The Washington Post reports that lawyers are successfully arguing that terror financiers can’t be blacklisted because it violates their fundamental rights.
BRUSSELS — The global blacklisting system for financiers of al-Qaeda and other terrorist groups is at risk of collapse, undermined by legal challenges and waning political support in many countries, according to counterterrorism officials in Europe and the United States.
In September, the European Court of Justice threw the future of the United Nations’ sanctions program against al-Qaeda and the Taliban into doubt when it declared the blacklist violated the “fundamental rights” of those targeted. The Luxembourg-based court said the list lacked accountability and made it almost impossible for people to challenge their inclusion.
But the fundamental problem with fighting terrorism any further may not be legal technicality. It may be the perception that the political justification for the War on Terrorism and combating terrorism has run out; that September 11 is now truly history and BHO’s election is the period to a last chapter that politicians are now in a hurry to forget. Despite Obama’s promise to ‘get’ Osama Bin Laden, it may be that the very forces which brought him to power are the very same which have worked hard to de-legitimize resistance to Islamic extremism. How can BHO can prosecute a war against al-Qaeda when many of his supporters are Leftist or pacifist is a non-trivial challenge. This is evident even to the Taliban and are they asking the new administration to give up the campaign in Afghanistan as a bad job. Why can’t we just get along and let the Taliban in peace? In the same way they were at peace before September 11, 2001. The Press Trust of India reports that the Taliban has asked President-elect Obama to pull out of Afghanistan.
Islamabad, Nov 6(PTI) Hoping that a new era of peace will dawn with the election of Barack Obama as the US President, the Taliban has asked the President-elect to change his country’s policies towards it and end the war in Afghanistan. Reacting to Obama’s victory in the American polls, top Taliban spokesman Qari Muhammad Yousaf Ahmadi told reporters: “We want to tell the world and the West to pull out their troops from Afghanistan as the (party of US President George W Bush) has lost the race because of their flawed polices.” Another Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said it would be “unwise” if Obama tried to solve the Afghan problem militarily. He said it would be “wrong thinking” if Obama tried to increase US forces in Afghanistan to “make Afghans slaves”.
This highlights the question of whether BHO can prosecute a war against al-Qaeda, even if he wanted to. The very sources of his political support vitiate against raising the commitment he will need from Europe and at domestically for a prolonged campaign in Southwest Asia. The Taliban request is implicitly based on the belief that the very sentiments that swept him into office will make it difficult for him to fight them. Are they right?
Tip Jar
I just saw some poll results on a German TV blurb. Sixty-seven percent of Germans now find America trustworthy, as opposed to 48& in September and 53% in April. BUT, 69% are opposed to sending more troops to Afghanistan as requested by Obama. Improved transatlantic relations means simply that Europeans won’t protest as loudly when we do their dirty work for them, at least for a little while.
Joe Biden’s prediction begins to come true even earlier that he expected. Obama is already being called on to preemptively surrender to the forces of evil that confront us. Who expects him to show the spine to oppose both them and the dreamy yet vicious radicals who put him into power in the first place?
Given that no one knows what BHO will do as President (in spite of 2 years and hundreds of millions of dollars worth of campaigning), his early actions will be watched very closely by everyone. The world will be looking for a sign.
Me too. One of signs I will especially look for is “don’t blame me; it’s Bush’s fault.” Every President inherits a set of issues, some known, some unknown, some good, some bad. But the extent to which BHO positions himself as a victim of GWB, instead of the leader of the free world, will tell us a lot about his character.
Having won the battle in the world of words, he now enters the world of action.
The rules are different. Gravity applies.
L3
It may be the perception that the political justification for the War on Terrorism and combating terrorism has run out
My position hasn’t changed. I kept looking for a strong voice from the “moderate” Muslim community condemning violence and it never emerged. That absolutely has to happen.
So much for “lawfare” versus warfare. I guess that’s working out well.
Being a lawyer (Obama), I think we can guess that he will be a policy sail-trimmer until a “consensus” appears, magically, from somewhere. After discussions with our “allies”. Whatever.
I don’t get it:
There are more important things to be concerned with, like redefining the meaning of marriage, or the meaning of 1 + 1.
(not to mention, the meaning of “is”)
—
Bennet read this in response to the protests and lawsuits in California Over Prop 8, defining Marriage, and election 2000 and it’s aftermath, compared to our response to election 2008.
