The Washington Post‘s dry recitation of the facts are devastating. You can’t successfully prosecute enemy combatants as criminals. “The first former Guantanamo Bay detainee to be tried in federal criminal court was found guilty on a single conspiracy charge Wednesday but cleared on 284 other counts. The outcome, a surprise, seriously undermines – and could doom – the Obama administration’s plans to put other Guantanamo detainees on trial in U.S. civilian courts.”
The Obama administration had hoped that a conviction on most, if not all, of the charges would help clear the way for federal prosecutions of other Guantanamo detainees – including Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four alleged co-conspirators accused of organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
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If it were a surprise a lot of critics saw it coming. Now 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed himself is unlikely to stand trial, a climbdown from the Administration’s earlier plans to try him in Manhattan to showcase their commitment to justice. “Some analysts now predict that Mr. Mohammed will likely remain at Guantánamo and face a military commission proceeding – or no proceeding at all – rather than a federal judge and jury in the US.”
Ghailani is the first Guantánamo detainee to be transferred to the US for a civilian trial. It was seen a test case by administration officials to clear the way for similar civilian trials for other Al Qaeda terror suspects – including accused 9/11 mastermind Khaled Shaikh Mohammed.
The fundamental problem is that operations of war are not designed to generate evidence. They are intended to destroy an enemy. Converting terrorism into ordinary crime would be like handing the prosecution of World War 2 over to Perry Mason. Andrew McCarthy, who long predicted this result, finds that he was regrettably correct in his estimation. “Both sides have adjusted their presentations to the civilian justice system rules that, as I’ve been noting in recent columns (including today’s), have resulted in the suppression of key evidence against the defendant.”
embedded by Embedded VideoHere you have Ghailani: he has confessed to the bombings; he continued to be a top al Qaeda operative (even a bin Laden bodyguard) for years afterwards, until his capture in 2004; and he not only bought the TNT used in Dar es Salaam, but identified whom he got it from — a witness who corroborates his confession and is prepared to testify. Yet, because of a court ruling and DOJ concerns about opening up the interrogation can of worms, defense lawyers know the jury will learn none of this information. So what happens? Ghailani’s lawyer opens the case by telling jurors that, in 1998, his client was a babe in the woods who was never a member of al Qaeda, never “agreed or signed on to” bin Laden’s edicts to kill Americans; and, in his naivete, was duped by a friend into buying a truck he had no idea would be used by terrorists to bomb an embassy. The lawyer looked the jury in the eye and said, Ghailani “is not simply presumed innocent. He is innocent.”
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Jack Goldsmith, writing in the New York Times said “the real lesson of the ruling, however, is that prosecution in either criminal court or a tribunal is the wrong approach. The administration should instead embrace what has been the main mechanism for terrorist incapacitation since 9/11: military detention without charge or trial.” Patterico on the other hand argues the real takeaway is that Barack Obama should have known his approach would fail.
The judge probably issued a correct ruling, by the way, under the law he had to apply. The part that leaves me howling in outrage is not so much that he suppressed the evidence. It’s that Obama should have known he would — and that there was a perfectly legal alternative to federal court for this terrorist.
And that is the true outrage of what happened today. The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that the military commissions established under Bush were constitutional. Those commissions were the obvious venue for trying Ghailani. But that wasn’t good enough for Barack Obama. He had to try this guy in a civilian court designed to handle completely different situations.
“Should have known” presumes foresight, and the administration is so impressed with its own incompetence it seems unlikely even they would give themselves the benefit of the doubt. Jake Tapper Tweeted that “DOJ says it’s ‘pleased Ahmed Ghailani facing min. of 20 years in prison + potential life sentence’ for role in the embassy bombings”. This, after failing to prove 284 out of 285 counts calls to mind the famous scene from Dumb and Dumber were the protagonist is informed by his love interest the odds they would get together was one in a million. “So you’re telling me there’s a chance?”
But the fact is that the Administration is now left with two ruined roads. The first — military detention without trial — was repeatedly dissed and denounced by the Administration itself. The second, which is to treat terrorism as an ordinary crime to be tried in civilian courts, is clearly not going to work. The Obama Administration has checkmated itself, painted itself into a corner, made a bad food choice and is now flossing with razor blades. It either has to find a third alternative to fighting what used to be called terrorism or sink into a quicksand of its own making.
The odds favor the quicksand.
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In restrospect, in the most cynical fashion possible, the administration has used these guys as just another wedge issue for campaigning and tossed aside whatever “principles” or plans they claimed they had as soon as they needed to do so.
In essence, he has thrown the terrorists under the bus with everyone else.
The administration’s war against America continues apace.
Agree with no mo uro, however, what are we going to do with these jokers?
Releasing them would be madness but I have some qualms.
I cannot find the criteria on which they were incarcerated in the first place.
What if some of these jokers were just in the wrong place at the wrong time and caught up in a sweep? What if they just got busted for throwing rocks at guys in tanks or APCs like the Irish did to the British Army in the Six Counties?
How can we know that the government had a legitimate case for locking them up? The only way, it seems to me, is to have a court case of some sort, even a military tribunal where the accused would have a sporting chance of proving he shouldn’t be there.
If he should be there, throw away the key or hang him because there will never be an end to this struggle with a supremacist, hostile jihadi mindset.
When the “law” results in obvious injustice, rather than justice, then the law is an ass.
Or those who are attempting to enforce the law in that unjust way are, as in this case.
Thanks for reminding us that Andy McCarthy was all over this.
I am outraged that the anti-Bush anti-Gitmo “moral outrage” is not at all placed against Obama. Not surprised, but outraged.
