean not too long ago. Prosecuting these people under these circumstances is something you hear about in banana republics and third-world countries, not the United States of America.
“The president’s opened up a terrible Pandora’s Box and there’s going to be a price to pay before this thing is ended.”
“We elected someone who didn’t have two minutes’ worth of experience with regard to matters concerning national security. Now he’s cast in this position and he’s making decisions that are going to have far-reaching ramifications not only abroad, and not only with our enemies, but in dividing our country even further here at home in ways I don’t think we’ve ever been divided before".
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