After 3 days, Obama interrupts golf, basketball and working out to offer brief, unemotional statement on airplane terror incident.
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Obama Holds Three-Day Late News Conference On Terrorist Attack, Doesn't Wear A Tie http://bit.ly/57AwJ3
Ok, now back to vacation.
Hoekstra: With Napolitano, It's 299,999,999 Vs. One [Robert Costa]
Rep. Pete Hoekstra of Michigan, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, tells National Review Online that he’s “disappointed” with President Obama following the president’s remarks this afternoon on the attempted bombing of Northwest Airlines Flight 253. “We almost lost 270 American lives on Christmas Day and the president has decided to review a watch list. This is about more than a watch list,” says Hoekstra. “It’s about leadership.”
Criticism of Janet Napolitano, the Homeland Security secretary, for her handling of the incident, “should be directed to President Obama, since she’s taking her lead from him on this,” says Hoekstra. “I think she’s made some terrible mistakes. Like many in this administration, she’s reluctant to use the word ‘terrorism.’ Though she may prefer the term, this was not an example of an almost ‘man-made disaster.’”
“Out of 300 million Americans, she is the only one who thinks the system is working when a guy with a bomb gets on a plane,” he says. “The other 299,999,999 of us know it’s not.” Obama, he adds, “needs to articulate a clear, concise strategy” to address “the threat of radical jihadists.”
“After eleven months in office, the president is still sending contradictory messages on national security,” says Hoekstra. “He says he wants to address the threats yet look at how he has responded to this, how he responded to Fort Hood, how he’s open to prosecuting folks in the CIA, how he’s closing Guantanamo Bay, and how he’s bringing terror suspects to New York City.” Such moves, he says, “make no sense” if one is “trying to build a strong national security policy.”
“The president may express his concern but his decisions are the statements that people remember,” says Hoekstra. In coming days, the congressman tells us that he will continue to call for an investigation into Flight 253 and the government’s homeland-security operations.
Janet Napolitano’s Mentality [Daniel Pipes]
Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab smuggled 80 grams of PETN in his underwear on a Northwest flight on Christmas Day from Amsterdam to Detroit and almost killed 288 passengers and crew.
How did the geniuses in the Obama administration respond? Janet (“ man-caused disasters”) Napolitano, secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, concluded that the system “worked really very, very smoothly.”
Need one really point out that, had the system worked, Abdulmutallab would not have been allowed on the aircraft, and certainly not with a bomb? When her statement was criticized, Napolitano reversed course and announced a day later that “Our system did not work in this instance.”
While it’s good to see that even Obama appointees can learn from their errors, Napolitano’s original gaffe reveals a state of mind among this country’s top decision makers that so long as hundreds of people do not perish, all is well.
Abdulmutallab’s near-success and Napolitano’s idiotic response tell Americans about the weakness of counterterrorist efforts so many years after 9/11. In brief, because law enforcement refuses to “threat profile” and focus on Muslims, the flying public is both inconvenienced and unsafe.— Daniel Pipes is director of the Middle East Forum, Taube distinguished visiting fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University, and a columnist for the Jerusalem Post.
Napolitano Changes Her Tune [Jonah Goldberg]
She now says that her repeated mantra of "the system worked" was taken out of context. Translation: Her hackish talking points were a flop, so she's pretending she didn't mean what she said and is blaming others for not understanding her.
I thought the head of the DHS was supposed to have the trust of the American people.
Again: This hack should be fired.
Re: Firing Napolitano [Peter Kirsanow]
The effect of firing DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano would be symbolic only.This isn't to say that ritual firings are without value, but replacing a Napolitano isn't likely to improve the security of American citizens. Napolitano's replacement will, after all, report to a boss who thinks it's a splendid idea to send Gitmo detainees to Yemen (or perhaps Illinois), try al-Qaeda's chief operating officer in a New York City civilian court, and credulously engage — almost to the point of supplication— the world's chief state sponsor of terrorism.
As long as the boss remains invincibly callow toward the threat of terrorism, his underlings are likely to reflect that mindset.
Fire Napolitano, Or at Least Grill Her [Daniel Foster]
Sen. Joe Lieberman's (I., Conn.) Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee is the third Congressional body to announce that it will hold hearings on the Flight 253 attack:
The hearing will focus on the security measures the alleged bomber, 23-year-old Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdul Mutallab, evaded in bringing explosives onboard the plane.
"We were very lucky this time, but we may not be so lucky next time, which is why our defenses must be strengthened," said committee Chairman Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) in a statement. "I view Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab as a terrorist who evaded our homeland security defenses and who would have killed hundreds of people if the explosives he tried to detonate had worked."
Presumably, Secretary Napolitano will be in attendence. Let us hope that Lieberman and the Republicans on the committee give her ample opportunity to further . . . clarify her assertions that “the system worked.”
Ashcroft v. Napolitano [Jonah Goldberg]
Some may not remember the anti-Ashcroft hysteria of yesteryear. Here's a pretty good summary-snapshot from a 2003 Wall Street Journal editorial:
Frenzy mounts uncontrolled over John Ashcroft, now considered—in those quarters touched by the delirium—enemy No. 1 of the Bill of Rights, the Constitution and all that Americans hold dear. What is the cause of these fevers? Is there a doctor in the house?We may exclude Dr. Howard Dean, running for the Democratic presidential nomination, who has already offered his findings, to wit: "John Ashcroft is not a patriot. John Ashcroft is a descendant of Joseph McCarthy." Sen. John Kerry, once properly—and eloquently—infuriated over the campaign of cretinous slanders mounted against John McCain in the last Republican presidential primary, has in turn offered his views on the attorney general. During the Democrats' debate in Baltimore, candidate Kerry said he saw before him "people of every creed, every color, every belief, every religion. This is indeed John Ashcroft's worst nightmare here." Richard Gephardt, eyes similarly on the prize, has let America know which of our great national concerns he considered most pressing—a good thing to know about a candidate. The national priority looming largest in his mind is, Mr. Gephardt has let it be known, to fire John Ashcroft in "my first five seconds as president."On the subject of the attorney general, no candidate has waxed more passionate than John Edwards, who warned, "we cannot allow people like John Ashcroft to take away our rights, our freedoms, and our liberties." And further: John Ashcroft and this administration can "spin their wheels all they want about the Patriot Act. . . . They have rolled over our rights for the past two years," says Mr. Edwards, one of the most uncompromisingly staunch Senate supporters of the Patriot Bill when it was passed after September 11—a fact the candidate seems to have found little or no occasion to mention in the course of his current crusade. Also among those voting for the bill were Rep. Gephardt, and Sens. Kerry, Lieberman and Graham.It's hardly necessary by now to list all the charges and the alarms being raised about Mr. Ashcroft, by those portraying the attorney general as the menace to civil liberties that should haunt the dreams of all Americans who want to preserve our way of life. This is no exaggeration; the fever has spread wide, fed largely by the American Civil Liberties Union and allied sentinels of freedom, its signs clear in the ads calling on citizens to "Save Our Constitution," in emergency rallies led by the ACLU, and such groups as "Families for a Peaceful Tomorrow" and "The New York Bill of Rights Defense Committee."
Never mind that many of Ashcroft's worst alleged sins are now pretty much Obama-Pelosi policies. But the Napolitano-Ashcroft comparison is telling.
Ashcroft was demonized for suggesting that Americans be on the lookout for terrorists. One of Napolitano's main talking points these days is the need for vigilance from the public. Heck, she claimed the "system worked" because a flying Dutchman took out the "alleged" terrorist.
Ashcroft was demonized because he allegedly was turning America into a police state where political enemies were targeted (remember that's why Naomi Wolfe had a years-long mental breakdown). Janet Napolitano oversaw a report that singles out American citizens and returning vets as potential terrorists because of their political views.
Ashcroft was mocked as a provincial hick who didn't know much. Napolitano — who runs our immigration service and was governor of a border state — thinks it's not a crime to illegally cross the border and insists that the 9/11 hijackers came from Canada.
John Ashcroft was a dangerous ideologue because he believed the war on terror is real. But
Janet Napolitano isn't a dangerous ideologue for believing the war on terror isn't real?
What sounds more ideologically blinkered after 9/11?
Ashcroft's view: Organized Islamic terrorists want to kill Americans in a holy war.
Napolitano's view: Islamic terrorist attacks are merely "man caused disasters" by disturbed individuals — who should be assumed to be acting alone as criminals, not terrorists, despite credible evidence — while peaceful "right-wing extremists" should be given extra scrutiny on the assumption they could well be terrorists.
Bad Year Coming? [James Jay Carafano]
Since 2001, there have been 28 failed terrorist attacks against the United States. That averages out to about three foiled attempts per year. That was until this year. This year there were six failed attempts that make 2009 a banner year — the most in one year.
