Fox News reports that a senior Republican has told the press that the Obama administration has told the FBI “to start reading Miranda rights to suspected terrorists at U.S. military detention facilities in Afghanistan.”
The move is reportedly creating chaos in the field among the CIA, FBI and military personnel, according to Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Mich. The soldiers, especially, he says, are frustrated that giving high value detainees Miranda rights — the right to remain silent, the right to an attorney — is impeding their ability to pursue intelligence on the battlefield, according to a story first reported by the Weekly Standard. …
Rogers, a former FBI special agent who served in the U.S. Army, just returned from Afghanistan and a visit to Bagram Air Base, where he said the rights are being read.
Advertisement“I witnessed it myself, talked to the people on the ground,” he said. “What you have is two very separate missions colliding in the field in a combat zone. Again, anytime that you offer confusion in that environment that’s already chaotic and confusing enough, you jeopardize a soldier’s life.” U.S. commanders told FOX News soldiers are not reading Miranda rights to detainees, but those commanders could not speak to whether the FBI was doing so. …
Asked if the Obama administration had ordered that Miranda rights be read to certain detainees, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said, “I have no reason to disbelieve a member of Congress. But I don’t know any of the circumstances that are involved around it.” But Gibbs acknowledged that it wouldn’t be a surprise to find out that it was happening.
This is the logical conclusion to Obama administration’s approach to combating terrorism. Actually scratch that. America is no longer fighting terrorists, just investigating alleged crimes. The US only has a crime problem, nothing more. If that is so, it would be interesting to know whether we have actually ‘won’ the war against terrorists or whether there never ought to have been a war in the first place. The other question is whether these ‘suspects’ are now entitled to pro bono representation? Well why not? In for a dime, in for a dollar.
What could possibly go wrong? Could this impact the development and exploitation of tactical intelligence? Could it put lives at risk? Or is that just another “false choice” put forward to destroy our “moral standing”? What do soldiers have to do differently to preserve the chain of evidence? What must they do to avoid liability? There must be host of unanswered questions. No wonder Rogers is reporting confusion. I guess the government just has to hire more lawyers to train people, prosecute suspects and provide pro-bono defense. Maybe this is part of the stimulus package. It would make about as much sense as any other conjecture.
Update:An article in The Los Angeles Times may provide a clue to the provenance of the new Miranda Rules. It may be part of Obama’s “Global Justice Initiative”.
Under the “global justice” initiative, which has been in the works for several months, FBI agents will have a central role in overseas counter-terrorism cases. They will expand their questioning of suspects and evidence-gathering to try to ensure that criminal prosecutions are an option, officials familiar with the effort said. …
The approach effectively reverses a mainstay of the Bush administration’s war on terrorism, in which global counter-terrorism was treated primarily as an intelligence and military problem, not a law enforcement one. That policy led to the establishment of the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba; harsh interrogations; and detentions without trials.
The “global justice” initiative starts out with the premise that virtually all suspects will end up in a U.S. or foreign court of law.
But it might not be irrelevant to point out that it also makes Eric Holder, not Robert Gates, the lead person in the fight against ‘suspected criminals’. My bad. I should have guessed that from the first. Fill a position, then expand that position’s responsibility until it encompasses all that it should. “If the mountain will not come to Mohammed, Mohammed will go to the mountain.”
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In English, without a translator, pls, if they have to be PC.
It is insanity, though, in any case.
Wonderful.
Now we can expect the phenomenal results we’ve achieved in controlling criminals in Philadelphia, Phoenix, LA, New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit, etc., etc.
ROFLMAO!
Wretchard, are you a writer for the administration in secret? You got their buzz phrases down pat.
Is anyone surprised? I’ll not be surprised if there are persecutions of those putting terrorists into comfy chairs & serving them coffee.
This is just the thin wedge that is needed to police the political conformity of the military. Soon there will be JAG officers (re: Political officers) injected in all levels of command to ensure conformity to these policies.
I foresee a drop in the re-enlistment rate and a real crisis brewing in the ranks within 6-12 months, if this is truly happening. Who would wish to fight for a government that cares more about the “rights” of non-uniformed partisans (that some people would call “terrorists”) than gaining actionable field intelligence that gives soldiers a tactical advantage?
Even uniformed captured soldiers have been harshly interrogated during wartime, i.e, WWII.
In the end, it isn’t funny but at the moment there is nothing left to do but smile smile smile, and if we couldn’t laugh we’ld all go insane.
Predictions.
1. Prisoners reported captured by U.S. units without embedded outside media goes to near zero.
2. Rash of unexplained incidents, live grenades, snakes, heavy equipment accidents, discourage media embeds.
3. Within 90 days there is a near mutiny confrontation when senior officers start confiscating black flags from
the troops.
4. Intel collection goes to near zero and new reputation for ruthlessness becomes legacy of US military.
Andy McCarthy writes at the National Review:
Live by demagoguery? Why yes. That’s how politicians earn their living. But die by demagoguery? No. That’s somebody else’s job.
Let’s see, Wretchard: this new policy — is it part of the hope or part of the change?
Before Jamie Gorelick became a multi-millionaire by overseeing the destruction of Fannie Mae she was in the Clinton Justice Department, where she wrote the so-called “firewall” preventing the FBI from talking to the CIA. That lead ultimately to one intelligence agency NOT telling the other they suspected something was up with Saudis taking flight training. That was before 9/11.
