« November 8, 2009 - November 14, 2009 | Main | November 22, 2009 - November 28, 2009 »
3 posts: (1) Salute to a Departed Hero: Lewis L. Millett--The Home Front; (2) Fixing Fort Hood's Diversity Delusion--9/11, 3/11 & N/11; (3) An Expert Warns: Possible Acquittal of 9/11's Mastermind--9/11, 3/11 7 N/11.
Special Post: My 11/18/09 Appearance on the Dennis Miller Show, discussing the planned NYC trial of 9/11 plotters.
November 20, 2009 in INDEX | Permalink | Comments (0)
Lewis L. Millett's LA Times obituary gives the stirring details of his storied military career. Among his countless decorations were the Distinguished Service Cross, the Silver Star, two Legions of Merit, three Bronze Stars, four Purple Hearts and three Air Medals.
But it is his Medal of Honor that tops the list. He won it for leading, during the Korean War, a bayonet charge up a hill that one prominent military historian called "the most complete bayonet charge by American troops since Cold Harbor"; that 1864 charge resulted in 7,000 Union troops falling in 20 minutes. But Millet's charge came when the machine-gun was commonly in use.
Read the astonishing story of an American hero, gone at 88 to the Valhalla reserved for true heroes.
November 20, 2009 in The Home Front | Permalink | Comments (0)
Ann Coulter can be over-the-top at times, as all provocateurs like to walk on the wild side, so to speak. But she can also hit the mark dead-on, and say (or write) what needs to be said about politically incorrect topics. Writing about the Fort Hood atrocity and saying that "diversity has jumped the shark" AC nails it. And she follows with a truism about diversity and society, that runs precisely opposite to what General Casey's "diversity is a strength" mantra:
It cannot be said often enough that the chief of staff of the United States Army, Gen. George Casey, responded to a massacre of 13 Americans in which the suspect is a Muslim by saying: "Our diversity ... is a strength."
As long as the general has brought it up: Never in recorded history has diversity been anything but a problem. Look at Ireland with its Protestant and Catholic populations, Canada with its French and English populations, Israel with its Jewish and Palestinian populations.
Or consider the warring factions in India, Sri Lanka, China, Iraq, Czechoslovakia (until it happily split up), the Balkans and Chechnya. Also look at the festering hotbeds of tribal warfare -- I mean the beautiful mosaics -- in Third World hellholes like Afghanistan, Rwanda and South Central, L.A.
"Diversity" is a difficulty to be overcome, not an advantage to be sought. True, America does a better job than most at accommodating a diverse population. We also do a better job at curing cancer and containing pollution. But no one goes around mindlessly exclaiming: "Cancer is a strength!" "Pollution is our greatest asset!"
Can diversity prove an asset at times? Sure. America's ethnic diversity gave us Navajo code-talkers in the Pacific Theater during World War II, chatting over battlefield radios in their native language and thus baffling Japanese code-breakers. But diversity politics inflicts great harm when it muzzles truthful discussion of the threat posed by militant Muslims, a threat not comparably posed by, for example, militant Jews. Yale Press refuses to publish the Danish 2006 Muhammad cartoons for fear of Muslim violence, thus undermining First Amendment freedom of speech and press. This is not good. The Flying Imams win a settlement from the airports & airlines, thus penalizing good-faith security concerns. (I discussed this case in my Monday LFTC posting; simply scroll down to the 11/16 posts below.).
And now, as AC notes, KSM will get the same panoply of constitutional and legal rights given American citizens--more, she notes, than given members of the US military who face military tribunals (which do, however, confer more due process rights than most Americans realize). But for this there is a remedy, which she captures perfectly:
Members of Congress have it in their power to put an end to this lunacy right now. If they don't, they are as complicit in Mohammed's civilian trial as the president. Article I, Section 8, and Article III, Section 1 of the Constitution give Congress the power to establish the jurisdiction of the lower federal courts and to create exceptions to that jurisdiction.
Congress could pass a statute limiting federal court jurisdiction to individuals not subject to trial before a military tribunal. Any legislator who votes "nay" on a such a bill will be voting to give foreign terrorists the same legal rights as U.S. citizens -- and more legal rights than members of the U.S. military are entitled to.
Bottom Line. It is not too late to stop manic diversity politics. If we do not do so, one day we will see a WMD Fort Hood, with a lot more than 13 dead and 42 wounded.
November 20, 2009 in 9/11, 3/11 & N/11: The Homeland | Permalink | Comments (0)
The following essay on the impending terror trial of Khalid Shekih Muhammad, is reprinted by permission from Stratfor. It is the first essay I have seen that raises the prospect that the United States may actually fail to convict 9/11's mastermind, due to the huge hurdles the American criminal justice system erects. It bears close reading.
Deciphering the Muhammad Trial
By George Friedman
November 16, 2009
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder has decided that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed will be tried in federal court in New York. Holder’s decision was driven by the need for the U.S. government to decide how to dispose of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay, a U.S. Naval base outside the boundaries of the United States selected as the camp in which to hold suspected al Qaeda members.
