Tag Archives: Detainees

Freeze Gitmo

ABC News reports that "Two of the four leaders allegedly behind the al Qaeda plot to blow up a Northwest Airlines passenger jet over Detroit were released by the U.S. from the Guantanamo prison in November, 2007, according to American officials and Department of Defense documents."  If true, any further action to close the state-of-the-art detention facility popularly known as Gitmo and transfer its occupants elsewhere – particularly to Yemen – must be suspended at once.  Should President Obama fail to do so, such direction must be adopted by Congress, possibly followed with a resolution of impeachment.

According to Defense Department records cited by ABC, these two terrorists were Saudi nationals, Muhamad Attik al-Harbi (Guantanamo prisoner #333) and Said Ali Shari (prisoner #372).  They were released from Gitmo on November 9, 2007 by the George W. Bush administration and sent to Saudi Arabia, "where they entered into an ‘art therapy rehabilitation program.’"  Afterwards, according to U.S. and Saudi officials, "they were set free."

Al-Harbi subsequently changed his name to Muhamad al-Awfi.  ABC reported:  "Both Saudi nationals have since emerged in leadership roles in Yemen, according to U.S. officials and the men’s own statements on al Qaeda propaganda tapes. Both of the former Guantanamo detainees are described as military commanders and appear on a January, 2009 video along with the man described as the top leader of al Qaeda in Yemen, Abu Basir Naser al-Wahishi, formerly Osama bin Laden’s personal secretary.

These are hardly the only detainees released from Guantanamo Bay to return to the fight.  The known recidivism rate is said to be on the order of 15%; the actual number is presumably much higher.  For the first time, however, ABC News quoted an unnamed American official giving lie to the notion that those turned over for "rehabilitation" were being dissuaded from reengaging in jihad:  "‘The so-called rehabilitation programs are a joke,’ a U.S. diplomat said in describing the Saudi efforts with released Guantanamo detainees."

Even Saudi officials were reported to have acknowledged that the kingdom’s
"program has had its ‘failures,’" although they insisted that, "overall, the effort has helped return potential terrorists to a meaningful life." The ABC report caustically described how "One [Saudi rehabilitation] program gives the former detainees paints and crayons as part of the rehabilitation regimen."  Imagine the contempt the former Gitmo prisoners feel for successive American governments that thought such treatment would transform them from hardened jihadists.  The only thing more preposterous is the notion that Shariah-adherent Saudis would actually try to encourage their co-religionists to eschew "holy war."

Evidently, the Obama administration is not even bothering with such a ludicrous fig leaf.  It is now returning Gitmo detainees directly to Yemen even though, according to ABC, "A similar rehabilitation program [there] was stopped because so many of the detainees quickly joined with al Qaeda or its affiliates, the official said." As former federal prosecutor and National Review columnist Andy McCarthy has observed, with the decision to release terrorists not only to Yemen but Somaliland and Afghanistan, we might as well drop the pretense of a middleman and acknowledge that we are turning them over to al Qaeda, itself.

As if to underscore the point, the organization’s franchise in Yemen, which calls itself "al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula," took credit today for having dispatched Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on the plane to Detroit. ABC noted that its two-page written statement called him "a ‘hero’ and a ‘martyr’ and lauded him for beating U.S. intelligence."  It added ominously that, "The statement also asks for attacks upon Americans in the Arabian peninsula, and promises further attacks on the American people."

 On Monday from his vacation retreat in Hawaii, President Obama reiterated what seems an increasingly hollow promise:  "We will continue to do everything that we can to keep America safe in the new year and beyond." 

As long, however, as the President fails to recognize what defines our enemies – namely, their adherence to the totalitarian, seditious program known as Shariah – his administration will not be able to keep us safe from the threat they pose, let alone defeat them.  And if Mr. Obama persists in trying to shutter Guantanamo Bay and, in the process, winds up repopulating our foes’ ranks with those properly and necessarily detained there, he will only embolden Shariah’s adherents to kill many more of us.  That would breach his oath of office, and surely constitute grounds for his impeachment.

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy in Washington and host of the nationally syndicated program, "Secure Freedom Radio."

