Brennan is responding to criticism of the mirandizing of Abdulmutallab, which dammed up what was looking to be a useful source of information. They're doing a good job, he insists, and critics are just playing into the hands of the jihadists. But the increase in jihad activity in the U.S. belies his words.
"Opposing view: 'We need no lectures,'" by John Brennan, the Assistant to the President and Deputy National Security Advisor for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism, in USA Today, February 9:
Politics should never get in the way of national security. But too many in Washington are now misrepresenting the facts to score political points, instead of coming together to keep us safe.Immediately after the failed Christmas Day attack, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab was thoroughly interrogated and provided important information. Senior counterterrorism officials from the White House, the intelligence community and the military were all actively discussing this case before he was Mirandized and supported the decision to charge him in criminal court.
The most important breakthrough occurred after Abdulmutallab was read his rights, a long-standing FBI policy that was reaffirmed under Michael Mukasey, President Bush's attorney general. The critics who want the FBI to ignore this long-established practice also ignore the lessons we have learned in waging this war: Terrorists such as Jose Padilla and Saleh al-Mari did not cooperate when transferred to military custody, which can harden one's determination to resist cooperation.
It's naive to think that transferring Abdulmutallab to military custody would have caused an outpouring of information. There is little difference between military and civilian custody, other than an interrogator with a uniform. The suspect gets access to a lawyer, and interrogation rules are nearly identical. [...]
This administration's efforts have disrupted dozens of terrorist plots against the homeland and been responsible for killing and capturing hundreds of hard-core terrorists, including senior leaders in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and beyond -- far more than in 2008. We need no lectures about the fact that this nation is at war.
Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda. Terrorists are not 100-feet tall. Nor do they deserve the abject fear they seek to instill. They will, however, be dismantled and destroyed, by our military, our intelligence services and our law enforcement community. And the notion that America's counterterrorism professionals and America's system of justice are unable to handle these murderous miscreants is absurd.
Sure. They can't name them, they can't call them what they are, they don't dare to discuss what they believe, they won't try to learn anything about what their motives or goals might be, but they can handle them. Sure. Trust Brennan. After all, his record is so sterling.
Politically motivated criticism respecting how to deal with Islamic supremacist designs occurred on a regular basis by Democrats during the Bush Administration. Many Democrats made extremely critical and even vile statements about Bush's handling of the enormous problem America has on its hands because Islam is such a pain in the ass for free peoples everywhere. Whether, as examples, it was the very existence of Gitmo (which Obama said would be closed within a year of his Presidency, which of course hasn't happened and won't for a long time to come), the Patriot Act, the policy of rendition (which continues to this day it should be noted) or going into Iraq "for oil" (arguably the single most misleading characteriztion of Bush's reasons for going into Iraq in 2003), Democrats politicized their criticism of Bush again and again. Wonder if John Brennan would be honest enough, man enough, to admit this were he asked. I kind of doubt it.
One would feel possibly just a little confidence in such people as Brennan if they stopped hiring Muslims as their confidants and advisers, in the army and outside, and if instead of this constant, manic focus on something they call Al Qaeda, and on terrorism, they were also to let us know that they regard with alarm, and are intent on countering, all the other instruments of Jihad. What do they know of Jihad who only terrorism know?
Brennan does not inspire confidence. Few of those dealing with this matter, in either this administration, nor in the previous one, do. And as members of the public read their daily dose of the Jihad News, and begin to educate themselves, about both the ideology of Islam, and the history of Islamic conquest over the past 1350 years, and become far better prepared than, for example, Mr. Brennan gives any outward and visible sign so far of being, they begin to lose patience with those who, like these egregious john-brennans, presume to instruct us, and so far, have not shown that they are alarmed about the situation for non-Muslims all over the world, and especially in the historic heart of the West, Western Europe. Brennan might say that all this is beyond the immediate task he was assigned, that to worry aloud about the persecution/prosecution of Geert Wilders, for example, is for him ultra vires.
No, it isn't.
You know that idiotic word "holistic" that has become fashionable, and is used by people who do not know what it might possibly mean, but think it means something, more or less, as if it were spelled "wholistic" -- in the round, whole, covering all angles and all bases and all everything.
Well, Brennan needs to take a holistic, wholistic, thoroughly many-sided approach, in order to connect the most obvious and attention-getting instrument of Jihad, terrorism, with all the other instruments of Jihad that are not alternatives to it, but merely other arrows in the quiver of adherents of Islam.
Those who cannot do that should cease to take -- what's that other idiotic phrase, since now is an appropriate time to use those idiotic phrases -- yes, I have it, "a leadership role."
Basta.
Politics should never get in the way of national security.
But the willfully ignorant and delusional imaginings of an elite just too obstinately effete to confront cold hard reality? That should, even must, get in the way of national security. We've got this obfuscatory rhythm down as well as you all, we see it coming every time now.
*** 92:8 ***
Because otherwise it'd be just too uncomfortable for all of us. Like the willfully ignorant Bill O'Reilly, Brennan's protecting the American people, the folks, from what we probably would rather not hear, for our own good. As with Janet Reno and Bill Clinton in Oklahoma City.
*** 8:12 ***
Brennan and O'Reilly? A disgrace to the Irish race, both of them.
I get very tired of this administration trying to define the terms of an argument and limit my free speech on this or any other subject.
