Tag Archives: terrorism

Clueless Eric Holder

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Eric Holder:  Obama’s Henchman in wielding injustice?

Charles Krauthammer On Clueless Eric Holder

Travesty in New York according to Krauthammer:

September 11, 2001 had to speak for itself. A decade later, the deed will be given voice. KSM has gratuitously been presented with the greatest propaganda platform imaginable — a civilian trial in the media capital of the world — from which to proclaim the glory of jihad and the criminality of infidel America.

So why is Attorney General Eric Holder doing this? Ostensibly, to demonstrate to the world the superiority of our system where the rule of law and the fair trial reign.

Really? What happens if KSM (and his co-defendants) “do not get convicted,” asked Senate Judiciary Committee member Herb Kohl. “Failure is not an option,” replied Holder. Not an option? Doesn’t the presumption of innocence, er, presume that prosecutorial failure — acquittal, hung jury — is an option? By undermining that presumption, Holder is undermining the fairness of the trial, the demonstration of which is the alleged rationale for putting on this show in the first place.

Moreover, everyone knows that whatever the outcome of the trial, KSM will never walk free. He will spend the rest of his natural life in U.S. custody. Which makes the proceedings a farcical show trial from the very beginning.

Apart from the fact that any such trial will be a security nightmare and a terror threat to New York — what better propaganda-by-deed than blowing up the entire courtroom, making KSM a martyr and making the judge, jury and spectators into fresh victims? — it will endanger U.S. security. Civilian courts with broad rights of cross-examination and discovery give terrorists access to crucial information about intelligence sources and methods.

That’s precisely what happened during the civilian New York trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers. The prosecution was forced to turn over to the defense a list of two hundred unindicted co-conspirators, including the name Osama bin Laden. “Within ten days, a copy of that list reached bin Laden in Khartoum,” wrote former Attorney General Michael Mukasey, the presiding judge at that trial, “letting him know that his connection to that case had been discovered.”

Finally, there’s the moral logic. It’s not as if Holder opposes military commissions on principle. On the same day he sent KSM to a civilian trial in New York, Holder announced he was sending Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, mastermind of the attack on the USS Cole, to a military tribunal.

By what logic? In his congressional testimony Wednesday, Holder was utterly incoherent in trying to explain. In his Nov. 13 news conference, he seemed to be saying that if you attack a civilian target, as in 9/11, you get a civilian trial; a military target like the Cole, and you get a military tribunal.

What a perverse moral calculus. Which is the war crime — an attack on defenseless civilians or an attack on a military target such as a warship, an accepted act of war which the U.S. itself has engaged in countless times?

By what possible moral reasoning, then, does KSM, who perpetrates the obvious and egregious war crime, receive the special protections and constitutional niceties of a civilian courtroom, while he who attacked a warship is relegated to a military tribunal?

Moreover, the incentive offered any jihadi is as irresistible as it is perverse: Kill as many civilians as possible on American soil and Holder will give you Miranda rights, a lawyer, a propaganda platform — everything but your own blog.

Cheney Strikes at the Yellow Underbelly of Belly-aching Obama

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President Obama, by his actions to date, has left the U.S.A. weakened.  He has handed terrorists information that can help them better prepare their trained operatives to attack us and hold out when interrogated.

First, I banned the use of so-called enhanced interrogation techniques by the United States of America.

I know some have argued that brutal methods like water-boarding were necessary to keep us safe. I could not disagree more. As Commander-in-Chief, I see the intelligence, I bear responsibility for keeping this country safe, and I reject the assertion that these are the most effective means of interrogation. What’s more, they undermine the rule of law. They alienate us in the world. They serve as a recruitment tool for terrorists, and increase the will of our enemies to fight us, while decreasing the will of others to work with America. They risk the lives of our troops by making it less likely that others will surrender to them in battle, and more likely that Americans will be mistreated if they are captured. In short, they did not advance our war and counter-terrorism efforts – they undermined them, and that is why I ended them once and for all.

Still without a Gitmo plan, Obama claims high moral ground for himself while playing to the camera and Europe, who as Charles Krauthammer has pointed out has been sucking on the American teet for 60 years.  Personally, in defending my country both morally and ethically,  I’d rather see a machine gun on that high ground than pretentious rhetoric.  Mich McConnell says what we need is a plan not another speech.  No mention from Obama of a plan.

Michelle Malkin calls it Dueling Banjos and Politico writes:

In a remarkable split-screen presentation of opposing worldviews, former Vice President Dick Cheney spoke across town moments later, saying he supported the controversial policies “when they were made, and without hesitation would do so again in the same circumstances.”

“The point is not to look backward,” Cheney said. “A lot rides on our President’s understanding of the security policies that preceded him. And whatever choices he makes concerning the defense of this country, those choices should not be based on slogans and campaign rhetoric, but on a truthful telling of history.”

