Headlines, North America

POLITICS: U.S. Citizens View Obama as Strong on Security

Mohammed A. Salih

WASHINGTON, Jan 12 2010 (IPS) - Opinion polls by two major U.S. television networks show that the majority of the country’s citizens have faith in President Barack Obama’s ability to protect them from “future acts of terrorism”.

The survey results come despite a wave of strong criticism of the administration’s conduct following the recent failed attempt by a Nigerian national, Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, to blow up a flight from Amsterdam to the U.S. city of Detroit.

A CNN poll released on Jan. 11 shows that 65 percent of the 1,025 respondents said they had either a “great deal of” or “moderate” confidence in Obama administration to keep them safe from future attacks. The number is six points higher than a similar CNN poll in August 2006 when President George W. Bush was in the White House. The margin of error in CNN’s poll was three points.

When respondents were asked about how worried they were that they or one of their family members would become a “victim of terrorism”, only nine percent said they were “very worried”, with another 25 percent saying they were “somewhat worried”. That was four percent lower than a previous CNN poll in June 2008, six months before President Obama came into office.

In a separate CBS News poll conducted on the same day as CNN’s, 56 percent of people questioned expressed a similar confidence in the administration’s capability to protect them against any future attacks. Only 26 percent of participants in the CBS News poll said they believed another attack on the U.S. within the next few months was “very likely”, although that was 14 percent higher than before the latest failed airline bombing.

The polls are coming at a time when Obama administration has come under harsh criticism, particularly from conservative and right-wing circles, regarding its handling of national security and terrorism-related issues. The results are seen by some, like the National Security Network, as boosting the president’s position vis-à-vis his critics.

Senior conservative figures and circles have recently slammed the administration over its “counter-terrorism” and national security policies, saying it has undermined U.S. national security and its capabilities to confront “terrorism”.

In a statement by Keep America Safe’s board of directors, whose signatories include by Liz Cheney, the daughter of former Vice-President Dick Cheney, and Bill Kristol, the editor of the neo-conservative-leaning Weekly Standard magazine, they criticise the administration for not treating Abdul Mutalab as an “enemy combatant” and not “fully recognizing what being at war means”.

U.S. officials say Abdul Mutalab, the 23-year-old son of a Nigerian businessman, had been trained and directed to carry out the attack by al Qaeda. He has been charged by a Detroit court with attempted murder and trying to use a weapon of mass destruction in his failed attempt on Christmas Day.

“President Obama has weakened American security by treating terror as a law enforcement matter and has taken his eyes off the ball,” said the statement released on Jan. 11. “America’s homeland security and counterterrorism systems will continue to erode in the absence of strong, consistent, unwavering presidential stewardship. It’s time for the President to make defending this nation his top priority.”

Keep America Safe describes its mission as working to enhance the national security of the U.S.

In a separate editorial that Kristol wrote in the latest issue of the Weekly Standard, he rebuked President Obama for not urgently and properly responding to the failed attack as he was on Christmas vacation in Hawaii for 10 days.

“We presume the Obama administration’s Christmas vacation is over,” Kristol wrote. “It would be good if they also abandoned their yearlong attempt to take a holiday from history.”

Heather Hurlburt, the executive director of the National Security Network, believes conservatives are trying to resurrect a climate of fear politics.

There is a sense that “if you create an atmosphere of fear then people are more likely to vote in a certain way,” she told IPS regarding the motives behind conservatives’ bashing the administration’s handling of national security. “There is a perception that fear works for the advantage of certain people and candidates.”

Moreover, a 74 percent majority of U.S. citizens support tougher measures like the use of a controversial X-ray machine that conducts a full body scan, according to the CBS News poll. Some have voiced concerns that the use of such machines is a violation of individuals’ privacy because it produces an image of passenger’s naked body.

More than half of the CBS News poll respondents said that the administration should keep open the Guantanamo Bay prison, where alleged terror suspects are held. Shortly after his inauguration, President Obama had signed an executive order to close the prison within a year.