Judging Bowe Bergdahl

There is so much about this Bowe Bergdahl story that we don't yet know, yet even so, it is disturbing.  There are several ways to look at the story at this point, all of which will probably end up a useless dalliance once all the facts come out.  I have to look at this story through the lens of what I already know about the Obama administration.  This administration cares nothing for our laws and believes itself to be above all laws (see:  Fast and Furious).

Obama promised from day one that he would empty and shutter Gitmo.  No surprises there.  In this Bergdhal swap, Obama has furthered his endeavor to do just so.

A quick look at the five released:

Mohammad Fazi:  According to Human Rights Watch, he presided over the mass killing of Shiite Muslims in Afghanistan in 2000 and 2001; he served as deputy defense minister under the Taliban regime and was briefly chief of staff of the Taliban army in 2001.

Khairullah Khairkhwa helped found the Taliban in 1994 and served as interior minister and governor of Herat province in Afghanistan which continues to be violent and unsettled as an Indian aid worker was just abducted there; just last week the Indian consulate was attacked.  Khairkhwa was a close associate of Osama bin Laden and Mullah Omar and was a major opium drug lord.

Next up is Mullah Norullah Noori who who was a Taliban military commander in 2001 and is implicated in the murder of thousands of Afghan Shiites who opposed the Taliban.

Mohammed Nabi was a chief security officer for the Taliban and later worked in their communications office as a radio operator.

Abdul Haq Wasiq was a deputy minister of intelligence for the Taliban.

Clearly these are all bad, violent criminals.  In the swap, these guys are released to Qatar where supposedly there is a "no travel" restriction on them for one year.

The five Taliban detainees at Guantánamo, including two senior militant commanders said to be linked to operations that killed American and allied troops as well as implicated in murdering thousands of Shiites in Afghanistan, were flown from Cuba in the custody of officials from Qatar, who will accompany them back to that Persian Gulf state. They will be subject to security restrictions there, including a one-year travel ban.

Put that into perspective.  How would you feel if we let Charles Manson out of prison and told him no tickets to Cozumel this year?  "Got to stay right here in good ol' Cali this year, Charlie!"

As far as Bowe Bergdahl goes, we must all realize that Obama cares nothing for the fact that the law requires him to notify Congress thirty days before such an agreement.  The fact that the administration has been "in talks" for three years in this "negotiation for peace" with the Taliban is just semantics.  Politics.

Obama is hoping that we forget about this before the mid-term elections and that the blow back won't hurt Democrat candidates too badly and with our complacent media that is probably a safe bet on his part.

Susan Rice (as if anyone would believe anything she says anymore) claims that Bergdahl was "captured on the battlefield."    In her mind that might be the same thing as putting down your weapon and deserting your post.  Semantics.  He did happen to be in Afghanistan.  There are indeed battlefields there.  You have to contort yourself around a bit to see her perspective but I guess it can be done.

In truth, we don't really know how Bergdahl ended up in captivity and the truth remains that he is an American and thus should be brought home.  From a mother's perspective, I am full of empathy for this boy's parents.  The pictures of the gaunt, sobbing young man pleading to come home are heart wrenching.  I won't judge them or him.

That being said, he should be judged: there is a right time and place for that.  The military has procedures for that and it should be done.  The answers should be discovered and politics should have no part in that.  If this soldier did in fact desert his post and put his fellow soldiers in harms way then he needs to answer for that.  I am disturbed by the anonymous Defense official who says no punishment should be sought:  "Five years is enough," he said.

 Jake Tapper's article this morning indicates that at least six American lives were lost looking for Bergdahl.

According to firsthand accounts from soldiers in his platoon, Bergdahl, while on guard duty, shed his weapons and walked off the observation post with nothing more than a compass, a knife, water, a digital camera and a diary

At least six soldiers were killed in subsequent searches for Bergdahl, and many soldiers in his platoon said attacks seemed to increase against the United States in Paktika province in the days and weeks following his disappearance.

To that anonymous Defense official, I would suggest that those lives counted for something, too.

Daniel Pearl's Friend Remembers

If you don't read much else this weekend be sure to read Asra Nomani's courageous and reflective story about her friend Daniel Pearl and her quest to find answers which led her to Guantanamo and back:

And so it became clear, at Guantánamo, that the only work left for me to do was to heal my wound. 

“What is grief?” I recently asked psychologist Steven Stosny, posing the obvious question I’d avoided for so long. 

“It’s an expression of love,” he told me. “When you grieve, you allow yourself to love again.” 

“How do you grieve?” I asked him. 

“You celebrate a person’s life by living your life fully.”

Read the whole thing.

Perspective.

Debate Night Distractions

There is much to blog about in the political realm this week; I hardly know where to begin.

I'm stunned by this report from The Hill:

Had the Navy SEALs captured Osama bin Laden, the United States would have tried him in federal court, President Obama said in an interview published by Vanity Fair.

“We worked through the legal and political issues that would have been involved, and Congress and the desire to send him to Guantánamo, and to not try him, and Article III,” Obama said, referring to the federal courts.