(no protests, no lawsuits, no whining on Ophra, Letterman, the View, etc)
—
Mediocrity as a national ideal
Walker Percy
…in all these years I’ve been assuming that between us, words mean the same thing…
The Classroom Corps needs money. It’s only natural for Obama to gut the military. I expect more of the same but at a much faster pace.
The War on Terror ended on November 4, 2008. I would say the USA won and the Moslem Terrorist Movement lost.
The USA has some remaining captives. The Obama Administration will decide which ones it might put on trial and then release all the rest.
With regard to economic sanctions on financiers of terrorists, the Obama Administration might provide whatever evidence it can against some such financiers and then allow the removal of all other sanctions.
The terrorists and their financiers and other supporters now have a good occasion to stop their terrorist activities against the USA. They should spend the rest of their lives on legal activities.
If they nevertheless prefer to resume their terrorist activities against the USA, then we all will have an opportunity to watch the Democrats show the world how the situation should be managed.
The Bush Administration demonstrated to the Moslem world how strong and robust the USA is and weak and fragile the Moslem world is. The mullahs who had preached the opposite are discredited sufficiently.
Young Moslems recognize now that they can’t become heroes by sacrificing themselves in futile suicide attacks against the Almighty and Eternal USA. Their families and relatives won’t praise their suicide attacks when the USA President’s middle name is Hussein.
The young people here and the young people there have lost interest in the War on Terrorism. In both places we are seeing the manifestation of the words “What if they gave a war and nobody came?”
It’s time for the world to move on. We’ll release our captives and end our sanctions. They will stop blowing up embassies and airplanes and murdering tourists and journalists.
Eventually there might be another war. But the generation that is now in its late teens and twenties needs to devote its efforts to fitting itself into the new economic situation.
Contributing to Al-Qaida is a fundamental human right, contributing to candidates other than Dems is almost a crime. Mentioning the name of a political official prior to an election is a crime, virtual kiddie porn is protected speech.
Why is the song Lola becoming an earworm (at least a portion of it) to me?
The Thunder Run has linked to this post in the – Web Reconnaissance for 11/07/2008 A short recon of what’s out there that might draw your attention, updated throughout the day…so check back often.
Wretchard asks:
“How can BHO can prosecute a war against al-Qaeda when many of his supporters are Leftist or pacifist is a non-trivial challenge.”
Obviously we can’t (McCain lost!). We’ll have to absorb multiple hits and vote out Hussein and the moonbat Congress as soon as possible. These will be self-inflicted wounds.
The bad guys know they have at least two free shots. The bad guys maybe evil but they’re not stupid. What do you think they’re going to do?
The fake “War on Terror” has been a joke and scam from day one. The US gov and oil/car/military mafia has been financing jihad against Israel and the rest of the world for decades, and none of the sock puppets here will call them on that.
Mika2k1:
How many moons orbit your world?
mika2kl, calm down or else I will initiate another debate with you about Saint Paul and the destruction of the Jerusalem Temple. And then Charles will start pasting in Bible texts, and our conflict will spiral completely out of control.
There is a pretty understandable perception that the Evildoer threat is not as extreme as Bush claimed, and his claims that massive government growth in security forces, masses of new regulations restricting Americans conduct, and putting whole legal systems in abeyance are worth it if it saves Just One Life from the “Islamofascists” – just isn’t the case.
Stuff like being on “no fly list” with no right of appeal, regs that confiscate your toothpaste, unaccountable bureaucrats that blacklist businessmen from access to banks because they did business or worked with groups that America and it’s Special Friend had on their respective “enemies list”. (While the same two nations support or don’t go after those who do business with THEIR pet terrorist groups posing as “freedom-lovers!”)
Europe and Asia, as well as the Muslim world is sick of the blacklistings and no fly lists with no explaination of why they are being punished and with no legal recourse to appleal it.
It just isn’t about direct material support to “Evildoers” like AQ. It is all too frequently about some Italian business guy who is selling components to a Syrian cement factory which unknown to him has a Saudi backer who owns 35% of the factory and who in turn gives money to a West Bank charity which in turn is operated by Fatah and which not only gives out medical supplies but also resists Israeli colonization activities. Then the Italian finds his business bank transfers blocked with no reason why, no legal path to appeal and who in turn begins burning up the phones to the Italian and Swiss Governments. Who also start asking WTF?