The fact that six attacks were foiled is cold comfort. In stopping #28, America just got lucky. Despite the warning signs, authorities did nothing to impede Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's travel. The plan of attack on the Detroit-bound plane didn't work and the passengers and crew stopped the assailant.
Additionally, in 2009, not every terrorist attack was stopped. In November, Nidal Malik Hasan gunned down a dozen of his fellow soldiers and shot up a score more — despite the fact that there were red flags galore that he was some one to worry about. Others were recruited here to attack over there, including five young men from northern Virginia who shipped-off to Pakistan; youth from Minneapolis enticed to fight Al-Shabaab, an al-Qaeda affiliate; and David Coleman Headley, who allegedly helped plan the Mumbai attacks and other potential strikes.
In short, the system has failed a number of times in 2009. To make matters worse, Washington hasn't shown that it cares very much. It doesn't like to call the war a war. It doesn't seem to care that some Patriot Act authorities will expire in 60 days. It would rather the Department of Homeland Security push for a mass amnesty bill than fight terrorists and try control the border.
— James Jay Carafano is senior research fellow for national security and homeland security in the Douglas and Sarah Allison Center for Foreign Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation.
Monday, December 28, 2009
Sunday, December 27, 2009
Terrorist Plane Bombing Fails ... no thanks to DHS / govt
Or was that a "man caused disaster" averted ?
Thank goodness for:
a) Cheers for Jasper Schuringa, the brave passenger who subdued the terrorist bomber; and
b) Plane dumb luck that his bomb didn't work quite as planned.
A big boo for the Feds, DHS, Janet Napolitano, the State Dept., and the airlines who all botched this. Those people on the plane are thankfully lucky to be alive today !
Some commentary:
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/12/27/clown-alert-janet-napolitano-says-the-system-worked/
Let's Roll 2 [Mark Steyn]
On September 11th 2001, the government's (1970s) security procedures all failed, and the only good news of the day came from self-reliant citizens (on Flight 93) using their own wits and a willingness to act.
On December 25th 2009, the government's (post-9/11) security procedures all failed, and the only good news came once again from alert individuals:
"Suddenly, we hear a bang. It sounded like a firecracker went off," said Jasper Schuringa, a film director who was traveling to the US to visit friends.
"When [it] went off, everybody panicked ... Then someone screamed, ‘Fire! Fire!’"
Schuringa, sitting in seat 20J, in the right-most section of the Airbus 330, looked to his left. "I saw smoke rising from a seat ... I didn’t hesitate. I just jumped," he said.
Schuringa dove over four passengers to reach Abdul Mutallab’s seat. The suspect had a blanket on his lap. "It was smoking and there were flames coming from beneath his legs."
"I searched on his body parts and he had his pants open. He had something strapped to his legs."
The unassuming hero ripped the flaming, molten object — which resembled a small, white shampoo bottle — off Abdul Mutallab’s left leg, near his crotch. He said he put out the fire with his bare hands.
Schuringa yelled for water, and members of the flight crew soon appeared with fire extinguishers. Then, he said, he hauled the suspect out of the seat.
If the facts remain broadly as outlined, this incident has serious implications for airline travel: A man is on the no-fly list but is allowed to board the plane. Everyone flying on an inbound long-haul flight to the United States is forced to hand over excessively large amounts of liquids and gels and put the small amounts permitted into separate plastic bags, yet the no-fly guy's material for bomb-making sails through undetected.
This time the last line of defense worked. Next time, the paradise-seeking jihadist might get lucky and find himself sitting next to, say, Charlie Sheen, too immersed in a lengthy treatise on how 9/11 was an inside job to notice the smoldering socks in the next seat; or to the same kind of nothing-to-see-here crowd who thought Major Hasan's e-mails were "consistent with his research interests".
As for the perpetrator:
The young man, who yesterday night attempted to ignite an explosive device aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan in the United States has been identified as Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, former First Bank chairman. Mutallab, a former minister and prominent banker recently retired from the bank’s board...
The family home of the Mutallabs in Central London, is currently being searched by men of the Metropolitan Police. THISDAY checks reveal that the suspect, Abdulfarouk Umar Muttalab who is an engineering student at the University College, London had been noted for his extreme views on religion since his secondary school days at the British International School, Lome, Togo.
So once again we see the foolishness of complaceniks who drone the fatuous cliches about how "in this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs". The men eager to self-detonate on infidel airliners are not goatherds from the caves of Waziristan but educated middle-class Muslims who have had the most exposure to the western world and could be pulling down six-figure salaries almost anywhere on the planet. And don't look to "assimilation" to work its magic, either. We're witnessing a process of generational de-assimilation: In this family, yet again, the dad is an entirely assimilated member of the transnational elite. His son wants a global caliphate run on Wahhabist lines.
Laps in Security [Mark Steyn]
Well, the authorities have reacted to the Pantybomber in the usual way:
Passengers getting off both U.S. domestic flights and those arriving from overseas reported being told that they couldn’t get out of their seat for the last hour of their flight. Air Canada also said that during the last hour passengers won’t be allowed access to carry-on baggage or to have any items on their laps.
That's great news, isn't it?
This was a failed terror plot. But with failures like this who needs victories? If that Air Canada rule becomes generally applicable, that last hour will be a big time-waster for some of us. But no doubt some enterprising jihadist will attempt to self-detonate in mid-flight or shortly after take-off, and pretty soon we'll have to sit in isolation for the full seven or eight hours. Another couple of attempted takedowns and they might as well ship us freight.
A couple of years back in NR, in a column I wrote in flight (though not on Air Canada), I related my ill-fated attempt to bring home a souvenir snow globe from Auckland, New Zealand for my daughter:
The Kiwi sales clerk swiped my credit card, wrapped it up, and then said, "Oh, wait. Are you flying to America?" I should have known. She consulted her list of prohibited items and informed me that... the twinkly fluid inside the snow globe had been deemed to count as a liquid. In theory, I could smash the incredibly thick glass, replace the sparkly stuff with something more incendiary, re-glaze it in the airport men's room with help from co-conspirators among the shadowy networks of antipodean jihadist glaziers, and board the plane to explosive effect...
The jihad may never achieve global domination but it has already achieved snow global domination... Next time round, they'll foil some entirely different scheme - explosive suppositories, dirty-nuke hip replacements - and another avalanche of pitiful constraints will fall upon the hapless traveller.
And so it's proved. If only we had a National Snow Globe Association to point out that snow globes don't kill people, people kill people. What will they do after, say, a burka-clad woman boards the flight with breast impants packed with plastic explosives? Playing the game this way lets the terrorists set the rules and forces us to react defensively to every innovation. What difference does it make whether the plot succeeds? After all, long after Richard Reid has died of old age in prison, we'll still be removing our footwear in eternal homage to the thwarted shoebomber.
The arithmetic is very simple: Can we regulate for all faster than they can adapt for some? And remember, whatever new rules they pass about not using the bathroom in the last three hours of the flight, when you're sitting in seat 7B and the guy in 7C starts doing something goofy, the Federal Government won't be up there with you.
Re: re: Laps in security [Andy McCarthy]
Apropos Mark's observations (here and here), I couldn't help but be struck by this ambiguous passage in the Washington Post's report this morning: "The incident marks the latest apparent attempt by terrorists to bring down a U.S. aircraft through the use of an improvised weapon, and set in motion urgent security measures that disrupted global air travel during the frenetic holiday weekend." No doubt the Post means that "the incident" has "set in motion urgent security measures," but it was just as clearly "an attempt by terrorists" — and a successful attempt, at that — to "set in motion urgent security measures." It sounds trite but it's worth repeating: The object of terrorism is to terrorize, and obviously the mission has been accomplished even if the plane was not brought down.
In Willful Blindness, I recount the debacle of repeated entries into the United States by, among others, the Blind Sheikh (Omar Abdel Rahman) and al Qaeda operative Ali Mohammed — the former permitted free entrance, egress and, finally, a green card (as a special religious worker) even though he was one of the world's most famous jihadists and was on the terror watch lists for having authorized the murder of Anwar Sadat; the latter permitted to immigrate from Egypt and join the U.S. army despite having been caught trying to infiltrate the CIA. Now, nearly 20 years later — after 9/11, the 9/11 Commission, etc. — we have Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab: He was in the terrorist "database" because we were warned by his own influential father of his radical ties and proclivities, and he was evidently notorious among associates in Africa and Europe for his jihadist leanings; yet, he was issued a multiple-entry visa. And he claims to have been trained in Yemen — the al Qaeda hub to which the administration has just sent a half-dozen trained jihadists previously detained in Gitmo, and where it hopes to send many more.
