Jan 13 2009
As Israel Fights Terrorists, Obama Plans To Free Terrorists
Obama has so far been a major disappointment to the radical left. He has selected a lot of centrist democrats, has left the major players in place at the Pentagon and is dumping his radical liberal policies in the face of a serious economic crisis (even to the point of proposing massive tax cuts). Very few radical liberals are in positions of power. And those that have fancy new titles (like the Global Warming Czar – or Queen of hot air) will probably turn out to be figure heads spouting rhetoric with no progress to be seen.
So what does Obama do to throw the far left a bone? He takes the dumb and risky step of closing GITMO:
President-elect Barack Obama plans to issue an executive order on his first full day in office directing the closing of the Guantánamo Bay detention camp in Cuba, people briefed by Obama transition officials said Monday.
So his first official, high profile act of office will be to free the killers there? We know there will be an uptick in terrorist attacks, they have to send Obama a message (they would do it to whomever was coming in as President). I can tell by the unprecedented security and closing of bridges across the Potomac this inauguration is looking like a celebration under siege. DC is turning into the Green Zone in Baghdad – not a good sign. And certainly not a sign of power and strength.
So what does closing GITMO mean? Where will these killers go?
One transition official said the new administration expected that it would take several months to transfer some of the remaining 248 prisoners to other countries, decide how to try suspects and deal with the many other legal challenges posed by closing the camp.
…
“I thought he was trying to manage expectations of how quickly those detainees who remain can be sorted into two categories: those who will be released and those who will be prosecuted,†Ms. Mendelson said.
Here’s the legal rub. Most of these people were arrested on the field of battle. Others were literally kidnapped at gun point where evidence was collected. And of course some where water-boarded (which is done to our fighting forces as part of their training against rough interrogation techniques). There was no torture in the literal sense, but the media blitz has provided a lot of defense ammunition that will drag trials on forever.
As I noted in my Democrat Contract With al Qaeda back in February 2006, the left is still making good on its promises to help our enemies:Â
SECOND, We will enact legislation to release all Al Qaeda members now held in custody in the GITMO Gulag, while providing legal counsel to all who have been unfairly detained during this unfortunate international misunderstanding between Al Qaeda and America. We will ensure all detainees have options for bail and parole so they can continue with their life’s efforts while the legal issues surrounding their detention are worked out. Every ex-detainee will be provided the services of an ACLU lawyer.
And who can forget how the other Senator from Illinois – Dick Durbin – compared our US forces detaining these killers to Nazis and other mass murders? Of the original nine promises to al Qaeda I predicted the Dems would enact only a few are still left undone, and efforts have been made across all of them. It is a sad state to watch supposed leaders kow tow to those who killed so many of us on 9-11. But that is the way of the liberal – appeasement at any cost.
This is really a dumb move by a neophyte politician trying to gain acceptance in all corners – no matter how incoherent the actions are. Why does the plight of 248 Jihadist killers warrant the attention of the President, superseding the 100’s of thousands now in harms way on the battle field? Why do these thugs deserve to be the focus of the first act of our new President while many Americans are struggling to survive economically? Why is this more important than any other issue?
Obama is going to be the classic liberal disaster. If his first message is to the detainees in GITMO he has already started off way down the wrong path.
Guy,
Whoever pointed to the Church commission and how it laid the ground work for 9-11 is 100% correct. Look through my posts on NSA-FISA. Search on the Church Commission – it is all in the record.
Frogg:
I think it’s even simpler than that.
If someone in the CIA, or some similar agency, determines that using torture on a suspect is the only way to get necessary, time-relevant info: then go ahead and do so. If the act really does save lives, I am all for it.
BUT… if that torture is then discovered by a Congressional oversight committee, that person should expect to be brought before that committee. And then, this person can then explain why they did what they did. And if they can prove that their actions saved lives: Awesome! Let them go free.
But to give an administrative approval of torture – to publicly recognize that we have agents who have tortured – and then to do nothing? Even if no one can prove that a single thing we learned from that torture saved a single life? (And I challenge any of you to show me one single piece of evidence that it did.) Then we have already lost – now, we’re the bad guys.
AJ:
For the most part, you seem to be a reasonable person, in terms of racial relations.
One of the things discovered by the Church Commission was that the U.S. government was illegally spying on civil rights leaders, such as Martin Luther King, Jr. The hope was to turn then into Communist sympathizers, in the public opinion.
So – do you support that method of public relations?
If so – isn’t that race hate?