We very carefully use the word “camp” rather than prison or prisoner of war camp. This is because of an ongoing and profound ambiguity not only in U.S. government perceptions of how to define those held there, but also due to uncertainties in international law, particularly with regard to the Geneva Conventions of 1949. Were the U.S. facility at Guantanamo a prison, then its residents would be criminals. If it were a POW camp, then they would be enemy soldiers being held under the rules of war. It has never really been decided which these men are, and therefore their legal standing has remained unclear.
The ambiguity began shortly after 9/11, when then-U.S. President George W. Bush defined two missions: waging a war on terror, and bringing Osama bin Laden and his followers to justice. Both made for good rhetoric. But they also were fundamentally contradictory. A war is not a judicial inquiry, and a criminal investigation is not part of war.
An analogy might be drawn from Pearl Harbor. Imagine that in addition to stating that the United States was at war with Japan, Franklin Roosevelt also called for bringing the individual Japanese pilots who struck Hawaii to justice under American law. This would make no sense. As an act of war, the Japanese action fell under the rules of war as provided for in international law, the U.S. Constitution and the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). Japanese pilots could not be held individually responsible for the lawful order they received. In the same sense, trying to bring soldiers to trial in a civilian court in the United States would make no sense. Creating a mission in which individual Japanese airmen would be hunted down and tried under the rules of evidence not only would make no sense, it would be impossible. Building a case against them individually also would be impossible. Judges would rule on evidence, on whether an unprejudiced jury could be found, and so on. None of this happened, of course — World War II was a war, not a judicial inquiry.
It is important to consider how wars are conducted. Enemy soldiers are not shot or captured because of what they have done; they are shot and captured because of who they are — members of an enemy military force. War, once launched, is pre-emptive. Soldiers are killed or captured in the course of fighting enemy forces, or even before they have carried out hostile acts. Soldiers are not held responsible for their actions, but neither are they immune to attack just because they have not done anything. Guilt and innocence do not enter into the equation. Certainly, if war crimes are in question, charges may be brought; the UCMJ determines how they will be tried by U.S. forces. Soldiers are tried by courts-martial, not by civilian courts, because of their status as soldiers. Soldiers are tried by a jury of their peers, and their peers are held to be other soldiers.
International law is actually not particularly ambiguous about the status of the members of al Qaeda. The Geneva Conventions do not apply to them because they have not adhered to a fundamental requirement of the Geneva Conventions, namely, identifying themselves as soldiers of an army. Doing so does not mean they must wear a uniform. The postwar Geneva Conventions make room for partisans, something older versions of the conventions did not. A partisan is not a uniformed fighter, but he must wear some form of insignia identifying himself as a soldier to enjoy the conventions’ protections. As Article 4.1.6 puts it, prisoners of war include “Inhabitants of a non-occupied territory, who on the approach of the enemy spontaneously take up arms to resist the invading forces, without having had time to form themselves into regular armed units, provided they carry arms openly and respect the laws and customs of war.” The Geneva Conventions of 1949 does not mention, nor provide protection to, civilians attacking foreign countries without openly carrying arms.
The reasoning behind this is important. During the Franco-Prussian war, French franc-tireurs fired on Prussian soldiers. Ununiformed and without insignia, they melded into the crowd. It was impossible for the Prussians to distinguish between civilians and soldiers, so they fired on both, and civilian casualties resulted. The framers of the Geneva Conventions held the franc-tireurs, not the Prussian soldiers, responsible for the casualties. Their failure to be in uniform forced the Prussians to defend themselves at the cost of civilian lives. The franc-tireurs were seen as using civilians as camouflage. This was regarded as outside the rules of war, and those who carried out such acts were seen as not protected by the conventions. They were not soldiers, and were not to be treated as such.
Extending protections to partisans following World War II was seen as a major concession. It was done with concerns that it not be extended so far that combatants of irregular forces could legally operate using their ability to blend in with surrounding civilians, and hence a requirement of wearing armbands. The status of purely covert operatives remained unchanged: They were not protected under the Geneva Conventions. Their status remained ambiguous.
During World War II, it was U.S. Army practice to hold perfunctory trials followed by executions. During the Battle of the Bulge, German commandos captured wearing U.S. uniforms — in violation of the Geneva Conventions — were summarily tried in field courts-martial and executed. The idea that such individuals were to be handed over to civilian courts was never considered. The actions of al Qaeda simply were not anticipated in the Geneva Conventions. And to the extent they were expected, they violated the conventions.
Holder’s decision to transfer Khalid Sheikh Mohammed to federal court makes it clear that Mohammed was not a soldier acting in time of war, but a criminal. While during times of war spies are tried as criminals, their status is precarious, particularly if they are members of an enemy army. Enemy soldiers out of uniform carrying out reconnaissance or espionage are subject to military, not civilian, justice, and frequently are executed. A spy captured in the course of collecting information is a civilian, particularly in peacetime, and normally is tried as a criminal with rules of evidence.
Which was Mohammed? Under the Geneva Conventions, his actions in organizing the Sept. 11 attacks, which were carried out without uniforms or other badges of a combatant, denies him status and protection as a POW. Logically, he is therefore a criminal, but if he is, consider the consequences.
