Instead of Death to KSM, we get Obama passing the buck to the slimy Eric Holder:
Excellent commentary, as usual by Charles Krauthammer:
On the decision to try Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in a New York civilian court:
What is so hard to understand is Holder's argument, the logic of his argument.
Now, I want to look only at a single aspect of it. … If [Holder] opposed the military commissions on principle, you could say his decision on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was wrong, but at least it was logical.
But he doesn't. On the day he sent KSM to a civilian trial in New York, he announced he would send five of the miscreants who attacked the Cole, a warship, to a military trial in Guantanamo or perhaps elsewhere.
Now, what is the logic here? Holder was asked about this, and to the extent that he was coherent, which is only to a small extent, he said: Well, if you attack a civilian target, as in 9/11, then you go to a civilian court; a military target like the Cole, to a military [court].
First of all, the Pentagon was hit on 9/11, so it wasn't exclusively a civilian attack. But perhaps Holder forgot about that.
But secondly, even if [9/11] were exclusively an attack on civilians — which is a worse act of war criminality, attacking defenseless civilians or attacking a military target, like a warship? We have attacked warships in our history, Japan and Germany in the Second World War and elsewhere. That is an accepted act of war.
Why does a person [like] Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who attacked civilians — the more obvious and egregious war crime — get the extra protections, the extra constitutional niceties that you get in a civilian courtroom, as opposed to someone who attacks a military target? The logic here is perverse.
And the incentive is [perverse]: If you are a terrorist overseas thinking — am I going to attack a well-protected military installation? [No,] I will hit a civilian [target]. I will be in a cozy cell with a lawyer, Miranda rights and perhaps even a blog. Why wouldn't I attack innocent civilians?
On whether, if by technicality or hung jury, one of these cases went the other way, they would be let free:
They will be rearrested in the courtroom. A second charge will be filed, and it will be endless. And in the end, if they are acquitted on all charges endlessly, they will end up in indefinite detention.
We will not let them out. Everyone knows that. That's what makes it such a farce.
Holder's 'Decision' [Jonah Goldberg]
My column on all this will be up tomorrow on NRO. But there's at least one point I make in it that I think isn't getting enough attention. It is ludicrous for the president to claim this was solely Holder's decision. First, I don't think it's true that Obama handed it off to Holder without any input on the matter.
But even if it were true, it's still Obama's decision. When the commander-in-chief gives law enforcement the final authority over what to do with enemy combatants, he can't then claim that he's not responsible for the decision. This isn't just a "buck stops here" point, though that's part of it. The moment he made this the Justice Department's call rather than the Defense Department's he made it clear where he comes down on the question. It's good politics to claim that he's just letting the rule of law and the justice system work through the issues, but that's all it is, politics. And, as president, it's if he thought Holder was wrong, he would have both the power and the responsibility to overrule him. He doesn't want to overrule Holder because the two of them see eye-to-eye on these questions.
Re: Holder's 'Decision' [Andy McCarthy]
On Jonah's point, I would just add that Obama has been playing this game from the first, and he gave the game away by overruling Holder when the blowback got bad over DOJ's effort to disclose classified photos of prisoner abuse. (See here and here.)
On that, note that Holder plays the same game — he (and Obama) claimed that they were simply complying with court orders. As I've explained a few times, Obama and Holder have the power under the Freedom of Information Act to order disclosure, but (a) they want disclosure and (b) such an order would make their base go nuts. So, Obama passes the buck to Holder, and Holder passes the buck to the courts — but it shouldn't obscure that the decision is Obama's. He's now playing out the string on the photos: he reversed Holder and had DOJ appeal the disclosure order to the Supreme Court; he's figuring the Supremes will uphold the disclosure order and then he can have DOJ publicize the photos under the fig-leaf that the Court has spoken. But it's a game — the justices are in this position only because Obama is trying to be unaccountable.
Secondly, as I recount in Willful Blindness (about to be released in paperback), the decision to indict Omar Abdel Rahman (the Blind Sheikh) was a controversial one, involving not only DOJ but State, the National Security Council, the Intelligence Community, etc. Attorney General Reno was forcefully in favor of indictment, others were either neutral or opposed but not strongly so. (Not indicting the Sheikh would have created a separate set of serious issues.) But it was not the AG's decision alone. Whenever a decision like this implicates the interests of multiple executive branch agencies, they are all consulted. But if there is strong disagreement, the president resolves the disagreement; and if it's a national security matter, the AG does not pull the trigger and indict if the president does not want that to happen — AG Reno would never have given us the green-light to go ahead unless President Clinton was on board.
In my mind, it is really foolish cowardice on President Obama's part to pretend AG Holder made this call alone. Obama owns the decision whether he owns up to it or not, so he might as well get out there and own it.