“I mean, we had worked through a whole bunch of those scenarios. But, frankly, my belief was if we had captured him, that I would be in a pretty strong position, politically, here, to argue that displaying due process and rule of law would be our best weapon against al-Qaeda, in preventing him from appearing as a martyr,” he said.

Holy crap, Batman!  I'm just speechless by that.  Federal court?  Seriously? 

Allahpundit isn't buying it for one second:

 Self-serving nonsense, presumably being pushed by O as a bit of election-season candy for the Gitmo critics in his base. See, he still believes in due process, the drone strikes and “kill list” and indefinite detentions notwithstanding.

And on a related note, congressional approval be damned, Obama has ordered the Justice Dept. to move ahead with the acquisition of Thomson son prison in Illinois.  We've been through this.  Andrew McCarthy:

The move is drawing irate responses from key members of Congress, such as Representatives Frank Wolf and Hal Rogers of the House Appropriations Committee, and Pete King, who chairs the Homeland Security Committee. But the question, of course, is whether they will do anything about it. Congress is not without remedies here; it can start slashing money from the Justice Department’s budget and other areas where the administration will feel it. To this point, though, despite serial provocations, they’ve shown no indication of a willingness to do that.

More on that at Memeorandum.

And then, of course, there is the now infamous "race video" which is just disgusting.  Has there ever been a more divisive, race-baiting, class-warfare mongering, pandering president EVER?  Can't think of one.

Oh, and let's not forget about the stonewalling this administration is doing on the Libya investigation.

That's a lot of bad mojo coming out of this administration.  As I said, much to blog about. 

But wait!  There's a debate tonight. 

Yes, I'll be blogging, as will Legal Insurrection (and probably countless others).  I'm not sure why I'm going to subject myself to it, but I intend to try.  Time to dust off my political blogging hat.

Obama Prepares to Surrender Afghanistan

Andrew McCarthy is sounding the alarm:  Obama is preparing to surrender Afghanistan back to the Taliban:

The surrender is complete now. The Hindu reports that the Obama administration has turned to Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi, the Muslim Brotherhood’s leading jurist, to mediate secret negotiations between the United States and the Taliban.

ABC News reported yesterday that the Taliban is preparing to open its first official office in Qatar:

The office is expected to open as early as the next few months in Qatar, the officials told ABC News, and facilitate negotiations with the Taliban that will include unprecedented local ceasefires in Afghanistan and the transfer of Afghan prisoners from American prisons — even though they are labeled “high risk” to the U.S. and associated with the death of a CIA officer in 2001.

John Hinderaker at PowerLine points out that it would be a real "coup" for Obama to run for re-election on the boast that he's ended two wars, especially as unpopular as the Afghanistan incursion has been.

According to the Hindu report:

Earlier this month, the sources said, Mr. al-Qaradawi helped draw a road map for a deal between the Taliban and the United States, aimed at giving the superpower a face-saving political settlement ahead of its planned withdrawal from Afghanistan which is due to begin in 2014. 

In return for the release of prisoners still held by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, the lifting of United Nations sanctions on its leadership and its recognition as a legitimate political group, the Taliban was expected to agree to sever its links to transnational organisations like al-Qaeda, end violence and eventually share power with the Afghan government.

Yet for Team Obama to recruit Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi is stunning.  McCarthy has much more on him, referring to him as the "most influential Sunni Islamist in the world."  McCarthy also points out that in 2003 he issued a fatwa calling for the killing of American troops in Iraq.

Is this the best guy we can find to support American interests in the region? 

McCarthy has much more on Qaradawi:

I wrote about Qaradawi at length in The Grand Jihad and, here at NRO, have regularly catalogued his activities (see, e.g., here, here, here, here, and here; see also Andrew Bostom’s “Qaradawi’s Odious Vision”).

Debra Burlingame linked to this video in her Facebook feed of Qaradawi spewing vile antisemitism and vowing to kill Jews "even if in a wheelchair."  He is bent on the destruction of Israel.

This is who Obama calls upon to bring peace to the region?

McCarthy sums it up best:

After thousands of young Americans have laid down their lives to protect the United States from jihadist terror, President Obama apparently seeks to end the war by asking Qaradawi, a jihad-stoking enemy of the United States, to help him strike a deal that will install our Taliban enemies as part of the sharia state we have been building in Afghanistan. If the Hindu report is accurate, the price tag will include the release of Taliban prisoners from Gitmo — an element of the deal Reuters has also reported. The administration will also agree to the lifting of U.N. sanctions against the Taliban, and recognition of the Taliban as a legitimate political party (yes, just like the Muslim Brotherhood!). In return, the Taliban will pretend to forswear violence, to sever ties with al-Qaeda, and to cooperate with the rival Karzai regime.

It would mark one of the most shameful chapters in American history.

It nauseates me.

It's Another WikiLeaks Drop Day

It's another WikiLeaks day and this time it concerns GITMO.  How much concern should this generate?  It depends on your perspective.  From Hot Air:

Mainly, these revelations don’t reveal much at all about AQ plots in the past, nor their operations today.  The most recent data in either report is years old.  They are both interesting for purposes of background information, but neither tells much of a story on its own or together that we didn’t already know.