Dick Cheney in response to Obama’s speech struck at the yellow underbelly of belly-aching and defended the defenders of this country after 9/11.  (Obama still doesn’t seem or won’t admit this country was kept safe on President Bush’s watch.)  Cheney astutely and pointedly argued from a position of experience and knowing our country’s need for expediency at the time of 9/11;

“To the very end of our administration, we kept al-Qaeda terrorists busy with other problems. We focused on getting their secrets, instead of sharing ours with them. And on our watch, they never hit this country again. After the most lethal and devastating terrorist attack ever, seven and a half years without a repeat is not a record to be rebuked and scorned, much less criminalized. It is a record to be continued until the danger has passed.”

Obama for his part argued that water-boarding and other harsh interrogation methods “did not advance our war and counter-terrorism efforts – they undermined them.”

“I was and remain a strong proponent of our enhanced interrogation program. The interrogations were used on hardened terrorists after other efforts failed,” Cheney said during a speech at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

“They were legal, essential, justified, successful, and the right thing to do. The intelligence officers who questioned the terrorists can be proud of their work and proud of the results, because they prevented the violent death of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of innocent people.”

Cheney noted that Obama has reserved enhanced interrogation unto himself:

This might explain why President Obama has reserved unto himself the right to order the use of enhanced interrogation should he deem it appropriate. What value remains to that authority is debatable, given that the enemy now knows exactly what interrogation methods to train against, and which ones not to worry about. Yet having reserved for himself the authority to order enhanced interrogation after an emergency, you would think that President Obama would be less disdainful of what his predecessor authorized after 9/11. It’s almost gone unnoticed that the president has retained the power to order the same methods in the same circumstances. When they talk about interrogations, he and his administration speak as if they have resolved some great moral dilemma in how to extract critical information from terrorists. Instead they have put the decision off, while assigning a presumption of moral superiority to any decision they make in the future.

Missing words, addressed my Cheney:

President Obama’s own Director of National Intelligence, Admiral Blair, has put it this way: “High value information came from interrogations in which those methods were used and provided a deeper understanding of the al-Qaeda organization that was attacking this country.” End quote. Admiral Blair put that conclusion in writing, only to see it mysteriously deleted in a later version released by the administration – the missing 26 words that tell an inconvenient truth. But they couldn’t change the words of George Tenet, the CIA Director under Presidents Clinton and Bush, who bluntly said: “I know that this program has saved lives. I know we’ve disrupted plots. I know this program alone is worth more than the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, and the National Security Agency put together have been able to tell us.”

This is a curious administration – in love with America’s power and seizing it, while demeaning America before the world for Obama’s own aggrandizement as though morality began with his administration.  Most countries on earth owe this country a debt of gratitude, which they can never repay; just as our citizens can never repay the men who defended this country with their limbs and lives.  The Ivory Tower academic community organizer in the White House has yet to appreciate his country’s real history as told my the blood of it’s builders and martyrs.

More from:

Sam Stein in the Huffington Post : A Civil Libertarian rips Obama’s Speech: All Bells and Whistles

“Obviously, he is a very effective speaker, but of course we have major problems with what he is doing,” said Michael Ratner, president of the Center for Constitutional Rights. “He wraps himself in the Constitution, talks about American values and then proceeds to violate them.”

Allah Pundit, “In a fight against terrorism, there is no middle ground.”

Conservative Nation

Karl Rove: Flip-flops and Governance-WSJ

Israel – Survival Against All Odds

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Israel is surviving against all odds, however the odds are increasing.  The threats go beyond enemies without to include homegrown dilemmas.

H/T Glenn Reynolds : Israel: Seven Existential Threats

Michael B. Oren, is a professor at the School of Foreign service at Georgetown University and a distingushed fellow at the Shalem Center, writes of Israel’s existential threats, at least seven:

The threats according to Oren are: the lose of Jerusalem, the Arab demographic threat, de-legitimization, terrorism,    the nuclear-armed Iran,     the hemorrhaging of sovereignty,    and corruption.

Oren, however, also notes:

Israel in 2009 has treaties with Jordan and Egypt, excellent relations with Eastern Europe, China, and India, and a historic alliance with the United States. By virtually all criteria, Israel in 2009 is in an inestimably better position than at any other time in its 61 years of independence.

Though the severity of the threats jeopardizing Israel’s existence must never be underestimated, neither should Israel’s resilience and national will. That persistence reflects, at least in part, the success of the Jewish people to surmount similar dangers for well over 3,000 years. Together with Diaspora Jewry and millions of Israel supporters abroad, Israel can not only survive these perils but, as in the past, it can thrive.