Justice Delayed [Marc Thiessen]
As usual, Andy McCarthy hits it out of the park with his column today on NRO, "Justice Delayed."I would add only one point: Part of the delay in trying KSM was in fact by choice, and it was a wise choice. Unlike the Obama administration, our first priority in the Bush administration was not putting KSM on trial — it was getting intelligence from KSM so we could stop follow-on attacks and save lives.
Remember what KSM said after his capture: He would tell us everything when he got to New York for his trial. We told him: You’re not going to New York. First, you’re going to spend a little time talking to the CIA. And under CIA questioning, KSM — together with other CIA detainees — gave us vital intelligence that helped stop a number of attacks, including a plot to fly an airplane into the Library Tower in Los Angeles; a plot to fly airplanes in the Heathrow Airport and buildings in downtown London; a plot to blow up our consulate in Karachi; a plot to blow up our Marine camp in Djibouti; and many others. His interrogation produced thousands of intelligence reports, and helped us wrap up the two main terrorist networks still at large at the time of his capture: the remaining members of the KSM network that had planned the 9/11 attacks, and the key members of the Hambali network that was working with al-Qaeda on follow-on attacks.
Once we had exhausted KSM as an intelligence source, President Bush transferred him and 13 other detainees from CIA custody to Guantanamo Bay so that they could face justice. If it had not been for the legal obstacles Andy cites, their trials would have begun soon thereafter.
And had it not been for the Obama administration, KSM and his partners would now be sitting on death row. KSM and his co-conspirators offered to plead guilty once their military commissions got underway and proceed straight to execution — until the Obama administration suspended the proceedings. This means that, with his decision to give KSM a civilian trial, Eric Holder effectively rejected KSM’s guilty plea, and told him, “No, Mr. Mohammed, first let us give you that stage you wanted in New York to rally jihadists to kill Americans and incite new attacks.”
That decision is what will lead to years of delay — and could lead to new terrorist attacks.
It is telling that Eric Holder considers the three years KSM spent being questioned by the CIA as a “years of delay.” To the contrary, the delay in KSM’s prosecution saved lives. If we had followed the Obama/Holder model, and sent KSM to New York to see his lawyer, there would likely be craters in the ground in Los Angeles, London, and where our consulate in Karachi and our Marine camp in Dijbouti once stood.
— Marc Thiessen’s new book, Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack, will be published by Regnery in January 2010.
Mukasey: Obama Administration's 'soft, cushy euphemisms reflect they're back in a pre-9/11 mentality' [Andy McCarthy]
The Washington Times reports that Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey elaborated today on his warnings about the dangers of transferring the 9/11 jihadists to New York City for a trial in the civilian justice system.
"It's simply a fact of life that a jihadist, particularly somebody like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, is looking for a big stage," Mukasey said in an interview on the WTimes's "America's Morning News" radio show. "New York City is the biggest stage in the world, and the attempt will be made to make this as big, spectacular and ugly as possible."
He reminded listeners that Zacarias Moussaoui had turned his civilian trial into a circus (Remember this ditty: "America, you lost . . . I won," and "God save Osama bin Laden. You will never get him.")
Joe Weber's report continues:
Mr. Mukasey also supported the criticism that the Obama administration's plan for the trials — as announced Friday by Attorney General Eric Holder — reflects a "pre-9-11" mentality, or worse. He cited Mr. Obama's decision to bring suspected terrorists from the Guantanamo Bay detention center to trial on U.S. soil and his refusal to use the term "war of terror."
"Using soft, cushy euphemisms instead reflect they're back in a pre-9-11 mentality," he said. "In some ways it's worse, because at least before [the attacks] we were not aware of what we were facing."
Mr. Mukasey also said the mass shooting at the Fort Hood Army base in which 13 people were killed was a terrorist act. Witnesses said suspected shooter Maj. Nidal Malik Hasan yelled "Allahu Akbar" before shooting. "It's impossible to categorize it as any other act," Mr. Mukasey said.
He said Maj. Hasan represents the new breed of "leaderless jihadists," encouraged by Osama bin Laden and other terrorist leaders. "This man is a fulfillment of their dreams," he said.
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Monday, November 16, 2009
Afghanistan - Obama Fumbling, Dithering, whatever
call it whatever you like; it is certainly not leadership ...
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDMwNTc2NWFkOGIxODVjY2I1NjdlOTA4OTZhY2MwZDY=
President Obama’s deliberations on Afghanistan have begun to take on an element of farce.
It’s understandable that he wants to think carefully before almost doubling our force in Afghanistan as requested by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. But let’s remember: McChrystal is Obama’s hand-picked general, sent to Afghanistan to carry out the “comprehensive” strategy Obama announced in the spring. Obama isn’t drilling down on a strategy that has failed — as Bush had to do in Iraq at the end of 2006 — he’s reconsidering his own strategy before it’s been given a chance to work.