I totally agree with Wellington, on who is calling the kettle black. They all politically posture. This current administration more the the previous ones. I am convinced just like the enemy they filter everything to there advantage. And distort the truth or out right lie.
I am getting the distinct impression that this spokesman is saying "Don't question our motives we know what we are doing and you don't." I have heard this before on other issues that this country is facing. It is not fooling the intelligences of the American public.
"Brennan's protecting the American people, the folks, from what we probably would rather not hear, for our own good. As with Janet Reno and Bill Clinton in Oklahoma City."
And Janet and Bill, again, in Waco.
I agree, its not the obvious terrorists that are letting the blood of the civilized world that concern me, although their work is costing this planet dearly. I am more concerned with the Ummah that sets the stage and cover for these obvious acts and all the miriad of other activities. There are over a billion supporting actors who are also eager to play starring roles at the appropriate time. These are the Ummah and their blind non-Muham accomplices that get elected to political office; are hired for critical positions in law enforcement and national security; those that purchase pieces of America through loans; those that gag dissent; those that promote multiculturalism as a means of introducing wolves into the sheep fields; those that wear veils as sign posts along the road to sharia; those that remain ignorant with know-it-all attitudes and can't properly digest healthy criticism; those that do not know their assholes from grassholes; those that promote Muham immigration and those that give clearance to this enemy invasion force; elected officials that conned their way into office with little or no talent for the positions that they hold; etc. 'Every' Muham has their role to play in trying to make sure that Muhammadenism is the only religion on the planet by giving their lives and wealth toward this cause.
More self marginalizing fluff in an attempt to bash the Obama administration.
What is Brennan's record? You make no mention of it. Why the sarcasm and innuendo that his record is poor and he is untrustworthy? Do you really believe that the increase in jihadist activity is due to treating the captured bad guys in the criminal justice system and reading them their Miranda rights? Get serious! The evidence is to the contrary.
What is inaccurate about the substance of Brennan's remarks? They are on point and true.
We all know Islam eats shit, but it doesnt help to mobilize the uneducated masses to engage in self marginalizing Obama bashing. Stay focused on spreading the truth about Islam. You will lose credibility if you dilute your message with too large a dose of domestic politics.
I understand that Abu Muttalab has been giving information again--since his MUSLIM family came to visit him in prison. This is offered in the interests of fairness, although it speaks better of a Nigerian businessman than of the current American administration.
But the posters here have put their fingers on a very serious problem we are facing in the USA: the politicization of national security. Left-Democratic rankling over the election of 2000 never abated, skewed discussion and views of the terrorist threat after the Bush administration found it had to face such a thing, and continues today.
However, I'm sure the Obama administration will keep us very safe from conservative Christians!
Politically motivated criticism and unfounded fear-mongering only serve the goals of al-Qaeda. Terrorists are not 100-feet tall."
"Unfounded fear-mongering" is bad -- who could disagree? But there isn't nearly enough justified worry, based on intelligent attention to, what is happening through deployment of the Money Weapon, campaigns of Da'wa, and demographic conquest, by Muslims, throughout the Western world, and especially in the nations of Western Europe. How much attention is Brennan giving, for example, to demographic changes in Western Europe, demands by Muslims for changes in the legal and political institutions, social arrangements, even schooling, demands that, even if often turned down, keep on being made, and have no end but, by the logic of Islam, must forever continue to be made?
From an article by Daniel Foster at nationalreviewonline:
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R., Mich.) is pushing back on Obama counter-terror chief John Brennan’s claim that he briefed the House Intellgence Committee’s ranking Republican on the legal status of Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab.
Brennan told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that Hoekstra and other top Congressional Republicans were told on Christmas Day that the Detroit bomber was in FBI custody, and should have known that he would therefore be read his rights according to Miranda.
But Hoekstra tells National Review Online that it would have been unreasonable to infer any such thing from his phone call with Brennan, which was brief and carried over an unsecured line.
“He never brought this stuff up,” Hoekstra says, adding that the FBI was the natural choice to hold Abdulmutallab until a detainment and interrogation strategy could be settled. “No, I wouldn’t expect the military to be at Detroit Airport waiting to arrest somebody,” Hoekstra adds, but he thought the administration would carefully investigate alternatives and consult with national security principals before moving forward with Miranda rights and other criminal procedures.
Hoekstra, the leading voice of Congressional concerns about the administration’s lack of clear procedures for targeting American-born terrorists for assassination abroad, says Brennan’s comments showed him he would have to exhaustively document what Congress knew and when.
“After Brennan’s comments on Sunday, we will document very, very clearly that we haven’t been briefed,” on Obama’s rules for killing American terrorists abroad, he says. “We haven’t been told what the procedures are, and we don’t want Brennan saying, ‘We told the Republicans that there were bad people out there, well of course they should have known that we would target them.’”
“The guy has completely blown his credibility with Congress,” Hoekstra says of Brennan, who “for all intents and purposes is calling us liars.”
“With the advice that he’s given this administration, he has dug this administration into a hole on terrorism. I can understand why he’s fighting back, because they’ve made a series of missteps,” he continued, mentioning unpopular plans to close Guantanamo Bay prison and try 9/11 conspirators in downtown New York, as well as gaffes made by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano in hours after the Christmas Day attacks.
“They’re in trouble, and they know it. So they use the most effective strategy we know of: ‘let’s blame Republicans and call them partisan.’”