Now the Gorelick wall has apparently been turned inside out: the CIA must act like the FBI before taking prisoners or asking them questions.
The circus must envy the way this administration has hired so many clowns.
I think LOTM has it right: fewer live prisoners. That means less actionable intelligence and a lot of gritted teeth on the part of JAG lawyers. F
Barbra freakin Streisand! We don’t live in the USA. The terrorists have more rights than us.
More blood on Obama’s hands.
Well McCain feel the pain for soldiers whose lives could have been saved, yet now will die because of such idiocy?
What’s next, search warrants? Signed by a stateside judge?
A reader writes to say that a Rogers interview was heard on the Mark Levin show — (http://www.marklevinshow.com), whose online version isn’t up yet. But it should be soon. Maybe the best thing to do for right now is to gather up the known facts and chew them over.
Today in turning on the radio, I cut into a newscast in which someone was attributing to the current administration the following reasoning:
[The administration claims that] Unregulated and out-of-control bonuses and incentive rewards to executives need to be monitored and controlled exactly because for years they were driving the rush of Wall Street firms to RISKY investments.
[my paraphrasing; not a direct quote]
However true that is of Wall Street Firms, it is far more descriptive of the bonuses and incentives that Franklin Rains, Jamie Gorelick, et al, were so smugly writing each other as they looted the system. They were “earning” millions of dollars in bonuses for accepting tens of thousands of worthless mortgages, leading the financial world in a race to the bottom.
Vermin!
But you don’t hear anyone in the administration or on the Left saying a single syllable against their buddies.
Vermin!
There aren’t enough vile words to describe the moral leprosy of these people.
Southern folk have a good approximation:
Sorry Rascals.
Next thing you know the FBI won’t even be able to look into the files on a captured terrorist suspect’s computer. Could be some very pertinent information might be had, could be thousands of innocent lives would be saved, but legality rules, legality rules. And since we make ‘em, the least we can do is play by ‘em.
It is all just a game, right?
Remember, it’s all about feeling good about yourself, your values, your life. If others are killed because you “did the right thing” – well that’s just too bad. Morality is all relative anyway, there is no real standard of right and wrong – one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter, etc. Heaven forbid that we should ever give someone else a reason to dislike us.
I wouldn’t care so much if I were convinced that these foolish policies would only lead to pain for those who supported them. But I know only too well that they will dodge that bullet – it is we who will bear the brunt of their folly.
To borrow a phrase: it is September 10th again. Those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it.
Damn.
Charles Pierce at Esquire argues that Barack Obama’s power largely derives from his ability to do the unthinkable. Everybody thought he would play by the rules. Nobody anticipated that he would in many respects, just throw them away. In an article entitled, “Is Obama Crazy?”, Pierce writes:
This has forced Obama’s opponents to act in unprecedented ways themselves, simply in response. This creates a mirror image response, with predictable results. You can almost imagine somebody else writing a book in answer: “Are Obama’s opponents crazy?” To keep pace with the extreme, you have to go to an extreme pace. The result is that everybody is wrestling outside of the ring. Pierce says,
So the whole thing winds up looking like a debate between Napoleon and Alexander in the lunatic asylum, except that in this case, the debate is in deadly earnest. I’ll leave aside who’s sane and who’s crazy and only observe that the slugest will make matchsticks out of all the institutional furniture of the last fifty years. Custom has been cast aside. We’ll all start to sound crazy in the political arena with this difference: some of us will actually be crazy.
Wretchard, The Weekly Standard has this so it’s solid.
The Corner has it. Ace has it. Hotair has it. It’s all over the news. Fox News has had it.
Obama is not stupid. He knows this will cause lots of terrorists to kill US troops, and to succeed in terror plots.
THAT IS HIS AIM. It has been from the beginning. An aim shared by the way, by most of his electoral coalition, including the SWPL Media, Yuppies, Blacks, Hispanics, Gays, and Women. All of whom WANT another massive attack to force a surrender to Sharia/Islam and use that surrender to create:
“Vichy America”
Where only the truly enlightened have power. Their model is explicitly Vichy France, who by collaborating were able to seize power and property from “enemies” (mostly Jews, Conservative Nationalist resistance people, later Communists after the Nazis invaded Russia). A true surrender to Islam would force Limbaugh off the air and into prison, along with Newt, Sarah Palin, etc. while allowing the New Black Panther Party, ACORN, Ayers, Rev. Wright (in the news today, railing about “the Jews” who won’t let him talk to Obama and how “the Jews” are creating another Holocaust typical attitudes for most though not all Blacks and Obama himself) to run most of the show in concert with various spoils partners: La Raza, NOW, the Mediacracy, etc.
That’s clearly Obama’s gamble. HE WANTS THE US TO GET HIT. Nearly all of the media and most of his coalition will immediately press for surrender. That’s common in Chicago where gang killings result in less police enforcement, “outreach” and the like.
But Obama’s miscalculated. One hit will not be enough to over-ride much of the country that will want to fight (though only about 48% or so will want to fight) and the rest will not have enough power to get their way. However Obama’s pals in AQ and elsewhere are unlikely to stop at one and thus sheer survival will require throwing Obama, most Dems, and the Constitution over the side, in a whip-snap version of Labor to BNP, compressed in matter of days instead of decades.