If not – this would not have come into public view if it was not for the Church Commission. Would you prefer that this race hatred be hidden, just to protect “state secrets”?
Guy,
Only an idiot would conflict the clearly illegal acts of the 60’s and 70’s with monitoring terrorist attackers in the 1990’s.
The Church Committee used crimes to create criminally negligent processes. Just because they were against crimes does not endow them with having produced good solutions. 90% of the world’s screw ups come from well intentioned idiots.
Neville Chamberlain ring a bell?
Guy, you are so mis-informed and one sighted that, generally speaking, it’s not worth anyone’s time refuting what you say because you don’t understand the issues anyhow.
If you don’t think torture is ever warranted, let me give you an example and tell me if you would authorize torture.
scenario: you have a 4 year old daughter that someone kidnapped and the kidnapper is captured and you learn from him that your daughter is buried underground and has a 4 hour air supply and will die at the end of that time. the kidnapper refuses to tell you where she is buried.
Do you:
1. say, well ok, I’d sure like for you to tell me where she is, but if you don’t want to, I’d like to make sure you are comfortable and are not inconvenienced in any way, hey that’s the way we Americans are.
2. Put his balls in a vise and tighten the vise one notch at a time until he elected to a) lose his balls, or b) tell you something.
and with b) the stipulation is the vise isn’t loosened until she is actually found(and he knows that ahead of time)
and note this. Other’s parents children are just as important to them as your’s is to you. Just because it’s someone else’s hand tightening the vise doesn’t alter the ethics.
In case you would like my answer, it would be no. 2, except I would tighten 2 or 3 notches at a time.
Oh, and Guy, just because McCain misspoke about Japanese water torture doesn’t make it a fact.
Guy:
You say that more Americans died on our soil when Bush was president. Oh please. That is so stupid. If the first attack on the World Trade Center had gone as planned in 1993, that would not be the case. And the fact that it did not go as planned had nothing to do with the Clinton administration being on the job. It had to do with a miscalculation on the part of the terrorists.
And if Gore had become president, there is no reason at all to believe 9/11 would not have happened. The plan had been in the works when Clinton left office and he did nothing about it, because he did not know about it. So blaming Bush for that is just stupid.
And Osama was not only not in hiding for much of the 90s he was actually running around and having meetings and getting interviewed and all kinds of nonsense. The Clinton administration just did not take the whole AlQaida declares war on the US thing seriously.
Bush has kept this country safe. Now it is Obama’s turn and considering the savage attacks visited on Bush by his fellow Americans with Ds behind their names, I think it is only fair that they learn how to take it as well as they dish it out. It is your turn now.
But of course Democrats live by another standard. For instance, if you are a Democrat you can work at creating a collapse in the lending industry and never have to say you are sorry. Just blame Bush and give Chris Dodd a pat on the back. Typical.
Redteam,
There are so many problem with your scenerio I don’t know where to begin.
First and formost, the scenerio you describe has NEVER happened and NEVER will happen in real life. Give me one example of when the US, or any country for that matter, captured a terrorist hours before a bomb was going to go off or some terrorist plan was about to be implemented. You apparently have been watching too much of the TV show 24 that you forgot it is a fictional show and doesn’t reflect reality. Why would you set the entire policy based on a hypothetical scenerio that has never happened and never will happen?
Second, you wrongly assume that torturing the guy in this scenerio would automatically result in him providing you accurate information. In the scenerio you suggested, the kidnapper could easily tell you the wrong location knowing that by the time you figure this out it will be too late. Terrorist are trained to give misinformation under interrogation just like we train our soldiers.
Third, you assume that you got the right guy. What happens if after you are done putting his balls in the vice and cranking it, you subsequently find out that he wasn’t even the kidnapper? Tell him, oops, my bad?
Lastly, you incorrectly assume that there is a consensus that torture is the most effective means of interrogation. The FBI and military interrogators did not agree with the harsh interrogation methodology principly on grounds that they don’t believe it is as effective.
Putting all of that aside, I’ll answer your question and tell you what I would do if your hypothetical actually happened to show you how silly your example is. I’d also pick no. 2 regardless of whether it was legal or not. If I had to go to prison for 100 years to protect either one of my daughters, I’d do it in a heartbeat. The real question is would I want torture to be a regular part of our law enforcement policy just in case that extremely rare scenerio would occur to me or my family? The answer is absolutely no. I’d simply be willing to break the law and face the the consequences if such an unfortunate event occured.
GuyFawkes, conman . . .