I wonder what the media would be saying if George Bush were still president.
Hadn't Abdulmutallab heard that we are closing Gitmo? Hadn't he heard that we're phasing out military-commissions so we can show the world that we give even the worst mass-murderers civilian trials with all the rights of American citizens? Hadn't he heard that President Obama has banned torture (yes, yes, I know, actually Congress banned it 15 years ago — details, details ...)? Hadn't he heard that the president has called for "a new beginning" in America's relationship with the Muslim world? Hadn't he heard that this is our new, smarter strategy to safeguard the nation from man-caused disasters?
I suspect he's heard all those things.
Fire Napolitano [Jonah Goldberg]
Understandbly, the White House is trying very hard to get out in front of the would-be Christmas bomber story. The head of the Department of Homeland Security isn't helping. I watched her on three shows and each time she was more annoying, maddening and absurd than the pevious appearance. It is her basic position that the "system worked" because the bureaucrats responded properly after the attack. That the attack was "foiled" by a bad detonator and some civilian passengers is proof, she claims, that her agency is doing everything right. That is just about the dumbest thing she could say, on the merits and politically. I would wager that not one percent of Americans think the system is "working" when terrorists successfully get bombs onto planes (and succeed in activating them). Probably even fewer think it's fair that they have to take off their shoes, endure delays and madness while a known Islamic radical — turned in by his own father — can waltz onto a plane (and into the country). DHS had no role whatsoever in assuring that this bomb didn't go off. By her logic if the bomb had gone off, the system would have "worked" since it has done everything right.
Napolitano has a habit of arguing that DHS is a first responder outfit. Its mission is to deal with "man-caused-disasters" afer they occur. It appears she really believes it. If the White House wants to assure people that it takes the war on terror seriously (a term Robert Gibbs used this morning by the way), they could start by firing this patenly unqualified hack.
Here she is her own words, over at RealClearPolitics.
Re: Fire Napolitano [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
Jonah,Right on re. Napolitano. She's given herself a job description under which there's no such thing as failure. Must be nice.
The Couch: "Sounds a bit like being 'editor-at-large.'"
Update: From a reader:
Jonah: By the way, under the heading of stereotypes that need rethinking, who would have predicted that the hero of the incident would be:—not a TSA guy at the gate catching the device;—not an air marshal (it looks as if there was none);—not a US military guy on leave;—but a Dutch video producer jumping across four seated passengers to grab the terrorist, grab his burning explosive device with bare hands, and frog march him up to the front of the plane.
Fire Napolitano Cont'd [Jonah Goldberg]
More reax, from a reader:
Jonah,I had the same reaction. I also have noticed Gibbs and others claim that his name was on a watch list data base of 550,000 names. They make it sound like this is a monumental task to query a match. When I make a purchase using a credit card, I swipe my card and within seconds that information is accessed from a data base of millions and my purchase is approved. Now that the US government is in the banking business, what's their excuse?
And, from another reader:
Jonah,I most wholeheartedly agree with your calls for Napolitano to be fired. I have had repeated correspondence with my Congressman (Burgess - TX 26th) in the past on that subject, and Congressman Burgess has repeatedly called for her to step down, so far with no avail. I did write Congressman Burgess and both my Senators again with a renewed call for her to resign.I do think Gibbs' use of the term "War on Terror" represents a concession on the part of the Obama Administration that it realizes this war is far from over, and maybe they are starting to understand that these people hate all Americans, and not just George Bush.Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part.Nonetheless, it's becoming abundantly clear to everyone that this administration must seriously change its amateurish ways or there will soon be a lot of Americans who have to pay with their lives.Keep up the good work!
Missing the Point [Andy McCarthy]
Though I share their outrage, I think outraged readers are missing the point. The people now in charge of our government believe Clinton-era counterterrorism was a successful model. They start from the premise that terrorism is a crime problem to be managed, not a war to be won. Overdone "war on drugs" rhetoric aside, we don't try to "win" against (as in "defeat") law-enforcement challenges. We expect them to happen from time to time and to contain, but never completely prevent, the damage.
Here, no thanks to the government, the plane was not destoyed, and we won't get to the bottom of the larger conspiracy (enabling the likes of Napolitano to say there's no indication of a larger plot — much less one launched by an international jihadist enterprise) because the guy got to lawyer up rather than be treated like a combatant and subjected to lengthy interrogation. But the terrorist will be convicted at trial (this "case" tees up like a slam-dunk), so the administration will put it in the books as a success ... just like the Clinton folks did after the '93 WTC bombers and the embassy bombers were convicted. In their minds, litigation success equals national security success.
It is a dangerously absurd viewpoint, but it was clear during the campaign that it was Obama's viewpoint. The American people — only seven years after 9/11 — elected him anyway. As we learn more painfully everyday, elections matter.
Thank goodness for:
a) Cheers for Jasper Schuringa, the brave passenger who subdued the terrorist bomber; and
b) Plane dumb luck that his bomb didn't work quite as planned.
A big boo for the Feds, DHS, Janet Napolitano, the State Dept., and the airlines who all botched this. Those people on the plane are thankfully lucky to be alive today !
Some commentary:
http://michellemalkin.com/2009/12/27/clown-alert-janet-napolitano-says-the-system-worked/
Let's Roll 2 [Mark Steyn]
On September 11th 2001, the government's (1970s) security procedures all failed, and the only good news of the day came from self-reliant citizens (on Flight 93) using their own wits and a willingness to act.
On December 25th 2009, the government's (post-9/11) security procedures all failed, and the only good news came once again from alert individuals:
"Suddenly, we hear a bang. It sounded like a firecracker went off," said Jasper Schuringa, a film director who was traveling to the US to visit friends.
"When [it] went off, everybody panicked ... Then someone screamed, ‘Fire! Fire!’"
Schuringa, sitting in seat 20J, in the right-most section of the Airbus 330, looked to his left. "I saw smoke rising from a seat ... I didn’t hesitate. I just jumped," he said.
Schuringa dove over four passengers to reach Abdul Mutallab’s seat. The suspect had a blanket on his lap. "It was smoking and there were flames coming from beneath his legs."
"I searched on his body parts and he had his pants open. He had something strapped to his legs."
The unassuming hero ripped the flaming, molten object — which resembled a small, white shampoo bottle — off Abdul Mutallab’s left leg, near his crotch. He said he put out the fire with his bare hands.
Schuringa yelled for water, and members of the flight crew soon appeared with fire extinguishers. Then, he said, he hauled the suspect out of the seat.
If the facts remain broadly as outlined, this incident has serious implications for airline travel: A man is on the no-fly list but is allowed to board the plane. Everyone flying on an inbound long-haul flight to the United States is forced to hand over excessively large amounts of liquids and gels and put the small amounts permitted into separate plastic bags, yet the no-fly guy's material for bomb-making sails through undetected.
This time the last line of defense worked. Next time, the paradise-seeking jihadist might get lucky and find himself sitting next to, say, Charlie Sheen, too immersed in a lengthy treatise on how 9/11 was an inside job to notice the smoldering socks in the next seat; or to the same kind of nothing-to-see-here crowd who thought Major Hasan's e-mails were "consistent with his research interests".
As for the perpetrator:
The young man, who yesterday night attempted to ignite an explosive device aboard a Delta Airlines flight from Amsterdam to Detroit, Michigan in the United States has been identified as Abdul Farouk Umar Abdulmutallab, the 23-year-old son of Alhaji Umaru Mutallab, former First Bank chairman. Mutallab, a former minister and prominent banker recently retired from the bank’s board...
The family home of the Mutallabs in Central London, is currently being searched by men of the Metropolitan Police. THISDAY checks reveal that the suspect, Abdulfarouk Umar Muttalab who is an engineering student at the University College, London had been noted for his extreme views on religion since his secondary school days at the British International School, Lome, Togo.
So once again we see the foolishness of complaceniks who drone the fatuous cliches about how "in this struggle, scholarships will be far more important than smart bombs". The men eager to self-detonate on infidel airliners are not goatherds from the caves of Waziristan but educated middle-class Muslims who have had the most exposure to the western world and could be pulling down six-figure salaries almost anywhere on the planet. And don't look to "assimilation" to work its magic, either. We're witnessing a process of generational de-assimilation: In this family, yet again, the dad is an entirely assimilated member of the transnational elite. His son wants a global caliphate run on Wahhabist lines.
Laps in Security [Mark Steyn]
Well, the authorities have reacted to the Pantybomber in the usual way:
Passengers getting off both U.S. domestic flights and those arriving from overseas reported being told that they couldn’t get out of their seat for the last hour of their flight. Air Canada also said that during the last hour passengers won’t be allowed access to carry-on baggage or to have any items on their laps.