Criminal law is focused on punishments meted out after the fact. They rarely have been preventive measures. In either case, they follow strict rules of evidence, require certain treatments of prisoners and so on. For example, prisoners have to be read the Miranda warning. Soldiers are not policeman. They are not trained or expected to protect the legal rights of captives save as POWs under the UCMJ, nor protect the chain of custody of evidence nor countless other things that are required in a civilian court. In criminal law, it is assumed that law enforcement has captured the prisoner and is well-versed in these rules. In this case, the capture was made without any consideration of these matters, nor would one expect such consideration.
Consider further the role of U.S. covert operations in these captures. The United States conducts covert operations in which operatives work out of uniform and are generally not members of the military. Operating outside the United States, they are not protected by U.S. law although they do operate under the laws and regulations promulgated by the U.S. government. Much of their operations run counter to international and national law. At the same time, their operations are accepted as best practices by the international system. Some operate under cover of diplomatic immunity but carry out operations incompatible with their status as diplomats. Others operate without official cover. Should those under unofficial cover be captured, their treatment falls under local law, if such exists. The Geneva Conventions do not apply to them, nor was it intended to.
Spies, saboteurs and terrorists fall outside the realm of international law. This class of actors falls under the category of national law, leaving open the question of their liability if they conduct acts inimical to a third country. Who has jurisdiction? The United States is claiming that Mohammed is to be tried under the criminal code of the United States for actions planned in Afghanistan but carried out by others in the United States. It is a defensible position, but where does this leave American intelligence planners working at CIA headquarters for actions carried out by others in a third country? Are they subject to prosecution in the third country? Those captured in the third country clearly are, but the claim here is that Mohammed is subject to prosecution under U.S. laws for actions carried out by others in the United States. And that creates an interesting reciprocal liability.
The fact is that international law has not evolved to deal with persons like Mohammed. Or more precisely, most legal discussion under international law is moving counter to the Geneva Conventions’ intent, which was to treat the franc-tireurs as unworthy of legal protection because they were not soldiers and were violating the rules of war. International law wants to push Mohammed into a category where he doesn’t fit, providing protections that are not apparent under the Geneva Conventions. The United States has shoved him into U.S. criminal law, where he doesn’t fit either, unless the United States is prepared to accept reciprocal liability for CIA personnel based in the United States planning and supporting operations in third countries. The United States has never claimed, for example, that the KGB planners who operated agents in the United States on behalf of the Soviet Union were themselves subject to criminal prosecution.
A new variety of warfare has emerged in which treatment as a traditional POW doesn’t apply and criminal law doesn’t work. Criminal law creates liabilities the United States doesn’t want to incur, and it is not geared to deal with a terrorist like Mohammed. U.S. criminal law assumes that capture is in the hands of law enforcement officials. Rights are prescribed and demanded, including having lawyers present and so forth. Such protections are practically and theoretically absurd in this case: Mohammed is not a soldier and he is not a suspected criminal presumed innocent until proven guilty. Law enforcement is not a practical counter to al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan. A nation cannot move from the rules of counterterrorism to an American courtroom; they are incompatible modes of operation. Nor can a nation use the code of criminal procedures against a terrorist organization operating transnationally. Instead, they must be stopped before they commit their action, and issuing search warrants and allowing attorneys present at questioning is not an option.
Therefore — and now we move to the political reality — it is difficult to imagine how the evidence accumulated against Mohammed could enter a courtroom. Ignoring the methods of questioning, which is a separate issue, how can one prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt without compromising sources and methods, and why should one? Mohammed was on a battlefield but not operating as a soldier. Imagine doing criminal forensics on a battlefield to prove the criminal liability of German commandos wearing American uniforms.
In our mind, there is a very real possibility that Mohammed could be found not guilty in a courtroom. The cases of O.J. Simpson and of Jewish Defense League head Rabbi Meir Kahane’s killer, El Sayyid Nosair — both found not guilty despite overwhelming evidence — come to mind. Juries do strange things, particularly amid what will be the greatest media circus imaginable in the media capital of the world.
But it may not be the jury that is the problem. A federal judge will have to ask the question of whether prejudicial publicity of such magnitude has occurred that Mohammed can’t receive a fair trial. (This is probably true.) Questions will be raised about whether he has received proper legal counsel, which undoubtedly he hasn’t. Issues about the chain of custody of evidence will be raised; given that he was held by troops and agents, and not by law enforcement, the chances of compromised evidence is likely. The issue of torture will, of course, also be raised but that really isn’t the main problem. How do you try a man under U.S. legal procedures who was captured in a third country by non-law enforcement personnel, and who has been in military custody for seven years?
There is a nontrivial possibility that he will be acquitted or have his case thrown out of court, which would be a foreign policy disaster for the United States. Some might view it as a sign of American adherence to the rule of law and be impressed, others might be convinced that Mohammed was not guilty in more than a legal sense and was held unjustly, and others might think the United States has bungled another matter.
