First and foremost a the President of the United States must defend the this country, its citizens and interests abroad. For more than 20 years under 4 presidents terrorists attacked this country's interests and citizens all over the world with few consequence. As the attacks grew bolder and closer our responses remained feckless.

Date	Incident	Deaths	Injured
1-Apr-83	A suicide car bombing against the U.S. embassy in Beirut kills 63, including 17 Americans.	63
1-Oct-83	A suicide car bomb attack against the U.S. Marine barracks in Beirut kills 241 servicemen. A simultaneous attack on a French base kills 58 paratroopers.	299
1-Nov-84	A bomb attack on the U.S. embassy in Bogota, Colombia kills a passer-by. The attack was preceded by death threats against U.S. officials by drug traffickers.	1
1-Apr-85	A bomb explodes in a restaurant near a U.S. air base in Madrid, Spain, killing 18, all Spaniards, and wounding 82, including 15 Americans.	18	82
1-Jun-85	A TWA airliner is hijacked over the Mediterranean, the start of a two-week hostage ordeal. The last 39 passengers are eventually released in Damascus after being held in various locations in Beirut.	1
1-Jun-85	In San Salvador, El Salvador, 13 people are killed in a machine gun attack at an outdoor café, including four U.S. Marines and two American businessmen.	13
1-Aug-85	A car bomb at a U.S. military base in Frankfurt, Germany kills two and injures 20. A U.S. soldier murdered for his identity papers is found a day after the explosion.	2	20
1-Oct-85	Palestinian terrorists hijack the cruise liner Achille Lauro (in response to the Israeli attack on PLO headquarters in Tunisia) Leon Klinghoffer, an elderly, wheelchair-bound American, is killed and thrown overboard.	1
1-Nov-85	Hijackers aboard an Egyptair flight kill one American. Egyptian commandos later storm the aircraft on the isle of Malta, and 60 people are killed.	61
1-Dec-85	Simultaneous suicide attacks are carried out against U.S. and Israeli check-in desks at Rome and Vienna international airports. 20 people are killed in the two attacks, including four terrorists.	20
1-Apr-86	An explosion damages a TWA flight as it prepares to land in Athens, Greece. Four people are killed when they are sucked out of the aircraft.	4
5-Apr-86	A bomb destroys the LaBelle discotheque in West Berlin. The disco was known to be frequented by U.S. servicemen. The attack kills one American and one German woman and wounds 150, including 44 Americans	144
1987	There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.
21-Dec-88	A bomb destroys Pan Am 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland. All 259 people aboard the Boeing 747 are killed including 189 Americans, as are 11 people on the ground.	200
1989	There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.
6-Jul-90	February: Marine Corps Lt. Colonel Higgens, Chief of the U.N. Truce Force, was kidnapped and murdered by Hezbollah.	200
9-Nov-91	American University in Beirut bombed.	1	8
1992	There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.
1-Feb-93	A bomb in a van explodes in the underground parking garage in New York's World Trade Center, killing six people and wounding 1,042.	6	1042
1994	There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.
13-Nov-95	A car-bomb in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia kills seven people, five of them American military and civilian advisers for National Guard training. The "Tigers of the Gulf," "Islamist Movement for Change," and "Fighting Advocates of God" claim responsibility.	7
25-Jun-96	A bomb aboard a fuel truck explodes outside a U.S. air force installation in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. 19 U.S. military personnel are killed in the Khubar Towers housing facility, and 515 are wounded, including 240 Americans.	19	515
21-Nov-97	Terrorists murder four American oil company employees in Pakistan.	4
21-Jun-98	Rocket-propelled grenades explode near the U.S. embassy in Beirut.	0
7-Aug-98	Terrorist bombs destroy the U.S. embassies in Nairobi, Kenya and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. In Nairobi, 12 Americans are among the 291 killed, and over 5,000 are wounded, including 6 Americans. In Dar es Salaam, one U.S. citizen is wounded among the 10 killed and 77 injured.	291	5000
31-Oct-99	October: Egypt Air flight 990 crashed off the coast of Massachusetts, killing 100 Americans among the more than 200 on board; the pilot yelled "Allahu Akbar!" as he steered the airplane into the ocean.	200	5000
12-Oct-00	A terrorist bomb damages the destroyer USS Cole in the port of Aden, Yemen, killing 17 sailors and injuring 39.	17	39
11-Sep-01	Terrorists hijack four U.S. commercial airliners taking off from various locations in the United States in a coordinated suicide attack. In separate attacks, two of the airliners crash into the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, which catch fire and eventually collapse. A third airliner crashes into the Pentagon in Washington, DC, causing extensive damage. The fourth airliner, also believed to be heading towards Washington, DC, crashes outside Shanksville, PA., killing all 45 people on board. Casualty estimates from New York put the possible death toll close to 3800, while as many as 200 people may have been lost at the Pentagon crash site.	2998	6291
October-02	Diplomat Laurence Foley murdered in Jordan, in an operation planned, directed and financed by Zarqawi in Iraq, perhaps with the complicity of Saddam's government.	1
May-03	Suicide bombers killed 10 Americans, and killed and wounded many others, at housing compounds for westerners in Saudi Arabia.	10
October-03	More bombings of United States housing compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia killed 26 and injured 160.	26	160
2004	There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.
2005	There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.
2006	There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.
2007	There were no successful attacks inside the United States or against American interests abroad.
2008	US Embassy in Yemen bombed. Former Guantanamo Bay prisoner Said Ali al-Shihri now chief of al-Qaida in Yemen is believed to have planned the opereration.	16
	Total	4607	18157

Notice that there was only one gap of more than two years where no American target outside a war zone were hit and who was president at the time. That 5 year streak was broken in part because we decided to let go of a bad guy we had already captured. That was a good idea.