Because attack after attack after attack will make sheer survival the overall goal. If Obama has to be tossed out, along with Congress and the Constitution to have the country run by Military Councils, temporarily, with the aim of giving the world’s Muslims a haircut of about 50%, and killing/expelling/interning forever the nation’s Muslim population, then so be it. AQ won’t stop attacking. They see weakness, find lots of money and men flow to them when the attack the US, and believe (correctly) that Obama the Muslim President (which he is, by his own hand, regardless if he prays to Mecca five times a day) will NOT stop them or do anything to them in retaliation.
Meanwhile, NO CIA, FBI, US Military, or any other force will do ANYTHING but read terrorists their rights, and wait for Holder to plea bargain down murderous rampages to 10 days in jail or something.
This is Obama’s problem — he doesn’t realize (not being a real American) how BIG America is, and how much he’ll get fought on surrender after the first attack and how he’ll be tossed overboard (along with the Constitution and the whole system) in survival mode.
It’s probably been said before, but counter-terrorism is for PREVENTING terrorist acts from happening. Miranda rights are for investigating crimes that have ALREADY been committed. Using Miranda for counter-terrorism is a recipe for disaster because it handicaps the prevention of catastrophe. It signals that the government is going to let citizens suffer terrorist attacks and then “react” and “investigate” instead of prevent disaster.
Now that Oba-Messiah has announced that we will voluntarily handicap ourselves, I wonder if he feels morally superior for having given “oppressed” terrorist culture better odds of exterminating us– since all oppressive cultures are relative and deserving of multiculti respect. Or feeling warm and smug because we have demonstrated our superior “generosity” to the lowly “other.”
“Everybody thought he would play by the rules.”
“The rules” are what the CIA, the FBI, and our military personnel are required to uphold at the same time the President and various other politicians contort them to advantage or expediency. I suppose that is one of the major perquisites of being in charge, you get to tell others what to do and disdain being told by others.
CADE
Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows
reformation. There shall be in England seven
halfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hooped
pot; shall have ten hoops and I will make it felony
to drink small beer: all the realm shall be in
common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to
grass: and when I am king, as king I will be,–
ALL
God save your majesty!
CADE
I thank you, good people: there shall be no money;
all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will
apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree
like brothers and worship me their lord.
DICK
The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
Excert from Henry VI Part 2 by William Shakespeare
CADE
Be brave, then; for your captain is brave, and vows
reformation. There shall be in England seven
halfpenny loaves sold for a penny: the three-hooped
pot; shall have ten hoops and I will make it felony
to drink small beer: all the realm shall be in
common; and in Cheapside shall my palfrey go to
grass: and when I am king, as king I will be,–
ALL
God save your majesty!
CADE
I thank you, good people: there shall be no money;
all shall eat and drink on my score; and I will
apparel them all in one livery, that they may agree
like brothers and worship me their lord.
DICK
The first thing we do, let’s kill all the lawyers.
Henry VI Part 2 by William Shakespeare
These people are mad, mad, MAD.
The question that has not been answered is if Miranda rights are being given to willing informants, not to terrorists. The article mentions keeping the evidence untainted or some such language. The article also mentions that the practice has not been spread to Gitmo or been made mandatory by all US and Coalition soldiers. In fact it states the practice is not a military one at all. I suspect there is more to this than meets the eye but not that much.
It may be that by Miranda-izing certain folks their testimony then becomes less impeachable and untainted by suggestion that the informant was tortured.
At the same time, I don’t think the congressman would give false witness either. Perhaps he just needs better answers.
I can see the 1943 Yamamoto intercept by those P-38′s, as over the radio comes:
“By the power vested in me by the President of the United States, the USAAF and the Lockheed Corporation, I hereby advise you that a sentence of death has been pronounced as a result of certain crimes carried out on 7 Dec 1941. The death sentence will now be carried out. Do you have any last words, over?”
Actually they did consult a lawyer before they shot down the admiral, to make sure it was a legal act of war. I always thought that strange, even after dealing with JAGs so much in the USAF. Well, folks, it’s gonna get stranger.
From the Esquire essay:
“Obama has not only outpaced the serious ideological objections to what he has done; he’s also neutered the ridiculous ones, which often can do far more damage.
Obama has outpaced it all, and he has brought much of the country with him, albeit groaning as its atrophied muscles of self-government are thrown all at once into a kind of sprint. It may not last. The country had been adrift for so long that it may not have the stamina to keep up with the dizzying agenda that is being put before it.”
I can think of other words that might substitute for “stamina” – “money” being but just one that comes readily to mind.
“The country had been adrift for so long” – and then came the One to inject “hope” and perhaps irrevocable “change” – putting all things right (in the fairy tale version).
If I were a battlefield soldier, unless someone is looking and that someone I cannot trust would rat me out, I and my comrades are going to shoot the enemy dead. No prisoners.
I predicted this would come to pass and I also predict, as I did a few years ago when this debate was heating up, that the SOP would become “shoot, shovel, and shut up.”
And political officers had best make sure that their affairs are in order before going overseas to battle zones. Ask former Soviet soldiers and sailors what they thought of political officers. If the men could get away with it, they probably would have killed every political officer assigned to them. And the rats they use too.
Four years of this will be too many.
Hell, one year will be too many.
We are in very very dire straits.
How will America and Americans survive this?
“The country had been adrift for so long…”
Yeah, something north of 230 years.
And then along came Obama, who sank it.
What really bothers me is: isn’t the next step for our Lawyer Traitors to question whether the terrorist, oops! I forget em… enemy combatant is really an enemy combatant at all, and not just an innocent bystander?