The real problem here is international law, which does not address acts of war committed by non-state actors out of uniform. Or more precisely, it does, but leaves them deliberately in a state of legal limbo, with captors left free to deal with them as they wish. If the international legal community does not like the latter, it is time they did the hard work of defining precisely how a nation deals with an act of war carried out under these circumstances.
The international legal community has been quite vocal in condemning American treatment of POWs after 9/11, but it hasn’t evolved international law, even theoretically, to cope with this. Sept. 11 is not a crime in the proper sense of the term, and prosecuting the guilty is not the goal. Instead, it was an act of war carried out outside the confines of the Geneva Conventions. The U.S. goal is destroying al Qaeda so that it can no longer function, not punishing those who have acted. Similarly the goal in 1941 was not punishing the Japanese pilots at Pearl Harbor but destroying the Japanese Empire, and any Japanese soldier was a target who could be killed without trial in the course of combat. If it wishes to solve this problem, international law will have to recognize that al Qaeda committed an act of war, and its destruction has legal sanction without judicial review. And if some sort of protection is to be provided al Qaeda operatives out of uniform, then the Geneva Conventions must be changed, and with it the status of spies and saboteurs of all countries.
Holder has opened up an extraordinarily complex can of worms with this decision. As U.S. attorney general, he has committed himself to proving Mohammed’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt while guaranteeing that his constitutional rights (for a non-U.S. citizen captured and held outside the United States under extraordinary circumstances by individuals not trained as law enforcement personnel, no less) are protected. It is Holder’s duty to ensure Mohammed’s prosecution, conviction and fair treatment under the law. It is hard to see how he can.
Whatever the politics of this decision — and all such decisions have political dimensions — the real problem faced by both the Obama and Bush administrations has been the failure of international law to evolve to provide guidance on dealing with combatants such as al Qaeda. International law has clung to a model of law governing a very different type of warfare despite new realities. International law must therefore either reaffirm the doctrine that combatants who do not distinguish themselves from noncombatants are not due the protections of international law, or it must clearly define what those protections are. Otherwise, international law discredits itself.
November 20, 2009 in 9/11, 3/11 & N/11: The Homeland | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 19, 2009 in INDEX | Permalink | Comments (0)
Last week Israel seized a ship carrying weapons clearly intended for Hezbollah, sent by Iran to be transshipped via Syria. Included were 3,000 Katyusha rockets, nearly equal to the 4,000 rockets fired by Hezbollah into Israel during the 2006 Israel - Hezbollah War. This parallels the 2002 shipment on the Karine-A, that caused President Bush to end engagement with Yasser Arafat. Team Obama shows no signs of following this path. Talking with our enemies, no matter what they do, remains the order of the diplomatic day.
Also watch this 4-minute video from Mideast maven Yoram Ettinger on why all Arab-Israeli wars over the past 61 years were fought without regard to the Palestinians. This demolishes the diplomatic shibboleth dear to Foggy Bottom and most American administrations, that the Palestinian problem lies at the root of the Arab-Israeli conflict.
Bottom Line. As for what is the Mideast's main national security problem, the message for American leaders is: "It's IRAN, Stupid!"
November 19, 2009 in Us v. Them: Whose World Is It, Anyway? | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 19, 2009 in "It's The Earth Stupid!" - Economy, Ecology, Etc. | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 18, 2009 in INDEX | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 18, 2009 in Turtle Bay Tortoise: UN Follies | Permalink | Comments (0)
Begin with this CBS-TV interview excerpt with NY State governor David Patterson, courtesy of James Taranto's Best of the Web, followed by Taranto's commentary on what Governor Patterson said:
Paterson also said that the White House warned him six months ago this very situation would happen.
Whoa, hold on a second, Governor? The White House told you six months ago that they were going to put your constituents through this? Gee, thanks for letting us know.
Here's a question: If the White House made up its mind about this six months ago--that would be in May, roughly four months after President Obama's inauguration--why did it wait until last week to make the announcement? That it was the week after an election is bound to raise suspicions that the timing was politically motivated.
Wall Street Journal pundit Bret Stephens captures the mess that the New York 9/11 Khalid Sheikh Muhammad terror trial will create, and suggests a wonderful remedy that, alas, will never be carried out:
I have long thought it would be a good idea to bring 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and his accomplices to lower Manhattan. In my concept, the men would be taken by helicopter to a height of about 1,000 feet over Ground Zero and pushed out the door, so that they, too, could experience what so many of their victims did in the awful final flickering seconds of their lives.
And since al Qaeda intended the attacks as a spectacle for the benefit of its would-be recruits, I'd give al Jazeera the exclusive TV rights.
Ex-Bush 43 speechwriter William McGurn sees a KSM trial giving al-Qaeda incentives to target Americans here, and thus gain more legal protection that fighting Marines abroad. Sarah Palin slammed Team Obama's decision to try the 9/11 masterminds in New York as "atrocious" and sees criminal defense attorneys & defendants having a file day manipulating the American legal system. The media are in full legal mode, on the reportorial side, with even the Wall Street Journal front-pager calling the defendants "alleged" 9/11 plotters, a real-world must due to possible libel suits. Our judges might well be foolish enough to allow such suits, despite the plotters having confessed already in open court, because those confessions will surely be challenged as involuntary come the trial.