And his own aides have been leaking mercilessly against that strategy. Obama can barely get out of the Situation Room before “senior administration officials” are on the phone to the Washington Post with leaks obviously designed to put the war’s doubters in the best possible light. The latest skirmish in the leak campaign was a spectacular one: classified cables from our ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, vehemently opposing McChrystal’s strategy on the grounds that Hamid Karzai’s government is too corrupt and incompetent to be a reliable partner.
Put aside the substance of that argument for a moment. It’s hard to see how Eikenberry and McChrystal can work together effectively with the ambassador so publicly on the record against the general’s strategy. This is no small thing, since civil-military cooperation is essential to a successful counterinsurgency campaign. One of the reasons the surge worked in Iraq is that Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker forged a nearly seamless working relationship that should be studied in textbooks for years.
Eikenberry’s cable gambit is the latest instance of an Obama diplomat making a mockery of “smart power.” Between Dick Holbrooke’s becoming basically persona non grata in Afghanistan, Christopher Hill’s leaving a vacuum in Iraq, and George Mitchell’s rushing the Mideast “peace process” to a worse place than it was when he started, Obama’s team has managed an early record of glaring diplomatic ineptitude that suggests “smart power” is neither.
Eikenberry is not the only one to invoke Karzai’s failings as a reason to deny McChrystal’s troop request. All the erstwhile Afghanistan hawks on the Left have made Karzai central to their anti-war case. Karzai’s performance is undeniably a problem, but relatively clean, functional government is a goal of counterinsurgency, not a pre-condition.
The Obama administration would be much better advised to consider Karzai a flawed partner rather than a punching bag. The threats to cut him loose prior to the election only pushed him into the arms of exactly the kind of people we want him to avoid and to isolate. But if he can’t rely on us, why wouldn’t he fortify himself politically with the support of key indigenous players, even if they are tainted?
If we want Karzai to improve, we’ll need to work through problems with him rather huff-and-puff with ultimatums (pulling out, or drawing down) that we can’t follow through on without damaging our own interests. And we’ll need to get a better handle on the security situation. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malki had many of the same failings as Karzai as we permitted his country to collapse all around him in 2006. Only when the surge improved security did he become a stronger and more popular leader.
That’s not going to happen in Afghanistan unless McChrystal gets his additional troops. Obama gives every sign of wanting to flinch from this fact and find a clever way around it. According to news reports, Obama has been evaluating troop numbers province-by-province in Afghanistan, a level of detail that should be well beneath his pay grade. He has been discussing “off ramps” for the troop surge, mulling the best way to configure our troop commitment to pressure Hamid Karzai, and considering giving McChrystal only part of his request while trying to make up the difference with NATO troops.
All of this is needlessly complicating what is a momentous but relatively simple decision. If the Afghan war is important enough that we need to win it, and if counter-insurgency is the only way to do it — conclusions that most members of Obama’s national-security team, from Hillary Clinton to Bob Gates to chairman of the joint chiefs Admiral Mullen, already have reached — then McChrystal must get his troops.
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=NDMwNTc2NWFkOGIxODVjY2I1NjdlOTA4OTZhY2MwZDY=
President Obama’s deliberations on Afghanistan have begun to take on an element of farce.
It’s understandable that he wants to think carefully before almost doubling our force in Afghanistan as requested by Gen. Stanley McChrystal. But let’s remember: McChrystal is Obama’s hand-picked general, sent to Afghanistan to carry out the “comprehensive” strategy Obama announced in the spring. Obama isn’t drilling down on a strategy that has failed — as Bush had to do in Iraq at the end of 2006 — he’s reconsidering his own strategy before it’s been given a chance to work.
And his own aides have been leaking mercilessly against that strategy. Obama can barely get out of the Situation Room before “senior administration officials” are on the phone to the Washington Post with leaks obviously designed to put the war’s doubters in the best possible light. The latest skirmish in the leak campaign was a spectacular one: classified cables from our ambassador to Afghanistan, Karl Eikenberry, vehemently opposing McChrystal’s strategy on the grounds that Hamid Karzai’s government is too corrupt and incompetent to be a reliable partner.
Put aside the substance of that argument for a moment. It’s hard to see how Eikenberry and McChrystal can work together effectively with the ambassador so publicly on the record against the general’s strategy. This is no small thing, since civil-military cooperation is essential to a successful counterinsurgency campaign. One of the reasons the surge worked in Iraq is that Gen. David Petraeus and Amb. Ryan Crocker forged a nearly seamless working relationship that should be studied in textbooks for years.
Eikenberry’s cable gambit is the latest instance of an Obama diplomat making a mockery of “smart power.” Between Dick Holbrooke’s becoming basically persona non grata in Afghanistan, Christopher Hill’s leaving a vacuum in Iraq, and George Mitchell’s rushing the Mideast “peace process” to a worse place than it was when he started, Obama’s team has managed an early record of glaring diplomatic ineptitude that suggests “smart power” is neither.