This is lawfare, folks. Another sign that we’re just not serious. While the other side is completely so. I can’t think of a good solution but I don’t lose much sleep over it. Al Q and its ilk have declared war to the utmost; no Geneva convention. Simple response is to kill them all, no law of war. But if we do choose to observe the Geneva convention, the ones we round up are (absent incompetence) “enemy combatants” to be held until the hostilities end. But since Al Q and Co. have no way of declaring an end to the fight they’ve begun, Gitmo and similar facilities should be Roach Motels. No adjudications unless it is militarily useful to sort through the detainees.
So option 1 was kill them all; option 2 was keep them all; but no, we’ve been bullied and bedazzled into option 3, which is to try them like the guy who held up the 7-11. Yeah, that works.
I share the outrage but mostly for me it’s disgust. Certainly until Hopey leaves town, and maybe the Dems lose the Senate as well as the House, we aren’t going to see much improvement in this farce.
Here’s an idea: Smear them with pig fat, shoot them, then toss their bodies out of helicopters into shark-infested waters.
Videotape all this and post it on YouTube. I am sure we can find volunteers if the career military doesn’t want to do it.
The Geneva Convention clearly says that if you are caught out of uniform on a battlefield, you are automatically presumed to be a spy and the penalty for spying is death. We could have done this years ago, but as John Derbyshire said, “Better screwed than rude”.
Just don’t blame the administration. The Supreme Court in an action led by Justice Kennedy choose to write new law rather than stand by the precedent of Yamashita vs Styer which had already established the legitimacy of the tribunals.
http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=us&vol=327&invol=1
Don51,
Exactly!
…and Obama and Holder will be gone, but the Supremes will remain.
Truly bad news for the republic.
Hewitt now thinks it would be appropriate to filibuster BHO’s next supreme if that circumstance eventuates.
…a change of opinion because they truly are getting us killed with their re-writing of history and the Constitution.
—
The Deceivers at Politico make “traditional” MSM journalists look like saints.
Very few outlets even carried this story for quite some time, although the Washington Post did, and when I checked later, so did the New York Times.
When the story aired @ WaPo, Politico had nothing…
Guess what folks?
THEY STILL DON’T!
(far as I can tell on front page.
…I have taken screen caps.)
Their current headline is:
“Top governors turn against Steele”
All kinds of folks, including some conservative talk-show hosts give trolls like Mike Allen and Company Credit.
IMO, they are bottem dwelling scum, far below folks at maligned institutions like the NY Times, and WaPo.
(Many came from WaPo, and they posture as tho they are less biased, when in fact they are the worst of the worst)
Their biggest stories almost always cite unnamed sources…
…on and on, yet they present themselves as unbiased.
Lowlifes yes, unbiased, NOT!
removed by author
Its from repeated and flagrant stupidity wrapped in arrogance like this that I got my screen name…
In the days and months after 9/11 we heard:
“How did this happen?”
Of course, the answers were there, in stark outlines for all, if you cared to back trace all that led up to it.
But, that led to politically incorrect conclusions, and solutions, so they were downplayed, ignored, and other more palatable (for some) root courses were brought forth.
Where can I rent “The Path to 9/11″ again?
And so it all plays out again, from ignoring those who have declared war upon us, to doing contortions of mind and logic to avoid unpleasant truths and difficult choices.
I am suddenly reminded of the Battlestar Galactica series, which I just finished watching…
“All this has happened before, and all of it will happen again.”
Yes. You bet your sweet scanned ass it will.
sigh.
Now I expect the Left to cast around for an answer and come up with the need for a more politicized Judiciary who will be more likely to take instructions.
I think the real essence of the Administration’s concern was that the Legal Industry felt dissed. Here was the biggest thing in the country going on, something you saw on the news and fictional TV every night and they did not have a real role. It was the World Series and they were in the Little League. Only the football players got to go out with the cheerleaders. They wanted a piece of the action, a chance to strut and preen on the stage.
The Obama Admin saw the Legal Industry as a key part of their base and wanted to satisfy them. Now that approach has been found wanting from both a practical standpoint and in terms of real results.
Will they abandon it now that tokenism has been satisfied? Maybe, but if so they will never say so. The real question is whether they will have a chat with the ACLU and tell them to lay off. The military tribunals have been unable to get underway because of the constant protests and motions filed by the Legal Industry, which makes the claim that “the Bush Approach has not convicted anyone to date” several giant steps beyond disingenuous.
Bob #3: This is war. W A R Did innocent people die in our bombing attacks on the Axis in WWII? Uh, yeah. Not even counting the civilians who did not support their government, a friend of mine’s POW camp was bombed by the British and strafed by our P-38’s. Did Germans get locked up who had found themselves in uniform but had no particular desire to fight for the Nazis. Sure. And so what? W A R
Weary G,
Prior to 9-11, government agents could utter words such as “Islamic Terrorists”
Not so today.
I remember reading an article about a female diplomat blinded in one of the embassy attacks. Some justice for her.
Summary battlefield execution. See Custer in the Shenandoah Valley.
…and 200 plus Kenyans, trangbang, BHO’s flesh and blood.
“Ghailani, a former Islamic cleric, was captured in Pakistan in July 2004 and turned over to the CIA, which held him in several secret prisons overseas before he and 13 other high-value detainees were transferred to Cuba in September 2006.”
This was discontinued when The Washington Post revealed the (formerly) secret sites!
Trials in civilian courts are conducted to address the small percentage of the population that are criminals, to use as a deterrent to others. If you get too many, you overwhelm the system.
We are at war with radical Islam. Trials in the courts are not appropriate venues for acts of war.
The problem is that we have played footsie with this issue for a decade, so to our enemies, we appear to be weak and indecisive. In this department, we are losing.
Get used to this. The courts, it seems, will now determine what is just war. These would be the same judges as the Clinton appointee who struck down Oklahoma’s refusal to accept either Muslim law or foreign law in determining cases.