Bush 43 national security lawyer John Yoo sees an intelligence windfall for al-Qaeda likelyin the 9/11 trial. He harks back to what happened during the World Trade Center I trial in the 1990s:
Now, however, KSM and his co-defendants will enjoy the benefits and rights that the Constitution accords to citizens and resident aliens—including the right to demand that the government produce in open court all of the information that it has on them, and how it got it.
Prosecutors will be forced to reveal U.S. intelligence on KSM, the methods and sources for acquiring its information, and his relationships to fellow al Qaeda operatives. The information will enable al Qaeda to drop plans and personnel whose cover is blown. It will enable it to detect our means of intelligence-gathering, and to push forward into areas we know nothing about.
This is not hypothetical, as former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy has explained. During the 1993 World Trade Center bombing trial of Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman (aka the "blind Sheikh"), standard criminal trial rules required the government to turn over to the defendants a list of 200 possible co-conspirators.
In essence, this list was a sketch of American intelligence on al Qaeda. According to Mr. McCarthy, who tried the case, it was delivered to bin Laden in Sudan on a silver platter within days of its production as a court exhibit.
Bin Laden, who was on the list, could immediately see who was compromised. He also could start figuring out how American intelligence had learned its information and anticipate what our future moves were likely to be.
Jeremy Rabkin, legal ace, sees human rights advocates using KSM's case as a cause if capital punishment is sought. The NRO editors capture perfectly the absurdity of putting the 9/11 ringleaders on trial in New York, within blocks of the fruits of their atrocity of September 11, 2001:
It is difficult to quantify how dangerously foolish this course is. As they demonstrated in offering to plead guilty while bragging about their atrocities, KSM and his cohorts don’t want a trial so much as they want a soapbox to press their grievances against the United States and the West. With no real defense to the charges, they will endeavor to put America on trial, pressing the court for expansive discovery of government intelligence files. Having gratuitously exposed classified information on interrogation tactics and other sensitive matters in order to pander to Obama’s base, the Justice Department will be in a poor position to argue against broad disclosure, even if it were so inclined. As the court orders more and more revelations, potential intelligence sources and foreign spy services will develop even graver doubts about our capacity to keep secrets. They will reduce their intelligence cooperation accordingly, and the nation will be dramatically more vulnerable.
Moreover, the transfer of the worst al-Qaeda prisoners into the U.S. will grease the skids for many, if not most, of the remaining 200-plus Gitmo terrorists to be moved here. This will be the worst of all possible outcomes. These are trained terrorists who have been detained under the laws of war, but most of whom cannot be tried because the intelligence on them cannot be used in court. We are still holding them because they are deadly dangerous and because no other country is willing to take them off our hands. Once inside the United States, they will indisputably be within the jurisdiction of the federal courts — which are staffed by judges predisposed against wartime detention without trial. As long as the terrorists were at Gitmo, those judges were reluctant to order them released into the U.S. — a transfer that would violate federal law. If the terrorists are already here, though, judges will not be as gun-shy. Inevitably, some will be freed to live and plot among us.
The Obama Left delusionally argues that running these risks will make us safer. The international community will see how enlightened we are, the fable goes. The hostility of America’s enemies will melt away. They’ll lay down their bombs and stop attacking us. As observed by former attorney general Michael Mukasey — who presided over terrorism cases as a federal judge — “We did just that after the first World Trade Center bombing, after the plot to blow up airliners over the Pacific, and after the embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania. In return, we got the 9/11 attacks and the murder of nearly 3,000 innocents.”
The WSJ editors see horrors ahead:
Mr. Holder expressed confidence that KSM and the rest will be convicted, but it is telling that he also delayed filing formal charges. Will KSM be formally charged with the 9/11 murders, or merely with "material support" for terrorism or some lesser offense? The specific charges may depend on how much evidence is admissable in a civilian courtroom. The MCA allowed for the reality that much of the evidence against enemy combatants may be classified, and it allowed for some hearsay evidence on grounds that they have been picked up on a battlefield, not in Brooklyn. There is no CSI: Kandahar. A civilian court has far tighter rules of evidence.
KSM and his co-conspirators so far have refused legal counsel and at one point tried to plead guilty. They may again. But an army of self-declared defenders of human rights from Yale Law and Shearman & Sterling will clamor to represent them. Those lawyers are certain to challenge all evidence obtained after KSM's March 2003 capture on grounds that it was produced by "torture," if you call waterboarding torture.
As he said at a hearing in 2007, "I was responsible for the 9/11 operation from A to Z." But even that admission will probably be challenged on grounds that the trauma of his "torture" means he wasn't capable of "informed consent." Oh, and once he got to Gitmo in 2006, he may not have been read his Miranda rights in full. The possibility exists that one or more of these detainees could be acquitted on procedural grounds, which would be a travesty of justice.