The question I am about to ask is where the rubber meets the road.
Would you personally be willing to die in a terrorist attack on the United States that could have been averted by the use of the aggressive interrogation techniques that you describe as “torture?”
Would you be willing to allow your wife, your children, or anyone else you love in a terrorist attack on the United States that could have been averted by the use of the aggressive interrogation techniques that you describe as “torture?”
If you can sincerely answer “Yes” to those questions . . . then you may get all sanctimonious about “torture.” (And if you can sincerely answer “Yes” to both of those questions, you’re an even more cold-blooded sonofabitch than I am, and I’ve done some severely cold-blooded sonofabitch deeds in my life.)
You may condemn a deed committed by someone else only if you are willing to forgo the benefits of that deed.
Seeing all of the responses blaming Clinton for 9-11 and the Democrats for the economic crises reminded me of a comment a moderate Republican friend made to me shortly before the election that I believe encapsulates one of the major problems with the GOP right now. He was telling me that he was voting Democratic for the first time in his life because the GOP has morphed from the party of accountability to the party of excuses.
Even if you assume that all of our current problems are the sole or primary cause of some Democratic policy or legislation adopted in the 1970s, 80s or 90s (an idea that is so stupid I can’t believe I’m actually responding to it), why don’t you people hold Bush and the Republicans accountable for not change those policies? Republicans ran on the platform that they were going to change Washington D.C. Republicans had complete control over both Congress and the White House from 2000-2006, and then had a weak Democratic controlled Congress from 2006-2008 that would roll over at the slightest threat from Bush. They could have removed the impediments of the Church Commission and Gorlick wall. They could have decided to take the threat of Bin Laden more seriously and pursued him more aggressively. They could have reigned in Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac and changed all of the “liberal” policies you claim caused the problem.
The problem is that the Republicans didn’t do any of these things. They either elected not to pursue them or they were incapable of accomplishing them. That is a failure of leadership. A President should be judged both on what he did and what he didn’t do. So listening to Republicans blame everything on so-called liberal policies from a decade ago as if they were powerless to do anything about it over the last 8 years is ludicrious.
The vast majority of Americans rightfully judge Presidents on the results. They don’t want to hear excuses as to why things were not their fault or how there was nothing they could have done to change circumstances – they just want results and accountability. After 8 years of Republican rule, our country is clearly not better off than it was in 2000 – worst terrorist attack in history, two mismanaged wars, WMD faisco, Katrina, the worst economic recession since the depression, etc. all on their watch. And yet all you hear from the GOP is excuse after excuse as to why it was really someone elses fault. That is why the GOP lost this election so badly and the GOP party is in such dire straights.
The GOP sold the country on the idea that they were the party of accountability and would make our government accountable if given the power. After gaining that public trust, they screwed everything up and now have nothing but excuses. Unless and until the GOP owns up to the obvious fact that they are primarily accountable for the events over the last 8 years, the GOP will be spending a long time as the minority party. Americans don’t like whiners – they want people who can get the job done and accept accountability for the results.
Con,
Your theory of accountability is to make Bush accountable for your mistakes and to give Clinton credit for Reagan’s tax cut economy.
See this for perspective:
History will show that George W Bush was right – Telegraph
Cobalt,
I’ll answer your question – and then explain why it has no relevancy to the issue at hand. The answer to both questions is no, in particular the second question related to my family. I think I already covered the reasons why in response to Redteam’s hypothetical.
The reason why your question is irrelevant is that our country cannot adopt policies based on such hypotheticals. There are a lot of really bad things I would be willing to do in order to protect my family. But that doesn’t mean that we want to legalize all of the bad deeds I or you would be willing to do to save our families. Let me ask you this – would you be willing to kill a terrorist or any other human being in order to save your families lives? I would in a heartbeat, but that doesn’t mean that I think we should adopt policies that legalize killing people in an interrogation.
Our country has faced many enemies in its history that were far more dangerous that Al Qaeda without resorting to torture.
Macker,
No, my theory is to hold the president in office primarily accountable for the events that happen on their watch. I don’t blame Nixon/Ford for the problems Carter encountered under his presidency. I don’t blame Bush I for the problems that occured on Clinton’s watch. Same goes for the GOP presidents. Leadership is about taking accountability for events that occur under your watch.
Your theory is to blame everything on the Democrats and provide excuses for all of the Republican failures. Why would Americans want to elect Republicans when they apparently can’t do anything to reverse the Democratic policies and all they do is make excuses for their own failings?
