Asking The Bombers To Try Again

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  • subterFUSE
    Gold Gabber
    • Nov 2006
    • 850

    Asking The Bombers To Try Again

    By DICK MORRIS & EILEEN MCGANN

    Published in The New York Post on June 19, 2008.

    In an ABC interview on Monday, Sen. Barack Obama urged us to go back to the era of criminal-justice prosecution of terror suspects, citing the successful efforts to imprison those who bombed the World Trade Center in 1993.

    It was key to his attack on the Bush administration, which he charged, has "been willing to skirt basic protections that are in our Constitution . . . It is my firm belief that we can crack down on threats against the United States, but we can do so within the constraints of our Constitution. . .

    "In previous terrorist attacks - for example, the first attack against the World Trade Center, we were able to arrest those responsible, put them on trial. They are currently in US prisons, incapacitated."

    This is big - because that prosecution, and the ground rules for it, had more to do with our inability to avert 9/11 than any other single factor.

    Because we treated the 1993 WTC bombing as simply a crime, our investigation was slow, sluggish and constrained by the need to acquire admissible evidence to convict the terrorists.

    As a result, we didn't know that Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda were responsible for the attack until 1997 - too late for us to grab Osama when Sudan offered to send him to us in 1996. Clinton and National Security Adviser Sandy Berger turned down the offer, saying we had no grounds on which to hold him or to order his kidnapping or death.

    Obama's embrace of the post-'93 approach shows a blindness to the key distinction that has kept us safe since 9/11 - the difference between prosecution and protection.

    Pre-9/11, the priority was what it had always been - to identify the guilty, gather evidence to convict and punish them by imprisonment.

    Post-9/11, the goal changed - now it's to identify and frustrate any and all pending terrorist attacks.

    Should the effort to stop the attacks lead to arrests and provide enough admissible evidence to incarcerate or deport those responsible, fine. But gathering intelligence - not court-admissible evidence - lies at the core of the mission.

    So when we found Jose Padilla - a terrorist planning to build a dirty bomb and explode it in a populated area - we couldn't prosecute him for his plans. We had the evidence, but it hadn't come to us in a form that made it admissible in a criminal court. So we prosecuted him on lesser charges of aiding terrorists by providing them with funds and supplies - something for which we had sufficient admissible evidence.

    Would Obama require all our investigations to be conducted within the procedural framework needed to bring a criminal prosecution? That would slow our anti-terror efforts - fatally.

    It has before. Following Obama's logic, Attorney General Janet Reno and her deputy, Jamie Gorelick, ruled that evidence seized in an immigration prosecution couldn't be turned over to intelligence operatives investigating terrorism.

    The "Gorelick Wall" barred anti-terror investigators from accessing the computer of Zacarias Moussaoui, the 20th hijacker, already in custody on an immigration violation.

    He was taking flying lessons in Minneapolis at the time, so we wondered what he was up to. But we didn't look at his computer, and find the e-mail addresses and records of fund-transfers to each of the 9/11 hijackers - information that might well have prevented the attacks.

    Our constitutional protections are wonderful and shouldn't be abridged on any account. But the protections in the Fourth, Fifth and Sixth Amendments relate to prosecution under criminal law.

    Intelligence that doesn't lead to prosecution isn't covered. But Obama would cover it anyway. He'd require us all to proceed in the way we had to in the halcyon days after the 1993 World Trade Center bombing - procedures that led us to miss the point of what was going on, to fail to identify the real culprits until it was too late and left us unprepared for future attacks.
  • toasty
    Sir Toastiness
    • Jun 2004
    • 6585

    #2
    Re: Asking The Bombers To Try Again

    When I saw the thread title, I thought it was going to be about McCain's advisor's recent comment, where he literally more or less asked for another large-scale terrorist attack:

    On national security McCain wins. We saw how that might play out early in the campaign, when one good scare, one timely reminder of the chaos lurking in the world, probably saved McCain in New Hampshire, a state he had to win to save his candidacy - this according to McCain's chief strategist, Charlie Black. The assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December was an "unfortunate event," says Black. "But his knowledge and ability to talk about it reemphasized that this is the guy who's ready to be Commander-in-Chief. And it helped us." As would, Black concedes with startling candor after we raise the issue, another terrorist attack on U.S. soil. "Certainly it would be a big advantage to him," says Black.


    In fairness to McCain, he was not pleased about this comment at all.