And over at The New Yorker where bleeding heart Amy Davidson laments the use of "torture":

One sees how Guantánamo became a whisper factory: after years of interrogation, the subject many prisoners had left to talk about was other prisoners. Some were doing so after being tortured. The Times notes that Mohammed al-Qahtani was “was leashed like a dog, sexually humiliated and forced to urinate on himself” before implicating himself and sixteen other prisoners, and that those claims appear in the others’ files “without any caveat.”

If this is "torture" then I'd suggest Davidson expand her reading list to include Surviving Hell by Leo Thorsness, or Devil at My Heels by Louis Zamperini. 

Michael Tomasky at the UK Guardian:

An honest inquiry into these errors that tried to assess what actually happened without pinning blame would be instructive. But what we're actually likely to get in the US, if we get anything at all, is a set of hearings in the House of Representatives under Republicans that's going to ignore Bush-era problems and focus completely on Obama-era ones. 

The "errors" he refers to are repatriation and recidivism, specifically the Saudi and Yemini programs.

Michelle Malkin is not impressed with the release and points to the coordinated suicide attempts as discussed in the New York Times piece:

Gitmo sympathizers continue to characterize the suicides/suicide attempts as acts of desperation by poor, innocent potato farmers and bystanders. But these were clear acts of asymmetric warfare by cunning, cold-blooded jihadists versed in exploitation of Western sensibilities.

Lawyers, Guns and Money thinks this leak might not be all bad:

My only other reaction for now is that while the past four major WL releases were carefully framed to make US foreign policy decisions in the war on terror look bad, this new release may well have – or have been calculated to have – the opposite effect. While some news sources are stressing that “children and senile old men are among the detainees” other are almost making Obama look too soft on Guantanamo detainees (breaking news from the leak includes detainees’ threats against interrogators and claims of a nuclear holocaust if bin Laden is captured). 

The Memeorandum aggregation is growing and is worth surfing through.  The value of the dump depends on your perspective.  

Meanwhile, Private Bradley Manning has been moved to a more "humane" prison than his former digs at the Quantico brig.

(Cross posted at Potluck)

On KSM and Gitmo

I really would like to blog about the announcement yesterday to try KSM and friends at Gitmo but I'm late for work right now and will have to get to it later.  By then it will be old news.  Meh. 

Suffice to say for now it's a really rookie, politicized move to go there on the same day you announce your re-election bid.  Did Team Obama think we'd all be showering praises on him right now for coming to his senses?  "You always wanted them tried at Gitmo; now you've got what you want and you're STILL bitchin'!" 

You bet we are!  How about years of frustration for justice as Obama dithered and pandered on this issue?  KSM confessed and was ready to be executed (i.e,. martyred) for his crimes and Obama let him chill down there at Gitmo instead. 

Rookie.  For all his blathering about how Gitmo has created more terrorism, his dithering has put a neon "Kick Me" sign on the back of America.  Weak.

Putz.

Obama's Reversal on GITMO

After all the blogging I've done on GITMO I'd be remiss if I didn't note Obama's reversal of policy on the facility:

President Obama on Monday reversed his two-year-old order halting new military charges against detainees at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, permitting military trials to resume with revamped procedures but implicitly admitting the failure of his pledge to close the prison camp. 

Team Obama won't go so far as to vindicate Bush policies, however, and have tried to appease the left by explaining that this isn't exactly Bush's GITMO.  There is supposedly a new periodic review process in place.  The WSJ notes that this was actually tweaked in 2006:

By executive order, a new panel will now also conduct a "periodic review" of detentions. But the bipartisan Military Commissions Act of 2006, or MCA, had already included "administrative review boards" dedicated to the same goal.

The Wall Street Journal has some concerns with Protocol 1:

The other note of trouble is Mr. Obama's decision, also announced yesterday, to seek Senate ratification of a radical 1977 revision to the 1949 Geneva Conventions known as Additional Protocol 1. President Reagan repudiated Protocol 1 in 1987 because it vitiated the distinction between lawful and unlawful enemy combatants. Terrorists fight out of uniform and target civilians and thus do not deserve traditional prisoner-of-war protections. This was the two-decade political consensus until the Bush Presidency. Both the New York Times and the Washington Post editorialized in favor of Reagan's Protocol 1 decision.

Our guess is that Mr. Obama has adopted Protocol 1 to appease the domestic left and especially the "international community" that will be dismayed by his new embrace of Gitmo and George W. Bush's policies. Remember the moralizing Europeans? (See below.) Mr. Obama is nonetheless complicating the task of U.S. terror fighters, and encouraging further barbarism, by extending the laws of war to terrorists who hold combat restrictions in contempt.

It may all be political posturing in preparation for 2012, but however it comes, I'm glad the administration is now at least making gestures to return to military tribunals and keep GITMO open.   Take it with a grain of salt, though.  See how it unfolds. 