Eikenberry is not the only one to invoke Karzai’s failings as a reason to deny McChrystal’s troop request. All the erstwhile Afghanistan hawks on the Left have made Karzai central to their anti-war case. Karzai’s performance is undeniably a problem, but relatively clean, functional government is a goal of counterinsurgency, not a pre-condition.
The Obama administration would be much better advised to consider Karzai a flawed partner rather than a punching bag. The threats to cut him loose prior to the election only pushed him into the arms of exactly the kind of people we want him to avoid and to isolate. But if he can’t rely on us, why wouldn’t he fortify himself politically with the support of key indigenous players, even if they are tainted?
If we want Karzai to improve, we’ll need to work through problems with him rather huff-and-puff with ultimatums (pulling out, or drawing down) that we can’t follow through on without damaging our own interests. And we’ll need to get a better handle on the security situation. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Malki had many of the same failings as Karzai as we permitted his country to collapse all around him in 2006. Only when the surge improved security did he become a stronger and more popular leader.
That’s not going to happen in Afghanistan unless McChrystal gets his additional troops. Obama gives every sign of wanting to flinch from this fact and find a clever way around it. According to news reports, Obama has been evaluating troop numbers province-by-province in Afghanistan, a level of detail that should be well beneath his pay grade. He has been discussing “off ramps” for the troop surge, mulling the best way to configure our troop commitment to pressure Hamid Karzai, and considering giving McChrystal only part of his request while trying to make up the difference with NATO troops.
All of this is needlessly complicating what is a momentous but relatively simple decision. If the Afghan war is important enough that we need to win it, and if counter-insurgency is the only way to do it — conclusions that most members of Obama’s national-security team, from Hillary Clinton to Bob Gates to chairman of the joint chiefs Admiral Mullen, already have reached — then McChrystal must get his troops.
Saturday, November 14, 2009
Obama has completely backtracked on KSM
in other words, he lied ...
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/11/sedition-oliar-busted-bombshell-uncovered-obama-said-on-the-senate-floor-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-is-g.html
Obama said on the senate floor that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is going to get a "full military trial with all the bells and whistles"..."justice will be carried out in his case" (Breitbart, hat tip Milton)
http://atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com/atlas_shrugs/2009/11/sedition-oliar-busted-bombshell-uncovered-obama-said-on-the-senate-floor-khalid-sheikh-mohammed-is-g.html
Obama said on the senate floor that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed is going to get a "full military trial with all the bells and whistles"..."justice will be carried out in his case" (Breitbart, hat tip Milton)
Former A.G. Mukasey slams A.G. Holder's KSM idiocy
Attorney General Mukasey on the Transfer of KSM et al to Civilian Court [Andy McCarthy]
From Philip Klein at the Spectator:
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who as a judge presided over a trial stemming from the first attack on the World Trade Center, on Friday warned that the Obama administration's decision to bring Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York, along with three other terrorist detainees, to stand trial in a civilian court, reflected a pre-9/11 mindset that viewed terrorism as a simple criminal matter.
Speaking at the Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention, Mukasey described the move, as “a decision I consider not only unwise, but based on a refusal to face the fact that what we are involved with here is a war with people who follow a religiously-based ideology that calls on them to kill us, and to return instead to the mindset that prevailed before Sept. 11 that acts like the first World Trade Center bombing, the attacks on our embassies in Africa and other such acts can and should be treated as conventional crimes and tried in conventional courts.”
Describing a pattern of decisions made since the the Obama administration pledged in January to close Guantanamo Bay prison within a year, Mukasey said that, "What’s followed has seemed in many instances to be a system in which policy is fashioned to fit and proceed rhetoric rather than being thought out in advance with arguments then formulated in support of it.”
He noted that Congress already authorized the trial of detainees through military commissions, and that those trials would have already been underway.
“Now, that procedure is to be short-circuited — actually, long-circuited would be more accurate — so that they could be brought to this country and tried in a civilian court," he said. "We should all be aware that those cases which were scheduled to have already begun now have to start from scratch.”
The difficulty of trying terror suspects through civilian courts, he said, is that the discovery process, the public presentation of evidence, and other elements of a trial "could turn a criminal proceeding into a cornucopia of information for those still at large and a circus for those in custody.”
He pointed out that when capturing the enemy combatants, pieces of information “were not gathered, nor was evidence gathered, on the assumption that they would be presented in a federal court.”
There would also be tremendous security issues involved with making sure that courthouses, jails, the judge and jury, were all safe.
“It would take a whole lot more credulousness than I have available to be optimistic about the outcome of this latest experiment,” Mukasey said at the conclusion of his formal remarks.
During a question and answer session that followed, Mukasey was asked if he felt the jails in New York were secure enough to make sure terrorists would not escape, but he said that wasn't really the issue.