That's great news, isn't it?
This was a failed terror plot. But with failures like this who needs victories? If that Air Canada rule becomes generally applicable, that last hour will be a big time-waster for some of us. But no doubt some enterprising jihadist will attempt to self-detonate in mid-flight or shortly after take-off, and pretty soon we'll have to sit in isolation for the full seven or eight hours. Another couple of attempted takedowns and they might as well ship us freight.
A couple of years back in NR, in a column I wrote in flight (though not on Air Canada), I related my ill-fated attempt to bring home a souvenir snow globe from Auckland, New Zealand for my daughter:
The Kiwi sales clerk swiped my credit card, wrapped it up, and then said, "Oh, wait. Are you flying to America?" I should have known. She consulted her list of prohibited items and informed me that... the twinkly fluid inside the snow globe had been deemed to count as a liquid. In theory, I could smash the incredibly thick glass, replace the sparkly stuff with something more incendiary, re-glaze it in the airport men's room with help from co-conspirators among the shadowy networks of antipodean jihadist glaziers, and board the plane to explosive effect...
The jihad may never achieve global domination but it has already achieved snow global domination... Next time round, they'll foil some entirely different scheme - explosive suppositories, dirty-nuke hip replacements - and another avalanche of pitiful constraints will fall upon the hapless traveller.
And so it's proved. If only we had a National Snow Globe Association to point out that snow globes don't kill people, people kill people. What will they do after, say, a burka-clad woman boards the flight with breast impants packed with plastic explosives? Playing the game this way lets the terrorists set the rules and forces us to react defensively to every innovation. What difference does it make whether the plot succeeds? After all, long after Richard Reid has died of old age in prison, we'll still be removing our footwear in eternal homage to the thwarted shoebomber.
The arithmetic is very simple: Can we regulate for all faster than they can adapt for some? And remember, whatever new rules they pass about not using the bathroom in the last three hours of the flight, when you're sitting in seat 7B and the guy in 7C starts doing something goofy, the Federal Government won't be up there with you.
Re: re: Laps in security [Andy McCarthy]
Apropos Mark's observations (here and here), I couldn't help but be struck by this ambiguous passage in the Washington Post's report this morning: "The incident marks the latest apparent attempt by terrorists to bring down a U.S. aircraft through the use of an improvised weapon, and set in motion urgent security measures that disrupted global air travel during the frenetic holiday weekend." No doubt the Post means that "the incident" has "set in motion urgent security measures," but it was just as clearly "an attempt by terrorists" — and a successful attempt, at that — to "set in motion urgent security measures." It sounds trite but it's worth repeating: The object of terrorism is to terrorize, and obviously the mission has been accomplished even if the plane was not brought down.
In Willful Blindness, I recount the debacle of repeated entries into the United States by, among others, the Blind Sheikh (Omar Abdel Rahman) and al Qaeda operative Ali Mohammed — the former permitted free entrance, egress and, finally, a green card (as a special religious worker) even though he was one of the world's most famous jihadists and was on the terror watch lists for having authorized the murder of Anwar Sadat; the latter permitted to immigrate from Egypt and join the U.S. army despite having been caught trying to infiltrate the CIA. Now, nearly 20 years later — after 9/11, the 9/11 Commission, etc. — we have Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab: He was in the terrorist "database" because we were warned by his own influential father of his radical ties and proclivities, and he was evidently notorious among associates in Africa and Europe for his jihadist leanings; yet, he was issued a multiple-entry visa. And he claims to have been trained in Yemen — the al Qaeda hub to which the administration has just sent a half-dozen trained jihadists previously detained in Gitmo, and where it hopes to send many more.
I wonder what the media would be saying if George Bush were still president.
Hadn't Abdulmutallab heard that we are closing Gitmo? Hadn't he heard that we're phasing out military-commissions so we can show the world that we give even the worst mass-murderers civilian trials with all the rights of American citizens? Hadn't he heard that President Obama has banned torture (yes, yes, I know, actually Congress banned it 15 years ago — details, details ...)? Hadn't he heard that the president has called for "a new beginning" in America's relationship with the Muslim world? Hadn't he heard that this is our new, smarter strategy to safeguard the nation from man-caused disasters?
I suspect he's heard all those things.
Fire Napolitano [Jonah Goldberg]
Understandbly, the White House is trying very hard to get out in front of the would-be Christmas bomber story. The head of the Department of Homeland Security isn't helping. I watched her on three shows and each time she was more annoying, maddening and absurd than the pevious appearance. It is her basic position that the "system worked" because the bureaucrats responded properly after the attack. That the attack was "foiled" by a bad detonator and some civilian passengers is proof, she claims, that her agency is doing everything right. That is just about the dumbest thing she could say, on the merits and politically. I would wager that not one percent of Americans think the system is "working" when terrorists successfully get bombs onto planes (and succeed in activating them). Probably even fewer think it's fair that they have to take off their shoes, endure delays and madness while a known Islamic radical — turned in by his own father — can waltz onto a plane (and into the country). DHS had no role whatsoever in assuring that this bomb didn't go off. By her logic if the bomb had gone off, the system would have "worked" since it has done everything right.
Napolitano has a habit of arguing that DHS is a first responder outfit. Its mission is to deal with "man-caused-disasters" afer they occur. It appears she really believes it. If the White House wants to assure people that it takes the war on terror seriously (a term Robert Gibbs used this morning by the way), they could start by firing this patenly unqualified hack.
Here she is her own words, over at RealClearPolitics.
Re: Fire Napolitano [Jonah Goldberg]
From a reader:
Jonah,Right on re. Napolitano. She's given herself a job description under which there's no such thing as failure. Must be nice.
The Couch: "Sounds a bit like being 'editor-at-large.'"
Update: From a reader:
Jonah: By the way, under the heading of stereotypes that need rethinking, who would have predicted that the hero of the incident would be:—not a TSA guy at the gate catching the device;—not an air marshal (it looks as if there was none);—not a US military guy on leave;—but a Dutch video producer jumping across four seated passengers to grab the terrorist, grab his burning explosive device with bare hands, and frog march him up to the front of the plane.
Fire Napolitano Cont'd [Jonah Goldberg]
More reax, from a reader:
Jonah,I had the same reaction. I also have noticed Gibbs and others claim that his name was on a watch list data base of 550,000 names. They make it sound like this is a monumental task to query a match. When I make a purchase using a credit card, I swipe my card and within seconds that information is accessed from a data base of millions and my purchase is approved. Now that the US government is in the banking business, what's their excuse?
And, from another reader:
Jonah,I most wholeheartedly agree with your calls for Napolitano to be fired. I have had repeated correspondence with my Congressman (Burgess - TX 26th) in the past on that subject, and Congressman Burgess has repeatedly called for her to step down, so far with no avail. I did write Congressman Burgess and both my Senators again with a renewed call for her to resign.I do think Gibbs' use of the term "War on Terror" represents a concession on the part of the Obama Administration that it realizes this war is far from over, and maybe they are starting to understand that these people hate all Americans, and not just George Bush.Maybe it's just wishful thinking on my part.Nonetheless, it's becoming abundantly clear to everyone that this administration must seriously change its amateurish ways or there will soon be a lot of Americans who have to pay with their lives.Keep up the good work!
Missing the Point [Andy McCarthy]
Though I share their outrage, I think outraged readers are missing the point. The people now in charge of our government believe Clinton-era counterterrorism was a successful model. They start from the premise that terrorism is a crime problem to be managed, not a war to be won. Overdone "war on drugs" rhetoric aside, we don't try to "win" against (as in "defeat") law-enforcement challenges. We expect them to happen from time to time and to contain, but never completely prevent, the damage.
Here, no thanks to the government, the plane was not destoyed, and we won't get to the bottom of the larger conspiracy (enabling the likes of Napolitano to say there's no indication of a larger plot — much less one launched by an international jihadist enterprise) because the guy got to lawyer up rather than be treated like a combatant and subjected to lengthy interrogation. But the terrorist will be convicted at trial (this "case" tees up like a slam-dunk), so the administration will put it in the books as a success ... just like the Clinton folks did after the '93 WTC bombers and the embassy bombers were convicted. In their minds, litigation success equals national security success.
It is a dangerously absurd viewpoint, but it was clear during the campaign that it was Obama's viewpoint. The American people — only seven years after 9/11 — elected him anyway. As we learn more painfully everyday, elections matter.
Wednesday, December 23, 2009
ObamaCare - Is the Reid Bill Unconstitutional ?
Richard Epstein: The Reid Bill Is Blatantly Unconstitutional [Andy McCarthy]
At PointOfLaw.com, the distinguished University of Chicago constitutional scholar Richard Epstein provides a painstaking, withering analysis of the healthcare legislation wending its way through the Senate. He concludes that it is clearly unconstitutional. The essay is lengthy and, in places, complex; but it is brilliantly done, accessible, and compelling. [Thanks to Roger Kimball and Glenn Reynolds.]