I don't think George W. Bush should look for his apology note in the mail anytime soon.  Even though Obama bashed Bush relentlessly on this issue, and even though he's now adopted many of Bush's policies, he'll never admit that Bush was right.  He'll stand by the old, "but we've tweaked it and made it BETTER" argument.  That's okay.  Whatever keeps America safe.

Not Guilty of the Mass Murder of 224 People

The Ghailani verdict is stunning.  It absolutely stuns me how close this terrorist came to being found "not guilty" and technically having to be set free.  Would Team Obama have set him free?

As everyone knows by now:

Ahmed Ghailani, an al Qaeda terrorist who conspired to blow up American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, was acquitted of more than 280 charges, including one count of murder for each of the 224 people killed in the simultaneous attacks. The jury found Ghailani guilty of only one charge: conspiracy to destroy U.S. government buildings.
 

Over at Hot Air, Allahpundit wonders:

If he had walked, Obama would now be in the excruciating position of having to decide whether to let him go, which would be an utter political disaster, or to re-arrest him and hold him on some sort of preventive detention grounds, which would be a civil libertarian nightmare (and a political disaster among his base). 

Thomas Joscelyn wants to know:

It is a mystery how the jury could find that these facts failed to add up to a guilty verdict on all of the murder counts. How can a terrorist be guilty of conspiring to blow up two buildings, but then be found not guilty of the ensuing deaths?

The White House is "pleased" with the verdict.  Hell yeah, they are.  That one "guilty" verdict saved them from a PR nightmare.

Liz Cheney at Keep America Safe has issued this statement:

“Bad ideas have dangerous consequences. The Obama Administration recklessly insisted on a civilian trial for Ahmed Ghailani, and rolled the dice in a time of war. The Department of Justice says it’s pleased by the verdict. Ask the families of the victims if they’re pleased. And this result isn’t just embarrassing. It’s dangerous. It signals weakness in a time of war. The Ghailani trial was supposed to be a test case for future trials of 9/11 terrorists. We urge the president: End this reckless experiment. Reverse course. Use the military commissions at Guantanamo that Congress has authorized. And, above all--accept the fact that we are at war.”

I would agree with the many other pundits this morning who suggest that this puts the final nail in the coffin to holding the KSM trial in NYC.  Could the administration risk a "not guilty" on the 9/11 mastermind? 

This verdict shows that terrorists need to be tried by military commissions and they need to be tried at GITMO. 

Charles Krauthammer said on Special Report last night that he believes this verdict means Gitmo stays open and stays open for good.  I'd have to agree, there.

What an amateurish, and nearly costly blunder, by the administration.  Children playing where grownups should be.

Follow the rest at Memeorandum.

SHOCK: Guantanamo Has Amenities for the Troops!

I missed this story in the Washington Post earlier this week and what strikes me about this story on the U.S. Naval Station at Guantanamo Bay is not the dollar figures cited, which is what the Post wants you to be shocked about, but the snarky tone of the authors.  I know, I know...that shouldn't surprise me, but it does. 

The authors catalog what they sees as excessive spending and renovation to the base.  What the authors, Scott Higham and Peter Finn, lose sight of is that GTMO is not just a prison for the world's worst terrorists, but is also a naval base where troops are stationed for periods up to two years.  It's an isolated base and whereas on many overseas bases, troops can go "off-base" and mix among the locals, eat in restaurants, socialize, or take part in recreation activities, that's not the case in Cuba.

So, at Guantanamo, troops have a Taco Bell, a KFC, a baseball field, a lap pool, a skate park, a dog training kennel for drug and bomb dogs, and a Starbucks.

So what?

That's not any different than any other base I've ever been on.  I haven't been on many, two to be exact, but at the last Air Force base I was on, there was a Burger King, a baseball field, a movie theater, a swimming pool, a Starbucks, and a couple of gymnasiums.  The last Army base I was on had much of the same.

Where's the story on how much it costs to operate the golf course at Fort Polk or Barksdale AFB?  Where's the outrage over the new housing at Barksdale?  

Why does the Post begrudge the Navy their base?  The money?  Is that it?  Or is it that it all started during "Bush's 'war on terror'"?  We're going to blame Bush for the expenditures at GTMO.

Well, why not.

Photo Credit:  Bill O'Leary - The Washington Post

To Close or Not to Close..Guantanamo

There are two conflicting stories on Gitmo this morning.

The first is from Michael Gershon's piece in The Washington Post on the ineptitude of Eric Holder. Gershon lists Holder's blunders and says with regard to Gitmo (emphasis mine):

"Fourth, there is the closing of the prison at Guantanamo Bay and the civilian trial for Khalid Sheik Mohammed and other accused Sept. 11 conspirators in Manhattan. Under Holder's direction, this process has collapsed. There is no serious plan to close Guantanamo. Holder has been unable to articulate reasons some terrorism cases are referred to civilian courts while others are tried in military tribunals...."

But that's not what Jonathan Weisman and Evan Perez write in today's Wall Street Journal:

"The White House is nearing a deal with a bipartisan group of senators to close the Guantanamo Bay prison and pave the way for more detainees to be tried before military commissions, a move that would reverse a signature Obama administration security policy."