One certain outcome is that an open civilian trial will provide valuable information to terrorists across the world about American methods and intelligence. Precisely because so much other evidence may not be admissable, prosecutors may have to reveal genuine secrets to get a conviction. Osama bin Laden learned a lot from the 1995 prosecution in New York of the "blind cleric" Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman for the first World Trade Center attack. His main tip was that the U.S. considered bin Laden a terrorist co-conspirator, leading him to abandon his hideout in Sudan for Afghanistan.
Also at NRO, Andy McCarthy sees a more sinister motive: A-G Eric Holder and his boss want to get CIA secrets into public view by using the disclosures sure to be ordered as part of a criminal trial on US soil.
Bottom Line. Team Obama's decision was, in the words of the 19th century French statesman Talleyrand, "worse than a crime, it was a blunder." Legalism has driven us back, not to September 10, 2001, but to 1993 and the first World Trade Center bombing, after which we took a law enforcement approach. And we know where that led.
November 18, 2009 in 9/11, 3/11 & N/11: The Homeland | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 17, 2009 in INDEX | Permalink | Comments (0)
The New York Times reported Sunday that investigators are studying the "tangle pf clues" in the Fort Hood shooter's history to see if Nidal Malik Hassan is a terrorist or deranged nut case or both. Charles Krauthammer eviscerates the excuses offered to keep voters from seeing the Fort Hood Massacre as an act of domestic terrorism committed by a jihadist:
Have we totally lost our moral bearings? Nidal Hasan (allegedly) cold-bloodedly killed 13 innocent people. His business card had his name, his profession, his medical degrees and his occupational identity. U.S. Army? No. "SoA" -- Soldier of Allah. In such cases, political correctness is not just an abomination. It's a danger, clear and present.
Consider the Army's treatment of Hasan's previous behavior. NPR's Daniel Zwerdling interviewed a Hasan colleague at Walter Reed about a hair-raising grand rounds that Hasan had apparently given. Grand rounds are the most serious academic event at a teaching hospital -- attending physicians, residents and students gather for a lecture on an instructive case history or therapeutic finding.
I've been to dozens of these. In fact, I gave one myself on post-traumatic retrograde amnesia -- as you can see, these lectures are fairly technical. Not Hasan's. His was an hour-long disquisition on what he called the Koranic view of military service, jihad and war. It included an allegedly authoritative elaboration of the punishments visited upon nonbelievers -- consignment to hell, decapitation, having hot oil poured down your throat. This "really freaked a lot of doctors out," reported NPR.
Nor was this the only incident. "The psychiatrist," reported Zwerdling, "said that he was the kind of guy who the staff actually stood around in the hallway saying: Do you think he's a terrorist, or is he just weird?"
Was anything done about this potential danger? Of course not. Who wants to be accused of Islamophobia and prejudice against a colleague's religion?
Ralph Peters is even more blunt in blaming P.C. for failure to perceive the danger:
This was a terrorist act. When an extremist plans and executes a murderous plot against our unarmed soldiers to protest our efforts to counter Islamist fanatics, it's an act of terror. Period.
When the terrorist posts anti-American hate speech on the Web; apparently praises suicide bombers and uses his own name; loudly criticizes US policies; argues (as a psychiatrist, no less) with his military patients over the worth of their sacrifices; refuses, in the name of Islam, to be photographed with female colleagues; lists his nationality as "Palestinian" in a Muslim spouse-matching program and parades around central Texas in a fundamentalist playsuit -- well, it only seems fair to call this terrorist an "Islamist terrorist."
But the president won't. Despite his promise to get to all the facts. Because there's no such thing as "Islamist terrorism" in ObamaWorld.
And the Army won't. Because its senior leaders are so sick with political correctness that pandering to America haters is safer than calling terrorism "terrorism."
And the media won't. Because they have more interest in the shooter than in our troops -- despite their crocodile tears.
Frank Gaffney adds more telling detail on warning signs ignored. Claudia Rosett finds President Obama's use of the word "incomprehensible in his Fort Hood speech, well, incomprehensible:
Now comes Obama's formulation that the deaths at Fort Hood make no sense because they did not come on "a foreign field of battle." This sounds oddly quaint in an age when the battles more than ever before are global and involve a war of ideas, which enemies of America have already projected into the heart of a slew of American communities. To be sure, near the end of his speech Obama--as he is wont to do--then said the opposite of his opening remark, mentioning "a world of threats that know no borders." That does not erase the garble with which he began.
In the media, the question of the hour is how the military could have missed the warning signs of Hasan's impending attack. Such details are important, and it would be a great idea to have better mechanisms (or any mechanisms at all?) within the military to catch the warning signs and act in time. But vigilance of that kind starts at the top. Right now the biggest warning sign of all is a president who looks at a pattern of jihadi communications, recruiting and attacks on America, and tells the public that the bloodshed at Fort Hood is "incomprehensible." Not for the first time, the system is blinking red.
