Andrew McCarthy is noting an anniversary today.
This is June 2008. That means it marks the ten-year anniversary of Osama bin Laden’s indictment.
He was first charged by my old office, the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, in June 1998. That was before the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Kenya and Tanzania (hundreds killed), before the bombing of the U.S.S. Cole (17 U.S. members of the U.S. Navy killed), and before 9/11 (nearly 3000 Americans killed). So it’s fair to ask: How is that strategy of prosecuting him in the criminal-justice system working out?
Barack Obama claims that we “we were able to arrest those responsible [for the 1993 WTC bombing], put them on trial. They are currently in U.S. prisons, incapacitated”. That is not true. Several people who we knew were responsible were not apprehended. At least one of the people who planned the bombing is still at large. Another one, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, was only apprehended (as McCarthy notes) after he attempted to kill well over 10,000 Americans on 9/11. His apprehension happened only because the Bush administration stopped treating Islamist killers like shoplifters but as enemies in a war they declared and started.
The truth is that we have treated Islamists the way that Barack Obama insists we treat them. We investigated them like criminals. We gave them access to our court systems. We sought indictments and asked very nicely for the governments of the countries where they hid to give them to us so we could try them with all the Constitutional rights of an American arrested for some minor offense. The result has been thousands upon thousands of dead Americans. This is not conjecture. This is, as McCarthy details, fact.
So why in the world would going back to that make any sense at all? What can Barack Obama show us that would give us reason to believe that things would be different? Yelling “change” to an adoring crowd isn’t enough. We need more than that. Lives are at stake.
(Image via the FBI)
Whoever the next prez is will have to abide by the recent SCOTUS ruling, even McCain, so I dunno what your yakking about. Frankly, I’m surprised that you are basically favoring methods that have been declared unconstitutional, period.
I’m not sure I buy into this rationale. Highlighting instances of failure doesn’t prove that the overall strategy is a failure. It must be viewed in totality. Otherwise, one could argue that a hockey coach is inept by pointing out 3 losses in a season that ended in a 50-3 record. You learn from the losses and adapt and improve, and not necessarily toss out the entire game plan.
Chen, the system we had before this recent SCOTUS decision worked. The problem was that before 9/11, we were not acting as if we were at war.
The problem with Obama’s approach is that law enforcement is reactive. Criminal law can not apply until a law has been broken. That’s pretty much the whole point behind what George Bush has been doing. In war, you’re allowed to attack your enemy before your enemy kills a few thousand civilians. In criminal law, you try to catch him after the fact.
Unfurtunately, SCOTUS has thrown in its lot with folks like Obama who believe that we should extend these Islamists unprecedented rights because if we do, the world will magically love us.
Bush should promptly designate the Gtmo prisoners as POWs. That way, they can legally be held until the conflict is ended. Since there is no government with which we can sign a cesssation of hostilities, that means as long as we want. I predict that if he did this, all of those who have been protesting the status of illegal combatants will immediately respond by declaring them to be _not_ POWs.
Jimmie and suek-
You’ve highlighted the problem I have with this whole thing. When you say we’re “at war” and we should do something until “the conflict has ended”, perhaps we should define the enemy and the conflict first, because “War on Terror” addresses neither. It’s not a war, it’s a catchphrase. What the SCOTUS did was a step forward, in that they favored a mechanism that would determine whether these people we’re holding are “the enemy” or not.
Not really, Chen.
For instance, we have one clear definition, thanks to Osama bin Laden’s declaration of war on us in (I believe) 1998. That put his group openly at war with us.
Now, we can say with great certitude that the groups with which al-Qaeda has been closely and frequently aligned are also likewise at war with us. We can say that because those groups frequently swap personnel, money, and equipment.
After 9/11, President Bush said that we would expand our policy toward fighting the war already declared against us to include nations that were materially supporting Islamist groups. He allowed that we would give those nations the benefit of the doubt by giving them ample time to expel Islamist groups from their borders, or at least ask for some help from us if they couldn’t do it themselves (which, by the way, is where Pakistan is right now).
What SCOTUS did was to place this entire conflict back in the realm of criminal law, where President Clinton and everyone before him had it. They then went farther and granted those who are clearly illegal combatants according to the Geneva Conventions rights beyond even those of rightful POWs and American citizens convicted of a misdemeanor. Further, they negated their earlier instruction that Congress and the President should create a military tribunal system that would handle these cases in an ongoing consistent manner (which they did).
History is clear. Treating Islamists who are trying to kill us like criminals no different from a car thief did not work. It cost thousands of lives over two decades. What else would you suggest we try?
J: “Unfurtunately [sic], SCOTUS has thrown in its lot with folks like Obama who believe that we should extend these Islamists unprecedented rights because if we do, the world will magically love us.”
The unprecedented part was the degree of stripping anyone of habeus corpus, a bedrock legal principle for hundreds of years in our tradition. No one expects terrorists to love us for it.
I’m not sure how I can have an intelligent conversation with you when you say things like this. Illegal combatants have never, ever had habeus corpus rights in this country until the recent SCOTUS decision before this one. Never. You can not show me a time in US history when they have. SCOTUS precident before this year has been not to grant that right to illegal combatants, starting with Ex Parte Quirin.
In fact, we have tried and executed illegal combatants in the past without court interference because the judicial branch has rightly held that the prosecution of war is not in their purview. This court has decided otherwise for the first time in our history.
You can not strip what someone has never had.
J: “Illegal combatants have never, ever had habeus corpus rights… You can not strip what someone has never had.”
They had that right unless they were given an equivalent via military tribunal. SCOTUS said the equivalent we offered them didn’t cut the mustard.
The ABA said of Quirin: “The Quirin case, however, does not stand for the proposition that detainees may be held incommunicado and denied access to counsel; the defendants in Quirin were able to seek review and they were represented by counsel.”
In any case, just get over it. I got over Bush v. Gore’s 5-4 decision.
No, spoots, they did not. You are simply wrong.