Sen. Lindsey Graham is leading the negotiations to close Gitmo; he promises to help secure funding for the Thomson prison in return for a negotiated deal on the handling of civilian trials vs. military commissions. Graham wants KSM before a military commission rather than a civilian trial, but he favors civilian trials for lower level al Qaeda operatives.

It appears Gershon is mistaken when he says there is "no serious plan to close Gitmo."

Andy McCarthy, at The Corner, sees this as disastrous:

The good parts of the deal will be either things we'd have gotten anyway (like no civilian trial for KSM) or unenforceable (like promises that the Obama administration will be more open to using options other than the criminal justice system for top terrorists). The bad parts will be horrific, and no matter what Senator Graham says, he can't do a thing about them: The place or places where the terrorists are held will become targets that we will have to spend tons of money to protect; the tons of money we have already spent to make Gitmo a first-rate, ideally secured facility, will be lost; and, most significantly, the physical presence in the U.S. of the detainees will mean they are unquestionably in the jurisdiction of the federal courts, where judges will be able to say the Constitution requires all sorts of remedies, including release.

McCarthy is, of course correct. The left continues to spout the fiction that Gitmo is this huge recruiting too, but so far has failed to explain to my satisfaction what the recruiting tool was before 9/11. Seems like their recruiting was pretty healthy BEFORE Gitmo was established.

Gershon may be mistaken on his assessment of the closing of Gitmo but he's at least correct on the blunders of Eric Holder. I'm tired of the expression, but it's time for Holder to go under the bus.

Hold the Line on Guantanamo

You've got to wonder what's really going on when Obama seems to cave into the opposition without too much of a fight. One doesn't, for example, see him saying, "Well, okay, health care reform is a bust for this year. The public just won't have it! We'll revisit this issue after we handle the economy." Nope. Not going to happen.

So The Washington Post story that Obama is caving on the New York trials for KSM and friends is a red flag. What's he really up to?

The Post gives us a clue:

If Obama accepts the likely recommendation of his advisers, the White House may be able to secure from Congress the funding and legal authority it needs to close the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and replace it with a facility within the United States. The administration has failed to meet a self-imposed one-year deadline to close Guantanamo.

Ah! So he'll agree to try KSM and friends in the military tribunal system IF he can bring the rest of the terrorists to the United States.

And he's got an ally:

Top Obama advisers have been negotiating with. Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) -- a vocal critic of trying the Sept. 11 suspects in civilian court -- in pursuit of a deal that would secure his help in closing Guantanamo. Graham has sought the creation a legal framework that would spell out how the government would detain and try future captives, but an administration official warned that a "grand bargain" is not likely in the immediate future. The official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity, said the talks with Graham have been mostly about "limited issues" involving the Mohammed trial and the future of Guantanamo.

What's Graham going to get out of this?

Andy McCarthy is on to this charade:

The real agenda here is to close Gitmo. That’s the ball to keep your eye on. The Post is trying to soften the opposition to shuttering the detention camp by portraying beleaguered, reasonable Obama as making a great compromise that will exasperate the Left. The idea is to strengthen Sen. Lindsey Graham’s hand in seeking reciprocal compromise from our side.

This, however, is a matter of national security, not horse-trading over a highway bill. You don’t agree to do a stupid thing that endangers the country just because your opposition has magnanimously come off its insistence that you do two stupid things that endanger the country.

If a deal to grant military commissions in exchange for closing Gitmo happens, it is a major win for the Obama Left and an enormous loss for public safety.

Michelle Malkin suggests we continue to call them out. This isn't an issue that merits compromise.

Ed Morrissey sees this issue as having an impact on the health care debate as well:

This may have some impact on the health-care debate as well. There have been suggestions that Obama would sacrifice his progressives and hoodwink the House into passing the Senate bill without seriously attempting to get the fixes House Democrats want made through reconciliation. After this retreat, Obama won’t dare cross the progressives on ObamaCare now — but they may be angry enough to demand a do-over to restore the public option. Just when Obama needed the Left to sit quietly so he could pass something on health care, he will enrage them on a key cause.

In either case, we don't want this lame health care boondoggle and we sure don't want Gitmo graduates on American soil. (And if this health care bill passes, you can bet the Gitmo guys will be getting better health care than the rest of us.)

Stay vigilant. Don't let this administration compromise on national security. As McCarthy said, there's just no reason to do it. Congress wasn't going to approve the funding to close Gitmo or renovate Thomson prison. Nobody in Congress wants THAT vote on their record heading into the midterms.

Hold the line.

(More at Memeorandum)

Andy McCarthy Gets My Blood Boiling (UPDATED)

In non-summit related news, Andy McCarthy knows how to get my blood pressure up, and not in a good way. While everyone was busy watching the summit or wondering if Charlie Crist is really going to run as an independent, McCarthy reports on the next chapter of Obama's war on the CIA.

This is typical Obama fashion: distract you with one issue then sneak another in the back door while you aren't looking.