A darker shade of transparency

Not long ago, Barack Obama famously pledged to run the "most transparent administration in history." Yet while some Americans may be pleased to know that they can now access the White House visitors log online to see whether Jay-Z or Brad Pitt have stopped by lately, the Obama administration has been anything but transparent on the more pressing matter of transferring terror detainees from Guantanamo to the United States, specifically to New York and more recently to Illinois. In this, the president has been aided by his supporters in Congress, who, in helping him keep his ill-conceived promise to shutter Gitmo, have simultaneously enabled him to break his promise to "shine a light on the business conducted inside" the White House.

This complicity was recently made evident by the House Armed Services, Judiciary, Intelligence and Homeland Security committees. The Ranking Members on each of those committees had introduced Resolutions of Inquiry, a rarely-used legislative tool directing the executive branch to disclose information to Congress.

The resolutions respectively (1) required the Department of Defense to provide documentation mentioning the trial and detention of the Sept. 11 conspirators; (2) required the Department of Justice to provide documentation of its views on any additional rights that may be granted to Gitmo detainees if transferred to the U.S.; (3) directed the president to provide information on the transfer’s effects on foreign intelligence collection; and (4) directed the Department of Homeland Security to provide documentation on any DHS planning and coordination with any state or locality that has received or will receive Gitmo detainees, including New York City.

The results? Three of the four committees – Armed Services, Intelligence and Homeland Security – passed watered down versions of the resolutions on nearly uniform party-line votes, drastically narrowing the scope of documents to be provided by the administration. The Judiciary Committee resolution was voted down altogether along party lines.

These votes are just part of the pattern of withholding information on Gitmo detainees from the American public, including those individuals representing the state and communities where the world’s most dangerous terrorists will be held and/or put on trial. The House Intelligence Committee also recently refused to consider Ranking Member Pete Hoekstra’s request that the Committee provide members of the Illinois congressional delegation – including the Rep. Don Manzullo, who represents Thomson, Ill., where roughly 100 of the detainees are slated to be transferred – redacted classified information on the detainees.

This development is of course reminiscent of last summer’s stonewalling of Mr. Hoekstra. At that time, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates had refused Mr. Hoekstra’s request to lead a delegation of state and local officials from Michigan to Gitmo, even as the state prison in Standish, Mich., was under serious consideration as a transfer destination. Mr. Gates, in turning down Mr. Hoekstra’s request, stated that once a decision was made on where to transfer Gitmo detainees, only then would state and local officials of the affected locale be brought into the conversation.

Indeed, this administration’s definition of consulting the locals was brought to light in the aftermath of Mr. Obama’s decision to try Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and the other Sept. 11 conspirators in civilian courts in New York City. Not long after the announcement was made, Police Commissioner Ray Kelly confirmed that neither he nor Mayor Michael Bloomberg were brought into the discussion. As Mr. Kelly noted: "That decision was made. We were informed."

Mr. Manzullo, Mr. Hoekstra, Mr. Bloomberg and Mr. Kelly shouldn’t feel too alone. Apparently, Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. failed to consult even with Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano on the matter of bringing KSM and company to New York City for trial, according to testimony Ms. Napolitano gave before the United States Senate. Sadly, Mr. Obama’s apparent willingness to keep even stakeholder Cabinet members out of the loop is matched by his Capitol Hill allies’ clear complicity in hiding Gitmo-related documents.

Perhaps it should come as no surprise that these congressional allies, who are as eager as the president to transfer terrorists to America, would want to minimize the release of information that would undermine the case for doing so. Yet a president and Congress so focused on public attitudes may want to take note of recently released polling: 51 percent of voters in Illinois oppose bringing Gitmo detainees to their state, while a whopping 64 percent of Americans oppose closing Gitmo and bringing detainees to the United States.

One wonders what the polls might say these days about this president’s sweeping pledges on transparency, and about those in Congress who are allowing him to keep the American people in the dark.

 

Ben Lerner is director of policy operations for the Center for Security Policy.

Gitmo does not cause terrorism

So we’re going to shut down the detention center at the U.S. naval base on Guantanamo Bay and move the 200-plus terrorists detained there to a seldom-used civilian correctional center in Thomson, Ill. And we’re doing it, the Obama administration and Sen. Dick Durbin assure us, not because they want to use federal money to indemnify their home state for a white-elephant prison Illinois taxpayers should never have built, but because Guantanamo Bay simply must be closed. Gitmo, they say, causes terrorism.