Most of the constitutional analyses I've read, such as this superb one by David Rivkin and Lee Casey, have focused on the limitations on Congress's power — to wit, that the Commerce Clause does not vest Congress with the authority to coerce Americans to purchase health insurance as a condition of living in our country. Prof. Epstein's focus is very different, and a heartening reminder for capitalists in the age of Obama. Drawing on the Bill of Rights protections against takings without just compensation and deprivation of property without due process of law, and on the Supreme Court's rate-regulation jurisprudence, Epstein concludes that the Constitution assures that "any firm in a regulated market be allowed to recover a risk-adjusted competitive rate of return on its accumulated capital investment." (Citing the Supreme Court's decision in Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch (1988)).
Applying these principles, Epstein concludes:
The Reid Bill emphatically fails this test by imposing sharp limitations on the ability of health-insurance companies to raise fees or exclude coverage. Moreover, the Reid Bill forces on these regulated firms onerous new obligations that they will not be able to fund from their various revenue sources. The squeeze between the constricted revenue sources allowable under the Reid Bill and the extensive new legal obligations it imposes is likely to result in massive cash crunch that could drive the firms that serve the individual and small-group health-insurance markets into bankruptcy.
While the insurance companies have been utterly demonized by Democrats in this debate, the fact is that there is a competitive market for healthcare insurance. As Epstein explains, "to justify rate regulation" — which is titanic in the Senate bill — "there needs to be some evidence of the existence of monopoly." As there is and can be no such evidence, there is no rationale for the bill's pervasive rate regulation (and for the stifling price-controls that Epstein shows must inevitably result in delayed, reduced, and rationed services). If this bill were really about controlling costs — rather than controlling lives — Epstein observes that it would be a simple matter to repeal the federal law (the McCarran-Ferguson Act) that "authorizes state barriers to out-of-state competition. That one legislative fix should reduce prices and expand access, but not cost the federal government a dime."
For what it's worth, I think it would be worth having a vigorous constitutional argument about capitalism. A free society is only free because its people, rather than its government, are sovereign, and it only needs a Constitution to protect individual liberty from encroachment by the government. As Prof. Epstein demonstrates, that is what our Constitution does. But this is the antithesis of President Obama's vision of a new Constitution (or a new Bill of Rights) that proclaims what government must do for you rather than what it cannot do to you. Alas, as I've discussed before, while that sounds admirable it is monstrous, since government has nothing to give — it can do for one only by taking from another. If that is to be our system, we are no longer free.
Healthcare is not and has never been a "right." Why are we so afraid to say that? When the other side says, "Healthcare is a right," I want to say, "What healthcare? Abortion? Botox? 'Preventive' care?" What other "rights" do you have that I am required to pay for? A house? A job? A day at the beach? Since when? Only in Washington will those questions get you expelled from polite company. The American people are ready to have them asked and to have a real debate about them — not a 2000-page power-grab in the dark of the night before Christmas.
What you have a right to is no unreasonable government interference with your ability to purchase healthcare in a competitive market — i.e., a fair market in which government polices against fraud and does skew the playing field by interfering unreasonably with providers and insurers. That's a valuable right, and it has delivered the greatest healthcare system in human history. We are crazy to damage it more than we already have — and even crazier to allow it to be done on the pretexts the Obama Democrats are offering.
At PointOfLaw.com, the distinguished University of Chicago constitutional scholar Richard Epstein provides a painstaking, withering analysis of the healthcare legislation wending its way through the Senate. He concludes that it is clearly unconstitutional. The essay is lengthy and, in places, complex; but it is brilliantly done, accessible, and compelling. [Thanks to Roger Kimball and Glenn Reynolds.]
Most of the constitutional analyses I've read, such as this superb one by David Rivkin and Lee Casey, have focused on the limitations on Congress's power — to wit, that the Commerce Clause does not vest Congress with the authority to coerce Americans to purchase health insurance as a condition of living in our country. Prof. Epstein's focus is very different, and a heartening reminder for capitalists in the age of Obama. Drawing on the Bill of Rights protections against takings without just compensation and deprivation of property without due process of law, and on the Supreme Court's rate-regulation jurisprudence, Epstein concludes that the Constitution assures that "any firm in a regulated market be allowed to recover a risk-adjusted competitive rate of return on its accumulated capital investment." (Citing the Supreme Court's decision in Duquesne Light Co. v. Barasch (1988)).
Applying these principles, Epstein concludes:
The Reid Bill emphatically fails this test by imposing sharp limitations on the ability of health-insurance companies to raise fees or exclude coverage. Moreover, the Reid Bill forces on these regulated firms onerous new obligations that they will not be able to fund from their various revenue sources. The squeeze between the constricted revenue sources allowable under the Reid Bill and the extensive new legal obligations it imposes is likely to result in massive cash crunch that could drive the firms that serve the individual and small-group health-insurance markets into bankruptcy.
While the insurance companies have been utterly demonized by Democrats in this debate, the fact is that there is a competitive market for healthcare insurance. As Epstein explains, "to justify rate regulation" — which is titanic in the Senate bill — "there needs to be some evidence of the existence of monopoly." As there is and can be no such evidence, there is no rationale for the bill's pervasive rate regulation (and for the stifling price-controls that Epstein shows must inevitably result in delayed, reduced, and rationed services). If this bill were really about controlling costs — rather than controlling lives — Epstein observes that it would be a simple matter to repeal the federal law (the McCarran-Ferguson Act) that "authorizes state barriers to out-of-state competition. That one legislative fix should reduce prices and expand access, but not cost the federal government a dime."
For what it's worth, I think it would be worth having a vigorous constitutional argument about capitalism. A free society is only free because its people, rather than its government, are sovereign, and it only needs a Constitution to protect individual liberty from encroachment by the government. As Prof. Epstein demonstrates, that is what our Constitution does. But this is the antithesis of President Obama's vision of a new Constitution (or a new Bill of Rights) that proclaims what government must do for you rather than what it cannot do to you. Alas, as I've discussed before, while that sounds admirable it is monstrous, since government has nothing to give — it can do for one only by taking from another. If that is to be our system, we are no longer free.
Healthcare is not and has never been a "right." Why are we so afraid to say that? When the other side says, "Healthcare is a right," I want to say, "What healthcare? Abortion? Botox? 'Preventive' care?" What other "rights" do you have that I am required to pay for? A house? A job? A day at the beach? Since when? Only in Washington will those questions get you expelled from polite company. The American people are ready to have them asked and to have a real debate about them — not a 2000-page power-grab in the dark of the night before Christmas.
What you have a right to is no unreasonable government interference with your ability to purchase healthcare in a competitive market — i.e., a fair market in which government polices against fraud and does skew the playing field by interfering unreasonably with providers and insurers. That's a valuable right, and it has delivered the greatest healthcare system in human history. We are crazy to damage it more than we already have — and even crazier to allow it to be done on the pretexts the Obama Democrats are offering.
Obama places Interpol above American Law ... disturbing
What is up w/ this ????
Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law? [Andy McCarthy]
You just can't make up how brazen this crowd is. One week ago, President Obama quietly signed an executive order that makes an international police force immune from the restraints of American law.
Interpol is the shorthand for the International Criminal Police Organization. It was established in 1923 and operates in about 188 countries. By executive order 12425, issued in 1983, President Reagan recognized Interpol as an international organization and gave it some of the privileges and immunities customarily extended to foreign diplomats. Interpol, however, is also an active law-enforcement agency, so critical privileges and immunities (set forth in Section 2(c) of the International Organizations Immunities Act) were withheld. Specifically, Interpol's property and assets remained subject to search and seizure, and its archived records remained subject to public scrutiny under provisions like the Freedom of Information Act. Being constrained by the Fourth Amendment, FOIA, and other limitations of the Constitution and federal law that protect the liberty and privacy of Americans is what prevents law-enforcement and its controlling government authority from becoming tyrannical.
On Wednesday, however, for no apparent reason, President Obama issued an executive order removing the Reagan limitations. That is, Interpol's property and assets are no longer subject to search and confiscation, and its archives are now considered inviolable. This international police force (whose U.S. headquarters is in the Justice Department in Washington) will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States.
Interpol works closely with international tribunals (such as the International Criminal Court — which the United States has refused to join because of its sovereignty surrendering provisions, though top Obama officials want us in it). It also works closely with foreign courts and law-enforcement authorities (such as those in Europe that are investigating former Bush administration officials for purported war crimes — i.e., for actions taken in America's defense).