Rep. Peter Hoekstra (R., Mich.)is one of the few who get, l have heard him many times on WJR in Detroit. he plans on running for Mich gov. better he work for feds when GOP takes over Obambi.
A poster above assumes that this site engages in "self marginalizing" by attacking Brennan. I wonder if he has visited this site long enough to know how much criticism of the Bush Administration -- of the deadliest, most unanswerable kind - has appeared at this site, as has criticism of the "Bush loyalists" who keep defending the folly of Iraq, and the messianic sentimentalism of bringing "freedom" to "ordinary moms and dads" in the Middle East. No one 'scapes whipping here.
He asks if "you [those who comment at JW] really believe that the increase in jihadist activity is due to treating the captured bad guys in the criminal justice system and reading them their Miranda rights?"
Some comments on this last sentence:
1. The very phrase "bad guys" is an example of the infantile phrases that are now in use, even in the military, to avoid using words that might implicate Islam, or Muslims. The implication is, too, that there are just a discreet number of these "bad guys" who have no organic connection to all the others, presumably to be called the "good guys" (you all, all those "good" Muslims in Iraq and Pakistan and Afghanistan who are our natural friends, and show it every day, as they help so determinedly to wipe out the "bad guys."
2. The use of the term "bad guys" also feeds into, supports, the idea that these are merely criminals, discete violators of the law, to be dealt with in the criminal courts, and applying all the procedural guarantees and rigmarole that American citizens, in criminal trials, have been given. But this is a false view of these people. They are not merely criminals, but agents of an ideology that happens to transcend national borders, which is why some have difficulty grasping the threat, and thinking of them as engaged in a war. We think: we go to war against Germany, or Japan. That we understand. But this is a war against Jihad, and Jihad is a concept that is part of Islam, a central duty imposed on all Muslims, to engage in the struggle to fight the Infidels, whenever they refuse to yield to Islam, or the demands of Muslims, that is wherever those Infidels constitute an obstacle to the spread, and then the dominance, of Islam. Such an obstacle can be, for example, Freedom of Speech. Or it could be seen, by Muslims, as a foreign policy insufficiently subservient to the demands of Muslims. Or it could be a refusal to change our own laws and customs to accommodate Muslim demands. Or it could be the perfectly justifiable security arrangements we are putting in place on the world's airlines, because of Muslim terrorists, terrorists impelled by Islam.
Ordinary criminals are ordinarily impelled by individual desire, not by a sense of fulfilling a duty imposed by a Total Belief-System. The man who robs a bank, who mugs someone, who kills for gain -- that is a criminal. The man who kills his wife, for the sake of a youthful mistress (or the cougar-wife for a younger lover), offers another variant -- the person who kills in order to rid himself of an impediment to his personal happiness, or so he may think. You can offer another hundred variants. These are crimes.
But those conducting Jihad are conducting a war, and should not be afforded the rights that we have developed, over time -- and possibly gone way overboard in our procedural niceties -- for the American system of criminal justice, which, by the way, is far more solicitous of the "rights of the accused" -- dangerously so, many may think -- than are the systems in other major advanced democracies.
Why should someone who is not an American citizen, who committed his crime while flying in a plane tens of thousands of feet above the United States, and whose first contact with our soil was when the plane landed, and he was handcuffed and arrested, be read what you blandly call "his Miranada rights"? Why should this non-citizen be entitled to Miranda rights at all? On what theory?
We will NOT shut up.
A VISITOR FROM THE PAST
(Thelen Paulk)
I had a dream the other night, I didn't understand.
A figure walking through the mist, with flintlock in his hand.
His clothes were torn and dirty, as he stood there by my bed.
He took off his three-cornered hat, and speaking low, he said:
"We fought a revolution, to secure our liberty.
We wrote the Constitution, as a shield from tyranny.
For future generations, this legacy we gave.
In this, the land of the free and the home of the brave.
"The freedom we secured for you, we hoped you'd always keep.
But tyrants labored endlessly while your parents were asleep.
Your freedom gone, your courage lost, you're no more than a slave.
In this, the land of the free and home of the brave.
"You buy permits to travel, and permits to own a gun,
Permits to start a business, or to build a place for one.
On land that you believe you own, you pay a yearly rent.
Although you have no voice in choosing, how the money's spent.
"Your children must attend a school that doesn't educate.
Your Christian values can't be taught, according to the state.
You read about the current news, in a regulated press.
You pay a tax you do not owe, to please the I.R.S.
"Your money is no longer made of Silver or of Gold.
You trade your wealth for paper, so your life can be controlled.
You pay for crimes that make our Nation, turn from God in shame.
You've taken Satan's number, as you've traded in your name.
"You've given government control, to those who do you harm,
So they can padlock churches, and steal the family farm,
And keep our country deep in debt, put men of God in jail,
Harass your fellow countrymen, while corrupted courts prevail.
"Your public servants don't uphold the solemn oath they've sworn.
Your daughters visit doctors, so their children won't be born.
Your leaders ship artillery, and guns to foreign shores,
And send your sons to slaughter, fighting other people's wars.
"Can you regain the freedom for which we fought and died?
Or don't you have the courage, or the faith to stand with pride?
Are there no more values for which you'll fight to save?
Or do you wish your children, to live in fear and be a slave?
"People of the Republic, arise and take a stand!
Defend the Constitution, the Supreme Law of the Land!
Preserve our Great Republic, and GOD-Given Right!