It’s worth remembering that the "Blind Sheikh," Omar Abdel Rahman, perhaps the world’s most influential jihadist, was never held in Gitmo. Instead, he and eleven of his followers got the gold-plated due-process plan: a nine-month 1995 trial in the criminal justice system for waging war against the American people. (That’s not rhetoric; that was the charge: conspiracy to levy war against the United States – Section 2384 of the federal penal code.)

The red-carpet treatment didn’t begin or end with the trial. There were Miranda warnings upon arrest (no one cooperated). Counsel was appointed, with the defendants choosing their lawyers – and, for some, Uncle Sam paid for two or more attorneys. Mountains of evidence were culled from intelligence files and duly shared with overseas terrorist organizations. The defense enjoyed a couple of years to make motions to get more discovery, to suppress evidence, and to dismiss the indictment. When things finally went to trial, there was a two-month defense case (that’s much longer than most criminal trials), which allowed them to put the government on trial for its investigative tactics. There was a post-trial hearing on their motion to vacate their convictions and dismiss the case on the ground of "outrageous government misconduct." There was elaborate litigation before severe sentences were imposed: The Blind Sheikh got life imprisonment, and the other sentences ranged from 25 years to life. That was followed by a three-year appeals process, during which the court appointed new lawyers to argue that their clients had been railroaded through the incompetence of the old lawyers, while the old lawyers continued arguing that their clients had been railroaded by the malevolence of the government. Finally, when the appeals were done and the convictions upheld, the defendants began filing habeas corpus petitions – a practice that continues to this day – claiming that this or that constitutional right was infringed, or that this or that prison condition was inhumane.

So the Islamic world and its sundry terrorist bands were all very impressed with this ostentatious display of our humanity, our benign intentions, and "our values" – right? Wrong. The usual Islamist organizations claimed that America had put Islam on trial – the original slander that was refitted after 9/11 into the equally spurious charge that America is at war with Islam. In early 1997, about a year after sentencing, Sheikh Abdel Rahman’s Egyptian terrorist organization, al-Gama’at al-Islamia (the Islamic Group), issued a statement declaring "all American interests legitimate targets" for "legitimate jihad" until the release of all those convicted terrorists, beginning with their beloved leader.

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Know when to hold them

So what happens if Khalid Sheikh Mohammed and other 9/11 masterminds, whose trials Attorney General Eric Holder has decided will take place in the criminal justice system in New York, get off on a technicality or are somehow O.J.-Simpsoned by a jury? Can we still hold them? If not, where do they go?

These questions have been on the minds of millions of Americans, including members of the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Committee recently convened an oversight hearing to examine Holder’s decision to bring the perpetrators of the worst-ever terrorist attack on American soil to trial in civilian court, rather than before a military commission, where legal procedures more in line with the wartime circumstances of the enemy’s capture would apply. Holder’s responses to these questions before the committee, however, reveal a troubling lack of recognition that a lot can go wrong once you bring KSM and company into the Article III court system — including having to contend with what the Supreme Court may have to say about what happens to these defendants if something indeed does go wrong at trial.

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Ben Lerner is director of policy operations at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, D.C.

War courts for war criminals

A ticking political time bomb has been largely obscured by official Washington’s preoccupation with screwing up our health care system: Americans are dead-set against a foolish, ill-considered and reckless decision to give the 9/11 plotters civilian trials – and constitutional rights – within spitting distance of Ground Zero in lower Manhattan.

And spit they will.  A lawyer representing one of the accused has made clear that his client and the ringleader of the conspiracy, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (KSM) will plead not guilty, and use the trial as a platform to inveigh against this country and its policies. 

Never mind that KSM and his friends had previously announced they would proudly admit their guilt and demand to be executed for this horrific war crime.  Now, Attorney General Eric Holder has given them what the self-described mastermind of the September 11 attacks has wanted from the moment he was captured: A lawyer and a trial in New York.

