"We seem to expect perfection from government and then throw temper tantrums when it is not achieved. We seem to be in the position of young adolescents — who believe mommy and daddy can take care of everything, and then grow angry and cynical when it becomes clear they can’t."
He also said that we should takes steps to reduce the risk of terrorist attacks.
"All this money and technology seems to have reduced the risk of future attack. But, of course, the system is bound to fail sometimes. Reality is unpredictable, and no amount of computer technology is going to change that. Bureaucracies are always blind because they convert the rich flow of personalities and events into crude notations that can be filed and collated. Human institutions are always going to miss crucial clues because the information in the universe is infinite and events do not conform to algorithmic regularity. Resilient societies have a level-headed understanding of the risks inherent in this kind of warfare.
"Much of the criticism has been contemptuous and hysterical.... Dick Cheney argues that the error was caused by some ideological choice."
Clarence Page of the Chicago Tribune also had some comments regarding Cheney:
The case of Reid, who tried to bring down a jetliner by detonating his shoes, is instructive as we evaluate the remarks of former Vice President Cheney. ... Cheney said Obama "seems to think if he has a low-key response to an attempt to blow up an airliner and kill hundreds of people, we won't be at war."
Low-key response? That's gratitude for you. Cheney gives Obama no credit for how closely the new president's military actions and policies mirror those of the administration he replaced -- even when actions like Obama's troop buildup in Afghanistan have outraged much of his left-progressive base.
President George W. Bush was on vacation during the shoe-bombing attempt as Obama was during the attempted underwear bombing. Bush took six days to respond to Reid's attempt. The Obama White House issued a background statement on Christmas calling the underwear bomb incident an "attempted terrorist attack," which was more specific than Team Bush's early statements.
Cheney also failed to mention how a key figure in al-Qaida's Yemen movement, which has claimed responsibility for the attempted underwear bombing, was released from Guantanamo by the Bush-Cheney administration.
Cheney fumes about Obama's avoidance of Bush's cherished term "war on terror," as if there was no problem with Bush-Cheney's obsession with war metaphors. In fact, "terror" is a tactic, not the enemy. Fighting terrorists calls for a smart combination of military, counterintelligence and international police work, whether the cases end up in civilian courts or military tribunals.
In fact, "the Bush administration sent a very similar case, so-called shoe bomber Richard Reid, to civilian courts."
We need a reasoned approach to defeating al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations who are our enemies.