"If you ask the wrong question, you’re sure to get the wrong answer," Mukasey responded. "Of course it’s secure. They’re not going to escape. The question is not whether they’re going to escape, the question is whether not only that facility, but the city at large will then become the focus for mischief in the form of murder by adherents of KSM, whether this raises the odds that it will. And I would suggest to you that it raises them very high. It is also whether the proceeding, even assuming that it goes forward within the lifetime of anybody in this room, is one where confidential information is able to be kept confidential, and a trial is able to proceed in an orderly way.”
He later added that, "to the extent that they are within prisons, they are a threat there as well. Any of these people would be a virtually totemic figure in a prison.” He argued that "shoe bomber" Richard Reid's success in challenging his solitary confinement shows that there's no guaruntee that convicted terrorists would stay isolated from the rest of the prison population....
From Philip Klein at the Spectator:
Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, who as a judge presided over a trial stemming from the first attack on the World Trade Center, on Friday warned that the Obama administration's decision to bring Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to New York, along with three other terrorist detainees, to stand trial in a civilian court, reflected a pre-9/11 mindset that viewed terrorism as a simple criminal matter.
Speaking at the Federalist Society's National Lawyers Convention, Mukasey described the move, as “a decision I consider not only unwise, but based on a refusal to face the fact that what we are involved with here is a war with people who follow a religiously-based ideology that calls on them to kill us, and to return instead to the mindset that prevailed before Sept. 11 that acts like the first World Trade Center bombing, the attacks on our embassies in Africa and other such acts can and should be treated as conventional crimes and tried in conventional courts.”
Describing a pattern of decisions made since the the Obama administration pledged in January to close Guantanamo Bay prison within a year, Mukasey said that, "What’s followed has seemed in many instances to be a system in which policy is fashioned to fit and proceed rhetoric rather than being thought out in advance with arguments then formulated in support of it.”
He noted that Congress already authorized the trial of detainees through military commissions, and that those trials would have already been underway.
“Now, that procedure is to be short-circuited — actually, long-circuited would be more accurate — so that they could be brought to this country and tried in a civilian court," he said. "We should all be aware that those cases which were scheduled to have already begun now have to start from scratch.”
The difficulty of trying terror suspects through civilian courts, he said, is that the discovery process, the public presentation of evidence, and other elements of a trial "could turn a criminal proceeding into a cornucopia of information for those still at large and a circus for those in custody.”
He pointed out that when capturing the enemy combatants, pieces of information “were not gathered, nor was evidence gathered, on the assumption that they would be presented in a federal court.”
There would also be tremendous security issues involved with making sure that courthouses, jails, the judge and jury, were all safe.
“It would take a whole lot more credulousness than I have available to be optimistic about the outcome of this latest experiment,” Mukasey said at the conclusion of his formal remarks.
During a question and answer session that followed, Mukasey was asked if he felt the jails in New York were secure enough to make sure terrorists would not escape, but he said that wasn't really the issue.
"If you ask the wrong question, you’re sure to get the wrong answer," Mukasey responded. "Of course it’s secure. They’re not going to escape. The question is not whether they’re going to escape, the question is whether not only that facility, but the city at large will then become the focus for mischief in the form of murder by adherents of KSM, whether this raises the odds that it will. And I would suggest to you that it raises them very high. It is also whether the proceeding, even assuming that it goes forward within the lifetime of anybody in this room, is one where confidential information is able to be kept confidential, and a trial is able to proceed in an orderly way.”
He later added that, "to the extent that they are within prisons, they are a threat there as well. Any of these people would be a virtually totemic figure in a prison.” He argued that "shoe bomber" Richard Reid's success in challenging his solitary confinement shows that there's no guaruntee that convicted terrorists would stay isolated from the rest of the prison population....
Friday, November 13, 2009
KSM & Eric Holder's Agenda (aka the Reckoning)
Another idiotic move from Obama's Justice Dept. flunky, Eric Holder:
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed Was Right [Jonah Goldberg]
From the New York Times:
WASHINGTON — Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City, a federal law enforcement official said early on Friday.
KSM thought he'd get a lawyer and a civilian trial, and at the end of the day he was right.
Holder's Hidden Agenda, cont'd . . . [Andy McCarthy]
This summer, I theorized that Attorney General Eric Holder — and his boss — had a hidden agenda in ordering a re-investigation of the CIA for six-year-old alleged interrogation excesses that had already been scrutinized by non-partisan DOJ prosecutors who had found no basis for prosecution. The continuing investigations of Bush-era counterterrorism policies (i.e., the policies that kept us safe from more domestic terror attacks), coupled with the Holder Justice Department's obsession to disclose classified national-defense information from that period, enable Holder to give the hard Left the "reckoning" that he and Obama promised during the 2008 campaign. It would be too politically explosive for Obama/Holder to do the dirty work of charging Bush administration officials; but as new revelations from investigations and declassifications are churned out, Leftist lawyers use them to urge European and international tribunals to bring "torture" and "war crimes" indictments. Thus, administration cooperation gives Obama's base the reckoning it demands but Obama gets to deny responsibility for any actual prosecutions.
