Sticks and Stones

Any of us with a younger sibling knows the best way to get under his skin is to ignore him (or her). So, it appears, it is true when it comes to mortal enemies in the War on Terror.

I read this article this morning from the Washington Post, which basically says that al Queda doesn't quite know what to make of our new president. Seems they miss their "perfect foil" (aka Geroge W. Bush) and are having trouble understanding a president who wants to end the war(s), close the prison at Guantanamo and focus on problems other than terrorism. It clearly is in al Queda's interests to keep ratcheting up the conflict, but what to do with a president who doesn't play the game with them?

Apparently you call him names and you keep hurling things (verbally, so far) in hopes that he'll react. Something tells me Obama has been called names before and considering how smoothly he performed during the campaign, I doubt whether he'll rattle so easily. We have to prepare ourselves for the reality that al Queda might try something bigger to get his attention, but hopefully all the security that has been in place over the past years will do its job and prevent anything major from occurring.

In related news, the Obama administration is finding that it's going to be difficult unraveling the issues related to the detainees at Gitmo:

President Obama's plans to expeditiously determine the fates of about 245 terrorism suspects held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and quickly close the military prison there were set back last week when incoming legal and national security officials -- barred until the inauguration from examining classified material on the detainees -- discovered that there were no comprehensive case files on many of them.

Instead, they found that information on individual prisoners is "scattered throughout the executive branch," a senior administration official said. The executive order Obama signed Thursday orders the prison closed within one year, and a Cabinet-level panel named to review each case separately will have to spend its initial weeks and perhaps months scouring the corners of the federal government in search of relevant material.

Maybe Joe Biden will find all the information anyone would need in the attic of the Vice President's house that he just moved into. Something tells me Dick Cheney LIKED the confusion around these issues. Helped him keep people from nosing into things too deeply, I suspect.

Anyway, it's great to have the grown-ups in charge, no?