Questions like: Did our soldiers properly identify themselves as US Military and warn sufficient the now dead or wounded enemy combatant of their rights? That’s what are police have to do.
Wouldn’t our military have to act more like our police if we take Miranda to it’s logical conclusion ?
Haven’t we now given the whole world the rights of American citizens and isn’t there a presumption of innocence for the perp built into our legal system? Wouldn’t there then need to be a standard of probable cause to attack and wouldn’t our soldiers be liable or guilty of homicide if such a standard were not met? Isn’t that what Miranda is all about? Rights for the accused, whether it be terrorist or enemy combatant?
This idea is nuts. Our level of combat effectiveness and security will go to damn near zero.
Miranda rights in Afghanistan.What are they doing, attaching loudspeakers to the predators?
Why do these people in the Democratic party always think they are in a classroom or a courtroom. Don’t they know the difference between a foxhole and a latrine. Does it really require an environmental impact study to blow up that valley of the Ibises where Osama is chilling?
The difference between process and purpose is that men are sometimes willing to lay themselves down for the later. Never for simply a process. A leader must grasp that difference in his or her heart. To even think that you have to explain this is so disheartening. It is one thing to believe in an idea. It is not the same to simply parse and arrange high minded words detached from the bleak reality of victims of ruthless men.
Candidate Obama: “What, you retards really think I want to require our troops to read captured AlQaida fighters Miranda rights? You people are idiots.”
President (spit) Ozero, 130 days later: “I have no idea who ordered our troops to read captured fighters their Miranda rights. But on further reflection, it’s a good idea since it will make other nations respect us more. Plus, I won, and the people who voted for me knew I was gonna *change* things…”
oops
We don’t need no steenking Mirandaizing
Probably not safe for work (violence).
The criminalizing of enemy combatants treats them as people who are accused of committing crimes in the past. Thus they are treated like anyone else accused of a felony: they are innocent until proven guilty.
By contrast, warfighting always takes place in the future. The purpose of warfighting is to force someone to do something that they would otherwise not do if left on their own. An example would be a terrorist who is planning to bomb the White House. Treating this person on the basis of confirmed intelligence that such is his plan would involve treating him as “guilty” of planning destruction some time in the future.
A criminal justice approach to this guy does precisely nothing at all to deter him from planning mayhem, because it is only concerned with acts that he has done in the past, of which he may or may not be guilty.
A guiding principle of the Geneva Treaties was precisely the distinction between these two situations. For instance, it is illegal to try on a charge of murder a soldier who killed someone on a battlefield while wearing the uniform identifying him as a bonafide member of a bonafied military of a bonafide soveregn nation.
This is because in a declared war it is assumed that, in the future, the soldiers of nation A that is at war with nation B will be “guilty” of killing the soldiers of nation B.
But he is not guilty, for the reason stated above. “Guilt” is a reasonable charge to make against someone who performed an interdicted act in the past. But to treat soldiers (and the agents of a terrorist organization that has made clear its target and therefore has in some sense “declared war”) as if they were accused criminals is nonsensical, as well as counterproductive.
At bottom, the criminalizing the fight against an external enemy is tantamount to saying that there is no war. It constitutes a de facto refusal to fight this war, and if the war intended to damage or destroy the U.S.A., then that refusal arguably constitutes an act of treason.
If the Obama administration is really doing what has been discussed so far in this thread, then it seems to be that impeachment proceedings may well be in the offing. That is, if the Republicans can see three feet in front of them, which I doubt. It’s going to have to be the people themselves, who take on this presidency which with progressively increasing clarity has come out as the enemy of the country it governs.
Like the marxists, the Obama babies want the country marxist, and if not marxist, they want it dead.
Ah yes, Obi Iwon “change”, the nits who voted for him thought he was lying only to us, not to them. The problem with the “law enforcement approach” is that it assumes Holder thinks the terrorists are criminals; he does not and never has. He will not treat the terrorists like anti-castro Cubans, pro-lifers, coservatives or the satan-spawned republicans he hates and who have no rights; for them, war. The terrorists, for him, are not criminals and are entitled to the superior rights their agrievement justifies.
Dave the Kapampangan @ 19: “It’s probably been said before, but counter-terrorism is for PREVENTING terrorist acts from happening. … Using Miranda for counter-terrorism is a recipe for disaster because it handicaps the prevention of catastrophe. It signals that the government is going to let citizens suffer terrorist attacks and then “react” and “investigate” instead of prevent disaster.”
Those darn unintended consequences again. Bang on, Dave.
wretchard @ 17: re: That Esquire article.
I read it and it is true that he thinks that Obama has tried the crazy man strategy = be the craziest m-f in the room and you can get out alive, sometimes. But what I read from the author is that he thinks what The 0bamantion is doing is good. I think the crypto-Muslim pretender is trying to destroy the Republic. Pierce is right about the speed of the blitz of new policies. But they are policies that we have not implemented in the ‘slower, lizard brain’ speed of the Republic. We tend to do things with calmness and deliberation so as to make as few mistakes as possible. Even though the AfPak & Iraq response to 9-11 may turn out in the long run to not be the optimal one, at least we did it with some deliberation.
I have written before in other places about the ill-considered purchase of a GM car I made in ’07. That was brought home today as the local fish wrapper had the article about the closing of that Chrysler dealership. They also deal in GMC & Pontiac. They have been in business for more than 90 years, are good loyal conservatives, have always made money and are losing their dealership with Chrysler this week. The DiLorenzo family is confused as to why as am I.