This idea is wrong on so many levels space constraints will only allow a brief treatment of some of the reasons that the American people overwhelmingly reject the Holder decision – according to one recent poll by a margin of 93 percent opposed to just 7 percent in favor.  The following have been identified by the remarkable Andy McCarthy, a former federal prosecutor who knows a thing or two about prosecuting Shariah-adherent terrorists – after all, he put away for life the Blind Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman in connection with the first effort to destroy the World Trade Center:

Hard experience with incarcerating such jihadists shows they are a threat to their jailers, fellow prisoners and populations beyond the prison walls.  For example, in 2000, al Qaeda operative Mamdouh Salim jammed a shiv into the eye of a prison guard, Officer Louis Pepe, in an escape attempt.  Military personnel securing enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay are routinely subjected to physical assault from prisoners using as weapons body fluids, excrement and anything else at hand.

Jihadists in U.S. jails – both prisoners and chaplains – are aggressively recruiting felons to their cause.  A growing number of terrorist plots here in America have been spawned by individuals alleged to have embraced Shariah and its requirement to wage holy war while incarcerated. 

As to the danger Islamists can pose to those in the outside world, even while behind bars, consider two prominent cases in point.  In 1993, following the first bombing of World Trade Center, Sayyid Nosair called from Attica prison for fellow jihadists to kidnap or kill political and judicial officials so as to secure his release and that of other captured terrorists.  Abdel-Rahman also issued from jail the religious ruling (or fatwa) that justified the September 11 attacks.  Mr. Holder did not consult with authorities in New York about the heightened danger their constituents might face, nor provide for the additional costs of protecting them.

The precedent of granting civilian trials to war criminals is an ominous one.  It is made all the more bizarre by the Attorney General’s decision, also announced on Friday, November 13th, that perpetrators of the attack on the USS Cole would be tried before military commissions.  The AG’s perverted logic seems to be: kill American civilians and you get far better treatment than if you go after military targets.  This is not the sort of incentive structure we want to offer our enemies.

It is far from certain, even if the foregoing were not the serious problems they are, that justice will be served in the trials of KSM and his co-conspirators: They were not read Miranda rights, to which the civilian courts will say they are entitled; they will try to preclude damaging confessions on the grounds that they were "tortured" – a point conceded by President Obama; and they will assert the impossibility of a fair trial in New York and in light of Messrs. Obama and Holder calling for their execution.

Fortunately, a spontaneous movement has begun to challenge Eric Holder’s benighted decision with respect to KSM and his murdering friends.  Starting with an inspiring rally at New York’s Foley Square on December 5th, a congressional press conference at the Supreme Court on December 10th and an extraordinary hour-long program on Fox News this weekend hosted by Sean Hannity, people across America are joining forces to ensure that war criminals are tried in war courts, rather than civilian ones.

This effort will focus on legislators who were, to paraphrase Sen. John Kerry, against bringing the likes of KSM to America before they were for it.  There are 47 Senators and 60 Members of Congress who flipped on the issue. (Their names can be found here.)

President Obama has, to this point, been somewhat cagey about the decision the White House has been happy to characterize as having been made without his input by Attorney General Holder.  If a fraction of the 93 percent of Americans who oppose that decision raise hell with their representatives about it, there is reason to hope that a President now seized with the just war we must wage against these jihadists will decide not to allow his top law enforcement officer to hand our enemies a needless, and potentially disastrous, victory.

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy, a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio.

Legislators who’ve changed their position on Gitmo

Members first voted on language in the Homeland Security Appropriations bill that would have prohibited Gitmo inmates from being transferred into the United States for any reason.  In a subsequent vote two weeks later, Members again voted on specific language in the Homeland Security bill that would have prevented any such transfer, but this time sixty Members changed their position.

Similarly, the United States Senate voted on an amendment offered by Sen. James Inhofe (R-Oklahoma) to the Military Construction Appropriations bill, which would have prohibited the bill from funding the construction or modification of any facility in the United States to hold Gitmo detainees.  Last summer, the Senate voted on whether to provide supplemental appropriations funding for the closure of Gitmo – a measure that the Senate almost unanimously rejected.  Of the ninety Senators who voted last summer to deny funding for closing Gitmo, forty-seven later voted to allow the military construction funding to be used to house Gitmo detainees in the United States.

 

In the Senate: The  Inouye Amendment

On May 20, 2009, the Senate passed Inouye Amend 1133 to H.R.2346 (War Supplemental bill) by a vote of 90-6.  Inouye’s Amend prohibited using funds to transfer, release, or incarcerate detainees detained at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to or within the United States.  This language was watered down during the House-Senate Conference on the bill.