Mark Steyn sees "a jihadist hiding in plain sight":
The truth is, we're not prepared to draw a line even after he's gone ahead and committed mass murder. "What happened at Fort Hood was a tragedy," said Gen. Casey, the Army's chief of staff, "but I believe it would be an even greater tragedy if our diversity becomes a casualty here." A "greater tragedy" than 14 dead and dozens of wounded? Translating from the original brain-addled multicult-speak, the Army chief of staff is saying that the same fatuous prostration before marshmallow illusions that led to the "tragedy" must remain in place. If it leads to occasional mass murder, well, hopefully it can be held to what cynical British civil servants used to call, during the Northern Irish "Troubles", "an acceptable level of violence." Fourteen dead is evidently acceptable. A hundred and forty? Fourteen hundred? I guess we'll find out.
"Diversity" is one of those words designed to absolve you of the need to think. Likewise, a belief in "multiculturalism" doesn't require you to know anything at all about other cultures, just to feel generally warm and fluffy about them. Heading out from my hotel room the other day, I caught a glimpse of that 7-Eleven video showing Major Hasan wearing "Muslim" garb to buy a coffee on the morning of his murderous rampage. And it wasn't until I was in the taxi cab that something odd struck me: He is an American of Arab descent. But he was wearing Pakistani dress – that's to say, a "Punjabi suit," as they call it in Britain, or the "shalwar kameez," to give it its South Asian name. For all the hundreds of talking heads droning on about "diversity" across the TV networks, it was only Tarek Fatah, writing in The Ottawa Citizen, who pointed out that no Arab males wear this get-up – with one exception: Those Arab men who got the jihad fever and went to Afghanistan to sign on with the Taliban and al-Qaida. In other words, Maj. Hasan's outfit symbolized the embrace of an explicit political identity entirely unconnected with his ethnic heritage.
Mr. Fatah would seem to be a genuine "multiculturalist": That's to say, he's attuned to often very subtle "diversities" between cultures. Whereas the professional multiculturalist sees the 7-Eleven video and coos, "Aw, look. He's wearing ... well, something exotic and colorful, let's not get hung up on details. Celebrate diversity, right? Can we get him in the front row for the group shot? We may be eligible for a grant."
The brain-addled "diversity" of Gen. Casey will get some of us killed, and keep all of us cowed. In the days since the killings, the news reports have seemed increasingly like a satirical novel that the author's not quite deft enough to pull off, with bizarre new Catch-22s multiplying like the windmills of your mind: If you're openly in favor of pouring boiling oil down the throats of infidels, then the Pentagon will put down your e-mails to foreign jihadists as mere confirmation of your long-established "research interests." If you're psychotic, the Army will make you a psychiatrist for fear of provoking you. If you gun down a bunch of people, within an hour the FBI will state clearly that we can all relax, there's no terrorism angle, because, in our over-credentialized society, it doesn't count unless you're found to be carrying Permit #57982BQ3a from the relevant State Board of Jihadist Licensing.
Dan Henninger sees P.C. as part of the problem, but points to simple confusion as the culprit for not seeing the shooter for the threat he posed:
The most-heard reason for the possible failure is political correctness. No doubt. But Sen. Lieberman's committee should avoid making this its main line of inquiry, because that is a problem without a policy fix. It minimizes the real problem.
The problem is confusion. The combatants at each end of the spectrum in the war over the war on terror know exactly what they think about surveilling suspected terrorists. But if you are an intel officer or FBI agent tasked with providing the protection, what are you supposed to make of all this bitter public argument? What you make of it is that when you get a judgment call, like Maj. Hasan, you hesitate. You blink.
Now everyone thinks the call was obvious. But it wasn't so obvious before the tragedy. Not if for years you have watched a country and its political class in rancorous confusion about the enemy, the legal standing of the enemy, or the legal status and scope of the methods it wants to use to fight the enemy.
In war, uncertainty gets you killed. It just did.
Bottom Line. Fort Hood places P.C. in the spotlight. If voters figure out what the Feds & the Army ignored, there will be Hell to pay, and P.C. will be on the run. If they fall for the deranged psycho excuse, P.C. will win another round.
November 17, 2009 in 9/11, 3/11 & N/11: The Homeland | Permalink | Comments (0)
November 16, 2009 in INDEX | Permalink | Comments (0)
Recently SecState Hillary Clinton offered her thoughts on principles to guide nuclear nonproliferation policy. She recognizes that the current nonproliferation regime is in peril:
Recent developments underscore the threat. The international community failed to prevent North Korea from developing nuclear weapons. Iran continues to ignore resolutions from the U.N. Security Council demanding that it suspend its enrichment activities and live up to its international obligations. Too much of the world's nuclear material remains vulnerable to theft or diversion, even as illicit state and nonstate networks engage in sensitive nuclear trade. And as we saw with the failure to detect Iran's covert enrichment plant and Syria's reactor project, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) doesn't have the tools to carry out its verification mission effectively.
If we do not reverse this trend and strengthen the international nonproliferation regime, we will find ourselves in a world with a steadily growing number of nuclear-armed states, and an increasing likelihood of terrorists getting their hands on nuclear weapons.