The Bolsheviks are dead serious, as Rockefeller proved in asking this morning for the censorship of conservative news/opinion sources. We must hold fast until 2012. Upon winning that election, we must destroy the communists. We will have one shot.
This has to be looked at as good news. It’s a small miscarriage of justice in this case, but a big step forward towards the recognition of the inadequacy of the Obama way of conducting the war on terror.
America is an experiment, and experiments add to our knowledge by testing and confirming what does not work. This administration may find “no way out” on its terms (and this probably will mean attempting nothing more on this front), but it will help the next GOP presidential candidate who promises a more realistic strategy.
Another “failed policy of the Obama administration.” I look forward to hearing that!
Wake up everyone. These developments are not bugs, they are features. Barry Meislin @2 is seeing through the emperor’s “clothes.”
The clear message to the Military, CIA and others is that if you capture any AQ leadership just kill them because your employer is incompetent. What thinking person will now capture an important terrorist just to have a result similar to this recent trial? Obama’s decisions seem to be based on theories that have no basis in reality. New York Cityis one or possibly the top ten cities a defense lawyer would have picked for this trial, and the fact that Holder and Obama wanted the trial there tells me that they are at best incompetent.
I have a plaque on my wall from my Marines which states, “Accepting Jihad since 2001.” That explains my position very succinctly, they want a fight, let’s give them a fight. Muslim leaders have declared Jihad on non-believers world-wide; Its time we that acknowledge it, accept the challenge and get on with the war. If rank and file Muslims do not want war it is incumbent on them to stop those who would lead them to ruin. How is this any different from any population of a nation who disagrees with its government and seeks to replace it? Does Operation Valkyrie ring any bells. Yes, it failed but it showed resolve.
If Al Queda’s goal was something of a military Ju Jitsu, to use the force of the US military/political machine to bash itself against the wall, they’re doing a pretty good job. The US gov needs AQ like the need drug cartels to act as the fear inducing boogey man that keeps Joe sixpack cheering the home team and sending his paycheck to Washington. There is now more violence in Mexico than in Afghanistan and Iraq combined but what ya gonna do? If the nascent insurgency isn’t enough to surrender liberty, certainly global warning, the depletion of the rain forest, the ozone layer and the ice caps is.
“The war on_______.” Fill in failed policy here.
Once upon a time you threw a rock at a tank and you were shot with extreme prejudice. They called it war. Now enemy combatants get treated like college radicals run amok. We need to kill on the battleground and prosecute within the military justice system. All of this hand wringing leads to assassination from above using multi-million dollar weapon systems, though an effective strategy, not a complete solution to full spectrum war fighting tactics. This whole business has been an epic fail in the waiting.
Come: let us reason together.
Does the United States spend precisely the same resources on intelligence operations in each of the world’s nations?
Why not?
Does the United States spend vastly more on intelligence operations in Pakistan than it does in, say, Greenland?
Why?
Isn’t that profiling?
Is it OK to profile abroad?
Why?
Well, if it is OK to profile abroad to take out bad guys, why is it taboo to profile in the United States to keep the same bad guys off our planes?
Coulter made a good point this morning: last year the Saudi king was attacked by a bomber with explosives packed into his rectum. Are we now to undergo rectal probing?
Coulter concluded:
“ It is becoming increasingly obvious that we need to keep the government as far away from airport security as possible, and not only because Janet Napolitano did her graduate work in North Korea.”
It’s really quite simple.
Being an enemy of the United States should be clearly a very serious mistake generally leading to death if it goes beyond flapping your gums.
I do fault Bush for locking these guys up without proceedings and resolution. Most should be shot. A few let go. Have the proceedings, make the decisions, err on the side of shooting. Doesn’t need to take more than an hour per.
Obama/Holder/libtard ideas of doing this in the courts is absurd, unless you want to add a 45 to the head as one of the bailiff’s duties. That’s a joke, folks, just stick with the absurd, like most elements of the Obamanation.
Eventually, the 4th world will have to give up it’s silly notion that terrorism is a criminal act, not an act of war. Until then the Janet Napolitanos of the world will keep placing normal people in hazardous positions.
Meanwhile, the GCIV (not the GCV,which the USA isn’t a party to) doesn’t cover terrorists. They are fair game, you can do anything you want to them once captured. Germany, which mostly followed the laws of war during WW2, executed captured partisans, guerrillas, terrorists, insurgents, whatever. The Geneva Convention allows Spies and saboteurs to be executed, after a trial. Said trial to be performed AFTER the end of the war. Military tribunals predate the American legal system. So we lock ‘em up ’til Islam surrenders or is exterminated, then try them and hang them.
Of course, first the 4th world (liberal, leftests, progressives, marxists, et. al.) will have to face the cold hard fact that terrorism is not a crime. Terrorists are NOT criminals but illegal combatants.
26. stoicheion : Terrorists are NOT criminals but illegal combatants.
Actually, they see themselves as legal combatants but know we are too squishy on “hurting people’s feelings” to see it ourselves. When our military hits your shore you should be grovelling much as when Genghis Khan rode across your fields. You CANNOT simultaneously kill your enemies while winning their hearts and minds- that has to be one of the MOST IDIOTIC concepts ever vomited into our lexicon.
War is a deterrent when properly applied and done so when diplomatic efforts fail- or when distinctly provoked. Don’t want to die a gruesome, bloody death? Don’t poke the tiger with a stick. End of discussion.
‘“Should have known” presumes foresight, and the administration is so impressed with its own incompetence it seems unlikely even they would give themselves the benefit of the doubt.’
You’re forgetting the third choice: Obama claiming to uphold the law while actually working to undermine it. Obama took a lot of heat for tanking the prosecution of the Philly Black Panthers. By setting up the prosecution to fail in this case Obama can immunize himself from complaints about refusal to prosecute while handing the gift of freedom to politically favored offenders (Blacks, Muslims).