On November 17, 2009, the Senate rejected Inhofe Amend 2774 to H.R. 3082, agreeing to table the measure by a 57-43 vote.  Inhofe Amend would have prohibited the use of funds appropriated or otherwise made available by H.R. 3082 to construct or modify a facility in the United States or its territories to permanently or temporarily hold any individual held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The 47 Senators who changed their position from May to November and opened the way for President Obama to transfer terrorist detainees to the United States are:

Akaka (D-HI)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Begich (D-AK)
Bennet (D-CO)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Burris (D-IL)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Conrad (D-ND)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Feingold (D-WI)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Hagan (D-NC)
Inouye (D-HI)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kaufman (D-DE)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Kohl (D-WI)

Landrieu (D-LA)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
McCaskill (D-MO)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Merkley (D-OR)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murray (D-WA)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Reid (D-NV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Shaheen (D-NH)
Specter (D-PA)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Udall (D-CO)
Udall (D-NM)
Warner (D-VA)
Webb (D-VA)
Wyden (D-OR)

In the House: Roll Call 783

The original vote (Roll Call #746, October 1, 2009) was to add all current detainees at Guantanamo to the No Fly List, as well as prohibit any inmate’s transfer to the United States.  These Representatives then changed their vote on a motion (Roll Call 783, October 15, 2009) to instruct the Congressional negotiators to not agree to any language allowing Guantanamo detainees to be brought into the US for prosecution or incarceration.

Giffords, Gabrielle (D-AZ-8)
Ross, Mike (D-AR-4)
Cardoza, Dennis (D-CA-18)
Costa, Jim (D-CA-20)
Sanchez, Loretta (D-CA-47)
Markey, Betsy (D-CO-4)
Perlmutter, Ed (D-CO-7)
Himes, James (D-CT-4)
Grayson, Alan (D-FL-8)
Klein, Ron (D-FL-22)
Kosmas, Suzanna (D-FL-24)
Meek, Kendrick (D-FL-17)
Bishop, Sanford (D-GA-2)
Marshall, Jim (D-GA-8)
Bean, Melissa (D-IL-8)
Costello, Jerry (D-IL-12)
Halvorson, Deborah (D-IL-11)
Lipinski, Daniel (D-IL-3)
Rush, Bobby (D-IL-1)
Ellsworth, Brad (D-IN-8)
Hill Baron (D-IN-9)
Moore, Dennis (D-KS-3)
Chandler, Ben (D-KY-6)
Yarmuth, John (D-KY-3)
Michaud, Michael (D-ME-2)
Lynch, Stephen (D-MA-9)
Schauer, Mark (D-MI-7)
Peterson, Collin (D-MN-7)
Carnahan, Russ (D-MO-3)

Skelton, Ike (D-MO-4)
Titus, Dina (D-NV-3)
Heinrich, Martin (D-NM-1)
Arcuri, Michael (D-NY-24)
Bishop, Timothy (D-NY-1)
Higgins, Brian (D-NY-27)
Maffei, Daniel (D-NY-25)
Massa, Eric (D-NY-29)
Murphy, Scott (D-NY-20)
Kissell, Larry (D-NC-8)
Shuler, Heath (D-NC-11)
Pomeroy, Earl (D-ND-1)
Boccieri, John D-OH-16)
Kaptur, Marcy (D-OH-9)
Wilson, Charles (D-OH-6)
DeFazio, Peter (D-OR-4)
Schrader, Kurt (D-OR-5)
Dahlkemper, Kathleen (D-PA-3)
Kanjorski, Paul (D-PA-11)
Murphy, Patrick (D-PA-8)
Schwartz, Allyson (D-PA-13)
Davis, Lincoln (D-TN-4)
Gordon, Bart (D-TN-6)
Tanner, John (D-TN-8)
Cuellar, Henry (D-TX-28)
Matheson, Jim (D-UT-2)
Boucher, Frederick (D-VA-9)
Nye, Glenn (D-VA-2)
Perriello, Thomas (D-VA-5)
Inslee, Jay (D-WA-1)
Smith, Adam (D-WA-9)

 

How to lose a war

If a picture is worth a thousand words, perhaps the picture of President Obama that did not get taken during his recent visit to Elemendorf Air Force Base in Alaska is worth a million of them. 