The 0bamanation is moving so quickly into it’s brave, new world that no one is stopping to consider those myriad unintended consequences things.
BTW, where is Habu? We could use his cool deliberations and viewpoints.
In the final analysis, what does this really mean in functional terms? To Obama and his ilk the outward appearance is everything. The substance behind it is nothing. Consider his current position regarding rendition.
Its all just a cultural misunderstanding. In the Obama world you put on the outward cloak of virtue and then do whatever the hell you want underneath it. The idea that there are people who expect the outward shell that a person projects to accurately reflect the inner contents is a concept that is probably beyond his capacity to understand on an existential basis. In his own mind, he is whoever he pretends to be at any given moment. The people he was in the past don’t really exist anymore, so the Obama of the present can’t be blamed for anything that the past incarnations of Obama did.
If, because of some nasty future development, honoring the Miranda rights for the Gitmo Gangstas becomes politically inconvenient they too shall be thrown under the bus.
One additional point:
Your Miranda Rights:
1. You have the right to remain silent.
2. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
3. You have the right to an attorney.
4. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.
What I know from research into right to carry issues –
#2 is perfectly true. What is NOT said is that anything exculpatory CANNOT be used to help you, it is heresay and not admissible in court. Bottom line = Ask and wait for the attorney in ANY case, if you are only a witness or in any situation.
See this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HukucKJS1_s
#1 in the series.
And here I thought McCain’s moral vanity was beyond reckoning.
Silly me.
Be prepared to stand for your own.
TCobb asks:
“What does this really mean in functional terms?”
-
Ans:
Mirandize the Jihadi prior to waterboarding him.
– Video – Obama Says Detainees Don’t Deserve Miranda Rights
In a March 2003 interview aired on CBS’ “60 Minutes” President Obama said Guantanamo detainees do not “deserve” to be read Miranda rights. Transcript of the exchange available below.
-
KROFT: Some of it being organized by a few people who were released from Guantanamo.
-
OBAMA: Well, there is no doubt that we have not done a particularly effective job in sorting rough who are truly dangerous individuals that weve got to make sure are not a threat to us, who are folks that we just swept up.
The whole premise of Guantanamo promoted by Vice President Cheney was that, somehow, the American system of justice was not up to the task of dealing with these terrorists. I fundamentally disagree with that.
Now, do these folks deserve miranda rights?
Do they deserve to be treated like a shoplifter down the block?
Of course not.
…You have the right to remain silent.
…Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law.
…You have the right to talk to a lawyer and to have a lawyer present while you are being questioned.
… Do you understand these rights that I have explained to you ?
…Having these rights in mind, do you want to talk to me now.
….This or something equivalent is the Miranda warning. It is inapplicable to folks not suspected of a prosecutable crime. Enemy soldiers are not, by the fact of being the enemy, engaged in a criminal enterprise. What they say will not be used in a court of law. They have no right to a lawyer.
…You just gotta wonder what kind of moron put this in play.
Watch the 30 yr bond auction tomorrow –watch the “bid-to-cover” and the percentage of “indirect buyers”. We’re gonna get a huge piece of info tomorrow afternoon.
We’re all getting a little bloody minded, and with reason. Muslim terrorists continue to kill people every day, whether a young US soldier at a recruiting station in the United States or staging a slaughter in Mumbai, India, and have just blown up a hotel in Peshawar, Pakistan, killing many innocent civilians. We hear now that the Obama administration has decided to read captured terrorist killers their Miranda rights, telling them they have a right to remain silent and that we will provide them a lawyer if they cannot afford one. Of course, Mr. Holder’s Justice Department is deeply concerned with the rights of terrorist killers. You may recall it was not so many years ago that Mr. Holder released many Puerto Rican terrorists in order to gain votes for Hillary Clinton’s run for the Senate from New York, so Mr. Holder’s views on terrorism are well known. Still, there is a way to get the job done properly while still reading the killers their Miranda rights. These terrorists are not afraid of death, they willingly and happily blow themselves up, believing they will be instantly in Paradise with 72 beautiful virgins, but there is one thing that terrifies them, and that is to be buried wrapped in a pig skin, for that would send them straight to hell. I propose, therefore, that we read them not their Miranda rights, but their Oscar Mayer rights. Wrap them in bacon, shoot them, and then read them their Miranda rights.
The Justice Department is quakin’
In fear that our soldiers be takin’
It into their head
To fill them with lead
Before their Mirandas be makin’
I like the idea of bacon
The thought has the jihadists shakin’
Let’s not wait till they’re dead
Grab the bastards instead
Shove the stuff up their ass while they’re wakin’
While a plea for his life he is makin’
Just grin with a little head shakin’
Then a shot to his head
Put the bastard to bed
And another in case he is fakin’
Mr. Holder says steps will be takin’
To prevent such a vile undertakin’
But our guys know that they
Are the ones who will pay
For the folly that Justice is makin’
I don’t see how the country can last for four more years with a leadership of this magnitude of sheer insanity. I doubt we can even hang on til mid-term elections. And mid-term elections themselves are no guarantee of any improvement, as people like us here at BC are evidently now a slight minority. In truth, people like us are viewed as more of a threat than the jihadists.