Didn’t Eric “I thought you were Pre-Med” Holder say “trust me, these trials are in the bag” last year? I’m sure he mouthed the lib version of “we’ll give ‘em a fair trial and then we’ll hang ‘em” or something like that.
The old bull Commies must be laughing their asses off in hell right now. Their proteges can’t even run a successful show trial!
Christ, Otter…
I notice Preditors are not designed to take prisoners.
Obama has found a way to eliminate the need for Guantanimo
release and repatriate all Gitmo detainees to afganistan and watch them via drone when the risk of collateral damge is reduced, Light their happy asses up.
#25 Josh
We got a lot of good intel out of the first several batches of detainees. It should be noted that under the Geneva Conventions all you can do with a protected person (i.e. POW) is ask questions, no other interrogation technique is allowed. As non-protected combatants, we could have just shot them. The Left is out and out aiding and abetting lawfare against us.
Tradition and the Geneva Conventions permit internment (not imprisonment) until hostilities cease. Without any proceedings whatsoever. Acts of War committed by lawful combatants are not crimes. Lawful combatants captured are interred simply to prevent them from committing further Acts of War, it has nothing to do with crime and punishment. And when hostilities are over, you negotiate prisoner exchange or simply release them, depending on circumstances.
I am wondering about this:
When civilian trials for terrorists were propsoed when asked wha happens if they are acquitted, the Obama Justice Dept said “Well, that is not going to happen, but even if it does they still won’t be allowed to go free.”
That seemed to be rather absurd, and I suppose it probably means that they would be sent back to military custody, which makes the whole civilan trial business mere theater, theater of the absurd.
But anyway, here we are, or just about almost. Are we really willing to let this guy go after only 20 years? I hardly think so. And will that result in street protests with “Free Ghailani!” signs? Once again, I hardly think so.
The mountain has labored long and hard and birthed a Mousekeeter. “Hail to the Chief” should be replaced with “Who’s the leader of the gang that’s made for you and me…”
Barry Meislin @2
Bhut ov corszuh.
Click.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q6cnDgwQPhA
I suggest we implant a signaling chip in the terrorist, turn him lose in known terrorist controlled areas and let a Predator armed with Hellfire missles locate him and his pals.
Or just say we implanted a chip, turn him lose in the same place, and forget the Predator. His pals will take care of business for us.
32. LarryD : Geneva Convention rules only apply to signers of the treaty. That sets up reciprocol treatment which we have never had with terrorists or likely ever will with our one-sided observance. Treat them as unlawful combatants, shoot them on sight. That will either solve much of the problem by bringing them to the table to arrange reciprocol terms or it solves the problem the Lenin way: “Death solves all problems. No man, no problem.”
We did not start it but we should resolve to end it.
If you cannot train a puppy to not chew shoes, the fail-safe method is to tie one into his mouth for the day.
For us, the shoe will take all four years.
“Actually, they see themselves as legal combatants”
Doesn’t matter. Legal combatant is a precise term.
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Illegal_combatant
pinched
(a) That of being commanded by a person responsible for his subordinates;
(b) That of having a fixed distinctive sign recognizable at a distance;
(c) That of carrying arms openly;
(d) That of conducting their operations in accordance with the laws and customs of war.
The Left claims that Article 5 replaces article 4;
“Should any doubt arise as to whether persons, having committed a belligerent act and having fallen into the hands of the enemy, belong to any of the categories enumerated in Article 4, such persons shall enjoy the protection of the present Convention until such time as their status has been determined by a competent tribunal.”
A bogus claim, since there is NEVER any doubt about what category the captured person falls under. NEVER!
Terrorists meet none of the above conditions, except perhaps (a)
I once tried to track down that hearts and minds foolishness. The oldest reference I could find was a quote from Monty about it being a good idea to win the hearts and minds of your troops before entering battle.
Not the same thing at all.
I have “War in the Shadows” which is a history of guerrilla warfare up to about 1970. I found nothing in there. I also have a re-print of “Small Wars”, the “Red Book” (Small Wars Journal, the Marine Corps manual for fighting guerrillas) as well as Crooks biography and all of Hackworth’s novels. Hack wrote novels that often contained more facts then “factual” articles.
No joy. My theory is that the US Army, instead of acknowledging their incompetence in Vietnam, choose to try and shift the blame to the politicians by saying they had the wrong strategy forced on them. That was after trying to blame the Press. I don’t have any of Benard Fall’s books on Vietnam and he was the sort who would go for a winning hearts and minds thangie. So he might have authored that little bit of nonsence. He did coin the phrase “arrogance of ignorance” to describe the military command in Vietnam which also describes a certain politician we all know.
marvelous isn’t it? ivy league lawyers are surprised by a result that any non-ideologue with an IQ above room temperature could see coming for years.In order to get convictions in civilian courts for these people, the govt would have to create precedents that would erode civil liberties. Military commissions are really the only practical solution,of course that would mean Bush was right.can’t have that now can we?
cute thing about quicksand, you can keep going down even if you stop digging.
The only way the O administration can get out of it’s mess is to be as shameless as the Big Dawg.
Pride goeth before the fall as they say. double or nothing?
Bob Murphy:
Uh, they admitted as much and proudly at that. Bob, do have issues with reading comprehension?
Andy McCarthy quoted from National Review in the article:
This say’s it all about what is wrong with the American Court’s! “The lawyer looked the jury in the eye and said, Ghailani “is not simply presumed innocent. He is innocent.”
There’s very little one can add to this news except to point out the obvious. That somebody who killed 200 people and maimed many more — and who confessed to it, and in which there other witnesses ready to testify — is going to walk free in 20 years, maybe less with time served, is now being lauded by an Assistant Secretary of State as a triumph of the justice system. That he should be so happy if he were lying in some frame, sans limbs, sans sight, sans even the satisfaction of knowing that his assailant was paying the price for his dismemberment.