Today's announcement that KSM and other top al-Qaeda terrorists will be transferred to Manhattan federal court for civilian trials neatly fits this hidden agenda. Nothing results in more disclosures of government intelligence than civilian trials. They are a banquet of information, not just at the discovery stage but in the trial process itself, where witnesses — intelligence sources — must expose themselves and their secrets.
Let's take stock of where we are at this point. KSM and his confederates wanted to plead guilty and have their martyrs' execution last December, when they were being handled by military commission. As I said at the time, we could and should have accommodated them. The Obama administration could still accommodate them. After all, the president has not pulled the plug on all military commissions: Holder is going to announce at least one commission trial (for Nashiri, the Cole bomber) today.
Moreover, KSM has no defense. He was under American indictment for terrorism for years before there ever was a 9/11, and he can't help himself but brag about the atrocities he and his fellow barbarians have carried out.
So: We are now going to have a trial that never had to happen for defendants who have no defense. And when defendants have no defense for their own actions, there is only one thing for their lawyers to do: put the government on trial in hopes of getting the jury (and the media) spun up over government errors, abuses and incompetence. That is what is going to happen in the trial of KSM et al. It will be a soapbox for al-Qaeda's case against America. Since that will be their "defense," the defendants will demand every bit of information they can get about interrogations, renditions, secret prisons, undercover operations targeting Muslims and mosques, etc., and — depending on what judge catches the case — they are likely to be given a lot of it. The administration will be able to claim that the judge, not the administration, is responsible for the exposure of our defense secrets. And the circus will be played out for all to see — in the middle of the war. It will provide endless fodder for the transnational Left to press its case that actions taken in America's defense are violations of international law that must be addressed by foreign courts. And the intelligence bounty will make our enemies more efficient at killing us.
John Yoo on KSM [Jonah Goldberg]
He writes over at The E.B.:
Trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court will be an intelligence bonanza for al Qaeda, tie up our courts for years on issues best left to the president and Congress, and further cripple our intelligence agencies’ efforts to fight terrorists abroad.KSM and his co-defendants will have all of the benefits and rights that the U.S. Constitution accords those who live here, most importantly the right to demand that the government produce in open court all of the information that it has on them, and how it was obtained.
Khalid Shaikh Mohammed Was Right [Jonah Goldberg]
From the New York Times:
WASHINGTON — Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the self-described mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks, and four other men accused in the plot will be prosecuted in federal court in New York City, a federal law enforcement official said early on Friday.
KSM thought he'd get a lawyer and a civilian trial, and at the end of the day he was right.
Holder's Hidden Agenda, cont'd . . . [Andy McCarthy]
This summer, I theorized that Attorney General Eric Holder — and his boss — had a hidden agenda in ordering a re-investigation of the CIA for six-year-old alleged interrogation excesses that had already been scrutinized by non-partisan DOJ prosecutors who had found no basis for prosecution. The continuing investigations of Bush-era counterterrorism policies (i.e., the policies that kept us safe from more domestic terror attacks), coupled with the Holder Justice Department's obsession to disclose classified national-defense information from that period, enable Holder to give the hard Left the "reckoning" that he and Obama promised during the 2008 campaign. It would be too politically explosive for Obama/Holder to do the dirty work of charging Bush administration officials; but as new revelations from investigations and declassifications are churned out, Leftist lawyers use them to urge European and international tribunals to bring "torture" and "war crimes" indictments. Thus, administration cooperation gives Obama's base the reckoning it demands but Obama gets to deny responsibility for any actual prosecutions.
Today's announcement that KSM and other top al-Qaeda terrorists will be transferred to Manhattan federal court for civilian trials neatly fits this hidden agenda. Nothing results in more disclosures of government intelligence than civilian trials. They are a banquet of information, not just at the discovery stage but in the trial process itself, where witnesses — intelligence sources — must expose themselves and their secrets.
Let's take stock of where we are at this point. KSM and his confederates wanted to plead guilty and have their martyrs' execution last December, when they were being handled by military commission. As I said at the time, we could and should have accommodated them. The Obama administration could still accommodate them. After all, the president has not pulled the plug on all military commissions: Holder is going to announce at least one commission trial (for Nashiri, the Cole bomber) today.
Moreover, KSM has no defense. He was under American indictment for terrorism for years before there ever was a 9/11, and he can't help himself but brag about the atrocities he and his fellow barbarians have carried out.
