Would this be considered a flip, or a flop?

[jimpeel]

Slam them one day and praise them the next. Finger held stiffly skyward, detecting the changing winds, our Commander-In-Chief stands steadfastly resolute.

SOURCE

Spy chiefs turn on President Obama after seven CIA agents are slaughtered in Afghanistan

By David Gardner
Last updated at 8:40 AM on 02nd January 2010

Barack Obama was accused of double standards yesterday in his treatment of the CIA.

The President paid tribute to secret agents after seven of them were killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan.

In a statement, he said the CIA had been ‘tested as never before’ and that agents had ‘served on the front lines in directly confronting the dangers of the 21st century’.

He lauded the victims as ‘part of a long line of patriots who have made great sacrifices for their fellow citizens and for our way of life’.

Yet the previous day he had blasted ‘systemic failures’ in the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies for failing to prevent the Christmas Day syringe bomb attack.

‘One day the President is pointing the finger and blaming the intelligence services, saying there is a systemic failure,’ said one agency official. ‘Now we are heroes. The fact is that we are doing everything humanly possible to stay on top of the security situation. The deaths of our operatives shows just how involved we are on the ground.’

But CIA bosses claim they were unfairly blamed at a time the covert government agency has been stretched further than ever before in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

They point to the murder of seven operatives at a remote mountain base in Afghanistan’s Khost Province as an example of how agents are putting their lives on the line at the vanguard of America’s far-flung wars.

The agents – including the chief of the base, a mother-of-three - were collecting information about militants when the suicide bomber struck on Wednesday.

The attack was the deadliest single day for the agency since eight CIA officers were killed in the 1983 bombing of the US Embassy in Beirut.

The base targetted by Wednesday’s suicide bomber was a control centre for a covert programme overseeing strikes by remote-controlled aircraft along Afghanistan’s border with Pakistan.

‘Those who fell were far from home and close to the enemy, doing the hard work that must be done to protect our country from terrorism. We owe them our deepest gratitude,’ CIA Director Leon Panetta said.

Some CIA officials are angry at being criticised by the White House after Abdulmutallab, 23, was allowed to slip through the security net and board a US-bound flight in Amsterdam despite evidence he was a terror threat.

The president complained that a warning from the former London engineering student’s father and information about an al Qaeda bomb plot involving a Nigerian were not handled properly by the intelligence networks.

But CIA officials say the data was sent to the US National Counterterrorism Centre in Washington, which was set up after the 9/11 attacks as a clearing house where raw data should be analysed.

Agents claim that is where the dots should have been connected to help identify Abdulmutallab as a threat.

 

[2minkey]

jesus christ this shit is getting so old.

jim, you ever have a boss that tells when you're doing a good job, and also tells you when you're doing a bad job?

you think we should honor the memory of the marines that died in the beirut barracks? maybe think we should also criticize whatever or whomever had them standing around with unloaded weapons?

 

[Gonz]

maybe think we should also criticize whatever or whomever had them standing around with unloaded weapons?

We have...more than once. It was Reagans greatest failure.

 

[Cerise]

Who is responsible for the PC, ineffective and unreasonable rules of engagement that leave our military and intelligence personnel at risk?

It is becoming apparent that obama is incapable of shouldering responsibility for anything. To him, everything is always someone else's fault. Most likely Boooosh's.

 

[2minkey]

It is becoming apparent that obama is incapable of shouldering responsibility for anything.

you know someday you might actually want to try to back up a statement like that, because right now it just sounds like random pissings.

 

[Cerise]

I've learned all about "random pissings" from the master.