But as they say, there is no difference so great: not wealth, race nor nationality — as the difference between the healthy and the infirm. The men who Ghailani killed or mutilated that day are too dead or disfigured to effectively. Yet greater perhaps than the void between the hale and the infirm is the difference between those in power and those out of it. At least the well do not mock the sick. The same is rarely true of those who from their perch are happy to proclaim, ‘all I hear are complaints, what about the compliments?’
james wilson @ 37 said:
“If you cannot train a puppy to not chew shoes, the fail-safe method is to tie one into his mouth for the day. For us, the shoe will take all four years.”
Puppies are capable of learning but not moonbats. Being “stuck on stupid” is the defining characteristic of a moonbat. Fortunately, a growing number of Americans are learning that allowing moonbats to hold positions of trust and authority is a serious mistake.
Can we dislodge the moonbats from positions of trust and authority in government, academia and the MSM before too much damage is caused? That’s the $64,000 question…
Woah. Did I read they NYT statement correctly? Now they seem to support Guantanamo Bay? Am I malfucntioning more than usual?
I am personally delighted with these serial debacles Obama is entangled in, as long as the general public is aware of them, and the opposition finds effective ways of exploiting them, even by simply making sure that these bungles and stupidities are widely broadcast.
Some issues, such as the TSA Gropegate, require no help from the opposition (us). People do ‘take notes,’ and ‘make a list.’
Oh, and, FWIW: Pelosi is the minority leader. Goody, goody.
LarryD @ 32: but most of these persons have declared themselves under Sharia law only, they disregard our law and Geneva Conventions, so not only are we free under Geneva to treat them as illegal combatants, they virtually demand we do so.
Meanwhile, a certain well-known financial person of Hungarian extraction has made it abundantly clear that (1) he regards the will of the American Voters in the recent election as a direct assault on his interests, and (2) the administration, the pResident, and the Left in general, had better promptly get in line and commit themselves to pushing through HIS agenda despite all opposition, or the unpleasant intestinal products will be on an intercept trajectory with the rotating air mover.
Wretchard,
Speaking of Dumb and Dumber, when I think of the “brain” trust of the Obama administration sitting in a meeting, contemplating what they will do next, I sometimes wonder if a “Harry” isn’t moved to say to a “Lloyd”:
Just when I think you couldn’t possibly get any dumber,you go and pull a stunt like this!… AND TOTALLY REDEEM YOURSELF!
Because there really doesn’t seem to be any limit to the stupidity.
Jamie Irons
Schadenfreude is one thing, but one thing bugs me beyond else. Do you mean to say that a person can kill hundreds, wound and maim literally thousands, destroy diplomatic missions, be caught, confess and then get a 20 friggin year sentence? Because unless I deeply mistaken, this is just what this multimillion dollar misbegotten prosecution has just achieved.
I guess you’re right to observe that about all anyone can do is use it as a “teaching moment”. No use crying over spilled milk. No sense expecting blood from a stone.
And there’s this too. Given Obama’s current track record of abject and utter calamitous failure, what is our Bayesian expectation of his new and breathless projects, START and DREAM? All the liberal articles say START is “benign”, but if so, nobody should care one way or the other if it passes during the lame duck session. Yet the President seems driven by some urgency to push it through.
But his past record inspires anything but confidence. Not only has he failed manifestly at most anything he tries, except speechmaking, but the failures are epic in their character. So why should START and DREAM not be doomed to exactly the same kind of catastrophe, distinguished only by the fact that they involve nuclear weapons and millions of illegal immigrants respectively?
I think they are probably catastrophes in the making. And again, about all anyone can do is say, “well I hope people learn from this”. One hopes others will learn. The administration won’t.
I think one has to step back, take a deep breath, close one’s eyes, open them again, look at things from a different perspective, perhaps even an alternate dimension, and ask the vital, if unpleasant, question:
What if those so-called “failures” are, in fact—with adequate room for flexibility, maneuverability, and above all, deniability—part of the overall plan? Or in other words, valuable (essential?) pieces of the overarching mosaic of destruction?….or should that be, “deconstruction”?
That is, what if these are not mistakes, missteps, errors, miscalculations….?
We are, after all, currently, working within the framework, within the context, within the universe if you will, of “Alinsky Rules” ….
(You see, I once thought that Obama was feckless. I think so no longer.)
The problem for us, legally speaking, is that the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 (and the two 1977 “protocols” which the United States foolish signed, but thankfully did not ratify, effectively expanded the privileges of guerrillas and irregulars.
Ex Parte Qurin, cited by a commenter, is a product of the pre -1949 world, that is, of the Geneva Conventions and customary international law pre-Fourth Geneva Convention (1949). The 1949 Geneva Convention reaffirmed the first three treaties, but, because of World War II experience, it went beyond them, expanding the legal protections of civilians against acts of the combatant parties. In particular it proscribed the taking of hostages. the destruction of property, collective penalities and reprisals, and certain deportations and confinements. The Wikipedia article on the Fourth Geneva Convention states that it essentially outlaws “total war.” Common Article 3 and the Protocols of 1977, which many commentators claim is now customary international law — are the most troublesome from the point of view of dealing with unlawful combatants.
Taken together, the Geneva Conventions (especially with the two 1977 protocols considered also) and the development of customary international law appear to remove many of the traditional legal infirmities of partisans, guerrillas or other irregulars, and legally hobble the armed forces of traditional states. The United States, and other nation-states, on the whole were better served by the pre 1949 (or even the pre-1914) state of international law.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/report/1984/WJL.htm
Yeah, I’m having a hard time comprehending this Alinsky Underwear Gnomes plan:
Step 1: Screw up everything we do and look like complete morons at every opportunity.