Why would we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies? Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize?
Steve Schippert has more at ThreatsWatch, here.
ThreatsWatch.Org: PrincipalAnalysis
Wither Sovereignty
Executive Order Amended to Immunize INTERPOL In America - Is The ICC Next?
By Steve Schippert, Clyde Middleton
Last Thursday, December 17, 2009, The White House released an Executive Order "Amending Executive Order 12425." It grants INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) a new level of full diplomatic immunity afforded to foreign embassies and select other "International Organizations" as set forth in the United States International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945. By removing language from President Reagan's 1983 Executive Order 12425, this international law enforcement body now operates - now operates - on American soil beyond the reach of our own top law enforcement arm, the FBI, and is immune from Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
For Immediate Release December 17, 2009Executive Order -- Amending Executive Order 12425
EXECUTIVE ORDER- - - - - - -AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER 12425 DESIGNATING INTERPOL AS A PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION ENTITLED TO ENJOY CERTAIN PRIVILEGES, EXEMPTIONS, AND IMMUNITIES
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and in order to extend the appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12425 of June 16, 1983, as amended, is further amended by deleting from the first sentence the words "except those provided by Section 2©, Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act" and the semicolon that immediately precedes them.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,December 16, 2009.
After initial review and discussions between the writers of this analysis, the context was spelled out plainly.
Through EO 12425, President Reagan extended to INTERPOL recognition as an "International Organization." In short, the privileges and immunities afforded foreign diplomats was extended to INTERPOL. Two sets of important privileges and immunities were withheld: Section 2© and the remaining sections cited (all of which deal with differing taxes).
And then comes December 17, 2009, and President Obama. The exemptions in EO 12425 were removed.
Section 2c of the United States International Organizations Immunities Act is the crucial piece.
Property and assets of international organizations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, unless such immunity be expressly waived, and from confiscation. The archives of international organizations shall be inviolable. (Emphasis added.)
Inviolable archives means INTERPOL records are beyond US citizens' Freedom of Information Act requests and from American legal or investigative discovery ("unless such immunity be expressly waived.")
Property and assets being immune from search and confiscation means precisely that. Wherever they may be in the United States. This could conceivably include human assets - Americans arrested on our soil by INTERPOL officers.
Context: International Criminal Court
The importance of this last crucial point cannot be understated, because this immunity and protection - and elevation above the US Constitution - afforded INTERPOL is likely a precursor to the White House subjecting the United States under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). INTERPOL provides a significant enforcement function for the ICC, just as our FBI provides a significant function for our Department of Justice.
We direct the American public to paragraph 28 of the ICC's Proposed Programme Budget for 2010 (PDF).
29. Additionally, the Court will continue to seek the cooperation of States not party to the Rome Statute and to develop its relationships with regional organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS), the Arab League (AL), the African Union (AU), the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), ASEAN and CARICOM. We will also continue to engage with subregional and thematic organizations, such as SADC and ECOWAS, and the Commonwealth Secretariat and the OIF. This will be done through high level visits, briefings and, as appropriate, relationship agreements. Work will also be carried out with sectoral organizations such as IDLO and INTERPOL, to increase efficiency.
The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute - the UN treaty that established the International Criminal Court. (See: Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court)
President George W. Bush rejected subjecting the United States to the jurisdiction of the ICC and removed the United States as a signatory. President Bill Clinton had previously signed the Rome Statute during his presidency. Two critical matters are at play. One is an overall matter of sovereignty and the concept of the primacy of American law above those of the rest of the world. But more recently a more over-riding concern principally has been the potential - if not likely - specter of subjecting our Armed Forces to a hostile international body seeking war crimes prosecutions during the execution of an unpopular war.
President Bush in fact went so far as to gain agreement from nations that they would expressly not detain or hand over to the ICC members of the United States armed forces. The fear of a symbolic ICC circus trial as a form of international political protest to American military actions in Iraq and elsewhere was real and palpable.
President Obama's words have been carefully chosen when directly regarding the ICC. While President Bush outright rejected subjugating American armed forces to any international court as a matter of policy, President Obama said in his 2008 presidential campaign that it is merely "premature to commit" to signing America on.
However, in a Foreign Policy in Focus round-table in 2008, the host group cited his former foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power. She essentially laid down what can be viewed as now-President Obama's roadmap to America rejoining the ICC. His principal objections are not explained as those of sovereignty, but rather of image and perception.
Obama's former foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power, said in an early March (2008) interview with The Irish Times that many things need to happen before Obama could think about signing the Rome Treaty.
"Until we've closed Guantánamo, gotten out of Iraq responsibly, renounced torture and rendition, shown a different face for America, American membership of the ICC is going to make countries around the world think the ICC is a tool of American hegemony.
The detention center at Guantánamo Bay is nearing its closure and an alternate continental American site for terrorist detention has been selected in Illinois. The time line for Iraq withdrawal has been set. And President Obama has given an abundance of international speeches intended to "show a different face for America." He has in fact been roundly criticized domestically for the routinely apologetic and critical nature of these speeches.
President Obama has not rejected the concept of ICC jurisdiction over US citizens and service members. He has avoided any direct reference to this while offering praise for the ICC for conducting its trials so far "in America's interests." The door thus remains wide open to the skeptical observer.
CONCLUSIONS
In light of what we know and can observe, it is our logical conclusion that President Obama's Executive Order amending President Ronald Reagans' 1983 EO 12425 and placing INTERPOL above the United States Constitution and beyond the legal reach of our own top law enforcement is a precursor to more damaging moves.
The pre-requisite conditions regarding the Iraq withdrawal and the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility closure will continue their course. meanwhile, the next move from President Obama is likely an attempt to dissolve the agreements made between President Bush and other states preventing them from turning over American military forces to the ICC (via INTERPOL) for war crimes or any other prosecutions.
When the paths on the road map converge - Iraq withdrawal, Guantánamo closure, perceived American image improved internationally, and an empowered INTERPOL in the United States - it is probable that President Barack Obama will once again make America a signatory to the International Criminal Court. It will be a move that surrenders American sovereignty to an international body who's INTERPOL enforcement arm has already been elevated above the Constitution and American domestic law enforcement.
For an added and disturbing wrinkle, INTERPOL's central operations office in the United States is within our own Justice Department offices. They are American law enforcement officers working under the aegis of INTERPOL within our own Justice Department. That they now operate with full diplomatic immunity and with "inviolable archives" from within our own buildings should send red flags soaring into the clouds.
This is the disturbing context for President Obama's quiet release of an amended Executive Order 12425. American sovereignty hangs in the balance if these actions are not prevented through public outcry and political pressure. Some Americans are paying attention, as can be seen from some of the earliest recognitions of this troubling development here, here and here. But the discussion must extend well beyond the Internet and social media.
Ultimately, a detailed verbal explanation is due the American public from the President of the United States detailing why an international law enforcement arm assisting a court we are not a signatory to has been elevated above our Constitution upon our soil.
Why Does Interpol Need Immunity from American Law? [Andy McCarthy]
You just can't make up how brazen this crowd is. One week ago, President Obama quietly signed an executive order that makes an international police force immune from the restraints of American law.
Interpol is the shorthand for the International Criminal Police Organization. It was established in 1923 and operates in about 188 countries. By executive order 12425, issued in 1983, President Reagan recognized Interpol as an international organization and gave it some of the privileges and immunities customarily extended to foreign diplomats. Interpol, however, is also an active law-enforcement agency, so critical privileges and immunities (set forth in Section 2(c) of the International Organizations Immunities Act) were withheld. Specifically, Interpol's property and assets remained subject to search and seizure, and its archived records remained subject to public scrutiny under provisions like the Freedom of Information Act. Being constrained by the Fourth Amendment, FOIA, and other limitations of the Constitution and federal law that protect the liberty and privacy of Americans is what prevents law-enforcement and its controlling government authority from becoming tyrannical.
On Wednesday, however, for no apparent reason, President Obama issued an executive order removing the Reagan limitations. That is, Interpol's property and assets are no longer subject to search and confiscation, and its archives are now considered inviolable. This international police force (whose U.S. headquarters is in the Justice Department in Washington) will be unrestrained by the U.S. Constitution and American law while it operates in the United States and affects both Americans and American interests outside the United States.
Interpol works closely with international tribunals (such as the International Criminal Court — which the United States has refused to join because of its sovereignty surrendering provisions, though top Obama officials want us in it). It also works closely with foreign courts and law-enforcement authorities (such as those in Europe that are investigating former Bush administration officials for purported war crimes — i.e., for actions taken in America's defense).