The men and women Elmendorf who play a vital role in the air defense of our nation and, if necessary, in the projection of dominant aerospace power overseas understandably wanted to have as the backdrop for an important presidential address their best weapon system, the F-22 Raptor.  There was only one problem:  President Obama had made the cancellation of production of this state-of-the-art air superiority fighter one of his signature "defense" initiatives. 

Mr. Obama’s handlers freaked out at the prospect of a photo op that could prove as inopportune, and perhaps politically costly, as the image in 1988 of then-Democratic candidate Michael Dukakis looking ridiculous in the helmet of a main battle tank crewman.  So, the Air Force was ordered to substitute a decades-old, and increasingly dated, F-15 to frame the President’s speech.  

The photo that wasn’t allowed to be taken speaks volumes about this presidency, and its real attitude towards the U.S. military.  Ironically, it also made a mockery of the pledge Mr. Obama uttered on that occasion to the assembled servicemen and women at Elmendorf – and to their comrades elsewhere around the world: 

We’ll make sure you can meet the missions we ask of you…. The United States of America will have your back. We will give you the strategy and the clear mission you deserve.  We will give you the equipment and support that you need to get the job done. And that includes public support back home. That is a promise that I make to you.

An even more dramatic manifestation of Team Obama’s failure to "have the back" of those who protect us is the decision first reported by ace national security reporter Rowan Scarborough on FoxNews.com:  Three members of this country’s most highly skilled and effective fighting units – the Navy’s elite Sea, Air and Land (SEAL) teams – are facing courts-martial for having punched a top terrorist in the course of a dangerous mission to apprehend him.  Far from being punished, these men, Petty Officers Matthew McCabe, Jonathan Keefe, and Julio Huertas, should be revered as heroes.

Unfortunately, this action – like the Elmendorf photo incident – are symptomatic of a larger problem:  In the space of eleven months in office, the Obama administration has serially cut the nation’s defenses, demoralized its military and compromised its intelligence services. 

Add to this appalling litany actions taken in recent months by Attorney General Eric Holder to: afford unlawful enemy combatants like 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed constitutional rights they do not deserve; acknowledge the right of foreign judiciaries to prosecute Americans on alleged "war crimes"; and signal its willingness to cooperate in such prosecutions.

The implications of these sorts of actions are grave, especially in time of war.  What on earth should be the reaction of those taking risks for us every day – whether they are fighting on distant battlefields, performing exfiltration operations deep behind enemy lines, carrying out strikes with unmanned aerial vehicles, interrogating or detaining unlawful enemy combatants, countering terrorists inside the United States or making hard choices about the policies and rules of engagement governing such activities?  They could scarcely be blamed for concluding that the government they serve may decide to disavow their actions on the grounds that they flout our "values" and/or "international law," then betray them to its own or foreign prosecutors.

That conclusion, of course, can only translate into greater vulnerabilities for all of us.  Not only will our defenses inevitably be diminished.  Our enemies are likely to redouble their efforts to destroy this country, confident that their success is becoming all the more certain.

Let’s be clear:  It is not an American value to indulge in national suicide.  Yet, the practical effect of the sorts of decisions being taken by Team Obama, particularly cumulatively, is to put our country and its people at ever greater risk. 

The time has come for the public and its elected representatives in Congress to recognize the peril associated with the Obama Doctrine of diminishing our country, emboldening our enemies and undermining our friends.  Our servicemen and women, detainee interrogators, CIA operatives and civilian policy-makers and lawyers must be protected from illegitimate foreign prosecution.  They must be allowed to do their difficult and often dangerous jobs confident that we do, indeed, have their backs. 

As New Yorkers afflicted by 9/11 made plain with a remarkable rally last Saturday near Ground Zero, terrorists like Khalid Sheikh Mohammed must not be brought to American shores and granted constitutional rights and trials in civilian courts that will assuredly become instruments for political warfare and lawfare against our nation.

Last but not least, our most skilled and courageous warriors like Petty Officers McCabe, Keefe and Huertas should be recognized and honored for their daring and successes, not prosecuted. 