Step 2: ???
Step 3: World Domination!
Abe Greenwald at Commentary believes that Obama’s presidency is over. It’s locked in a death spiral, “an open-ended run of ‘worsts’”. Not just the economy, not just foreign policy, but everything is falling apart.
Most of those problems were exacerbated by his decision not to run to the center but to hold and turn left. He doubled down on everything. Greenwald argues that Obama can no longer run to the center. It’s too late.
But ambition is one thing Obama will never give up: it defines him. I think it is fanciful to imagine, as Caddell and Schoen suggest, that he will not seek re-election. What Obama will most likely do is double the bet again. In the process he will damage the institutions, especially the Office of the President and probably the Congress and the Supreme Court too. What Greenwald was describing is the mutation of consensus politics into a zero-sum game. The Founders did not want clear “winners” and neither, I think, should politicians today. They wanted a process that would optimize across multiple actors.
But double down creates a dangerous polarization precisely because it threatens to destroy broad consensus, at least leave the great middle out of it. Paradoxically, everyone else will have to double down in order to end the double-downs.
The point is, what if it’s supposed to fall apart?
What happens if you breed an Alinsky with a Soros?
What happens if it’s not a question of “ambition,” as most of us understand it?
(And what happens if I haven’t gone through the Looking-Glass?….even if that’s where it sounds like I indeed am writing from….?)
Patterico on the other hand argues the real takeaway is that Barack Obama should have known his approach would fail.
The judge probably issued a correct ruling, by the way, under the law he had to apply. The part that leaves me howling in outrage is not so much that he suppressed the evidence. It’s that Obama should have known he would — and that there was a perfectly legal alternative to federal court for this terrorist.
#1 Obama doesn’t want terrorism against the colonial powers, ( we weren’t but “represent the WEST) to fail . He is an Islam with all the garnishment.
#2 The judge probably issued a correct ruling Judges are not bound hand and foot to follow stare decisis, they are obliged to respect previous rulings , however this concept is, and should be challenged when the appropriate case presents itself. This was one of those occasions.
There’s very little one can add to this news except to point out the obvious. That somebody who killed 200 people and maimed many more — and who confessed to it, and in which there other witnesses ready to testify — is going to walk free in 20 years, maybe less with time served, is now being lauded by an Assistant Secretary of State as a triumph of the justice system.
Tim McVeigh called. He wants a retrial.
Oh, wait ….
BM/50 & 54; –The BP blowout preventer, the machine which the 11 dead of the April 2o Earth Day rig explosion had every reason to believe was A-OK and which belief kept them at their posts swabbing in the kick they knew they were swabbing in but had to do anyway on direct order, and which machine to their certain horror did NOT function when they routinely tripped the switch, was raised off the ocean floor and delivered to forensic inspection (which the public has been shut out of observation of) on September 5.
The forensics, in my vast experience (and no really, it really IS vast) would cost about an hour or three of wrench work followed by a visual inspection of several potential trouble gizmos (shuttle valve, probably) relating to circuit and hydraulic systems. A couple guys from the BOP manufacturer could have produced a written report the next day after they picked up the wrench.
Now last Tuesday another 20 or 30 page report WAS issued on the cause of the “accident” –once again blaming all sorts of naughty snafus on proper execution of procedures and all. Bad, bad boys!
The Blowout Preventer? Oh, nothing on THAT yet, the feds still are working on the forensics and evaluating and testing and all.
Technical you know. So that little bit can’t be in the report, that info will have to come out whenever the technical technical technical investigation is able to finally be able to have the ability to be able to conclude itself.
Meanwhile, the new regs are flying fast and furious in the GOM!
There’s the ’400 Rule’ (you must buy insurance against four times the worst possible spill your project is theoretically capable of) for example, which just very lately and out-of-the-blue has been extended from new permits –which are being issued at a rate of single-digit fraction of pre-April 20 (search it!) –to already-drilled wells which are in the stage of completion to production.
Totally without warning, this outrage, just the LATEST of TOO MANY to recount here, makes the economicsa of projects almost done go BACK in time and become juuuust over the line too expensive to do again –until oil prices double –and the King’s Whims Regulators are finished killing the only thing holding down food prices, that is, affordable fuel.
Keep in mind, this is being done to an industrial area and sector whose safety record going back to its beginning at the end of WWII is deep, extensive, and stellar. Search it! That is until April 20, when the company that has always been deep in bed with the Dems, and which designed the latest cap n trade for John Kerry (and a carbon trading near monoply), and which paid for Rahm Emanuel’s apartment for the five years befor 2008 election, and SOOOOOOO much more too prolix and turgid of explanation to attempt here, had a huge incredible accident on the well it had named Macondo, a name which exists in the world only as a symbol of capitalist comeuppance in a communist author’s bestseller named One Hundred Years of Solitude. Search it, goshdammit SEARCH IT!!!!
“Macondo” in the novel is also a symbol of the author’s hometown, which is also the town where Chiquita Banana hired FARC to scatter and murder some competitors, and which when caught hired Eric Holder’s law firm (he’s a partner, not an employee) to defend it. Why? Does Eric Holder have FARC contacts? Why wouldn’t he, his firm defends AQ/Yemen, and the Chavez International Terrorist school is right next door.
Jeez, if the Terrs are watching Obama, and Obama knows it, he could play ALL SORTs of revolutionary games with TSA, confidant that no off-timed real attack (as opposed to another of the dozen failed-to-explode speechmaking opportunity bombs since O’s coronation) will happen.
***
Free the September Fifth Blowout Preventer!