And pray to GOD, to keep the torch of Freedom burning bright!"
As I awoke he vanished, in the mist from whence he came.
His words were true, we are not Free, we have ourselves to blame.
For even now as tyrants, trample each GOD-Given Right,
We only watch and tremble, too afraid to stand and fight.
If he stood by your bedside, in a dream, while you're asleep,
And wonders what remains of our Rights he fought to keep,
What would be your answer, if he called out from the grave:
"IS THIS STILL THE LAND OF THE FREE AND HOME OF THE BRAVE???"
Enfin un site français avec des vidéos de Robert Spencer sous-titrées, à voir absolument si vous êtes francophone!
http://www.avraidire.eu/tag/robert-spencer/page/2/
Required reading for anyone who wants to learn about the politicalization of the fight against jihad terror is Jane Mayer's piece in the Feb 15 online edition of the New Yorker magazine. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/02/15/100215fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all#ixzz0egGBsAjO
Reading this article will provide infinitely keener insight into the issues, legal and non-legal, than one may obtain here. You may even begin to question the angry, but atypically unscholarly, opinions that struggle unsuccessfully here to pass as facts.
It might also be of interest to some that back in 2005 when Sen. John McCain added a rider to a defense spending bill to require interrogations of captured enemy combatants to conform to the US Army Field Manual on Intelligence Interrogation, it was supported by no less than 30 Generals and Admirals (all retired for the obvious reason that any current officer would be drummed out of the service for bucking Bush, I mean Cheney). In a letter dated Oct 3 , 2005 ( see as http://www.humanrightsfirst.info/us_law/etn/pdf/mccain-100305.pdf) these officers (not a traitor among them) decried the torture and inhumane treatement that took place in Guantanamo and other dark holes of rendition. They also probably knew that interrogation via torture just didn't work very well. It doesn't get good results. For an inside story from a CIA career anti-terror operative on how he and the CIA lied about the effectiveness of such extra-constituional procedures see the recently published memoirs of John Kiriakou described in the Feb 10 online edition of Foreign Policy magazine.http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/26/cia_man_retracts_claim_on_waterboarding?page=0,0
One of those Generals/Admirals supporting McCain's amendment was Brig Gen John McCullen. He is a retired JAG officer and he has recently opined that the military justice system would afford just about the same rights and processes to enemy combatants as would the criminal justice system. See http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/01/11/gop-criticism-of-obama-on_n_419203.html. In Cullen's expert opinion, Umar may even have been provided with an attorney sooner in a military process than he was in the criminal system.
Bush attempted to make an end run around the passage of the spending bill and McCain amendment by changing the text of the Army Field Manual to , among other things, eliminating restraints on certain types of interrogation techniques. Most legal scholars opined that the conduct that was authorized violated the various rules of war including the Geneva Conventions. In the only two fed court cases to examine the new Field Manual changes (Jose Padilla and Ali Saleh Khalah Al-Marri) the US Ct of Appeals held that the (new) precedures to which the two defendants were subjected were unconsitutional or unconstitutionally applied. Bush, I mean Cheney, decided he didn't need another public rebuke especially from a conservative Sup Ct. Both these defendants were then remanded to the criminal justice system and were convicted and imprisoned.
Lord knows the criminal justice system has been infinitely more successful in obtaining results against the bad guys than has the military justice system, which actually was quite seldom used by the Bush administration. See international law expert Scott Horton's Jan 12 Harpers magazine article on the comparisons - http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/26/cia_man_retracts_claim_on_waterboarding?page=0,0 - in which he cites the study undertaken by the NYU Law School's Center for Law and Security which published its report here, http://www.lawandsecurity.org/publications/TTRCHighlightsSept25th.pdf
Another insightful article by Mr.Horton on this very subject appears in the Feb 4 online edition of Harpers magazine. It, too, is required reading unless, of course, one doesn't care about the facts and justs wants to blather on about how bad Muslims are and how we are not using the right judicial process to overcome the problem. http://harpers.org/archive/2010/02/hbc-90006481. Mr Horton concludes: "The real worry is not that the Obama Administration has deviated from the course that the Bush-Cheney team set, but that it is more a prisoner of the past than it needs to be."
This Horton article contains a link to an extremely detailed letter from from Attny General Eric Holder to Senator Mitch McConnell who also publicly criticized the Obama Administration for opting to afford Umar constitutional protections ( including the Miranda warnings) by referring him into the criminal justice system. It is a must read.
In conclusion the truth appears to be:
1. Obama is continuing in the Bush tradition with respect to choosing between the military and criminal justice systems.
2. The criminal justice system is more efficient and gets better results. It also favorably distinguishes the US from the neanderthal Sharia law proponents against which it is pitted in world opinion.
3. The Republican bitching about how soft Obama is on captured bad guys because he doesn't use the military system is nonsense. It is just politic maneuvering.
4. Robert Spencer dilutes his important work by when he sets out to attack the Obama adminstration because it is soft on Islamic terror.
Link to Eric Holder letter to McConnell:
http://www.scribd.com/doc/26325635/Eric-Holder-letter-to-Mitch-McConnell-2-3-2010
Link to Foreign Policy article on Kiriakou
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2010/01/26/cia_man_retracts_claim_on_waterboarding?page=0,0
....."murderous miscreants"...
NOT!
ENEMY COMBATANTS!