From McCarthy:

While the country and the Congress have their eyes on today’s dog-and-pony show on socialized medicine, House Democrats last night stashed a new provision in the intelligence bill which is to be voted on today. It is an attack on the CIA: the enactment of a criminal statute that would ban “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.” (See here, scroll to p. 32.)

The provision is impossibly vague — who knows what “degrading” means? Proponents will say that they have itemized conduct that would trigger the statute (I’ll get to that in a second), but it is not true. The proposal says the conduct reached by the statute “includes but is not limited to” the itemized conduct. (My italics.) That means any interrogation tactic that a prosecutor subjectively believes is “degrading” (e.g., subjecting a Muslim detainee to interrogation by a female CIA officer) could be the basis for indicting a CIA interrogator.

McCarthy suggests that the Democrats waited until after the "politicized witch-hunt against John Yoo and Jay Bybee" concluded because to admit that waterboarding and other tactics were not illegal before would damage that "investigation." We had to "pretend" they were illegal before, but now that the investigation is over, we have to make it offically illegal.

So what does this provision make illegal, exactly? This:

Waterboarding is not all. The Democrats’ bill would prohibit — with a penalty of 15 years’ imprisonment — the following tactics, among others:

- “Exploiting the phobias of the individual”

- Stress positions and the threatened use of force to maintain stress positions

- “Depriving the individual of necessary food, water, sleep, or medical care”

- Forced nudity

- Using military working dogs (i.e., any use of them — not having them attack or menace the individual; just the mere presence of the dog if it might unnerve the detainee and, of course, “exploit his phobias”)

- Coercing the individual to blaspheme or violate his religious beliefs (I wonder if Democrats understand the breadth of seemingly innocuous matters that jihadists take to be violations of their religious beliefs)

- Exposure to “excessive” cold, heat or “cramped confinement” (excessive and cramped are not defined)

- “Prolonged isolation”

- “Placing hoods or sacks over the head of the individual”

Naturally, all of these tactics are interspersed with such acts as forcing the performance of sexual acts, beatings, electric shock, burns, inducing hypothermia or heat injury — as if all these acts were functionally equivalent.

Seriously? You can't "exploit the phobias of the individual"? What if KSM has a phobia of confined spaces? Or of people in uniform?

Prolonged isolation? How long is "prolonged" exactly?

McCarthy concludes with:

Here is the fact: Democrats are saying they would prefer to see tens of thousands of Americans die than to see a KSM subjected to sleep-deprivation or to have his “phobias exploited.” I doubt that this reflects the values of most Americans.

Amen to that.

Update: Thankfully, the bill has now been pulled:

A controversial bill that would have levied criminal punishments on intelligence officers for harsh interrogations was pulled Thursday evening.

House Republicans charged Democrats with trying to sneak a provision into the intelligence authorization bill that would establish criminal punishment for CIA agents and other intelligence officials who engage in “cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” during interrogations...

...

Republicans criticized the language and the way it was introduced.

“This will fundamentally change the nature of the intelligence community by creating a criminal statute governing interrogations,” said Rep. Pete Hoesktra (R-Mich.).

He added that it had appeared “out of nowhere” in a manager’s amendment.

“Would someone on the other side please explain the rationale behind this and why the majority was unwilling to have hearings on this issue?" he said.

On Thursday night, Hoekstra lauded the GOP effort against the bill.

"Republicans brought this to the attention of the American people, who were rightly outraged that Democrats would try to target those we ask to serve in harm’s way and with a unified push we were successful in getting them to pull the bill," Hoekstra said in a statement. "The annual intelligence bill should be about protecting and defending our nation, not targeting those we ask to do that deed and giving greater protections to terrorists."

Update: This is now a growing thread at Memeorandum.

Why Isn't This Conflict of Interest and Improper?

Dan Foster at The Corner points to Byron York's story in The Washington Examiner regarding the question posed to Holder by Senator Grassley last November about Justice Department attorneys representing Gitmo detainees. Turns out there are a few:

At least nine Obama appointees at the Justice Department have represented or written amicus briefs in support of terrorist detainees, according to Attorney General Eric Holder. At least two of the lawyers continue to work on detainee policy.

Now, could some legal mind (Professor Jacobson, are you there?) explain to me why this isn't conflict of interest?

Twenty Percent "Isn't That Bad"?

John Brennan is coming under a lot of fire because of his recent pronouncement that a 20% recidivism rate on released Guantanamo detainees "is not that bad."

Here is Brennan's actual statement and General Jim Jones who actually doesn't think it's that bad either:



The problem here, it seems to me, is that they are still in a criminal justice frame of mind.

There are many issues on which Lindsay Graham and I disagree, but on this one, not so much:



When Graham says "it makes no sense to say that a 20% recidivism rate is not that bad..." he is spot on. As Chris Matthews points out, if you have a 20% recidivism rate when you're talking about shoplifters, that's quite a different story than when you have a 20% return to jihad from terrorists. Graham is, of course, calling for Brennan's discharge and says Brennan has lost his confidence.