It does seem time for the pendulum to swing back a bit and accept less massive, expensive and onerous security for a little more freedom – even if that does cost an extra “Evildoer” attack somewhere each year – so long as it isn’t nuclear.
*********
We may have no choice but to talk to the Taliban. Bush was pretty deranged when he listened to the Neocons and bought their bullshit about noble purple-fingered Afghani freedom lovers and natural democrats ready to cast off their Burquas. Now we have an exceptionally corrupt government kept afloat by pallets of 100 dollar bills from the US taxpayer to keep Karzai and his henchmen happy and the narco network going. And 28,000 troops hanging on by their fingernails as the Taliban come back – after years of frittering away time and going out on “Evildoer hunts” as apathetic or resentful Afghans watched the latest round of soon-to-be-gone foreigners do their thing.
Wretchard – The Taliban request is implicitly based on the belief that the very sentiments that swept him into office will make it difficult for him to fight them. Are they right?
The Taliban are right in that the Neocon “democracy & freedom!!” campaign has been a miserable failure, rebuilding derailed by focus on Iraq, and failure to show a rational economic alternative to growing opium poppies. And that we have no patience for being there in endless war, and America’s rapid decline means we have better uses for our resources elsewhere. And that the corrupt puppets the Neocons put in power have not had the inclination to take control of the country – better to be weak and safe and racking away the opium dollars and suitcases of 100 dollar bills handed out to Karzai supporters in Swiss acounts and enjoy a summer in Sweden or Cape Cod. (Met some Afghan gov’t people in Truro who rented one of the larger villas on the Cape for a month.)
But if Obama and his team are smart, and fortunately they do give signs of being smarter than Bush’s circle – they will condition pullout on us remaining to do aid projects, the Taliban leaving the non-Pashtun parts of Afghanistan alone, them renouncing terrorism and putting their thumbs down on Arab terrorists.
And reconciliation with the corrupt puppets we placed in power. And they should let school improvements stand.
We may not get all of that, but Obama should make the Taliban agreeing to suppress terrorism non-negotiable…or we will come back and blast them out of power again. (Assuming we rebuild the bridges the Neocons burned with Russia and in part, Iran, that gave us other means of getting to Afghanistan and projecting power than through “seething” Pakistan…
have given sanctuaryus leaving should
But we
Eggplant, worry when it’s a full moon.
As you know I was very much in support of the Iraq operation initially. But I see what it has morphed into, and I now understand why that is. A fake a war to drum up contracts for the oil car military mafia.
The only justification for the threat or use of force according to the Left is by passing the “international test” and getting the imprimatur of the UN. However according to those same leftists the UN does not even have the power to use the sanctions system in the UN charter. Of course if these sanctions were to be passed against America or some local prosecutor or judge attempts to act unilaterally to lock up an American or Israeli military officer or politician then that would be OK.
noble purple-fingered Afghani freedom lovers
I detect derangement, all right. Just not from the source you point to… not unless you want to do it while looking in a mirror.
Doug, Walker Percy is my favorite author.
Although I must confess a preference for his fiction.
Without the US, there would be no UN.
Without the US, there would be no Saudia, Pakiland, “Palestine”, etc.
Without the US, there would be no Jihadis. They’d be erased off the map.
Looks like we lost cedarford. I for one will miss him.
At least he departed doing what he loves to do.
America may have had it’s cake and eaten it too.
First came the hammer… Bush. He did the dirty work, took the blame, and everybody hated the US. Now comes Obama, the golden boy, who makes the world think that America the Good is back. And that’s fine. It’s good PR. Most of the dirty work is done.
In the meantime, do the rabid mullahs secretly worry that their flock first saw jihadists get the crap beat out of them, and now the Great Satan elects not a white Christian, ex-warrior, but an alluring, inspirational black man, and son of a Muslim?
This all may be wishful thinking, but hey, I”m an optimist. I’m sure all sides wait with baited breath to see who the real President Obama is.
mkunert said:
“I’m sure all sides wait with baited breath to see who the real President Obama is.”
I’m still wondering: Is he just another garden variety Democrat populist (mostly harmless) or is he Annatar, the Lord of Gifts?
Based upon current information, we don’t really know.
mkunert – look for a quick exit strategy as soon as he’s in office for real. He’ll announce the war (GWOT) is won and bring everybody home.