In respones to Hugh's query whether I have been a reader of jihadwatch long enough to know of this site's harsh criticism of the folly (madness) of the Bush admninistration I answer as follows. I started reading Jihadwatch well before Obama was elected and I simply do not recall such venom having been directed at Bush or those in his administration. Not to say it didn't exist. I simply do not recall it. In any case, I reiterate my point that Robert Spencer and Hugh are diluting their message and thereby undermining their own cause when they engage in unreasoned Obama bashing and when they spout angry rhetoric associated more with the fringe right than with academic scholarship.
In response to Hugh's reiteration of the principle issue of this thread, i.e. the administration's decision to treat Umar within the criminal justice system and Brennan's response to Republican criticsm thereof, I submit a portion of Attny Gen Holder's letter to Sen Mitch McConnell.
http://www.scribd.com/doc/26325635/Eric-Holder-letter-to-Mitch-McConnell-2-3-2010
"Some have argued that had Abdulmutallab been declared an enemy combatant, the government could have held him indefinitely without providing him access to an attorney. But the government’s legal authority to do so is far from clear. In fact, when the Bush Administration attempted to deny Jose Padilla access to an attorney, a federal judge in New York rejected that position, ruling that Padilla must be allowed to meet with his lawyer. Notably, the judge in that case was Michael Mukasey, my predecessor as Attorney General. In fact, there is no court-approved system currently in place in which suspected terrorists captured inside the United States can be detained and held without access to an attorney; nor is there any known mechanism to persuade an uncooperative individual to talk to the government that has been proven more effective than the criminal justice system."
Scott Horton's Feb 4 piece in Harpers magazine deconstructs the phony arguments of the Republican Congressional critics of Brennan, Holder et al's approach to treating enemy combatants. http://harpers.org/archive/2010/02/hbc-90006481
The demagoguery in which these Congressional critics engage is a political ploy developed by Karl Rove as a Republican party tactic. If these hacks were not so concerned with winning elections and self-aggrandizement they would be more judicious in their criticism.
As for Hugh's curiously lengthy argument that the use of the term "bad guys" in reference to Islamic jihadists is an infantile mischaracterization, I plead: GUILTY as to Count 1 - which is using slang instead of saying "Islamic jihadists" or Islamic terrorists" or "neaderthal faith-based, supremacist, war-mongering motherfuckers." In my defense I really didn't think it would be necessary to be so literal at his site. Actually, I agree that the term tends to obfuscate the issues. It is Islam that is the bad guys.
In count 2 of his complaint against me Hugh amplifies his position. For him the bad guys - Islamic jihadists - are war combatants (he means unlawful enemy war combatants) and not "citizens' entitled to constitutional protections. He concludes his argument with the question:
Why should this non-citizen be entitled to Miranda rights at all? On what theory?
On what theory? The theory that we are a nation of laws. On the theory that, unlike our enemy, we believe in certain fundamental politcal and human rights. Rights that acknowledge the diginity of man and that have withstood the test of time. And upon the following legal theories which reflect our humanist values.
Hugh, for starters I suggest you read (reread?) the Eric Holder letter. Under applicable constitutional law Umar was questioned by the FBI without being read his Miranda rights pursuant to the public safety exception to the rule. Secondly, the US constituion affords certain rights, including the right against self incrimination, to PERSONS, not just citizens. This has been brought to your attention before so you need to keep that in mind unless, of course, you mean to argue that we should amend the US constitution. Do you?
As Holder explains in his letter to Sen McConnell the option to treat jihadists as unlawful enemy war combatants exists and the government may choose to adopt that approach and incarcerate. However, even if a jihadist is incarcerated as an enemy combatant (unlawful or otherwise), if he is going to be interrogated in connection with a criminal event, under current law he is entitled to certain constitutional rights including the Miranda warnings and access to a lawyer. As Holder and others point out, the criminal justice system has indisputably proven considerably more effective than the military justice system for gathering intelligence for use against the enemy.
I suppose people of good faith could argue that we should amend the constitution in order to be able to question suspected jihadist terrorists without ever giving them access to a lawyer. Of course, the devil would be in the details especially in cases where it isn't quite so clear as Umar's. Would citizens of the US also be exempt or just non-citizens? Would the diminished rights apply to all criminal cases or just those involving acts of terrorism? What constitutes the requisite level of evidence to trigger abandonment of traditional rights? How far would you be willing to go? Would the right not to self-incriminate also be revoked for this class of suspect? Are you in favor of enhanced interrogation aka torture? How about trial by ordeal ala the Salem witch trials or the Code of Hammurabi?
The bottom line is that enhanced interrogation techniques have not proven to be effective. See the Oct, 2005 letter from the military top brass I referred to above in which they concur. To amend the constutition to allow enhanced interrogation would be futile. Any marginal benefit in gathering intelligence would be offset by the encouragement it would give the enemy (we succeeded in causing a profound change!) and those critics of US conduct in world affairs. It is a bad idea.
Like anyone else in their right mind, I want the world to know that Islam is a threat to all people who want to maintain their freedom of religion, freedom of thought, freedom of expression, fredom from gender and sexual bigotry, etc. I also want world opinion to acknowledge that active steps must be taken to limit the spread of Islam. Hugh, I encourage you to spread the truth through your scholarship. Be judicious in your positions.
I thought I would reply to your comments, which I readily admit were well argued, though I am not as sanguine as you and others are about treating enemy combatants via the criminal justice system. I write in a spirit of friendliness and not polemically.