Intrepid researcher Thomas Joscelyn points out that this recidivism number has continued to grow over the last 18 months:

The 20 percent figure cited by the Pentagon and Brennan translates to a current estimated number of recidivists north of 100. A good estimate is 112. Thus, in June 2008 the estimate was just 37 former detainees. Today, less than two years later, the estimate is roughly three times higher.

So, when Brennan says that 20 percent isn't that bad he is ignoring the fact that the estimated number of recidivists continues to grow and could easily be much higher just months from now.

Of course the response from the left will be to blame Bush and to point out that many of those that returned to jihad were released by Bush. And to that, I return to my premise that just because Bush screwed up doesn't mean Obama has to; it's an slow learner indeed who doesn't learn from the mistakes of the past.

Busy Reading!

Blogging has been light over the past couple of days; I'm deep into Marc Thiessen's Courting Disaster. I expected it to be good but it's even better than that. This is a subject area, of course, that regular readers know is something I'm interested in. I blog a lot about Gitmo and about national security. However, even beyond that this book is fascinating. I've been up later than usual each night, unable to put it down.

At any rate, I have Game Change in the wings when I'm done with this one, then I'll get back to my Edwin Edwards biography.

Clarke Speaks Out Against "The Party Out of Power"

Richard Clarke, former counter-terrorism adviser for Clinton and G.W. Bush, calls in the New York Daily News for "the party out of power" to back off the criticism of Obama's national security policies.

Clarke lists several bones of contention in support of Obama's program. His first point is that it was Bush who released Gitmo graduates that have returned to fight for al-Qaeda, not Obama. Clarke says, "Obama's new review process has been successful in identifying those who might be recidivists and has kept them in custody."

Well, that remains to be seen, doesn't it? We don't really know yet what those that Obama has released are doing. We do know, however, that he has released some pretty unsavory characters, among them Hasan Zumiri (or Hasan Zemiri) and Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili and don't forget Qais Qazli who is about as nasty as they get. The point is, there's very little transparency here about who is getting released, why, and what happens to them afterward, so Clarke is making an assumption that Obama's releases have been, or will continue to be, risk free.

Clarke's second point, that terrorists will talk without torture, is also sketchy. Some might, some won't. I think Marc Thiessen makes this case pretty clear when he outlines how the CIA got information out of KSM which prevented another mass attack. We would not have obtained that information without enhanced interrogation. Clarke is off base when he assumes one strategy for everyone and every case.

Clarke then moves on to tout the security and safety of holding terrorists on US soil in US prisons. He says (emphasis mine),

There is a repeated chorus that housing Al Qaeda terrorists in U.S. prisons is some sort of risk to American security. For some reason they are supposed to be less risky if they are jailed in Cuba. Yet, there have been Al Qaeda terrorists housed in U.S. prisons for years. The Supermax facility in Florence, CO, has the Unabomber, the Oklahoma City bomber and the shoe bomber, and many other Al Qaeda terrorists. They are all in confinement in a place that is a lot more punishing than being in Cuba. U.S. federal prisons work well and no Al Qaeda prisoner is a Houdini.

Yet there is no good reason NOT to hold them in Cuba. The case has been made time and time again that Guantanamo is a model, Geneva compliant prison. The prisoners don't even want to come here! And maybe I missed something, but the prisoners Clarke listed are not al-Qaeda terrorists. I'm pretty sure the Unabomber was not affiliated with al-Qaeda.

You can read the rest of Clarke's argument here, but I've seen enough.

Update: As an afterthought, I want to go back to Clarke's point that only the terrorists released by Bush have returned to the fight. I still stand by my statement that it remains to be seen what happens with Obama's releases, but want to add that of course, one error should not lead to another. It is the obligation of the Obama administration to learn from the errors of the Bush administration. Bush certainly made some mistakes - he released some folks that should not have been released. Another huge mistake was not properly explaining the role of Gitmo or defending those who worked there. That led the American public and many of our overseas critics to blur the lines between Abu Ghraib and Gitmo.

Again, one would hope Obama would learn from those mistakes rather than compound them.


Related Post:
Richard Clarke on the Gitmo Video

(Via Memeorandum)

Gitmo is Looking Better and Better to Obama

Well I guess Obama IS rethinking his decision to renovate the Thomson, Illinois prison now that he's probably beginning to hear the bi-partisan drumbeat against it. According to Steny Hoyer today:

“I think the administration realizes that this is a difficult issue,” Hoyer said, speaking at his weekly meeting with Capitol Hill reporters. “And I think that they are assessing where they are and where they think we ought to be, and I think that’s appropriate and I look forward to discussing it with them.”

Congress would have to appropriate the funding for the move, of course, and has so far appeared more than unwilling to do so, to their credit.

This realization, on the heels of the KSM trial blunder, on top of the Abdulmutallab flub, points to a serious flaw in the House of Obama foreign policy.

Jennifer Rubin points out an ABC New report in which "Democratic Sens. Jim Webb and Blanche Lincoln are joining Republicans to up-end plans for a civilian trial for KSM by denying funding to transport and try them in the U.S." Joe Lieberman and John McCain are also against such a move.