    To the actual topic, though, I think this mischaracterizes Obama's position. As I understand his approach, it would favor actually prosecuting terror detainees as opposed to just having them hanging out in prison. That doesn't mean that there won't be aggressive efforts to collect intelligence or evidence on the front end, it has more to do with what we do after they've been captured.

    Comment

    • shosh
      Banned
      • Jun 2004
      • 4668

      #3
      Re: Asking The Bombers To Try Again

      toasty or jenks, please help me understand why terrorists should be treated fairly and have rights given to me. I am being very serious, I cannot wrap my mind around it.

      Comment

      • toasty
        Sir Toastiness
        • Jun 2004
        • 6585

        #4
        Re: Asking The Bombers To Try Again

        Originally posted by shosh
        toasty or jenks, please help me understand why terrorists should be treated fairly and have rights given to me. I am being very serious, I cannot wrap my mind around it.
        Well, for one thing, don't you have to make a determination that they are, in fact, terrorists before doing anything else? You can't just have the arresting officer serve as judge and jury, can you?

        Let me put it to you this way. Why don't you want to bring these people to justice? If, in fact, these folks have engaged in violent behavior against our country, let's prosecute their asses so we can throw them in Leavenworth where the nation's finest can have their way with them, or maybe just put them to death, if the facts warrant it? At least that way, there's some legitimacy to it...

        People that live in the black-white world seem to think that the only two options are holding these folks indefinitely while torturing them on a daily basis, or letting them go. I disagree, and I think most rational people do, too. Particularly in a war like this, where we can't expect there to ever be a moment where a treaty is signed on the deck of a battleship that signals the end of the war, there's not really going to be an opportunity to exchange prisoners like we did in WWII.

        We're talking about people that have committed crimes against the country. If that's the case, let's try them and convict them. For the life of me, I can't understand why there's a problem with that.

        People who are not US citizens are not entitled to full constitutional rights, IMO, but if we're going to maintain any sort of credibility in the world, we need to at least try them in a military tribunal or something. Something. We can't just hold people indefinitely without charging them.
        Last edited by toasty; June 24, 2008, 10:13:34 AM.

        Comment

        • 88Mariner
          My dick is smaller
          • Nov 2006
          • 7128

          #5
          Re: Asking The Bombers To Try Again

          ^ perhaps I can add more ammo to you're nice retort.

          Quoting Radley Balko, formely of Cato, and now editor of Reason:
          In May 2003, Guantanamo held 680 prisoners, the highest number to date. About half have since been released. The Bush administration has claimed the prisoners at the camp represent the “worst of the worst” terrorist threats to the U.S. But when the Seton Hall law professor Mark Denbeaux and the defense attorney Joshua Denbeaux analyzed information supplied by the Defense Department, they found that less than half the inmates were determined to have committed a hostile act against the United States or its allies. Only 8 percent are suspected to be Al Qaeda fighters.
          Of the 385 still held at Guantanamo, the Pentagon plans to formally charge 60 to 80. To date, just two have been tried by a military tribunal, and only one, Australian David Hicks, has been convicted. He was sentenced to nine months in prison, which he was allowed to serve in Australia.
          That was written in September of last year, and if memory serves, there may have been another conviction since then.
          Point is, just because the Bush administration says these are awful people doesn’t necessarily mean that all of them are.
          I quote further from Reason, by Steve Chapman,

          "All this outrage builds on the dissent registered by Justice Antonin Scalia. The court's decision "will make the war harder on us," he thundered. "It will almost certainly cause more Americans to be killed."

          Well, it won't have that effect unless it leads to inmates being released—which it has not, will not anytime soon, and may not ever. If and when it does, he may have a point, though not necessarily a powerful one.

          Anytime you let someone out of prison, even if he's innocent, you create the possibility that he will someday kill someone. Scalia makes much of the supposed fact that 30 of the detainees freed from Guantanamo "have returned to the battlefield." Just because they were later captured or killed, however, doesn't mean they "returned" to the war.

          Some of them may have been victims of mistaken identity, which could explain why those softhearted folks at the Pentagon let them go. But stick a blameless unfortunate in a cage for six years, abusing him in the process, and when he comes out, he may seek revenge. The only way to eliminate the risk is to keep all the detainees locked up forever.

          Even the Bush administration has not gone that far. It was happy to free more than 500 inmates over the years. When it did, by the way, nobody accused the president of causing more Americans to be killed.