Personally, I wish red states would secede. Before the Obamanation I would’ve considered the indivisibility of the union to be sacrosanct, but not anymore. Secession appears to be the only earthly hope to preserve the land of the free. Are we all just going to stand around and watch everything good about the USA being willfully and wantonly destroyed? With the exception of the one day of the tea parties, that’s all we’ve been doing so far.
I want to hear somebody – anybody! – in a real, actual, politically powerful leadership position take a stand on behalf of our concerns and vow that this lawlessness, this pusillanimous, treacherous betrayal and treason will NOT be borne.
Ideally I’d like to hear this BEFORE it’s too late to halt the American demise, and/or before the evil fruit of Obamamadness forces us to endure some horrific consequence.
Buddu,
Can you elaborate a little? What is the signicance of bid to cover and indirect buyers. Main thing I figure is interest rates are going to keep going up.
47: That means that no one will buy the US debt, and since the country is already bankrupt, without reserves, Receivership or War are the alternatives.
Well, what is the point of capture then?
New rules said you couldn’t get info out of them anyway.
Sure, progressives are more compassionate.
/
buck/47; “bid-to-cover” is a ratio indicating the demand for the auction’s supply. Roughly, 2.0 is the bottom threshhold of a “good” treasury bond auction. “Indirect” means “foreign”. of course, the interest rate is the prime metyric of the debt’s quality, but due to outside factors (events, situations, demand for rival investment, et cetera) the rate derived in the auction may not provide a full enough picture of the auction.
A good example was yesterday, when the rate rise to 4.0 on 10 yr bond auction would by itself imply ‘low’ buying interest.
However, the ‘bid to cover’ was almost 3.0, or ‘high’.
So the real message was, “We still believe in the Dollar, but we assume inflation is rising sharply, so you, Uncle Sam, are hereby ‘on notice’”.
Not an uncommon bond ‘vigilante’ message by any means –but the 2nd Derivative (the rate of change) is enormous –to see this you need a chart, but briefly, that 4.0 was just over 2.0 six months ago. If the last six months forecasts the next six, we’d be @ 8.0 by New Years and inside a full-blown Carterite disaster –in housing and employment just for starters.
Is Obama lying or stupid? Does he really not know what kind of orders the FBI has, especially on something as important as this, or is he lying about telling the FBI to give terrorists more rights than they should have?
I’m also wondering if this is illegal- the Executive Branch isn’t supposed to be developing policies for captured terrorists- I think there was a Supreme Court decision on this- and Mike Rogers says that all of this (reading Miranda rights to terrorists) is going on without Congress knowing about it.
The problem with having a “citizen of the world” –read illegal alien– for president is not just that it extends citizenship legal privileges to foreigners but it also extends citizenship financial privileges as well.
We are in short open to be looted by the entire world.
The essence of the question of the day is really just an observation: if he doesn’t know what he’s doing, we’re in trouble; if he does know what he’s doing, we’re already beyond mere “trouble” and somewhere without an easy find of the word for it. I guess maybe a phrase is required. i suggest, “We the gulled Suckers of the so-called United States of America, in order to crap on a pretty damn good union, chose to elect a person who would claim that election as a mandate to destroy that union.”
Reading Miranda rights to fighters taken in the field makes the following assumption: that the only thing at issue is what they have done in the past. Focusing on that = not focusing on what his uncaught amigos are going to do in the future. That latter focus is part of what it means “to wage war.” If it is not taken into account, then one isn’t waging war. And if one isn’t waging war, then the consequences of a successful war–safety to the nation–do not come into being. Conclusion: If the Obama administration is not waging war against declared enemies of the U. S., then he is not doing what he swore to do: protect the U. S. Constitution. And if he is breaking that oath, then he is impeachable.
Buddy Larsen #53: Cf. my comment #54.
You’ve got the right angle: Obama’s dereliction of duty re: his inauguration oath is the fundamental question.
Lincoln said to Congress after he’d already committed the nation to what he conceived originally as a “police” action to enforce federal law and keep federal courts open in states where the first was no longer enforced and where the latter did not function. His justification: protecting the Constitution as per his inauguration oath.
We all remember the odd glitch when Obama took the oath? The Chief Justice stumbled over a crucial place in the wording, and Obama had to take the oath again in private. Does Obama have any idea what he swore to? Does he care?
You are right: Obama is rapidly morphing in the a kind of political horror-movie monster nobody was prepared for, and thought only occurred in “Nightmare on Elm Street” movies.
Good –let’s impeach, and have a mirth-filled three year run under Joey da Mouth.
Right to a lawyer? Drop in the 101st with the parts for a modular Girls law school in their packs. (some higher pay and better equipment for the local Muslims would be nice too.
voltimand/54, 55; –you raise an interesting question; what is the limit of campaign lies? What is the remedy for a Presidency exceeding it?
if he doesn’t know what he’s doing, we’re in trouble; if he does know what he’s doing, we’re already beyond mere “trouble” and somewhere without an easy find of the word for it.
It seems to me the answer is something of a mix. When he nominates a Sotomayor, he knows full well he’s pushing his academic Ivy League Leftist view of the law (which is to say, the rule of men… uh, persons… and not the rule of law). When he pulls economic rabbits out of a hat, I don’t think he has a clue as to the repercussions. His only concern is how it aggregates power to himself and his ilk. So in that sense he knows what he’s doing, though the true impact escapes him. As for foreign policy… God knows. It’s hard to believe he can be that shallow and naive. But who knows? Maybe it really is all about being the coolest kid in the class.