First, I would tell you that I have been posting here at Jihad Watch for years now and I can assure you that when Bush was President there were many, and I mean many, criticisms of him here at JW. Some of the criticism was actually quite vicious. Also, both Robert Spencer and Hugh Fitzgerald did not spare Bush whenever they thought he was conducting this war of wars we're in in an ill informed or faulty manner.
Second, I agree that Republicans are trying to score some political points (welcome to politics) in this most recent fracas over the jerk that tried to blow up that plane on Christmas Day over Detroit, but the same thing occurred, and plentifully, when Bush was President and Democrats regularly castigated Bush and his handling of the War on Terror on virtually a daily basis. Bush bashing by Democrats on most any issue, including Bush's conduct of the war, was so consistent that you might remember that by the last year or so of the Bush Presidency, the joke was going around that whenever ANYTHING happened it was, of course, Bush's fault. One particular example I remember of complete non-support of Bush's efforts in fighting the war in Iraq was when Senator Harry Reid of Nevada publicly stated that we had already lost the Iraq War (this came before the "surge" led by General Petraeus). Defeatism and the demoralization of the American troops in Iraq aside respecting this sorry-ass statement, this was said by Reid for political reasons too. Surely you won't deny this.
Third, whatever mistakes Bush made, he was not perceived as weak. Obama is. Even assuming that Obama is a strong and decisive leader (for the record, I don't think he is) in this war we are in against Islam and its more "enthusiastic" adherents, the perception is growing monthly that he is not a dynamic and tough President in this regard (or in any regard for that matter). And perception means a hell of a lot, both to friends and enemies. Obama, I would argue, conveys weakness, vacillation and bad decision making (e.g., signing an executive order two days into his Presidency to close Gitmo without having any alternative plan respecting what to do with ALL of the prisoners there------the fact that Gitmo remains open and will into the indefinite future just proves how unwise this decision of Obama's was).
Fourth, while Jihad Watch in not perfect and there are those who sometimes comment here frothing at the mouth, the large majority of regular commenters are very knowledgeable and thoughtful individuals. Some are extraordinarily so. Besides, even if some comments shouldn't have been made here at JW, this site stands as a beacon of what free speech really means and it attracts intelligent commentary on Islamic supremacist designs at least as well as any other site I know of. Quite frankly, I would rank it number one in this regard.
Thank you for reading what I have written and I welcome a response from you. My best to you and yours.
Thanks, Wellington. I'm with you. Let's not any of us make the mistake of letting our differences on some finer points prevent us from unifying on the main issues, to wit, exposing the totalitarian nature of Islam; and the need to address its spread through armed/stealth jihad and, ultimately, its existence as currently formulated.
It is in furtherance of those principle goals that occasionally I take the time to scribble some comments. I respect Robert Spencer's scholarship, but my concern is that when he and his colleagues deviate from the valuable task of educating us on the nature of Islam and get sidetracked into unreasoned Obama bashing they undermine their own cause. I wish Spencer would write less about such vacuous nonsense as how the Obama administration's decision to treat Umar within the criminal justice "dammed up what was looking to be a useful source of information" and more about the koranic verses and hadiths that demonstrate the totalitarian, supremacist, anti-humanistic nature of Islam and present day manifestations thereof.
It made my skin crawl when I dwelled on Fox news last night long enough to hear Chas Krautheimer excoriate Obama because Umar was Mirandized, totally ignoring the fact that prior to his appointment as Bush's own attorney general, Mike Mukasey ruled in the Jose Padilla case that enemy combatants are entitled to counsel even when held within the military justice system and, furthermore, totally ignoring the almost exclusive use of the identical approach to terrorists previously captured by the Bush team. I would prefer that Spencer not get caught up in the same demagogic misrepresentations as Fox or align with the likes of Michael Savage, Rush Limbaugh, et al, obnoxious loudmouths who may occasionally be on the correct side of an issue, but who have a negative net worth. That is not going to help him succeed in achieving his goals.
A corollary of the Obama bashing is the tendency to mock the "left", "leftwingers" et al. I oppose such generalizations and labels whether it be from the right or the left. Let's be issue specific. Let's refrain from labelling those on the other side of certain issues as cretins or unpariotic enemies of the country without well reasoned and articulated facts. Scholarship and overzealous ideology do not make good companions.
With respect to your observation re Repbulicans and Democrats politicizing the so-called war on terror, I think one needs to examine the equivalence of criticizing Bush's foreign policy e.g., invading Iraq based upon on an obviously fraudulent concoction of non-existent WMD and a non-existent Saddam-Al Qaida linkage, with criticism of some awkward measures to deal with the utterly ruinous fallout of that failed war policy. In my view Bush/Cheney/Feith/et al will prove to be the most incompetent administration in the history of this country. In other words criticism of Bush was not merely political maneuvering to the degree criticsm of Obama seems to be.
I can not explain Reid's comments except to note that a lot of elected officials make a lot of dumb statements. I would add that in my opinion (and I suspect it is shared by a few JW readers) the US ought to pull out all troops from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan asap and halt all aide to those governments. Redeploy the troops to Israel, set forth some non-negotiable guidelines within which Israel and the Palestinians must negotiate a peace accord, and use all our military power to enforce that agreement.
