Funky Boumediene
If we lose the War on Terror blame the lawyers and court judges. The latest shameful act of appeasement was handed down last week by the U.S. Supreme Court.
With the disappointing 5-4 decision in Boumediene v. Bush to allow enemy combatants to challenge their detentions in federal court, the U.S. seems destined to return to treating Muslim terrorist like common criminals.
This failed strategy is discussed at length by Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York, in his new book "Willful Blindness."
While McCarthy's team of lawyers concocted legal strategies against a handful of terrorist accused of bombing the World Trade Center in 1993, a group of Jihadis was already plotting another attack to topple the twin towers as it had originally planned.
As extremists hatched ambitious plans to destroy America, our government attorneys forcefully argued their case in a tiny courtroom in Lower Manhattan. A comforting thought, eh?
About this same during the Clinton administration, too much lawyerly debating quashed plans to go on the hunt to kill Osama bin Laden, according to Steve Coll in "Ghost Wars."
The recent misguided decision by the Supreme Court could further hamper our efforts to wage war against our enemies.
It will be a sad day indeed when U.S. soldiers or Marines, who come face to face with bin-Laden in Waziristan, are forced to read him a Miranda warning from a crumpled piece of paper.
The obvious larger lesson for future battles against the Islamists is for the U.S. military to take no prisoners, but instead to kill the enemy in place.
- Keith Phucas
With the disappointing 5-4 decision in Boumediene v. Bush to allow enemy combatants to challenge their detentions in federal court, the U.S. seems destined to return to treating Muslim terrorist like common criminals.
This failed strategy is discussed at length by Andrew McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor at the U.S. Attorney's Office of the Southern District of New York, in his new book "Willful Blindness."
While McCarthy's team of lawyers concocted legal strategies against a handful of terrorist accused of bombing the World Trade Center in 1993, a group of Jihadis was already plotting another attack to topple the twin towers as it had originally planned.
As extremists hatched ambitious plans to destroy America, our government attorneys forcefully argued their case in a tiny courtroom in Lower Manhattan. A comforting thought, eh?
About this same during the Clinton administration, too much lawyerly debating quashed plans to go on the hunt to kill Osama bin Laden, according to Steve Coll in "Ghost Wars."
The recent misguided decision by the Supreme Court could further hamper our efforts to wage war against our enemies.
It will be a sad day indeed when U.S. soldiers or Marines, who come face to face with bin-Laden in Waziristan, are forced to read him a Miranda warning from a crumpled piece of paper.
The obvious larger lesson for future battles against the Islamists is for the U.S. military to take no prisoners, but instead to kill the enemy in place.
- Keith Phucas
posted by Keith Phucas at
6:23 PM
3 Comments:
What is most disgraceful is that the Supreme Court failed again to provide any structure of what might be constitutional. We are inching slowly back to a pre-911 mentality and we will regret it.
It seems to me that the Bush administration has mishandled this situation from the get-go. Don't blame the court for insisting on sticking to the Constitution in all cases. Bush can't put people, indefinitely, without being charged in a U.S. facility, and then use the excuse that because the facility is located in Cuba, it is not subject to U.S. law. I think instead of once again focusing on kill, kill, kill, we should maybe focus on what got us into this mess to begin with. Hopefully President Obama will be able to begin to fix some of this, but he will be inheriting a really huge mess that was begun almost 8 years ago. If we wind up with McCain, well all I can say, is I am glad I live in Canada.
The argument that we cannot possibly hold these combatants until the end of the conflict shows our impatience. We held combatants and POWs for 4 year spans during WWII. Our Vietnam POWs were held for sometimes as many as 5 years. Some of these dangerous combatants have been held for 6 years but many less as the war on terror has continued. Many have been released for a number of reasons - including arrangements in home countries, individuals no longer deemed dangerous, etc. However, it seems prudent to hold those we are sure are the most dangerous until the end of hostilities without apology. I am actually confident that this war on terror will peeter out... look at what is happening to Al Qaeda in Iraq and even Afghanistan. their peetering out and resort to guerrila war is not permitting Al Qaeda to have safe haven to create chaos around the world. We need to show some patience and the Supreme Court showed none. My argument from the beginning has been if the SCT had a problem with either the CSRT or commissions they need to provide some structure as what they believe IS constitutional just not kick the can down the field and allow another couple years of litigation to decide what is best. I think the SCT has mishandled this and I can't blame the Congress because they can't read the Supreme Court's mind.
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