Then we’ll get hit again.
mika2k1:
My hat is off to you. You’ve proved, once and for all, that it’s entirely possible to operate in a world in which slogans have replaced rational thought.
Now, all this aside, won’t you fill us all in your recent delightful package tour of Eastasia and Oceania?
MarkJ,
He’s another slogan for you: “Religion Of Peace”
America’s real special friend.
Cause I certainly don’t hear any whining about the $10 billion a month waisted on these jihadi fscks, and that’s just in Iraq.
to Grouchy… yeah, with a quick exit, we’ll be hit again. But after seven years of safety under Bush, a new terrorist attack will devastate Obama’s administration.
Obama is too Machiavellian to allow that possibility.
Hence, I doubt he’ll push for a quick exist strategy. The war is out of the news and casualties are low. Soon, the MSM will blossom with news on how the war in Iraq was won under Obama’s watch. So what’s does Obama have to gain in leaving Iraq quickly? If he does and anything goes wrong, he’ll take all the blame.
Only the extreme-left will demand a quick withdrawal, and if they do so too loudly, they’ll promptly find themselves under a bus.
Cedarford doing what he loves to do; what’s that, Jew baiting or proposing lame paleo conservative non solutions. It’s interesting he tells us how bright Obama’s team is when Obama hasn’t appointed one yet. Maybe he has an inside track that intellectual giants like Madeleine Albrite and Strobe Talbott are waiting in the wings.
wasted
Interesting article about China’s economy:
http://www.forbes.com/opinions/2008/11/05/china-recession-roubini-oped-cx_nr_1106roubini.html
China is another elephant in the room standing next to our imploding economy and Iran with its nuclear weapon’s program. Our room is so full of elephants that it looks like a three-ring circus. It’s almost poetic justice that Obama will have to deal with this incredible mess.
Time for another of Joe Biden’s lucid moments.
Yeah but this is also from Roubini (rgemonitor site). Note the first and last sentences.
However, Obama will inherit and economic and financial mess worse than anything the U.S. has faced in decades: the most severe recession in 50 years; the worst financial and banking crisis since the Great Depression; a ballooning fiscal deficit that may be as high as a trillion dollar in 2009 and 2010; a huge current account deficit; a financial system that is in a severe crisis and where deleveraging is still occurring at a very rapid pace, thus causing a worsening of the credit crunch; a household sector where millions of households are insolvent, into negative equity territory and on the verge of losing their homes; a serious risk of deflation as the slack in goods, labor and commodity markets becomes deeper; the risk that we will end in a deflationary liquidity trap as the Fed is fast approaching the zero-bound constraint for the Fed Funds rate; the risk of a severe debt deflation as the real value of nominal liabilities will rise given price deflation while the value of financial assets is still plunging. This is the bitter gift that the Bush administration has bequeathed to Obama and the Democrats.
In a similar vein, Wretchard…
“O, Let’s not follow the money”…
Obama will of course surrender/withdraw from Iraq and Afghanistan. He and his allies will of course draw up a “peace treaty” to Bin Laden and really give bin Laden all he wants. A humiliating defeat for the US.
But it does not end there. As Lawrence Wright in “the Looming Tower” points out, Osama had constant struggles to get and keep men and money until he successfully hit the US with mass terror attacks. Bush kept Osama and Zawahari at bay, with offense.
Now, whatever “deal” Obama may strike with his buddy Osama, it does not matter. There will be someone to find reasons to renege on the deal and launch new attacks on the US. Because that is how leaders get money and men and power — by killing a LOT of Americans. Then demanding ever more concessions. After all, their societies are seething with masses of men who can never find wives because of polygamy, except by foreign conquest of one sort or another, or 72 Virgins in Paradise.
So, it’s inevitable that the US will be nuked. It was inevitable with McCain, though it would have been delayed, it’s far more likely with weak and inviting attack Barack Hussein Obama. No Muslim thinks Obama would retaliate massively for a nuked out of existence NYC. Heck he’d probably apologize to the Muslim world, and approve of it secretly, goes the thinking (which is likely correct). You don’t go from “God Damn America” and “Chickens coming home to roost” to actually defending America. You just can’t do it.
So around 6 million dead or so is a given. Likely within two years.
It does not matter if WE surrender and stop fighting, THEY cannot. It’s the only way for ambitious men like Zawahari to become kings themselves — by attacking America with ever greater atrocities, to gain followers and money. It’s a given.