She also noted that President 44's goal of ultimate total nuclear abolition (a goal shared by every President who has held office in the Atomic Age) is a long way off:
As the president has acknowledged, we might not achieve the dream of a world without nuclear weapons in our lifetime. But by making the reduction of nuclear threats one of our highest national priorities and by reaching out to a diverse group of international partners, we can help build and lead a unified international effort that will make us safer and stronger.
Where she falls down--as does the President--is with the idea that America and other nuclear-armed states must lead by example in reducing their existing stockpiles:
To improve our standing to build broad international support for pursuing these means of strengthening the nonproliferation regime, the United States and the other nuclear-armed powers should fulfill their own obligation to reduce their nuclear stockpiles.
The problem with this is simply put: (1) America's nuclear weapons stockpile peaked in 1967; (2) the former Soviet Union's nuclear weapons stockpile peaked around 1980; (3) the other four major powers--Russia, Great Britain, France & China, which are the only signatory parties entitled to keep nuclear weapons under the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), subject only to a "good faith' effort to ultimately fully disarm--are now modernizing, and in some cases, increasing, their nuclear weapons inventory.
These issues are superbly analyzed in detail in "Nuclear Disarmament, Nonproliferation and the 'Credibility' Thesis" (September 2009, 19 pages), a superb white paper by Hudson Institute scholar Christopher Ford, who held a senior State Department arms control post in the prior administration. Ford addresses in detail the thesis that America has failed to lead by example. In fact, as American and Russian disarmament accelerated after the signing of the INF Treaty in December 1987, the first arms treaty in which the signatories agreed to eliminate an entire class of weapons (Intermediate-Range Ballistic Missiles and cruise missiles based in Europe)--proliferation efforts accelerated elsewhere.
Worse, while we argue the above domestically and with our allies, an Iran-Venezuelan axis of nuclear evil is emerging in the southern hemisphere. A second Cuban Missile Crisis may yet be in our future. Iran maven Ruy Takeyh sees Iran using the nuclear issue to shield its rulers from human rights pressure, and thus preserve the regime and its perceived legitimacy. SO on the 30th anniversary of Iran's taking our embassy, President Obama avows not to "intervene in Iran's internal affairs"--code-speak for ignoring repression at all costs. WSJ editors note that, plus the contempt Obama has earned from the democratic opposition:
But the opposition's dreams of American support, moral as much as anything, have been dashed. Mr. Obama was slow and reluctant to speak out on their behalf and eager to engage the Iranian regime in nuclear talks as soon as the summer of protest tapered off. Iran's democrats are now letting their disappointment show. The new chant passed around in Internet chat rooms and heard in the streets yesterday was, "Obama, Obama—either you're with them or with us."
Knowing the opposition was planning to march, Mr. Obama issued his own statement the night before that instead chose to reach out to the regime. America, he said, "seeks a relationship with the Islamic Republic of Iran based upon mutual interest and mutual respect. We do not interfere in Iran's internal affairs." He went on to list the Administration's various efforts to appease the regime. So far and on all counts, the mullahs have rebuffed these entreaties.
Bottom Line. Embracing mythic history of the Atomic Age can lead us dangerously astray. Instead of almost obsessively focusing on further superpower disarmament we must focus on emerging rogue proliferators, and not deceive ourselves into believing that by "setting an example" the world's most dangerous regimes will follow. The contrary is far more likely. For the world's worst proliferators there is but one viable solution: regime change.
November 16, 2009 in Wobble Watch: Amiss Amis/US | Permalink | Comments (0)
This Weekly Standard piece on how the infamous "flying Imams" won a settlement against defendant airlines and the Minneapolis Airport authority shows that the lessons of 2001 have not been fully learned in the West. I will not summarize the 2-pager, but simply note that it details that a fool federal judge dismissed as meritless the unanimous opinions of 15 law enforcement officers that sufficient reason existed to remove the 6 imams from the flight they boarded. Read the article and weep.
Then weep some more, by reading in full an op-ed former Attorney-General Judge Michael Mukasey, who presided over trials of terrorists in the 1990s and knows full well the holes in the criminal justice system. The good judge explains how the plea bargain Justice reached with Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri, one of Khalid Sheikh Muhammad's accomplices, caught in the US collecting data for possible WMD attacks in a second wave after 9/11, exposes America to possible grave harm. Citing what he termed excessive detention in the Charleston naval facility, the trial judge handed down a light sentence, to a defendant the judge knows is a terrorist and fully realized might resume terror activities upon being released.
Judge Mukasey recounts this perfectly:
Marri's time in the brig at Charleston apparently was substantially responsible for the judge's decision to impose even less than the 15-year maximum "in order to reflect respect for the law and reflect just punishment." The judge rejected Marri's attempt to portray himself as a lackey -- "that would be an insult to your intelligence and to the commitment you made when you came here as a sleeper agent for al Qaeda" -- and acknowledged that it "remains to be seen" whether Marri would resume that commitment after he was released, but added that "we are defined as a people by how we deal with difficult and unpopular legal issues."
Unlike lightning, Lawfare can strike twice in the same place (in this case, the Judiciary).
November 16, 2009 in 9/11, 3/11 & N/11: The Homeland | Permalink | Comments (0)
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