          Besides, any releases are only speculative right now. To have a chance at freedom, a prisoner will have to make a plausible case that he's innocent. The administration had already planned to try 80 of the detainees before military commissions, which suggests it has abundant evidence of guilt.

          Presumably the Defense Department has information to show that many, if not all, of the others were connected to al-Qaida or other enemy forces. If the government presents incriminating evidence that the inmate can't refute, a habeas corpus petition will be about as useful to him as a snowboard.

          Nor are the courts likely to let the American Civil Liberties Union draw up the standards for release. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing the majority opinion, indicated the judiciary will err on the side of caution.

          "Habeas corpus proceedings need not resemble a criminal trial," he stipulated, for those worried about Miranda warnings. Though inmates have rights, he noted, "it does not follow that a habeas corpus court may disregard the dangers the detention in these cases was intended to prevent."

          Let's suppose there's an inmate whom the Pentagon thinks was fighting for al-Qaida but lacks any supporting evidence it can use in court. Does he now have a get-out-of-Gitmo-free card? Not necessarily.

          In that case, says Northwestern University law professor Ronald Allen, the government could classify him as a prisoner of war—who, like POWs in previous wars, may be held until the hostilities cease. The trouble, from the administration's point of view, is that he would then be entitled to standard POW protections, such as being treated humanely and not being punished for refusing to answer questions. But at this point, that's a small price to pay.

          It's also a small price to say that if the executive wants to capture someone, treat him as an unlawful enemy combatant and hold him for the rest of his life, it should have to justify that decision to someone other than itself. Critics of this decision are terrified that the courts will have the power to free innocent men. But really, the alternative is a lot scarier."
          Why conservative fears about the habeas decision are way overblown



          You want something really scary? John McCain has not a goddamn clue what Habeas Corpus means.

          And i quote from his own mouth,
          "We are now going to have the courts flooded with so-called, quote, Habeas Corpus suits against the government, whether it be about the diet, whether it be about the reading material."





          you could put an Emfire release on for 2 minutes and you would be a sleep before it finishes - Chunky

          it's RA. they'd blow their load all over some stupid 20 minute loop of a snare if it had a quirky flange setting. - Tiddles

          Am I somewhere....in the corners of your mind....

          ----PEACE-----

          Comment

          • shosh
            Banned
            • Jun 2004
            • 4668

            #6
            Re: Asking The Bombers To Try Again

            toasty, like you so eloquently stated, constitutional rights dont apply to them, so why are we giving them those rights? so we can look nice in the eyes of the world? we're still going to be seen as assholes. look what happened with that prisoner who was released and sent back to iraq, suicide bomber immediately. yeah you can say it was only one person, but it really takes only one person to either carry out another attack against the us or to orchestrate such attack

            Comment

            • toasty
              Sir Toastiness
              • Jun 2004
              • 6585

              #7
              Re: Asking The Bombers To Try Again

              Originally posted by shosh
              toasty, like you so eloquently stated, constitutional rights dont apply to them, so why are we giving them those rights? so we can look nice in the eyes of the world? we're still going to be seen as assholes. look what happened with that prisoner who was released and sent back to iraq, suicide bomber immediately. yeah you can say it was only one person, but it really takes only one person to either carry out another attack against the us or to orchestrate such attack
              Well, first I didn't say that exactly -- what I said is that people who are not US citizens are not entitled to full constitutional rights, and some of the people we've detained are, in fact, US citizens and are entitled to the same rights all of us have regardless of what they've been accused of.

              As to the other folks -- people we round up in raids in Iraq or Afghanistan or that we round up here that aren't US citizens -- what, specifically, do you intend to do with them? Why not try them in a military tribunal?

              Comment

              • shosh
                Banned
                • Jun 2004
                • 4668

                #8
                Re: Asking The Bombers To Try Again

                Maybe we should try them yet so that we can get as much information as we can from them. They are obviously not going to give away that information freely and immediately so it may obviously take some time and torture measures.

                Comment

                • 88Mariner
                  My dick is smaller
                  • Nov 2006
                  • 7128

                  #9
                  Re: Asking The Bombers To Try Again

                  ^ that assumes they have informartion.
                  you could put an Emfire release on for 2 minutes and you would be a sleep before it finishes - Chunky

                  it's RA. they'd blow their load all over some stupid 20 minute loop of a snare if it had a quirky flange setting. - Tiddles

                  Am I somewhere....in the corners of your mind....

                  ----PEACE-----

                  Comment

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