There is no middle and no muddle. Only this reality.
Gee, New York City? That’s a lot of Obama voters. Could hurt in the re-election campaign.
Might happen, likely not. I understand your premise, just don’t quite agree with all of it. But the war for control of the Muslim world, with the ancillary fighting spilling over into the civilized world and causing incidental ‘casualties’, will continue. Because that’s all those jokers know and understand.
“Oh, let’s not follow the money”
Yes, some of it may lead to the big 0
“The Washington Post reports that lawyers are successfully arguing that terror financiers can’t be blacklisted because it violates their fundamental rights.”
Oh, well, I guess it’s time to bring back “targeted assassinations”
Whiskey continues to piss and moan about his new discovery that enemy entities have nuke weapons, something that was true 60 years ago and his beloved NYC is still there.
Projecting his own cowardace on the country, he pronounces the US too scared to ever retaliate if the US is nuked.
***************
We are likely to pull out of Afghanistan, something NATO is strongly urging behind the scenes – as their economies also collapse and Russia threatens to not allow them to cross their territory as well as the US – over expanding NATO to their doorstep. No one buys Afganistan has anything but a puppet government as effectual as the puppet government the Soviets installed 30 years ago. No one buys the Neocon crap anymore about noble freedom-loving!!, democracy-hungry Afghans thirsting for woman’s rights and a modern nation they just can’t wait to bring forth with their good Christian friends from America.
If we look at the cold facts, there is little geopoltical value to Afghanistan. Staying there requires bribes of Karzai’s people of a few billion, in Pakistan of 2-3 billion a year under Bushes “deficits don’t matter as plenty of money can be had” philosophy. And 16-18 billion for the Heroes chasing down 200-300 “evildoers”?
Not worth it in context of saving the automotive industry instead and 200,000 jobs and salvaging 300,000 pensions.
Cut the deal with the Pashtuns, we are out of there as long as they quash the radicals from attacking the world from their lands.
Iraq does have geostrategic importance, but we spend our money recklessly, and we cannot afford that luxury – or the idea we will substantially lower living standards in the US and our kids future to stage a sneak attack on Iran.
Too bad, Sirius Sir, your dreams of endless war just ended.
Whiskey @ 38: “So around 6 million dead or so is a given. Likely within two years.”
Wow, Whiskey, stay away from the palantir.
Our system of law has a sharp distinction between the internal law of the nation and the external processes by which we deal with other nations. The terrorists are not nations, but are trying to destroy our nation. Our internal law is not designed for this.
They have studied us. They know that this line is a weak point in our armor, and they are striking us there. If we do not recognize this and create some kind of overlap aimed specifically at them, we are courting our own destruction.
Too bad, Sirius Sir, your dreams of endless war just ended.
What the hell are you going on about?
The best thing about Obama winning the election is that Biden will be out of the senate for four years.
Jim
Comment #3 makes a very good point about early observation of the “no fui yo, fue tete” or “don’t blame me; it’s Bush’s fault” excuse because one of two things will happen. Either he will avoid dealing with an issue to avoid getting politically stained by it. Or, while seemingly dealing with it, much of the strategizing will involve developing of Plan Bs to reassign blame backward in case something goes wrong, with the consequence of less than total commitment to Plan A. The deployment of the “I inherited this mess” weapon will mean that complex, long-term problems will not be fully and effectively addressed.
Hummmm, we reserve the right to refuse to do business. So, Piss off. Prove to me you are not financing terror and we’ll consider resuming business relations. That is the point isn’t it, not their “right” to do business, but ours not to.
You cannot force me to do something that is not in my best interest. If what the data gathered shows a situation is not, in fact, correct a mechanism to remedy or means for relief from the situation needs to be put in place. Bio metric ID cards would be a big plus. But so long as we are at war… or for till otherwise determined, the folks on the list need to figure out a way around a bad situation. I would not want to die, nor have my family dead because someone was not inconvenienced. But that is just me.
I really would not miss New York. If it has to happen, and I hope it DOES NOT, it would be fitting to lose the most liberal city, one that has been encouraging just this type of behavior through weak-kneed platitudes. As a bonus we would finally be rid of the UN.
Just saying.
SpeakEasy, it would also take care of all those shenanigans on Wall Street.
Just saying.
This is only a test. Repeat. Only a test.
These left-wing illuminati will indeed follow this test, because they’re so thirsty to go into there anyway.