Let the world see a true core American value – namely, that we treasure those who selflessly serve and protect us.  And let those who are our foes be under no illusion:  We will neither commit national suicide nor fail to fight them relentlessly, with every instrument at our disposal and to victory in this War for the Free World.

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy and host of the nationally syndicated program Secure Freedom Radio.

Injustice Department

Attorney General Eric Holder’s decision to bring self-professed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Shaikh Mohammed and four of his alleged co-conspirators to trial in New York City is a disaster.  Barring a repetition in civilian court of an earlier confession, it is at least as likely that the terrorist known internationally by his initials, KSM, will be set free as it is that he will be executed for the murder of nearly 3,000 innocent Americans eight years ago.

As unlawful enemy combatants, Mohammed and his fellow jihadists are not entitled under the Geneva Convention to any judicial review.  President Obama himself has said that there are scores of individuals being held at Guantanamo Bay – the so-called "worst of the worst" – who cannot be tried but must nonetheless be detained indefinitely.  Such treatment should certainly be applied to a man who is arguably the very worst of the worst of the worst.

Mr. Holder’s insistence that KSM and Company should come to the very heart of the city that is the biggest target for international terrorism is flawed on so many grounds that it is hard to escape the conclusion that the decision has more to do with President Obama’s determination to close Gitmo than it does with ensuring justice is done.  After all, if the most dangerous of our enemies can be safely brought to America soil, why can’t the rest?

Consider just a few of the problems that seem likely seriously to complicate, if not preclude, the conviction of the 9/11 plotters:

  • The moment they set foot in this country, all will be accorded constitutional rights to which they are not entitled – but from which they will extract considerable benefit.  For example, they will have access to the best defense counsel, men and women determined to use civil liberties designed to protect the innocent to secure release of the guilty.  Many of these lawyers comprise what is known as the "Guantanamo bar," including attorneys from Mr. Holder’s former law firm and some of his senior subordinates now responsible for detainee policy at the Department of  Justice.
  • The attorneys will point out that, when apprehended, the accused were not read their Miranda rights.  That was because, of course, they didn’t have any.  But that was then and this is now.
  • The terrorists’ lawyers will also try to exploit the government’s reluctance to compromise intelligence sources and methods, in the hope of ensuring that the cost to the national security of prosecuting their clients will become excessive. 
  • The defense will work hard to reveal as much as possible of the enhanced interrogation techniques and other means used to extract information from hardened  terrorists like KSM.  In particular, they will endlessly trumpet the fact that Mohammed was subjected to one of those techniques – waterboarding – on over 180 occasions.  (Never mind that afterwards he divulged invaluable information that prevented new attacks, made it possible to roll up al Qaeda operatives and saved American and others’ lives.)  My guess is that the defendants will ask Messrs. Obama and Holder to testify on why they consider such a practice to be "torture."

Then, there is the probability that the defense will successfully argue that they can’t find an impartial jury in the city profoundly traumatized by the 9/11 attacks.  The Washington Times reported Monday that Sen. Jack Reed, Democrat of Rhode Island, believes "‘The people in New York who saw the towers fall’ would be the ideal people to judge the September 11 terrorists."  But will a federal judge agree?  And if not, will the security arrangements in the alternative venue be as good as we are assured they are in New York?

Speaking of security, as with the various locations where Team Obama is trying to dump the rest of the Gitmo detainees (including most recently an Illinois prison 150 miles from Chicago), the problem is only partly one of ensuring the prisoners are unable to escape.  The surrounding communities assuredly become higher-value, as well as inherently "soft" (read, easy), targets for further terrorist attacks.

Even if the likes of KSM can be safely confined in our prisons, that does not mean they pose no danger.  FBI Director Robert Mueller has publicly warned that such rock stars of the Shariah-mandated jihadist movement constitute a grave threat in our penal system as they inspire, recruit and train other prisoners. This is not a hypothetical risk:  Several recently uncovered terrorist plots in this country involved individuals who joined the jihad in American jails.

To be sure, if Khalid Shaikh Mohammed goes to trial in civilian court, he might again plead guilty.  Even if he does not, he might be convicted.  Years from now, he might even get the death penalty.

There are, however, real and unacceptably high risks associated with trying to secure such outcomes in U.S. federal court. 