Con,
You have a pretty simple theory of accountability: Just blame the person left holding the bag. Skip the real culprits and root causes.
Macker:
You mean, as opposed to your theory: Just blame the Democrats?
Guy,
Yes, when it has their fingerprints all over it.
Cobalt:
Yup – what conman said: I would do whatever it would take to protect my family.
And if I did something illegal, I would expect to be arrested and hauled into court, where I could explain myself.
As I’ve said several times – you all really don’t know who the enemy is. I’m not saying that I would never, ever expect a CIA agent to engage in torture. (I’m not even saying there are some bastards out there who might deserve it.)
The problem comes when it is explicity endorsed by the government of this country. If some Jack Bauer-wannabe decides to stab a guy in the eardrum with a ball point pen because he thinks it’ll get him info – well, okay. I’m not inviting that guy to my house for drinks – but okay, he did what he thought was needed. I just want him to do know that what he’s doing is illegal – and I certainly don’t want it to be an endorsed policy of my own government. I mean – at what point do we stop being any better than the KGB in their heyday?
And you better be damn sure that, if his actions were uncovered, I would expect him to be arrested, or at the very least investigated by Congress. If he can prove that his actions saved lives – great, give him a slap on the wrist and let him go. Otherwise, he should expect to do hard time.
There are no limits to what I would do to protect my family. But I also realize that I could be punished if I cross a certain line. I love my family enough to risk that punishment.
Guy
There are no limits to what I would do to protect my family.
But you would put limits on what other people could do to protect their families? what? a double standard?
Guy,
Let’s not confuse the facts. There is no doubt that waterboarding has saved thousands of lives. The CIA head has testified to that, ex-CIA agents (even those opposed to waterboarding) have stated that, the Administration has stated that, Khalid Sheik Mohammed, The Bojinka Plot, etc.
Is it torture? There seems to be a debate about it. In my reading about the history of waterboarding…..there have been varying tactics and degrees of waterboarding throughout history…..some of which could be considered torture….the later methods would not be considered torture.
My own conclusion is that if it is good enough to use on our own best and brightest special forces in training excercises….it is good enough to use on cold blooded killers who want to kill Americans. And, if a Fox News reporter can demonstrate waterboarding live on tv (with no harm done)…..it is not torture.
But, that is just my opinion. And neither you nor I have all the information we need to make a full judgement. So, I have no problems with our government debating the issue and coming up with guidelines for our military and CIA to follow that are legal and don’t include torture (permanent physical or mental damage) by whatever definition they can agree upon. Then we all have to live with that decision as a country. We will probably continue to tweak many of our policies and procedures over the next decade (back and forth) and through several presidencies until we arrive at a place we are all comfortable with. I think Bush has done an excellent job in those beginning phases to lay the foundation.
However, regardless of what our field policies are……I still think if we have a top known terrorist, and reason to suspect he has knowledge of current plots that will kill thousands of people…..coerced interrogation methods (not torture) should be allowed as a tool (not banned)……and the authority to do so should come at the top level by the CIC/POTUS only (with knowledge by the Chairs of the Senate Intelligence Committee of the reason to do it, and the information obtained).
Time will tell what Obama does. He has yet to be in that position of making a decision that may save thousands of lives or not.
Redteam:
“But you would put limits on what other people could do to protect their families? what? a double standard?”
You do realize that my comment is right above yours, right? You know that people need to use one mouse click to see the full content?
“But I also realize that I could be punished if I cross a certain line. I love my family enough to risk that punishment.”
If those “other people” love their family (or their country) enough to risk that punishment – then let them go ahead and do so. Let them get in front of a jury, or a congressional committee, and explain why they did what they did.
If they don’t – if they are too cowardly to face the repurcussions of their actions, or if they don’t truly believe that what they are doing is right and just – then no, I don’t believe the US government should be actively trying to protect those sadistic cowards.
Frogg:
That is honestly a very reasonable argument. If there is a decision made to use “enhanced interrogation techniques” on a suspect, and that is approved by “the CIC/POTUS only (with knowledge by the Chairs of the Senate Intelligence Committee of the reason to do it, and the information obtained)” – then I’m probably okay with it.
Nonetheless, that doesn’t preclude latter investigations into whether or not the CIC/POTUS made a decision under those circumstances that was illegal. As I’ve said: let him get in front of a Congressional committe, or a jury, or whatever, and argue it. If the facts are on his side – great. If not – then he should be considering those facts when he makes that decision in the first place.