We have been safe these last few years since September 11 BECAUSE of the laws and decisions that were made on behalf of the Bush Administration. I am not saying that I agree with all the decisions made, but we are safe due to the fact that the Bush administration has been diligent in the War on Terror. Also just a small note, terrorists are not protected under the Geneva Convention. By definition Al Qaeda does not qualify for protection under the Geneva Convention because they are terrorists (see Article 3). And yes, there have been some instances of abuse in the prisoners that the United States has taken and that is completely intolerable. See the article below if you would like more details.
The fact of the matter is, we have not been attacked again on American soil because the U.S. Military, the NSA, the CIA, the FBI and countless others have been aggressive in the eradication and punishment of those who practice terrorism.
This is a new war where we will have to redefine HOW to fight. We are not battling against a country, our enemies are small people groups within countries. This calls for a new strategy. Just like the US had to create a whole new strategy to fight the Cold War (where most of the war was fought by spies and not a "traditional" shot was fired) so we will have to create a new strategy for the War on Terror. Our enemies are not heads of states, they are the people that live within the borders of other countries. We have not found this new strategy yet, but completely wiping away everything that the Bush administration has done for the last 8 years will not get us closer to winning this war.
The enemies that seek to kill us are ruthless. They tell their children that it is good for American's to die, that they should all hope to have the privilege of slitting Americans throats in the streets, or of watching American children die. Our enemies are radicals who have even been shunned by people in the same religion that they claim to follow.
Please see the following from an article in the National Review:
"Democrats are intent on cultivating a mythology of torture to discredit George W. Bush's administration, and the latest epistle of their faith in Sen. Carl Levin's misleading and relentlessly partisan report, 'Inquiry into the Treatment of Detainees in the U.S. Custody.' Contrary to the report, the Bush administration did not 'redefine' detainee-treatment law; it undertook to determines precisely what the law says and who it covers. Neither did the Bush administration negate the Geneva Conventions' Common Article 3, which requires that the prisoners it covers be 'treated humanely.' By definition, al-Qaeda is not qualified for Geneva protections because it is a terrorist organization. Nonetheless, the Bush administration made humane treatment of Qaeda prisoners a matter of policy. Three Qaeda captives have been waterboarded during interrogations, a practice that Congress has declined to criminalize. The abuse of prisoners is not to be tolerated - and under the Bush administration it has not been: dozens of U.S. military personnel have been disciplined and a number tried in courts-martial. There is a world of difference between freelance wrongdoing at the hands of a minuscule proportion of soldiers at Abu Ghraib and a government policy of torture. The Democrats' attempt to conflate the two is a shameful elevation of politics over the sometimes unpleasant necessities of national defense."