One thing is clear already:  Neither American values, the families of those who lost loved ones on 9/11 nor rest of us are going to be well served by affording Mohammed and his co-conspirators a platform for waging lawfare and political warfare against us.  The proper way to deal with such unrepentant psychopaths who justify their murderous actions by Shariah is to include them in the group Mr. Obama intends to lock up forever without trial – and to do so at the most secure prison in the world: Guantanamo Bay.

 

Frank J. Gaffney, Jr. is President of the Center for Security Policy, a columnist for the Washington Times and host of the nationally syndicated program, Secure Freedom Radio.

Holder’s hidden agenda, cont’d…

This summer, I theorized that Attorney General Eric Holder – and his boss – had a hidden agenda in ordering a re-investigation of the CIA for six-year-old alleged interrogation excesses that had already been scrutinized by non-partisan DOJ prosecutors who had found no basis for prosecution. The continuing investigations of Bush-era counterterrorism policies (i.e., the policies that kept us safe from more domestic terror attacks), coupled with the Holder Justice Department’s obsession to disclose classified national-defense information from that period, enable Holder to give the hard Left the "reckoning" that he and Obama promised during the 2008 campaign. It would be too politically explosive for Obama/Holder to do the dirty work of charging Bush administration officials; but as new revelations from investigations and declassifications are churned out, Leftist lawyers use them to urge European and international tribunals to bring "torture" and "war crimes" indictments. Thus, administration cooperation gives Obama’s base the reckoning it demands but Obama gets to deny responsibility for any actual prosecutions.

Today’s announcement that KSM and other top al-Qaeda terrorists will be transferred to Manhattan federal court for civilian trials neatly fits this hidden agenda. Nothing results in more disclosures of government intelligence than civilian trials. They are a banquet of information, not just at the discovery stage but in the trial process itself, where witnesses – intelligence sources – must expose themselves and their secrets.

Let’s take stock of where we are at this point. KSM and his confederates wanted to plead guilty and have their martyrs’ execution last December, when they were being handled by military commission. As I said at the time, we could and should have accommodated them. The Obama administration could still accommodate them. After all, the president has not pulled the plug on all military commissions: Holder is going to announce at least one commission trial (for Nashiri, the Cole bomber) today.

Moreover, KSM has no defense. He was under American indictment for terrorism for years before there ever was a 9/11, and he can’t help himself but brag about the atrocities he and his fellow barbarians have carried out.

So: We are now going to have a trial that never had to happen for defendants who have no defense. And when defendants have no defense for their own actions, there is only one thing for their lawyers to do: put the government on trial in hopes of getting the jury (and the media) spun up over government errors, abuses and incompetence. That is what is going to happen in the trial of KSM et al. It will be a soapbox for al-Qaeda’s case against America. Since that will be their "defense," the defendants will demand every bit of information they can get about interrogations, renditions, secret prisons, undercover operations targeting Muslims and mosques, etc., and – depending on what judge catches the case – they are likely to be given a lot of it. The administration will be able to claim that the judge, not the administration, is responsible for the exposure of our defense secrets. And the circus will be played out for all to see – in the middle of the war. It will provide endless fodder for the transnational Left to press its case that actions taken in America’s defense are violations of international law that must be addressed by foreign courts. And the intelligence bounty will make our enemies more efficient at killing us.

How far away is Standish, Michigan?

During my recent visit to Standish, Michigan, where I had been invited to advise and assist citizens who are opposed to relocation of Guantanamo detainees to Standish Max prison, I had the opportunity to speak with county and town officials at an open meeting.

One gentleman, obviously frustrated by Standish’s freefalling economy and desperate for the economic salvation promised by federal authorities with relocation, accused me of "ignorance and fear-mongering" when I spoke of the lure Gitmo terrorists would present for jihadists inside and outside of America.

Beslan, Russia, I had told the attendees, stands as a stark example of the lengths to which terrorists will go to make their nefarious point. They seek soft targets like schools, churches, and hospitals. "Can Standish or neighboring communities really afford such a terrible risk for the false promise of economic gain?" I asked. It is well to remember than Usama bin Laden himself has said that two million American children must die to atone for imagined transgressions against Muslims.

"Don’t be silly," one of the residents told Kelly Kimball, one of the members of the Michigan Coalition to Stop Gitmo North, when she heard these warnings. "That kind of thing could never happen here."

Oh, really?

 

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