Why would we elevate an international police force above American law? Why would we immunize an international police force from the limitations that constrain the FBI and other American law-enforcement agencies? Why is it suddenly necessary to have, within the Justice Department, a repository for stashing government files which, therefore, will be beyond the ability of Congress, American law-enforcement, the media, and the American people to scrutinize?
Steve Schippert has more at ThreatsWatch, here.
ThreatsWatch.Org: PrincipalAnalysis
Wither Sovereignty
Executive Order Amended to Immunize INTERPOL In America - Is The ICC Next?
By Steve Schippert, Clyde Middleton
Last Thursday, December 17, 2009, The White House released an Executive Order "Amending Executive Order 12425." It grants INTERPOL (International Criminal Police Organization) a new level of full diplomatic immunity afforded to foreign embassies and select other "International Organizations" as set forth in the United States International Organizations Immunities Act of 1945. By removing language from President Reagan's 1983 Executive Order 12425, this international law enforcement body now operates - now operates - on American soil beyond the reach of our own top law enforcement arm, the FBI, and is immune from Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) requests.
For Immediate Release December 17, 2009Executive Order -- Amending Executive Order 12425
EXECUTIVE ORDER- - - - - - -AMENDING EXECUTIVE ORDER 12425 DESIGNATING INTERPOL AS A PUBLIC INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION ENTITLED TO ENJOY CERTAIN PRIVILEGES, EXEMPTIONS, AND IMMUNITIES
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, including section 1 of the International Organizations Immunities Act (22 U.S.C. 288), and in order to extend the appropriate privileges, exemptions, and immunities to the International Criminal Police Organization (INTERPOL), it is hereby ordered that Executive Order 12425 of June 16, 1983, as amended, is further amended by deleting from the first sentence the words "except those provided by Section 2©, Section 3, Section 4, Section 5, and Section 6 of that Act" and the semicolon that immediately precedes them.
BARACK OBAMA
THE WHITE HOUSE,December 16, 2009.
After initial review and discussions between the writers of this analysis, the context was spelled out plainly.
Through EO 12425, President Reagan extended to INTERPOL recognition as an "International Organization." In short, the privileges and immunities afforded foreign diplomats was extended to INTERPOL. Two sets of important privileges and immunities were withheld: Section 2© and the remaining sections cited (all of which deal with differing taxes).
And then comes December 17, 2009, and President Obama. The exemptions in EO 12425 were removed.
Section 2c of the United States International Organizations Immunities Act is the crucial piece.
Property and assets of international organizations, wherever located and by whomsoever held, shall be immune from search, unless such immunity be expressly waived, and from confiscation. The archives of international organizations shall be inviolable. (Emphasis added.)
Inviolable archives means INTERPOL records are beyond US citizens' Freedom of Information Act requests and from American legal or investigative discovery ("unless such immunity be expressly waived.")
Property and assets being immune from search and confiscation means precisely that. Wherever they may be in the United States. This could conceivably include human assets - Americans arrested on our soil by INTERPOL officers.
Context: International Criminal Court
The importance of this last crucial point cannot be understated, because this immunity and protection - and elevation above the US Constitution - afforded INTERPOL is likely a precursor to the White House subjecting the United States under the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court (ICC). INTERPOL provides a significant enforcement function for the ICC, just as our FBI provides a significant function for our Department of Justice.
We direct the American public to paragraph 28 of the ICC's Proposed Programme Budget for 2010 (PDF).
29. Additionally, the Court will continue to seek the cooperation of States not party to the Rome Statute and to develop its relationships with regional organizations such as the Organization of American States (OAS), the Arab League (AL), the African Union (AU), the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC), ASEAN and CARICOM. We will also continue to engage with subregional and thematic organizations, such as SADC and ECOWAS, and the Commonwealth Secretariat and the OIF. This will be done through high level visits, briefings and, as appropriate, relationship agreements. Work will also be carried out with sectoral organizations such as IDLO and INTERPOL, to increase efficiency.
The United States is not a party to the Rome Statute - the UN treaty that established the International Criminal Court. (See: Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court)
President George W. Bush rejected subjecting the United States to the jurisdiction of the ICC and removed the United States as a signatory. President Bill Clinton had previously signed the Rome Statute during his presidency. Two critical matters are at play. One is an overall matter of sovereignty and the concept of the primacy of American law above those of the rest of the world. But more recently a more over-riding concern principally has been the potential - if not likely - specter of subjecting our Armed Forces to a hostile international body seeking war crimes prosecutions during the execution of an unpopular war.
President Bush in fact went so far as to gain agreement from nations that they would expressly not detain or hand over to the ICC members of the United States armed forces. The fear of a symbolic ICC circus trial as a form of international political protest to American military actions in Iraq and elsewhere was real and palpable.
President Obama's words have been carefully chosen when directly regarding the ICC. While President Bush outright rejected subjugating American armed forces to any international court as a matter of policy, President Obama said in his 2008 presidential campaign that it is merely "premature to commit" to signing America on.
However, in a Foreign Policy in Focus round-table in 2008, the host group cited his former foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power. She essentially laid down what can be viewed as now-President Obama's roadmap to America rejoining the ICC. His principal objections are not explained as those of sovereignty, but rather of image and perception.
Obama's former foreign policy advisor, Samantha Power, said in an early March (2008) interview with The Irish Times that many things need to happen before Obama could think about signing the Rome Treaty.
"Until we've closed Guantánamo, gotten out of Iraq responsibly, renounced torture and rendition, shown a different face for America, American membership of the ICC is going to make countries around the world think the ICC is a tool of American hegemony.
The detention center at Guantánamo Bay is nearing its closure and an alternate continental American site for terrorist detention has been selected in Illinois. The time line for Iraq withdrawal has been set. And President Obama has given an abundance of international speeches intended to "show a different face for America." He has in fact been roundly criticized domestically for the routinely apologetic and critical nature of these speeches.
President Obama has not rejected the concept of ICC jurisdiction over US citizens and service members. He has avoided any direct reference to this while offering praise for the ICC for conducting its trials so far "in America's interests." The door thus remains wide open to the skeptical observer.
CONCLUSIONS
In light of what we know and can observe, it is our logical conclusion that President Obama's Executive Order amending President Ronald Reagans' 1983 EO 12425 and placing INTERPOL above the United States Constitution and beyond the legal reach of our own top law enforcement is a precursor to more damaging moves.
The pre-requisite conditions regarding the Iraq withdrawal and the Guantanamo Bay terrorist detention facility closure will continue their course. meanwhile, the next move from President Obama is likely an attempt to dissolve the agreements made between President Bush and other states preventing them from turning over American military forces to the ICC (via INTERPOL) for war crimes or any other prosecutions.
When the paths on the road map converge - Iraq withdrawal, Guantánamo closure, perceived American image improved internationally, and an empowered INTERPOL in the United States - it is probable that President Barack Obama will once again make America a signatory to the International Criminal Court. It will be a move that surrenders American sovereignty to an international body who's INTERPOL enforcement arm has already been elevated above the Constitution and American domestic law enforcement.
For an added and disturbing wrinkle, INTERPOL's central operations office in the United States is within our own Justice Department offices. They are American law enforcement officers working under the aegis of INTERPOL within our own Justice Department. That they now operate with full diplomatic immunity and with "inviolable archives" from within our own buildings should send red flags soaring into the clouds.
This is the disturbing context for President Obama's quiet release of an amended Executive Order 12425. American sovereignty hangs in the balance if these actions are not prevented through public outcry and political pressure. Some Americans are paying attention, as can be seen from some of the earliest recognitions of this troubling development here, here and here. But the discussion must extend well beyond the Internet and social media.
Ultimately, a detailed verbal explanation is due the American public from the President of the United States detailing why an international law enforcement arm assisting a court we are not a signatory to has been elevated above our Constitution upon our soil.
Tuesday, December 22, 2009
BBC Blood Libels
[this item has nothing to do w/ Obama]
BBC Feeding Anti-Semitic Lies to Iranians [Tom Gross]
On Sunday, I noted that the British media’s slandering of Israel has gone further than ever and is no longer limited to leftist papers, like the Independent and the Guardian, but is now common in more conservative ones, such as the Times, the Daily Telegraph, and the Financial Times.
(This sensationalistic photo, of unknown origin, is highlighted on the BBC Persian website.)
In the last two days, the British print media have gone further, digging up a story from 15 years ago about an Israeli doctor who transplanted minor organs, like corneas and skin tissue, from dead Israelis — mainly Jewish Israelis, but also a few Arab ones — to suggest to readers that Israel is now, as a matter of policy, harvesting the organs of live Palestinians.
Some countries — notably China, but not Israel — do remove live organs for transplant. There is scarcely a word about this in the British media. The Iran-backed Lebanese terror militia Hizbullah has been accused of harvesting the organs of Lebanese Christians, with hardly any investigation of this charge by the so-called human-rights groups of America and Europe.