So: We are now going to have a trial that never had to happen for defendants who have no defense. And when defendants have no defense for their own actions, there is only one thing for their lawyers to do: put the government on trial in hopes of getting the jury (and the media) spun up over government errors, abuses and incompetence. That is what is going to happen in the trial of KSM et al. It will be a soapbox for al-Qaeda's case against America. Since that will be their "defense," the defendants will demand every bit of information they can get about interrogations, renditions, secret prisons, undercover operations targeting Muslims and mosques, etc., and — depending on what judge catches the case — they are likely to be given a lot of it. The administration will be able to claim that the judge, not the administration, is responsible for the exposure of our defense secrets. And the circus will be played out for all to see — in the middle of the war. It will provide endless fodder for the transnational Left to press its case that actions taken in America's defense are violations of international law that must be addressed by foreign courts. And the intelligence bounty will make our enemies more efficient at killing us.
John Yoo on KSM [Jonah Goldberg]
He writes over at The E.B.:
Trying Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in civilian court will be an intelligence bonanza for al Qaeda, tie up our courts for years on issues best left to the president and Congress, and further cripple our intelligence agencies’ efforts to fight terrorists abroad.KSM and his co-defendants will have all of the benefits and rights that the U.S. Constitution accords those who live here, most importantly the right to demand that the government produce in open court all of the information that it has on them, and how it was obtained.
Blame Game, revisited, again ....
What Bush Inherited, and What He Left Left Behind [Victor Davis Hanson]
George W. Bush inherited a recession. He also inherited the Iraq no-fly zones, a Middle East boiling after the failed last-minute Clintonian rush for an imposed peace, an intelligence community wedded to the notion of Saddam's WMD proliferation, a Congress on record supporting "regime change" in Iraq, a WMD program in Libya, a Syrian occupation of Lebanon, Osama bin Laden enjoying free rein in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, a renegade Pakistan that had gone nuclear on Clinton's watch with Dr. Khan in full export mode, and a pattern of appeasing radical Islam after its serial attacks (on the World Trade Center, the Khobar Towers, U.S. embassies, and the U.S.S. Cole).
In other words, Bush inherited the regular "stuff" that confronts most presidents when they take office. What is strange is that Obama has established a narrative that he, supposedly unlike any other president, inherited a mess.At some point, Team Obama might have at least acknowledged that, by January 2009, Iraq was largely quiet; Libya was free of WMD; Syria was out of Lebanon; most of the al-Qaeda leadership had been attrited or was in hiding; a homeland-security protocol was in place to deal with domestic terror plots; European governments were mostly friendly to the U.S. (unlike during the Chirac-Schröder years); and the U.S. enjoyed good relations with one-third of the planet in China and India.The fact that in the Bush years we were increasingly disliked by Ahmadinejad, Assad, Castro, Chávez, Kim Jong Il, Morales, Ortega, and Putin, may in retrospect seem logical, just as their current warming to the U.S. may prove to be cause for alarm, given the repugnant nature of these strongmen.Bottom line: Obama's second year as president is coming up, and it is long past time to move on and let historians judge the Bush years.
George W. Bush inherited a recession. He also inherited the Iraq no-fly zones, a Middle East boiling after the failed last-minute Clintonian rush for an imposed peace, an intelligence community wedded to the notion of Saddam's WMD proliferation, a Congress on record supporting "regime change" in Iraq, a WMD program in Libya, a Syrian occupation of Lebanon, Osama bin Laden enjoying free rein in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, a renegade Pakistan that had gone nuclear on Clinton's watch with Dr. Khan in full export mode, and a pattern of appeasing radical Islam after its serial attacks (on the World Trade Center, the Khobar Towers, U.S. embassies, and the U.S.S. Cole).
In other words, Bush inherited the regular "stuff" that confronts most presidents when they take office. What is strange is that Obama has established a narrative that he, supposedly unlike any other president, inherited a mess.At some point, Team Obama might have at least acknowledged that, by January 2009, Iraq was largely quiet; Libya was free of WMD; Syria was out of Lebanon; most of the al-Qaeda leadership had been attrited or was in hiding; a homeland-security protocol was in place to deal with domestic terror plots; European governments were mostly friendly to the U.S. (unlike during the Chirac-Schröder years); and the U.S. enjoyed good relations with one-third of the planet in China and India.The fact that in the Bush years we were increasingly disliked by Ahmadinejad, Assad, Castro, Chávez, Kim Jong Il, Morales, Ortega, and Putin, may in retrospect seem logical, just as their current warming to the U.S. may prove to be cause for alarm, given the repugnant nature of these strongmen.Bottom line: Obama's second year as president is coming up, and it is long past time to move on and let historians judge the Bush years.
Thursday, November 12, 2009
Reagan ... qutie a contrast to what we have now
Read Peter Robinson's story in his WSJ Letter to the Editor:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704402404574527764020693266.html?mod=WSJ_topics_obama
In his account of President Ronald Reagan's June 12, 1987 Berlin Wall address ("Four Little Words," op-ed, Nov. 9) Anthony Dolan, my boss in the Reagan speechwriting shop, describes a wonderfully improbable pair of events. Both took place, Tony states, "Well before a draft was circulated."