He’s a weird mix of power grabbing fascist and kumbayah chanting do-goodnic Liberal doofus. Which is why I hereby award him the new title: Il Duce-bag.
I remember reading an article after 9/11…It might have been Victor Davis Hanson…describing how Bush’s declaration of a “War on Terrorism” was akin to FDR declaring “War on Aviation” after Pearl Harbor.
It seems if President Obama had been in that situation he wouldn’t have declared a “War” at all…He would have simply opened an investigation into the criminal acts of December 7. I wonder how far along the investigation would be in 2009…
peterike/59; great word! –had Chaplin played him: “The Grate Dictator”
buddy, how’d the auction turn out?
i’m @ work, so my access to news is limited to the occasional furtive visit here…
What do we require of a president? To uphold the Constitution and to secure the citizens’ liberty and security. Obama is not only not doing these things, he’s actively engaged, on every front, in opposing the doing of these things. Obama is the Anti-President.
1) Way too much blind hating on all “lawyers.” For those of you who don’t know, there are many attorneys and legal professionals who read this blog; tarring all of them with “goddamn lawyers and their goddamn laws” doesn’t do much good, and insults some readers here. Say what you want about the expansion of American criminal jurisprudence into modern warfighting, but remember that there are also attorneys pushing back the tide.
2) There are SERIOUS problems with ordering soldiers to give captured terrorists Miranda readings. The Miranda doctrine itself, despite its wide acceptance by the courts, Congress, and the public, rests on shaky constitutional ground. Ordering its application to non-citizens captured on foreign soil… This will be litigated. The only problem is that (conservative / not insane) public interest groups will likely have no “standing” to challenge this Miranda stuff if it is happening.
3) We need more info – WadeUSAF is correct. Let’s not jump to conclusions before the facts develop.
4) Voltimand – I agree with your sentiments, but
“Conclusion: If the Obama administration is not waging war against declared enemies of the U. S., then he is not doing what he swore to do: protect the U. S. Constitution. And if he is breaking that oath, then he is impeachable.”
this statement simply will never happen. What is unfortunately far more likely is dissension in the ranks, insubordination, “unexplained” accidents, more enemy KIAs, etc. I doubt Obama is impeachable until the large majority of Americans are demanding it.
5) If I find some better legal analysis of the massive problems with this, by some of those “goddamn lawyers,” I’ll post later.
Triton/62; –Incredibly, very well indeed –finished @ 4.72 then dropped in the open mkt to 4.68.
People must be looking past & beyond the mountain Mohammed is bringing to us. No matter what O & crew do, they juuust can’t quiiite break ‘we the people’. Yet. Stay tuned tho.
Hunch, the AMA coming out this morn against nationalized health care may’ve buoyed some important spirits among the big house bond meisters.
(PS –i got $5 sez buckets is a lawyer –any takers?)
@63: “To uphold the Constitution and to secure the citizens’ liberty and security.”
Secure the citizens’ security? Sorry about that. Events have me stupified.
Just a thought. Could this issue of “miranda” be a red herring? Might this be a clever (diabolical) tactic to move indirectly to sharia (sp) law?
Once we move captured enemy terrorists from the traditional sphere of military “processing” to the concept of taking battlefield legal action against jihadi’s in muslim lands, imagine the outrage that can be generated when jihadi “heroes” are persecuted under infidel legal rules which are in fact seen by muslims and muslim governments as illegal.
Even if they are eventually “tried” in New York, their initial legal contact was in Afganistan or Pakistan.
Are the crusaders so insensitive to the multicultural (and multitribal) requirements of muslim lawbreakers that they cannot admit the superiority of the sharia solution?
The inane focus on the legal resolution of this conflict will open cans of worms that dwarf “Gitmo”. So, might shiria be just another unintended consequence of juvenile policymaking or is it something more?
In other words, is obama crazy or merely insane?
thanks, buddy
(if buckets is a lawyer, I’m betting he’s one of the good ones – you win the bet!)
Based on the above and many other things currently happening, I say that the underlying answer is: Cloward – Piven.
Reading Miranda rights is a part of a larger assertion: this is a criminal case. As I’ve indicated earlier, saying it is a criminal case is tantamount to saying it is not a war, which is tantamount to saying that actions normal and appropriate to a war are not going to happen, which is tantamount to saying there is no one fighting a war against the U.S., which is tantamount to saying there is no war to fight. QED
Let us not forget that the Bush administration were besieged continually by leftist lawyers’ groups that were busy challenging his administration’s actions because they did not grant constitutional protections to terrorist prisoners, which protections where tantamount to saying they were not soldiers (“soldiers”) fighting a war against the U. S. but rather accused perps, which is tantamount to saying that there is no war because there’s no one here but us criminals.
This is how leftist “pacifists” want to do this thing: legalize the protection of America out of existence.
So there’s lots of lawyers reading this blog? It’s about time those who are not part of the above breed started inventing some useful legal counter-measures.
Whiskey 18 and Voltimand 36:
It’s going to end badly, now, there’s no question about it.
I think it will take 12-18 more months for things to come to a head. Congress and the President have both, in effect, abdicated their offices by governing without reference to the Constitution which creates and defines those offices. Both Congress and the President have foresworn their oaths, as only people who deny the existence of truth could do.
I personally think Obama is a mere symptom, and Congress is 100 times worse, but, of course, YMMV on that issue.