Wretchard #53:
As I have mentioned here before, the Dems clearly follow the “drumbeat” strategy when there is a Republican President. So normal reasonable actions like firing 7 Fed prosecutors becomes a cause showing something to another. The bumbling incompetance of the politicians in power in La becomes “Bush doesn’t care about black people.” A failed trip to Africa by a former diplomatic gadfly becomes an attack on the country’s intelligence structure. And so on.
And the reason they do this is that they know full well that their own failures and corruption will become evident all too soon, despite their lapdog MSM, a compromised Justice system, and Republican kneejerk “Can’t we all just get along?” So they try to create “drumbeat of chaff” by tossing up invented failures and corruption and create a “Well, they all do it.” attitude among the populace.
Before the Normandy invasion the Allies raised the jamming level for German channel radars slowly, so that rather than the operators getting up one morning, seeing fuzzy screens and saying “Whoa! What’s going on?” they saw a gradual increase in noise that they got used to. By 6 June 44 they could no longer see the Allied shipping in the channel and they had gotten used to that situation over the preceeding weeks.
Then along comes Obama and he does the equivalent of sending a half dozen Iowa class battleships 500 yards off shore, each with a brass band playing as loud as they can and towing balloons saying “People of France, liberation is at hand!”
The guys in charge of the chaff must be going nuts.
The NRO Corner is quoting a Huffington Post story which claims George Soros privately told Democrats that it is time to give up on Barack Obama.
Soros has no problem with where Obama wants to go. He’s just worried that President Obama has no ability to drive. This sounds like the script from a bad movie about the Bolsheviks, one in which a Kruschev-like character tells his political officers that if they can’t take the Tractor Factory in Stalingrad then the NKVD will pay them a visit. The Left has no real fear of “conservatives”. They know darned well they have nothing to fear from across the aisle. It’s their comrades that always worry them.
The Left will squeeze that last ounce of political utility out of you. And when they’ve done exploiting your ethnicity, your travails, your mistakes, they wait to take your soul. The Death of Stalin was in many ways far more grotesque than Hitler’s demise in the Bunker.
Beria needn’t have been. He would soon be dead. “According to one account, Khrushchev, who must have prepared with the others, convened a meeting of the Presidium on 26 June, where he launched an attack on Beria, accusing him of being in the pay of British intelligence. Beria was taken completely by surprise. He asked, “What’s going on, Nikita Sergeyevich? Why are you picking fleas in my trousers?” Molotov and others then also spoke against Beria, and Khrushchev put a motion for his instant dismissal. Malenkov then pressed a button on his desk as the pre-arranged signal to Marshal Georgy Zhukov and a group of armed officers in a nearby room. They immediately burst in and arrested Beria.” Beria was soon thereafter shot begging for his life.
The Left gives no second prizes to losers.
I’m running for President in 2012.
My platform is this:
1)Look at the mess I inherited from the hapless buffoon who preceded me;
2)I want to go around apologizing to everyone for the actions of my predecessor;
3)There are no white Americans, there are no black Americans, there are no Hispanic Ameicans, there are only Americans, and the first person who is going to get that message is my new Attorney General and everyone who works in the Justice Department.
4)I will be happy to be interviewed by Fox News and NPR, both completely private news enterprises.
5) My first order of business is to have Bibi Netanyahu over for dinner at the White House, in which I will serve him personally each course and ask for his forgiveness.
6)My second order of business will be to build a life sized statue of Winston Churchill and place it next to my desk in the Oval Office.
7)My first State of the Union address will include a “stimulus” package of one free drink of choice to each and every member of our armed forces, homeland security patrols, and national defense teams on me/us. And to apologize for every slander uttered against them by the creeps in Congress.
8)I then will issue an executive order that Marxism and jihad are both antithetical to the foundation of the governing of this land and will commission a blue ribbon panel of patriots to effectuate their elimination, effective immediately.
9)I will declare that effective immediately the science regarding “global warming” is once again “unsettled” and anyone caught lying about impending environmental disasters in order to stall, hinder or delay economic recovery to be an economic felon.
10)Lastly, I will insist that this government give back all the money it has wasted, stolen, hidden, and abusively spent to every taxpayer, at the rate in which they have been paying taxes over the next 20 years and if they should predecease that date, to their heirs. This money will come from the lawsuits against the unions who have helped to steal it, groups like ACORN who have abetted it, and from people like George Soros who institutionalized it.
Why do people assume that Obama and Holder made a mistake?
They may regret appearing so obviously stupid, but even that is doubtful. Neither has the capability to examine his own intelligence.
The only mistake they might admit to is not sowing the ground for the verdict prior to its execution.
They got the verdict they expected. A slap on the wrist. Isn’t that what they think all of these honorable and justified combatants deserve?
6. jWarrior
“Here’s an idea: Smear them with pig fat, shoot them, then toss their bodies out of helicopters into shark-infested waters.”
Why waste the bullet? It only makes them less lively.
If they really wanted to do this guy in they should have accused him of being a conservative, Christian vet and entrepeneur. Of course that would be impossible to prove. But in today’s political climate the mere accusation would suffice.
Barry Meislin said: “What if those so-called “failures” are, in fact—with adequate room for flexibility, maneuverability, and above all, deniability—part of the overall plan. . . . .
That is, what if these are not mistakes, missteps, errors, miscalculation?”
Precisely! It grieves me to say this or even to think this, but the downhill spiral looks more and more like an intentional feature and not the result of inattentive, inexperienced, or naive bugs.
None dare call it …….
Re: Wretchard’s comment:
Soros will ditch Obama as fast as he ditched his previous losing horse, Viktor Yuschenko, when the Orangeist’s approval rating hit 5%.
When oh when Glenn Beck will you connect the dots between Uncle George’s Colored Revolutions and MoveOn.org at home? And will your bosses at Fox let you, or will get they a phone call from You Know Who saying lay off an old and loyal cut out, who got insider tips on currencies like the sterling, baht and ruble in return for services rendered to Western siloviki?