I don't for one minute believe Obama is rethinking this decision for any other reason than on funding. If he had the funds for it - he'd stick with his plan to import terrorists to Illinois. The 2010 elections are coming up and national security is clearly going to be an issue. For Steny Hoyer to suggest that Obama is having some new awakening is naive.

So, maybe it's back to Gitmo, after all! Go figure. Why didn't I think of that.

Rehab in Yemen

I hate to be negative. Really, I do.

Yemen will begin building an $11 million rehabilitation centre for returning Guantanamo detainees in three months when it expects to receive funding from the United States, a government official said on Wednesday.

There are 91 Yemeni detainees left in the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Washington suspended transfers to Yemen this month because of a deteriorating security situation in the country, in the throes of a crackdown on a resurgent al Qaeda.

I hate to say something isn't going to work from the outset.

But seriously, what could go wrong?

Two More Gitmo Graduates

Just in case you're keeping count, the most transparent administration in history released two more Gitmo graduates, Hasan Zumiri (or Hasan Zemiri) and Adil Hadi al Jazairi Bin Hamlili:

The Obama administration has reportedly transferred two Algerians from Guantanamo to their native country. Given the allegations levied against them at Gitmo, it is likely that the two are in Algerian custody.

There is no transparency with respect to detainee transfers. So, we do not know how the Obama administration decided to approve the two detainees for transfer, or what will come of them back in Algeria. Press accounts do not indicate if the two remain detained, but it would be surprising to learn they have been outright freed.

One of the two was implicated in al Qaeda’s millennium plot against Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in California. The other is allegedly a devout takfiri, who was plotting attacks against American forces in Afghanistan in 2002 and was also responsible for two attacks against churches in Pakistan that same year.

That's via Stephen F. Hayes at The Weekly Standard. Read his whole post. These are not nice guys.

This is on the heels of reports yesterday that Republicans have introduced legislation "designed to restrict President Barack Obama's ability to transfer Guantanamo Bay detainees back to countries that harbor terrorists."

From Deseret News:

The bill requires the president to certify before transferring a detainee to a foreign country that the country is not a state sponsor of terrorism, can control its own territory, has no areas that serve as a safe haven for terrorist groups and has no previously released detainees who have returned to terrorist activities.

Of course, the bill isn't really expected to fare very well. The the objective is to CLOSE Gitmo, you know. Planning and common sense be damned!

Given that Eric Holder made the decision on his own to turn Abdulmutallab over to the criminal justice system, I wonder if he's the only one involved in deciding which detainees get released and where they go. This, remember, is the guy that worked for the firm that represented many of these detainees pro bono.

Just wonderin'.

Mixed Signals in the Terror Trials

There are a couple of conflicting stories floating about with regard to the terrorist trials.

Friday I started reading about the Obama administration's consideration of holding one of the trials in Washington D.C. - that of Riduan Isamuddin, or Hambali. Hambali was a high ranking al-Qaeda operative, supposedly the main link between al-Qaeda and a terror group responsible for a bombing in Bali in 2002 which killed more than 200 people and the 2000 attacks in Indonesia on Christmas Eve that killed 19. He was planning a second wave of attacks in America when he was captured. You can read more of his resume here or here.

Hambali is one of the high value detainees at Gitmo, along with KSM, who supposedly is going to be tried in New York City.

However, now Newsweek is reporting that KSM may not be coming to New York at all:

But because of shifting political winds in Congress, the trial is now "potentially in jeopardy," a senior official, who did not want to be named talking about a sensitive situation, tells NEWSWEEK. The chief concern: that Republicans will renew attempts to strip funding for the trial and, in the aftermath of the bombing attempt aboard Northwest Flight 253, pick up enough support from moderate Democrats to prevail.

It's not just the Republicans gumming up the works, either:

Another big factor? The price tag. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg recently sent a letter to the White House budget office seeking more than $216 million to provide security for the trial this year—and more than $200 million for each year after that. The figures have prompted some critics to say that, given the years a complex conspiracy case could take, the final cost could approach $1 billion.

Meanwhile, there appears to be a communications breakdown in information sharing between the administration and Congress. The Hill reports:

Ever since Obama announced plans to shutter the Guantánamo Bay detention facility in the first days of his presidency, members of Congress have complained about the lack of transparency on the backgrounds of detainees transferred overseas...

...There is no transparency when it comes to detainee transfers,” said Tom Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The public doesn’t know how the Obama administration is deciding which detainees can be transferred or which detainees are transferred until after the fact. This makes congressional notifications, and passing on those notifications in short order to members of Congress, all the more important.” Even when they receive the classified notifications from the State Department, some lawmakers complain about the quality of the information in the reports and the 15-day window for Congress to request additional information and raise concerns.

There doesn't seem to be a lot of open communication about this going on between the people that should be paying attention. That includes the American people. And it doesn't seem as if the decision makers in Washington are all on the same page.

It might be too expensive to hold a trial for KSM + 4 in New York, but we can maybe try Hambali in D.C.?

It seems as if the Obama administration is just throwing ideas out there to see what gets the least public outcry and that's the one they go with.

It doesn't instill a lot of confidence in the process.