In any event, we need a proper Congress to exercise our sovereignty, and the path to restoration is complex and likely to be bloody. There are around twenty million armed men in the country who have sworn the oath to protect and to defend the Constitution against ALL enemies, including the domestic ones. Obama and most of the false Members of Congress do not know any of these men, and they do not understand them. They will overstep, are in the process of overstepping right now, and in the process will pull down the temple on their heads.
Ca ira
gokart-mozart @71: I personally think Obama is a mere symptom, and Congress is 100 times worse, but, of course, YMMV on that issue.
You’re right of course. In many ways Obama is a mere symptom and Congress too is failing to enforce our sovereignty, ensure our safety and act in the nation’s interest. The problem is the roughly half-part of the population that elects these post-modernist globalist Congresspersons who have no use for plain and self-evident truth or the Constitution itself, for that matter, except to twist it and distort it away from its original intent. That’s why red states who still have a majority rational population should secede – before the anti-president and his fellow travelers pull the entire country into the abyss.
Of course I don’t really expect that to happen. Realistically, I expect nothing to be done right up until disaster overtakes us – something like terrorist attacks, or perhaps a colossal collapse of the dollar. You can see disaster coming from miles away, yet nothing will be done except those things that will hasten its arrival – absurdly overarching concern for the “Constitutional” rights of alien enemy combatants being just one of those things.
Karen Yvonne #72
The core problem is that the guilty pseudo-Members regard the fact of election as conferring legitimacy on anything they choose to do.
This, of course, is incorrect. We, not they, are sovereign. For the sake of efficiency and convenience, we delegated some of our sovereign powers to them, and retained many others.
Because they have abdicated their offices and trample on our reserved sovereign powers, to quote a distingushed Kenyan, change is coming.
It’s just not the change they have in mind.
Buckets,
As one who mentioned Lawyers in their post, I never meant all lawyers are to be disparaged. I doubt few who mentioned Lawyers did.
However, that being said it seems to me most of the Legal teaching profession, the often self appointed Legal Priestly caste, with a few exceptions, endorse the concept of a “living” constitution, meaning a worthless one.
Furthermore, in the case of the Chrysler Bankruptcy, we have had already litigation and Supreme Court Review with no defense of our individual liberties and the Constitution. Hopefully, at some point the Supremes will stand up for our rights and put an end to the Buraq takeover, but that just may be wishful thinking.
Can you feel O’Narcissist’s love*?
…-
“U.S. to boost Canada border presence by 45%
Just days after a passport requirement for Canadians crossing U.S. land borders took effect, the United States is preparing to dispatch 700 more agents to patrol its northern border, the Ottawa Citizen has learned.”
urlm.in/cpax
…-
*”Obama declares love for Canada, banishes Bush era
19 Feb 2009 … OTTAWA (Reuters) – Declaring I love this country and waving to ecstatic Canadian crowds, US President Barack Obama helped reignite on …”
*”ThePoliticalCat: CANADIANS LOVE OBAMA!!!
CANADIANS LOVE OBAMA!!! President Obama is welcomed to Canada by Governor General Michaelle Jean and a contingent of Royal Canadian Mounted …”
kalimao.blogspot.com/2009/02/canadians-love-obama.html
All,
The DC gang has been shown over many years, that the law, especially the supreme law, is only as good as the peoples awareness and willingness to fight for that supreme law.
Federal Income tax crippled state rights and power, the Federal Reserve contradicts the Const. and Biblical weights and measures, judgiciary creating law out of thin air denigrated it, electing USA officials on foreigners cash was easy, moving USA production overseas was heralded by many, selling national security secrets enabling nuclear missiles to be pointed at USA – ok, sending huge national wealth to enemies was good for our economy, allowing millions of foreigners to occupy our territory and spend our benifits was a final smack on whatever American _common_ law, culture remained…
Folks, those who play the systems, DC style, have watched and learned.
Sad, every retrograde step should have been fought. WinstonC (roughly): if you won’t fight when it’s winnable, you may end up fighting the impossible… or end up a slave.
The Brits, UN, European Court of Justice, and the “ambassador” of Al Q’aeda. The shape of things to come?
http://tiny.cc/N3XmW
Well…with this final blow to the enemy, the US Military, we are on track for 2012, as defined by all the ancient prophesies (Hebrew, Hopi, Zuni, Aztec, Mayan, and, others).
If you want your blood to run dead cold, read Revelations 13, with Congress as the “many-headed Dragon,” and, the 10 candidates early in the campaign as those who rose up vying for the “title of the Beast,” President.
GdS/77; –on Instapundit this morning catch HEADLINE OF THE WEEK: Military Covering Up Fireballs From Space –and remember the line in Rev 13 about the beast stopping people from seeing the fireballs in the sky.
Also, the beast having “bear feet, lion mouth, and dragon authority” –the bear and the dragon are obvious as Russia and China –but did you realize that the Lion has been the symbol of the Persians as far back as we can find word? The Lion and the Sun another Iran motif (they were on the flag ubtil the 1979 revolution –the beginning of this jihad) –& the sun is of course a thermonuclear explosion –Oppenheimer called the Manhattan Project’s blast at Alamogordo a “little piece of the Sun”.
One need not accept any of all that to still get a chill knowing that plenty of others –some in self-fulfilling-prophecy position –who do. Hoodoo.
See who’s keeping an eye out for fireballs in the sky on our better-be-praying behalf.