As the speechwriter assigned to draft the address, I told Tony I wanted to include "tear down this wall." Then, in "an Oval Office meeting" just a few minutes later, President Ronald Reagan told Tony he wanted the address to say, "Tear down the wall."
"Can you believe it?" Tony claims he told me. "[the president] said just what you were thinking."
All this makes for such a marvelous story that it may seem churlish to gainsay it, but in the interest of keeping the record straight I really have no choice: Tony's memory here is mistaken.
What actually took place?
In Berlin on April 23, 1987, while conducting research, I encountered a German woman, Ingeborg Elz, who made a comment so striking that I committed it to my notebook. If Mikhail Gorbachev were serious about glasnost, she said, he could prove it by getting rid of the wall. Back at the White House I adapted this comment, making the call to tear down the wall the central passage in my draft. On May 15, 1987 my draft went to the president. On May 18, we speechwriters joined Reagan in the Oval Office.
Explaining that the address would be heard throughout East Germany, I asked the president what he would like to say to those on the Communist side of the wall. Reagan thought for a moment. "Well," he replied, "there's that passage about tearing down the wall. That wall has to come down. That's what I'd like to say to them."
Although this meeting took place after, not before, the president had seen my draft, it must represent the encounter with Reagan that Tony recalls. Why am I sure? My own notes, the recollection of Director of Communications Tom Griscom, to whom Tony and I reported, and—critical point—the documents in the Reagan Library. As I learned while researching my book, "How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life," May 18 is the first date during the turbulent year of 1987 on which the White House "daily diary" shows Tony—or, for that matter, me—entering the Oval Office.
Although he mistakes the sequence of events, Tony remains invaluable on the larger matters, insisting that Reagan rejected mere containment for a policy of defeating Soviet Communism outright. Indeed Reagan did. As early as 1978, during his first visit to Berlin, Reagan insisted that the wall had to be dismantled. And in 1987, no one but Reagan would have overruled the objections of a furious State Department and National Security Council to call on Mr. Gorbachev to do just that. "Reagan spoke formally and repeatedly of deploying against criminal regimes the one weapon they fear more than military or economic sanction: the publicly-spoken truth."
Tony got that right.
Peter Robinson
Palo Alto, Calif.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704402404574527764020693266.html?mod=WSJ_topics_obama
In his account of President Ronald Reagan's June 12, 1987 Berlin Wall address ("Four Little Words," op-ed, Nov. 9) Anthony Dolan, my boss in the Reagan speechwriting shop, describes a wonderfully improbable pair of events. Both took place, Tony states, "Well before a draft was circulated."
As the speechwriter assigned to draft the address, I told Tony I wanted to include "tear down this wall." Then, in "an Oval Office meeting" just a few minutes later, President Ronald Reagan told Tony he wanted the address to say, "Tear down the wall."
"Can you believe it?" Tony claims he told me. "[the president] said just what you were thinking."
All this makes for such a marvelous story that it may seem churlish to gainsay it, but in the interest of keeping the record straight I really have no choice: Tony's memory here is mistaken.
What actually took place?
In Berlin on April 23, 1987, while conducting research, I encountered a German woman, Ingeborg Elz, who made a comment so striking that I committed it to my notebook. If Mikhail Gorbachev were serious about glasnost, she said, he could prove it by getting rid of the wall. Back at the White House I adapted this comment, making the call to tear down the wall the central passage in my draft. On May 15, 1987 my draft went to the president. On May 18, we speechwriters joined Reagan in the Oval Office.
Explaining that the address would be heard throughout East Germany, I asked the president what he would like to say to those on the Communist side of the wall. Reagan thought for a moment. "Well," he replied, "there's that passage about tearing down the wall. That wall has to come down. That's what I'd like to say to them."
Although this meeting took place after, not before, the president had seen my draft, it must represent the encounter with Reagan that Tony recalls. Why am I sure? My own notes, the recollection of Director of Communications Tom Griscom, to whom Tony and I reported, and—critical point—the documents in the Reagan Library. As I learned while researching my book, "How Ronald Reagan Changed My Life," May 18 is the first date during the turbulent year of 1987 on which the White House "daily diary" shows Tony—or, for that matter, me—entering the Oval Office.
Although he mistakes the sequence of events, Tony remains invaluable on the larger matters, insisting that Reagan rejected mere containment for a policy of defeating Soviet Communism outright. Indeed Reagan did. As early as 1978, during his first visit to Berlin, Reagan insisted that the wall had to be dismantled. And in 1987, no one but Reagan would have overruled the objections of a furious State Department and National Security Council to call on Mr. Gorbachev to do just that. "Reagan spoke formally and repeatedly of deploying against criminal regimes the one weapon they fear more than military or economic sanction: the publicly-spoken truth."
Tony got that right.
Peter Robinson
Palo Alto, Calif.
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