Beria was a fellow Georgian and Stalin’s most loyal henchman. The knives had been out for him for quite some time and Zhukov was probably pleased to do the deed remembering how many commanders he may have liked were shot on Beria’s orders. Whereas Stalin merely signed the death warrants, Beria liked to watch the beatings in the bowels of Lubyanka until the beaten confessed to preposterous crimes.
We define terrorism as aggressors without uniforms or any identifying marks to distinguish them from the civilian population, committing violence against defenseless or unsuspecting civilians, in order to achieve political aims.
One group of terrorists since the 1960′s can be identifiable as the documented perpetrators of TENS OF THOUSANDS of acts of terror against every other racial, ethnic, religious, and national group — Muslim fanatics, most of them Arab. While other groups and individuals of other ethnicity or religious affiliation have from time to time committed terrorist atrocities, those represent a small fraction of such acts in the last four decades.
To argue contrariwise marks a person as incapable of rational analysis, much less civil or productive dialogue. Anyone who cannot acknowledge this simple truth cannot be trusted to agree that the sun rises in the east each morning, or that a pebble released from the hand will fall toward the center of the earth, not upwards.
Look, the ONLY reason that we’ve spent the last DECADE putting up with having our fingernail clippers confiscated, and now having uniformed guards sticking their latex-gloved hands into our crotches, grasping and squeezing the breasts of our mothers, wives, and sisters, and exploring the pubic regions of young children before allowing us to board passenger airplanes, IS THE EXHAUSTIVE RECORD OF BOMBINGS AND TERRORIST TAKE-OVERS OF PASSENGER PLANES BY ARAB MUSLIM TERRORISTS.
Folks, we are NOT doing any of this because of Baptists, or Buddhists, or Zoroastrians, or Hindu, Catholic, Shinto, Animist, Wiccan, Druid, Babalu Santerían, Presbyterian, VooDoo, Methodist, Church of the Latter Day Saints, Church of God In Christ, or Scientology fanatics.
Nope.
Nossiree.
It is not because of Republicans, over-charging auto mechanics, unscrupulous doctors, grocery chains that sell food past its sell-by date, building inspectors who wink at shabby workmanship for fifty bucks, or outspoken former mayors of obscure villages in arctic regions.
It’s because of the continuous, repeated, ruthless, relentless attacks on international public transport by MUSLIM fanatics, most of them from the Arab countries.
Looking at O’Bumble’s consistently self-mutilating policies and choices in dealing with national security, you must conclude that our own government is insane, or they are wholesale traitors, or both. The outcome of the trial of terrorist Ghailani must be understood to be exactly what the administration intended (except somebody screwed up and actually convicted him of something.)
Again, remember that this is the administration that has defined U.S. Military personnel returning from combat duty as a domestic terrorist threat, NOT MUSLIM FANATICS WITH BOMBS. This is the administration that has acknowledged it is in continuing discussions with United Nations to find ways to assign control of US citizen’s gun ownership rights to the UN. This is the administration that has given Interpol immunity from the constraints of U.S. laws for their operations within the U.S., so that at the least, citizens will have no right to use U.S. Freedom of Information Act to find out what information Interpol is gathering. This may also have bearing on Habeas Corpus, rights to speedy trial, etc. — all the rights guaranteed to citizens by the U.S. Constitution, that Obama and Holder and company all insist be extended to ANY HOSTILE FOUND TO BE TRYING TO KILL US MILITARY PERSONNEL ON FOREIGN BATTLEFIELDS!
In
SANE
TRAITORS
running the country.
Hear our prayers, oh Lord.
62.Tamquam: That’s fine with me. I am not picky about the details.
I just want the message to be sent LOUD and CLEAR that if you kill Americans, you have signed your own death warrant. Repeat as necessary. 20% of those released from Gitmo have been recaptured on the battlefield. Let’s cut recidivism by shooting them all now. I’ll help.
If someone (Iran or Al Qeada) says that it is us or them, I believe them. So let’s take them at their word and kill them first. Like Saint Ron said about his plan to end the Cold War, “We win, they lose”.
We have the finest, best trained and most lethal military the world has ever seen. We have precision guided weapons of unbelievable power and accuracy. Let’s put a SOF guy in charge for a few months and tell him to do what he thinks best.
Finally, read some of what William Tecumseh Sherman had to say about war. He knew it was hell, but he also knew that the most violent war would be the shortest war and result in the fewest casualties. We are nibbling around the edges and slowly sliding towards an answer to the 3 Conjectures that we probably won’t like.
An apochryphal story quotes Nixon’s Attorney General John Mitchell as saying, “If you know you’re gonna have to eat ****, you don’t want to take small bites”.
41. CharlesWhite: I agree; I have a sister who is an attorney (but not a trial lawyer) who I argue with often about this. Lawyers should be more concerned with JUSTICE. Defense lawyers say they must represent their clients without prejudice. But isn’t their real job to ensure justice is served? How is justice served if they get a client they know to be guilty off on a technicality? THAT, IMHO, is what is wrong with our justice system. There is no longer a specific right or wrong, only shades of gray.
Lawyers are the problem but think they are the solution.
cfb/60; magnificent!
mf/65; magnificent!
(whole thread is, but those two knocked me over!)
MF @ 65…
And just HOW did you figure out that which has eluded the Ivy Set?
I mean, come on, you’re Profiling!
Bastard!
RWE 58:
“the equivalent of sending a half dozen Iowa class battleships 500 yards off shore, each with a brass band playing as loud as they can. . .”
Way OT, but that would have been splendid…finishing the last two Iowas. Okay and the five Montanas too. I know they didn’t need them. . .but they were such damned splendid ships.
60. cfbleachers
Consider me to have climbed aboard your bandwagon.