With respect to Obama's presidential abilities, I think it is too soon to reach any conclusions. Personally, I prefer a President that is smart, thoughtful and eloquent to one that is incredibly lacking in brains and gravitas and guided by born again religious fervor like his predecessor. As a neophyte in these matters I would agree that Obama and his team (most notably Rahm Emanuel) have not demonstrated the ability to create cross-party alliances within the Congress. I am not sure whether this should be attributed to a recalcitrant, no for no's sake, Republican minority seeking to flex its political muscle or Obama's inability to savvily negotiate or both.
With respect to the Guantanamo fiasco I refer you to Mayer's article in the New Yorker for an excellent blow by blow account of what occurred. http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2010/02/15/100215fa_fact_mayer?currentPage=all#ixzz0egGBsAjO
Lastly, JW is one of the first emails I open each morning. I often share its message with those in my mailbox who may be wondering why I have become so outspoken against Islam. Hopefully, they will find out.
There's a lot on this dish you provided. BTW, thanks for your response and your civility. Much appreciated. I would make the following points in reply.
First, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 made it a non-criminal matter for someone who violates the rules of war, which means that such a person is not entitled to go through the traditional criminal justice system but rather that he be handled by the military (including military tribunals), regardless of where the action takes place, here or abroad. One of the chief violations of an act of war is the deliberate attempt to harm civilians. This is exactly what the underwear bomber had in mind on Christmas Day. This was not mentioned in the New Yorker article you provided a link to, nor by Attorney General Holder. Stunning.
Second, I respectfully reject your assessment that Bush's going into Iraq chiefly because of Saddam Hussein's continued possession of WMDs was a fraudulent motive or reason. Every single major intelligence agency on the planet, including Mossad, thought that SH still had WMDs. SH had not been cooperative with UN inspection teams and it must be kept in mind that SH was the ONLY dictator in the world who had WMDs AND used them (e.g., on Kurds in northern Iraq). Bush had every reason to think that SH still had them and was hiding them. His own CIA director, George Tenet, said it was a "slam dunk" that WMDs would be found. To require any President to have 100% certainty before engaging in preemptive action against a treacherous enemy would be unrealistic in the extreme. I would argue that Bush had something in the area of an 80-90% certainty that SH was not coming clean on WMDs. This kind of certainty should be good enough for any President to act against an authoritarian, dictatorial, ruthless leader. Surely you can see that those who fault Bush now because WMDs were not found are engaging in a classic example of Monday morning quarterbacking.
Third, and finally, I must convey to you that it is my decided opinion that in the matter or overall intelligence, memory capacity, moral intelligence, toughness and common sense that Bush beats Obama hands down. I have come to the conclusion that Obama has the most overrated intellect in the Western world. His slip ups are all over the place, whether it be just last week mispronouncing "corpsmen," talking about the 57 states during the Presidential campaign, referring to the Nittany Lions as the "Nittaly Lions," confusing Veterans Day with Memorial Day (to a shocked collection of veterans in New Mexico back on Memorial Day of 2008) or stupidly saying (Obama's silly press secretary, Robert Gibbs, did too) just some two weeks ago that he has no doubt that KSM will be convicted in a court of law, thus setting up a situation whereby a judge could dismiss the entire criminal case on the basis that the POTUS had convicted a man, whom the law presumes to be innocent before found guilty, before the trial. And I must tell you here that I write this as a lawyer myself.
Well, thank you for the give and take. I have welcomed it. If you wish to respond again, I will welcome that too.
As an afterthought, I would recommend for your reading the work by Mark Thiessen (George Bush's chief speech writer), Courting Disaster: How the CIA Kept America Safe and How Barack Obama Is Inviting the Next Attack. It's a chilling account of Obama's cluelessness and also puts to rest many of the lies about such things as waterboarding (it's not torture, it is effective and it is used on thousands of American servicemen, like Navy Seals).
Obama has ceased the process of capturing Islamic terrorists and he has done away with the CIA interrogation program, which produced tremendous evidence thwarting dozens upon dozens of attacks. The mischaracterization of what went on under President Bush is detailed by Thiessen most thoroughly and convincingly. I think it may very well move you along to the conviction that we have a very naive individual right now as President and that the previous President was not nearly as awful as you think. The book only futher confirmed for me what I wrote to you before, which is that Bush is far shrewder, tougher, more realistic and smarter than Obama. But, of course, the truth is often elusive and things are often not what they appear to be. Remember, Washington, Truman, Eisenhower and Reagan were all thought to be slow-minded men during their presidencies but all are now ranked in the top ten of Presidents in most every respected poll (e.g., the Wall Street Journal survey on Presidents).
Even if the Military Commisions Act of 2006 says what you say it does, it does not REQUIRE that the unlawful enemy combatant be dealt with in the military system; however, if one is treated via the military system then under current law he is still entitled to consult with a lawyer. (See Holder letter. See opinion of Judge Makusay in the Padilla case).
Everyone (without a political agenda) agrees that the criminal justice system is much more effective in getting intelligence results than the military treatment of indefinite incarceration. That is why the Bush administration used it almost exclusively. Holder explained to McConnell that the option to use the military system for Umar existed, but that it was thought best to do what had worked well in the past. That seems reasonable to me and it has now proven to be the right decision.