This morning, the Guardian, unlike other British newspapers, apologized, writing:
We should not have put the headline “Israel admits harvesting Palestinian organs” on a story about an admission, by the former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv, that during the 1990s specialists at the institute harvested organs from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers without getting permission from the families of the deceased (21 December, page 15). That headline did not match the article, which made clear that the organs were not taken only from Palestinians. This was a serious editing error and the headline has been changed online to reflect the text of the story written by the reporter.
Yet as of Tuesday evening (Iran time), for a second day, the taxpayer-funded BBC Persian language service is continuing to highlight the outrageous anti-Semitic lie that Israel is harvesting the organs of Palestinians — on its home page here and in a story here.You do not see such garbage on Radio Farda, which is the U.S. government’s equivalent of BBC Persian.
BBC Persian is under the direct supervision of the British foreign office. Why British politicians and commentators (including those from the Conservative party) put up with it, is beyond me.Isn’t the Iranian regime serving up enough anti-Semitic hate on its own without the BBC joining in?
(Incidentally, many governments have considered using organs more than Israel does. For example, Britain, but the BBC hasn’t made a conspiracy theory out of that.)
BBC Feeding Anti-Semitic Lies to Iranians [Tom Gross]
On Sunday, I noted that the British media’s slandering of Israel has gone further than ever and is no longer limited to leftist papers, like the Independent and the Guardian, but is now common in more conservative ones, such as the Times, the Daily Telegraph, and the Financial Times.
(This sensationalistic photo, of unknown origin, is highlighted on the BBC Persian website.)
In the last two days, the British print media have gone further, digging up a story from 15 years ago about an Israeli doctor who transplanted minor organs, like corneas and skin tissue, from dead Israelis — mainly Jewish Israelis, but also a few Arab ones — to suggest to readers that Israel is now, as a matter of policy, harvesting the organs of live Palestinians.
Some countries — notably China, but not Israel — do remove live organs for transplant. There is scarcely a word about this in the British media. The Iran-backed Lebanese terror militia Hizbullah has been accused of harvesting the organs of Lebanese Christians, with hardly any investigation of this charge by the so-called human-rights groups of America and Europe.
This morning, the Guardian, unlike other British newspapers, apologized, writing:
We should not have put the headline “Israel admits harvesting Palestinian organs” on a story about an admission, by the former head of the Abu Kabir forensic institute near Tel Aviv, that during the 1990s specialists at the institute harvested organs from the bodies of Israeli soldiers, Israeli citizens, Palestinians and foreign workers without getting permission from the families of the deceased (21 December, page 15). That headline did not match the article, which made clear that the organs were not taken only from Palestinians. This was a serious editing error and the headline has been changed online to reflect the text of the story written by the reporter.
Yet as of Tuesday evening (Iran time), for a second day, the taxpayer-funded BBC Persian language service is continuing to highlight the outrageous anti-Semitic lie that Israel is harvesting the organs of Palestinians — on its home page here and in a story here.You do not see such garbage on Radio Farda, which is the U.S. government’s equivalent of BBC Persian.
BBC Persian is under the direct supervision of the British foreign office. Why British politicians and commentators (including those from the Conservative party) put up with it, is beyond me.Isn’t the Iranian regime serving up enough anti-Semitic hate on its own without the BBC joining in?
(Incidentally, many governments have considered using organs more than Israel does. For example, Britain, but the BBC hasn’t made a conspiracy theory out of that.)
ObamaCare:- Why the CBO score is misleading
Charles Krauthammer On the CBO score of the Senate health-care bill:
That CBO estimate is completely wrong, and when Obama cites it, he is being completely cynical.
Number one, the only reason it ends up with a surplus is because it strips out — well, it assumes that there will be cuts in reimbursements for doctors of 21 percent next year with no increase over a decade. It's 100 percent certain that is not going to happen, but it's in the bill because [there will be] will be a separate provision that will strip it out. So once you calculate that in, you're already in the red.
Secondly, and this is the most important, it supposedly costs $850 billion over ten years. But 98 percent of the costs of the bill are in the last six years. So it's a trick. If you actually look at real charges, you start in 2014 when the benefits kick in and you go out ten years, then the cost is not slightly under $1 trillion. It is $1.8 trillion or $2.5 trillion, which means it will blow an enormous hole in the deficit.
And everybody knows this. We heard Michael Steele say earlier, he's the head of the RNC, that these numbers are cooked because the head of the CBO was brought into the White House — I wish he hadn't said that, because that's not the reason. You don't have to corrupt the CBO. It's not. It's very honest.
You cook the books by presenting the assumption that the CBO is required to assume will happen — but what everybody understands is not going to happen. That's why the ostensible CBO number looks good. The real number is devastatingly in deficit. …
And: On the dealmaking with Sen. Ben Nelson to get the 60 votes:
That's what is so ironic about this. Remember the whole impetus of the bill was the moral imperative of insuring the uninsured, an act of compassion.
What Harry Reid is saying after he gets this monstrosity through the Senate is that if your senator[s] [were] uncorrupt in achieving it, they are going to suffer [politically] and they were naïve. . . .
I find it interesting how Lieberman was excoriated and Nelson was celebrated by the left, especially, and the Democrats. Look, if you want to hold out on a matter of principle or policy, as Lieberman did on the matter of the public option (saying it would be unaffordable), and you get it [the policy change) by holding up the process, that's called a deal. And that is a concession over a policy issue that applies to everybody in the country.
But what Nelson got — this unbelievable deal in which all the other states get three years of the federal government assuming the cost of extra Medicaid enrollees, but after that, all the other states have to chip in except Nebraska. It is the Nebraska exception. Now, that is simple corruption.
And yet what he does is countenanced as okay. In fact, Reid hails it as real good legislating, and what Lieberman did is excoriated as a betrayal. It shows you how the values of all this, which started out as a high-minded crusade on behalf of the unfortunate, [have] been twisted in a fairly radical way.
Obama's reckless release of GIMO Terrorists -- appalling
We Interrupt this Socialization of Medicine to Bring You an Abdication of Our National Defense . . . [Andy McCarthy]
Quite intentionally, the Obama administration is making so many radical moves on so many different fronts simultaneously that it's difficult to stay on top of them all, much less give them the attention they deserve. But while we argue health care and Iran policy and a civilian trial for KSM and the decision to transfer enemy combatants to a U.S. prison, it's important to notice how dangerously irresponsible the administration's obsession to close Gitmo has become, and how tawdry the Justice Department is allowing itself to appear.
Not content with the Friday bad-news dump, the administration announced on the Sunday before Christmas that it had transferred a dozen detainees out of Gitmo. On its face, this is alarming enough. The Bush administration, it is freely conceded, released many enemy combatants, including many who obviously should have been continued in detention and who have gone on to rejoin the jihad and commit horrific acts of terrorism. That's how we got from about 800 detainees down to about 200. But there's a big difference.
The original 800 included some marginal figures (to hear the Left tell it, all the detainees were shepherds indiscriminately swept up by the Northern Alliance to win bribe money from the CIA). But now we are down to a much smaller core group — detainees whose cases we've had years to study and whom we've held despite enormous pressure to release them. These are the worst of the worst. We have an absolute right under the laws of war to hold them, and when one of them gets sprung it's cause for grave concern.
But the release announced this past weekend is just appalling. The twelve detainees have been transferred to: Yemen, an al-Qaeda hotbed whose government makes common cause with jihadists (and has a history of allowing them to escape — or of releasing them outright); Afghanistan, which is so ungovernable and rife with jihadism that we're surging thousands of troops there (troops the jihadists are targeting); and Somaliland, which is not even a country, and which offers an easy entree into Somalia, a failed state and al-Qaeda safe-haven. At least one of the released terrorists, a Somali named Abdullahi Sudi Arale (aka Ismail Mahmoud Muhammad), was released notwithstanding the military's designation of him as a "high-value detainee" (a label that has been applied only to top-tier terrorist prisoners — and one that fits in this case given Arale's status as a point of contact between al-Qaeda's satellites in East Africa and Pakistan).
And then there is the appearance of impropriety. As Tom Joscelyn explains, the Justice Department has taken the lead role in making release determinations — the military command at Gitmo has "zero input" and "zero influence," in its own words. DOJ is rife with attorneys who represented and advocated for the detainees, and, in particular, Attorney General Holder's firm, represented numerous Yemeni enemy combatants. Does Justice not appreciate not only how perilous but how unseemly it appears under the circumstances for it to be leading the charge to release the Yemeni detainees? And could anyone really believe that the supposedly noxious symbolism of Gitmo is more dangerous to Americans than is deporting terrorists to the places where terrorism thrives?
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