Bush was a conniving liar who cooked the intelligence and/or allowed others (Cheney,Feith,Card -the War in Iraq team)to do so as the Downing St memo so clearly demonstrated. Sorry, but anyone who isn't aware of that lives in a dreamworld. That's exactly why old boy Georgie Tenet got the highest civilian medal! He allowed it to happen. He went along to get along. At least Colin Powell had the self respect to quit the administration after he was used as a dupe in his UN address in re WMD, yellow cake and the 16 words State of the Union fiasco. Lifetime professionals in the intelligence community were repeatedly ignored in favor of those with political agendas in order to cook the intellignece as per MI 5 's conclusions. In the first days following 9/11 invading Iraq was selected as the neocon strategy without regard to the real enemy -al Qaida, the leadership of which was allowed to escape from their known whereabouts thousands of miles away. I would not be surprised if history reveals that the reason Bush went along for this Cheney et al ride was to prove to himself and his dad (for whom my cousin was Budget Director) that he could do something better than his old man or perhaps to get back at the guy who tried to assasinate his dad years earlier. Bush either lied outright to the American people or with culpable recklessness allowed himself to be led down the garden path to unjustified and ill considered war. It is not a question of Monday morning quarterbacking. What do you read for your information?
You really think Bush's intellect compares to that of Obama's? The guy who won because he was the sort of fellow you would prefer to have a beer with? I won't bother to argue that or how history will treat Reagan. Nor will I further debate the Goebbels like blanket of propaganda that led us into the Iraq war and ultimately into the crent state of our economy.
As for the afterthoughts...I have not read the book by Bush's speech writer. Have you read the brief article in Foreign Policy magazine on Kiriakou's CIA revelations re the effectiveness of torture. What is the support for the claim that torture was effective? The military top brass in their Oct 2005 letter to McCain say it isn't. See http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2005/10/28/military_leaders_back_mccaingr/ in which they state in pertinent part:
"The abuse of prisoners hurts America's cause in the war on terror, endangers U.S. service members who might be captured by the enemy, and is anathema to the values Americans have held dear for generations. For many years, those values have been embodied in the Army Field Manual. The Manual applies the wisdom and experience gained by military interrogators in conflicts against both regular and irregular foes. It authorizes techniques that have proven effective in extracting life-saving information from the most hardened enemy prisoners. It also recognizes that torture and cruel treatment are ineffective methods, because they induce prisoners to say what their interrogators want to hear, even if it is not true, while bringing discredit upon the United States."
Are these warriors also acting counter to the bests interests of the nation?
We are miles apart in our politics. I am not so quick to condemn Obama for his leadership nor do I think he is a wimp when it comes to fighting terrorists. I hope his perspective on the relationship between terror and Islam matures so that he will be more effective. I think there has been a lot of misinformation spread - driven by political demagoguery.
Thanks again for your reply. Just a few quick points in no particular order.
First, relying upon something as spurious as the Downing Street Memo is not at all a good idea. It has been completely discredited. It's actually hearsay about hearsay, something that would never be admitted into a court of law.
Second, Bush didn't lie about the yellow cake matter and Niger. He repeated what the British told him they determined was the case. Even if what Joe Wilson (who really is a liar) said was true about SH not trying to get the yellow cake, all Bush repeated was what the British told him was so. That's not a lie, even if ultimately it didn't happen. And again I would mention that not a single major intelligence agency, not one, maintained that SH no longer had WMDs. Every major intelligence agency was of the opinion that he did. To this day, Mossad still holds to their contention that WMDs were spirited out of Iraq to Syria (perhaps with Russian help) shortly before Bush launched his invasion of that country in March of 2003. Besides, by SH's own admission after capture, he said that after he wore down the international community and UN sanctions were lifted, he was going to reconstitute his WMD stock.
Third, there is a difference between intensive interrogation and torture. Things like waterboarding and sleep deprivation are examples of the former and pulling finger nails out and cutting off tongues are examples of the latter. While John McCain does not want waterboarding, virtually all of his fellow POWs from Vietnam days, even though they admire McCain personally, have said that they think he is wrong on this. As for the effectiveness of intensive interrogation, I suggest you read Thiessen's book for a THOROUGH demolishing of what our own top brass and McCain have said about it.
Fourth, yes our politics are way apart but I still assert with vigor that Bush is a very intellligent, shrewd and tough man, though I don't deny that he made several mistakes. I remember back in the 2004 Presidential campaign when it came out that Bush scored higer on his military intelligence exam than the supposedly far brighter John Kerry. I actually brought the evidence in and showed it to some of the students I taught. Besides, Bush was a fighter pilot and there's no such thing as a dumb fighter pilot.
Finally, as for the effectiveness of criminal justice over military justice, I think the record has been skewed and again I would refer you to Thiessen's work. If you read the entire book, I can't believe you will have the same ideas about military justice, CIA interrogation under the Bush Administration and as high an opinion of Obama as you do now. I would add that KSM will probably end up being tried by a military commission and thus it will serve as a rebuke to Obama and Holder for attempting this folly in the first place.
I would close by stating that it's good to know that we do agree on the awfulness of Islamic supremacist designs. The Islamic theological blueprint is unlike that of any other major faith and it's not moderate Muslims who "get" Islam right but radicals who understand it correctly. Mohammed was a fraud and a brutal psychopath and Islam is exactly what Bertrand Russell (definitely a man on the Left and an atheist) said it was almost a century ago, to wit, the only major religion which is totalitarian in structure and ideology. Russell himself compared it to Marxism and fascism.